Each winter I contemplate becoming vegetarian. Partially because of Lent (fasting and general abstemiousness are a big part of preparing for Easter for me) and partially because I don’t really trust industrial meat processing.
I blame Morgan Spurlock, the documentary maker who produced “Supersize Me” Also, I blame the meat processing company that was my audit client in the 90’s. Counting dead baby pigs during inventory will put you off the ham for a while.
The normal pattern goes like this:
January 1. Step on scale. Shriek. Vow to never eat fast food, fancy coffee drinks or chocolate ever again.
January 2. Stop at McDonald’s for a mocha. Think about MediFast. It’s not like you can lose your gall bladder twice. Vow to get enough olive oil this time.
January 15. Buy a lot of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. Start reading. Debate pronunciation of “seitan” and wonder if calling it “wheat meat” is any better.
January 16. Serve family Tofurky roast. Tell them it’s turducken. Like that’s better. They are not fooled.
January 20. Watch “Supersize Me”, “Knives Over Forks”, “Food, Inc.” and “Babe” to get inspired. Hide wrapper from Sausage McGriddle in bottom of garbage can.
January 21. Google local Asian markets to find good tempeh. Make frozen pepperoni pizza for dinner.
January 22. Wonder what quorn is. Think it would be a good name for an off-Broadway show. “QUORN! THE MUSICAL”. “Avenue Quorn” “A Streetcar Named Quorn”
Or it could be the name of a vegan cooking competition. “America’s Next Quorn Star” “Hardcore Quorn”
January 23. Go out to dinner with girlfriends to local gourmet pizza restaurant with extensive vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free menu. Order the double meat with extra cheese. And a diet coke.
January 24. Go to Whole Foods. Pass out from sticker shock. Come to in pool of own drool in the bulk grains aisle. Drive to Trader Joe’s for mini chicken tacos (the bomb, yo) and case of three-buck Chuck.
January 25. Go to first Weight Watcher meeting in five months. Buy $75 worth of WW snacks. Cancel Weight Watcher membership.
January 26. Start shopping for next month’s business trip. Get angry Victoria’s Secret doesn’t carry size 40AA. Go to the husky pre-teen section of Walmart. Try on Hello Kitty training bra. It fits.
January 27. Stare at large eggplant purchased at farmers’ market. Make bacon sandwiches.
January 28. Prepare quinoa for dinner. Kids say it taste like dirt. Won’t stop saying “keeeeeeen-WAH!” like it’s a battle cry from Dune.
January 29. Prepare marinated beet salad for dinner. Kids say it tastes like dirt.
January 30. Serve actual dirt for dinner. Top it with bacon. Kids ask for seconds.
Coming tomorrow: February. Thin Mints are vegan, right?
I’ve never had quinoa, but beets do taste like dirt. 🙂 I’ve failed every effort to become vegetarian, too. It’s just not for me.
Bottom line, I’d just like to eat better, but I seem to need extremes to make changes.
My mom insists on pickled beets on the Thanksgiving table, though nobody but her eats them. Gross.
Baby steps is the only way for me. I recently saw Alton Brown on Dr Oz, he was talking about how he lost weight. He had 4 lists-Foods to eat everyday, Foods to eat a few times a week, Foods to eat once in a while, and Foods to never eat. I liked this idea. Foods to eat everyday were fruits, veggies, whole grains. Foods to eat a few times a week were cruciferous veggies, avocados, etc. Food to eat once in a while were desserts or foods that were treats-he said he allowed himself dessert on Sundays. Foods to never eat were diet anything (any unnatural sweetners), soda, fast food.
I recently decided that I would have non-negotiables; things I would do everyday. This list isn’t just diet based but for every area of my life. It is helping me stick to a plan. I have not been perfect but I have a goal. It’s taken almost 5 months but my kids will now drink our fresh veggie and fruit juice without gagging 🙂 It contains beets, but I disguise the flavor with grapefruit and pineapple juice.
This sounds like a good plan, Dawn. Diet is the d-word. You have to make real changes in habits to eat better for life.
I’m not really a soda person, but the thought of no soda ever makes me want to drink a lot of soda.
Do you have a juicer you recommend?
You’re so funny!
I have no idea what several apparent in-jokes in this post mean, since my pendulum hasn’t swung quite as far in the vegan direction as your has. But it’s a funny, funny post.
You probably eat a lot more veg than I do. I’ve seen your tiny bootie.
What I’ve learned about veganism is they spend a lot of time making soybeans, grains and vegetables look and taste like meat.
Great post!
Thank you, my friend! I keep telling my husband we could split an organic cow with you. He says he knows people at work we can share with. He is totally missing the point.
This was hysterical, I was laughing so hard! And relating to a whole bunch of it, too!
Thanks, Lore! I look forward to our annual vegetarian recipe thread on the forum.
I didn’t lose weight as a vegetarian.
It’s fine as a lifestyle, if that’s what one chooses, but I think it’s overrated as a weight loss diet.
Although, I like beets, eggplant, and quinoa. And Anne, I especially like pickled beets 😀
Carrie, you are a special woman. If you also like pickled eggs, pepper jelly and Bailey’s Irish Cream, you may be my mother.
I like eggplant and quinoa. I make a fabulous ratatouille.
This post cracked me up! I dabbled in vegetarianism in college (better than a lot of other things I *could* have dabbled in!) but just couldn’t stomach the tofu-as-meat deal. Ick! I’m still a semi-vegetarian, though (no mammals) – I can do amazing things with turkey! 🙂
I love a well-prepared turkey. I’m totally sold on brining. It’s almost impossible to ruin a brined turkey.
Oh, Anne, you had me rolling with this post! Bravo!
But pickled beets are good. Especially on a loaded salad bar style salad, with lots of creamy bleu cheese dressing and croutons. Salad’s healthy, right?
Salad is good if it’s potato salad, egg salad, pasta salad, jello salad… You see the greater problem here.
[laughing] I really enjoyed “Food, Inc.” Have you checked out “Fat Head”? It’s a response to “Supersize Me” that I found very compelling and encouraging.
~Luke
I’ve not heard of that, Luke. I’ll keep an eye out for that–thanks!
Love the dirt for dinner…funny stuff!
Thanks, Brooke. I think they would also eat dirt if I put ketchup or gravy on it.
So happy I came across this blog via the SheSpeaks FB Page! I just gave you the Versatile Blogger Award on my blog! 🙂 Please come check it out! http://thesavingsmomma.com/2012/01/25/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Sweet! Thanks, Ashley. It’s an honor just to be nominated!
Dang, that was a funny post. I do not normally post comments to a blog, but I couldn’t resist. Laugh out loud funny, it was. <–That didn't come out well, but if you "hear" Yoda saying it, it goes down better.
Totally funny in Yoda voice. Also, in Sean Connery voice. Because everything shounds good in Sean Connery voish.
This made me laugh. I’ve made quinoa and my kids thought I was evil for it. Of course, I didn’t have a recipe really or anything. Just made it plain. I’m sure there are better ways. 😉
My real issue is with sugar. I love it too much.
I’ve done the same thing. Cook up something without a recipe and it’s blah. I did this with bok choy. Also, recipes on allrecipe.com can be a big disappointment sometimes. I like blogs or cookbooks better.
Yeah, sugar. I’m addicted.
LOL!!!!! The eternal struggle to make tofu taste like various meat is similar to the low-carb dieter’s continual search for the perfect dessert made from something other than real sugar.
I blame several things on Morgan Spurlock–mostly the addition of “McGurgles” to our vocabulary.
I have a friend who is a long-time vegetarian and she told me to focus on the veg and forget about making other stuff taste like meat.
Still I have some extra-firm tofu and some tempeh in the fridge I’m going to make my family eat.
As long as they eat it and not you, everything will be fine.
I love to laugh–you know this about me. Thank you for sharing your funny-ness. Especially this week.
I write for another site called Parent Stew and my kids say it sounds like what a teenage cannibal would make. So, they’ve thought about it.
This week is so tough. I’m glad we have each other for support.
You are too funny Anne! I try to feed my family vegetarian at least twice a week (not vegan though–cheese is its own food group around here) and the best way I’ve found is just to make what I always do…without the meat. No weird meat substitutes. I’ve tried to feed them beets and brussels sprouts, too…but they must be related to your kids, because I think “dirt” was mentioned several times between grabbing their stomachs and spitting them into the trash…
The beets and sprouts, not their stomachs. But from the dramatic noises you might have been confused otherwise.
LOL! I knew what you meant, but it’s funnier the other way.
I just polled the kids and they still think quinoa and beets are the worst things I’ve ever tried to cook.
Very funny! Even funnier when I read it aloud to my husband. I made him live the vegetarian lifestyle for a year once. We stayed married. I hated cooking. We started eating meat again and we’re both happy.
Hmm, I make take this as a cautionary tale. My husband, bless him, is totally willing to put up with another one of my schemes. I don’t think he has any tastebuds, so that helps.
I love you. You are super.
Aw, you are so nice to me. When we get snow you should come up. It’s just a two-day drive.
I’m still snorting at the bacon-covered dirt. har
I don’t trust the meat substitutes. Either eat the real thing or don’t it at all, I say.
This post made me chuckle. Thanks!!
We are trying to eat a lot less meat, but enjoy it when we do. A little bacon every once in a while makes life good.
Yummy bacon. I hate whenmy house smells like bacon, but I do like to eat some!
kind of like Jerry Maguire: “You had me at Hello Kitty Training Bra”. From a fellow AA’er, I could totally relate. My one trip to a high-end department store went like this: “Do you have any AA bras?” The lady w/the tape measure eyes me and says, “Well, we have some **bralettes** over here…” And then I skulked my way out of there.
And as for vegan? I’ll eat raw way faster than I’ll eat Fakin’ Bacon…
Ah the humiliation of the bralette.
I have a recipe for facon strips where you put a whole bunch of vegan junk in the food processor, make a paste, roll it out and fry it.
Can I just eat an apple?
you’re right – an apple is much better than processed, formed vegan paste. Reminds me of that pink fluff you showed me that was attempting to be chicken nuggets.
Jamie Oliver turned a chicken into pink goo in front of some kids and they still wanted chicken nuggets. Gah!
I’m glad to know it’s not just my kids who shout “Keeeeeeeen-WAH!” as though it were the battle chant of an army going out to face its enemy. None of that “whites of their eyes” nonsense.
Vegetarian? This sounds like an undertaking that would require math. And I don’t math.
Hey, we must be related!
I find vegetarianism requires a lot of chopping and that is almost as bad as mathing.
Anne – you are made of awesome. Thank you for making me laugh.
Thank you, darling. I am also made of adipose tissue and I’d like to burn some of it off by burquini season.
Adipose!! A Doctor Who fan? I have lots of adipose myself. And am an erstwhile veggie. I’m trying very hard this time, though. 🙂
Yep, a Doctor Who fan.
I don’t know if I can go full-frontal vegan, but I know I need to eat more whole foods.
Great post, Anne! We are glutards here (as described by an interviewer of Alton Brown) not by choice but because gluten was killing us. I’d kill for a croissant but most of the time I’m ok with it. It’s the rest of the carb world I can’t give up. “Hi, my name is Holli and I’m a potato-holic.” But I feel soooo much better when I severely limit my carbs. And vegetarian is really hard when you don’t eat gluten. I’d almost prefer to be vegetarian but I don’t feel well when I do.
Did the Medi-fast diet contribute to your gallbladder issues?
I’m trying to eat more whole foods, so vegetables, fruits and beans for the most part. My sons are about to be tested for food allergies, so that may change things even more.
As far as MF and my gall bladder, I’d had gb problems for 16 years–every pregnancy and post-pregnancy I had attacks. I had my last attack from a lean pork roast with cracked pepper in the marinade, so I think the cracked pepper set it off. I was always going to lose the gb, I think, but at least I was a healthy weight when I had the surgery. I don’t regret the MF, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Really a lifestyle change to whole, fresh foods and exercise is the only way to lose weight and keep it off.