At the end of the day today, I will have officially been a vegetarian for a week. I am extremely proud of myself because I haven't cheated or felt the overwhelming desire to eat meat. At the beginning of the week, I did crave meat and I did feel like my plate was missing something at every meal. I went to work though on Monday night and talked to one of my coworkers about my experiment. She told me her husband had been a vegetarian for awhile and gave me lots of ideas about broadening what I was eating so I felt full without feeling like I was missing out. I went to the grocery store and spent about $30 on vegetarian-friendly meals for the next two weeks. By the end of this week, I have found that I am full of energy; I get lots of projects accomplished (i.e. I rearranged my entire room last night which took about six hours and had been something I'd been meaning to do for months); I feel sated at the end of my healthy low-calorie vegetarian meals without feeling stuffed or overly full; Overall, I feel healthier and my mood is really light-hearted and positive.
As I have been thinking about what to include in this blog, I would like to note that it isn't all perfect. I do have to eat more often to have enough energy which I didn't really have to do before. For example, in the middle of my rearranging project yesterday, I got hunger pains because I was burning all of my calorie intake without replenishing it. (Concordantly, the same thing happened at work tonight.) I also find that when I'm out and about for extended periods of time my eating-out choices are very limited. I was on campus almost all day Wednesday, as usual, and in between classes, I went for lunch in the Student Union building. My choices were garden salad, cheese sandwich, vegetable tray, egg-salad sandwich, or a lot of processed junk food. I settled on the egg-salad sandwich (note: this is my vegetarian, not vegan, experiment) and a bag of sun chips. Tonight at work, I got a baked potato and a side salad from Wendy's. Choices are limited as a vegetarian and that's not good or bad I guess, but it does say something about how we view this lifestyle in our country. If we thought more highly of it (and I'm not saying we should or should not do so), our restaurants would probably offer more options for these people.
To finish up, it occurs to me that we, as human beings, don't usually consider ourselves as part of the environment but rather apart from it. I think this is a really false notion. We are definitely a part of nature though we can, or at least try to, control our surroundings. As such, we should do a better job of taking care of not only the environment but ourselves. The rising rates of obesity in our country and the diseases related to it are scary. A recent statistic I saw said that ONE THIRD of the country's children are overweight. This is terrible. We eat junk food; we eat processed food; we don't eat a lot of health food. Now, don't get me wrong. I love all of the above. It tastes good and it's comforting. But, I really am beginning to believe, to know, if you will, that in order to take care of ourselves and to really love ourselves, we MUST make better choices. We need to be good to the environment and we definitely need to be good to one another and to ourselves. I'm not advocating that the answer to this is vegetarianism but I am saying that we need to make better choices. I will most likely not continue being a vegetarian after my two weeks are up but I will do my best to make better choices. If we all did this, it would be a much better world.
I am continuing on with my experiment for another week, thus more to come. Sorry I was so long-winded here.
¡Finzamos!
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5 comments:
That is awesome that you've been a vegetarian for the whole week. I don't think that I'll make that my term project, but I've always strived to experience as much as possible in life. Just reading about your excitement, I think I might try to be vegetarian for atleast a week. My one concern would be getting obtaining proper nutrition (Recommended Daily Requirements of protein for example). Did you look into that at all? How did you work it out? Get back to me because I really want to try
Way to be, I know what you mean from not having the same energy supply when you avoid meat. Even on the days when I get a salad for lunch (not a measly little one either but a big one, with even a little chicken) I can't go more than 4 hours without losing focus and energy. That is also a result of the fact that for work I move furniture so lifting sofas on a salad doesn't cut it.
With the overweight thing while it is true that many children are. A good number of them are actually of a very healthy weight for their body build. The problem is that we need to make some kind of general system that is a compromise.
With the whole us not being part of nature I was with some friends this weekend and that came up. My friend was talking about how we aren't a part of it, and I was trying to tell him how we are. From what I understood from his viewpoint was that since we "think and choose" for ourselves we are not part of it. When in reality we are just reacting to our circumstances. Fortunately we have learned how to bend our circumstances but as we have seen in Haiti and in New Orleans... we lose the fight when push comes to shove.
Joe, thanks for your comments. In answer to your question, I didn't do a whole lot of research before I began because I determined I would only do this for two weeks (until Valentine's Day) but I did think about what I would need to do to supplement protein into my diet. I have been eating eggs, dairy, and a lot of healthy nuts this week and last. Hazelnuts are my favorite but I have also eaten pistachios, almonds and peanuts. I found that once I got over that initial craving for meat, I haven't craved it because I have other things I am eating that take its place. Also, I have been taking a multi-vitamin as a precaution which has all the nutrients I need. I highly recommend this experiment to you. It's amazing what a difference one week makes. You'll feel changes in yourself and I'd be interested to know what you thought.
Taldaean, thanks for your comments. I agree completely with what you said. We are a part of nature but it's absurd that we don't recognize that, even though we can think and reason and are at the top of the natural hierarchy, nature will always win. She never fails to remind us of her power like you said with your examples of Haiti and New Orleans. There are so many more examples we could name. I think though that we can all live in harmony. As to my original point, we just have to make better choices.
Wow! Que bueno que has durada una semana sin comer la carne. Yo tambien voy a hacer este experimento pronto, y me siento mejor al saber que es posible ,jaja. Bien hecho ya, y al pensar en usted siendo un vegetarian por algunas semanas pienso ahora en cuanto carne he comido en esta semana pasada. Bueno aun ayer comí carne por el almuerzo, por la cena y aun despues comí lo que decimos aqui en los estados "the 4th meal." Y durante esta comida comi pavo, mas carne. Wow soy como el T-Rex. quizas no debo comer tanta carne, creo que no es necesario que coma tanto.
felizitaciones en hacer este experimento. como dije antes, eso es una cosa que you no podria hacer. Parece ser mas trabajo cumplirlo de lo que pensabas antes, no? bueno, todavia estoy buscando algo para un experimento. Apreciaria o agradeceria algunas ideas.
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