31 days on the veg
If you know me, follow me on twitter etc, you'll know that for the 31 days of August, I decided to eat as a vegetarian. I lovingly named it #meatismurdermonth. What follows are my reasons why, what I've learned and what I've concluded.
I always believed that vegetarianism was a bit silly, that vegetarians don't eat properly, we're natural carnivores and that veggys are awkward. These are all things i've had no hesitation speaking about whenever in the company of a vegetarian. I decided to prove my point. You read that correctly, I went on my month long mission just so at the end of it, I could qualify my opinions with a "i once went vegetarian for a month and my opinions are now validated". If there is a more wrong reason to do something, I don't know what that might be. Unfortunately for 'old me', this didn't happen. After a shaky first week of essentially living on rice, peas and carrots, a whole world of food opened up before me and I was forced to rethink my previous opinions almost entirely. I also made some observations about vegetarianism (or flavours of vegetarianism) and noticed a few things that non vegetarians wouldn't notice unless they went on a similar mission.
The rules I was going to live by were simple, if an animal had to die, i wasn't eating it. During my journey I found vegetarians who eat chicken, fish or both and got myself into a dilemma about eggs. I'll get to that though. I wasn't going vegan, i just wasn't eating meat/fish/eggs. Simple.
Here are some of my findings:
Protein
Because i "wasn't eating properly" at the start of my quest and was living on almost nothing, I quickly became overly tired, lost concentration easily and generally felt lethargic. Thanks to the power of twitter, I was introduced to a solid, and probably far healthier protein replacement in quinoa which although a bit bland on it's own, mixed with other foods, it's great. I quickly felt full up again and my brain was back online.
Vegetarian curry is the bomb
Without any doubt, the best curry i've eaten in years was a vegetable curry. I've never ordered Indian food without Lamb or Chicken in it before so this was a real eye opener for me. It also cost less than it's meat based counterparts. In the kitchen I am now somewhat an expert in making Bombay potatoes.
Buying lunch in a shop becomes difficult
I usually go to the shop across the road from my work for lunch, they have sandwiches, ready meals etc, all of which are convenient for lunchtime. Next time you do something similar, I challenge you to pick something without meat/fish/eggs in it. Enjoy your cheese and onion or cheese and tomato based meal. This is a real problem and has to be a factor in peoples general eating habits and over reliance on meat. God only knows how vegans cope.
People take the piss
People I know were quick to jump on my quest and take the piss out of me for being vegetarian. I shouldn't have been surprised, after all i'd been doing it to vegetarian friends for a long time. They got their revenge, fair play. Now that i've been on the receiving end of it and realise I was being a twat, I'll not be doing it again. I now have respect for those people who live as vegetarians.
People can be very supportive
My wife Kathryn was incredibly supportive during this time, as were a number of people on twitter who offered advice, recipes and good debate around what i was doing. Thanks to everyone who helped by jumping in to suggest things when I was struggling. A special thanks to the people who publicly stated that I'd fail. Proving you wrong was a big motivation factor ;)
I became influential (well, in my own mind at least)
Some of us digital people in Aberdeen have a regular lunchtime meet up called "rafting", it generally involves a monstrous burger and a beer. During my month, this happened. Amazing! cheers guys!
Eggs
This gave me a dilemma and also scarred me for life. I had it in my mind that an egg becomes a chicken so therefore was off the menu. I then got into several debates about this and learned that eggs are unfertilised and so were fair game. I then got told that an egg could be viewed as "a chickens period"...mmm...tasty, now they're fully off the menu until I erase that thought from my mind. Sorry for placing it into your minds.
There are no vegetarian restaurants in Aberdeen
Nope, not even one that I could find. Anyone know of any? Did I miss something?
There are different flavours of vegetarianism
You can view the range of options here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Varieties_of_vegetarianism. I have no idea how a vegetarian counts eating fish or chicken as being vegetarian. Seems to me that the rules are made up to suit individuals. This one discovery was highly instrumental in forming my conclusions on the whole experience.
My conclusion
And so to sum up what 31 days of being vegetarian has done to me. Firstly, this was a real eye opener, i mean life changing. I have learned so much over the month that through ignorance i'd previously dismissed entirely. I should probably recognise that although a month seemed like a long time to me, it's probably not long enough to make as informed a conclusion as I'd like to. Perhaps 3 months would have been better? There is the initial shock to the system of changing your diet followed by a period of 'finding your feet' and for me, I wasn't up to speed with what I could have been eating for about a week. Had I researched things in advance, it would have been easier.
So to first tackle the notion of "being vegetarian", no doubt i'll really annoy some people with my new opinions but unless you're going to avoid meat/fish etc, I don't think you should be calling yourself a vegetarian. There, I said it. Argue away.
I was forced to reconsider entirely my old opinions that vegetarians don't eat correctly. As it turns out, there is a whole world of food out there that doesn't require animals to die. It's damn tasty too! I ran into things I'd expected such as low energy levels, lack of concentration and weight loss. I also found there are foods you can eat to counter this. An important discovery is actually drinking more water helps tremendously with concentration levels. I found this out by feeling hungry, not having something on hand to eat and so having a drink of water instead. All that advice I'd maybe been ignoring about drinking more water being important, actually turns out to be fact.
Throughout the month, it was always my intention to return to eating meat and that intention hasn't changed. My diet will change though, no doubt about it. With the additional knowledge of foods I now have, my diet will evolve and I'll eat less meat than I did previously. I realise now how dependant I was on meat previously and this just isn't healthy in my opinion. For this finding alone, I am glad I did this.
The key conclusion of this month is that I have discovered what 'a balanced diet' actually looks like and that a balanced diet is the most important thing.
For the time being though...nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, will stand in my way of a bacon roll tomorrow morning.
