Twenty-Four Hours without Meat

Twenty-four Hours without Meat

Dinner last night was delicious.  Honest.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to suffer through food that didn’t taste good.  (I liked it so much I brought leftovers to work for lunch today.)  I had a Boca veggie-burger topped with vegetarian American cheese, lettuce, & a tomato slice.  For sides I had tater tots (baked) and green, seedless grapes.  When I got done, I was actually full, and I didn’t get hungry again before bed.  And I made it through my first day without meat without a single craving. Not bad for an amateur who’s fumbling her way through this life change, huh?

This morning I opened an account with http://www.livestrong.com/ so that I can track my food consumption, monitor my protein intake, and keep myself in check calorie-wise, since the goal of this is to be healthier.  As I entered everything and looked at the nutritional breakdown of my foods, I noticed two things. 

First, even though I felt like I’d snacked and ate all day long, I only consumed about 1840 calories.  (Considering the frequency with which I was shoveling food down my throat, I was anticipating about 3,000, so this was good, even if it was more than my goal of 1400.)  By substituting the regular beef patty, bacon, and cheddar cheese I normally would have had for the veggie version meant I cut out 275 calories, 25.5g of fat, and 97mg of cholesterol (That’s 1/3 of my suggested daily intake of fat and cholesterol!).  

The second thing I noticed is that I didn’t get quite enough protein.  For my age, weight, height, current level of exercise, etc, etc., I should be consuming about 70g of protein a day. Yesterday I topped out at 47g. I missed the mark by almost a third, and protein is too important to my overall health to sacrifice like that. But, how do I get those grams of protein without way over-doing it on the calorie intake?  I have a plan.

It’s simple really.  Looking at yesterday’s food, the items with the highest caloric intake (based on the amount I ate) were the pita chips and the tater tots. If I ditch the tater tots and have a sweet potato (4.21g of protein per 255g serving), I can cash in on the same amount of protein for half the calories. Cut the portion of pita chips in half, add in a snack of broccoli and cauliflower (3g of protein per 100g serving, each), and I’m still losing calories and gaining protein.  Toss in a serving of beans – any kind, since they range from 14-29g of protein/serving – and I’m good to go. 

I’ve also made a discovery. I figured out what kind of vegetarian plan on being! I’m what they call a “lacto-vegetarian”.  This means that my diet will exclude meat, fish, poultry and eggs, as well as foods that contain them. Dairy products, such as milk, cheese, yogurt and butter, are still allowed in my lacto-vegetarian diet.  When I can, I plan to replace dairy with alternatives (eg. soy and/or almond milk, yogurt, and butter, and vegetarian cheese), but I’m not going to kill myself inspecting labels searching for a speck of dairy.  Not yet anyway. Maybe someday.

I have to admit, I’m content doing this whole trial and error thing until I get this down to a science – or at the very least, a comfortable routine.

Going Vegetarian

This is the year I stop thinking about all the things I want to do with my life.  This is the year I start doing them. 

Step One: Become a Vegetarian.

Why on earth would I want to do that? Well, because I’ve spent half my life wanting to.  Better late than never, right? There’s no time like the present. Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?

The point is, I’m sick of floating through life. And to prove to myself how truly sick of it I am, I’m forcing myself out of my comfort zones.  One of those comfort zones is food.  A connoisseur of convenience, I’ve let the lack of variety and options at supermarkets dictate to me what I should put in my body. But I’m taking responsibility for those decisions now. I’m taking control.  And I’m going to be a vegetarian.

I think everyone who becomes a vegetarian has to do it for their own reasons.

For me, it boils down to two very simple things:

1.      My health.

2.      My earth.

I’ll expound.

I’ve realized that it’s about darn time I start paying attention to what I’m putting into my body.  I just turned 30, and I’m in all right shape,  But ten years from now, or twenty, if I keep eating the way I do, I know I won’t be able to claim that I’m still a healthy person.  Because I won’t be a healthy person.  I’ll be fat.  Maybe even obese.  Better to quit while I’m ahead.

Having done a little research, I’ve discovered a few things.  The health benefits of cutting out meat far outweigh the health benefits of continuing to eat it. Heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, do I really want to spend the rest of my life pumping my body full of things that increase my risk for all of these?  Especially when the alternative is to nearly eliminate the possibility of getting food poisoning while getting the nutrition my body needs, cutting out harmful fats, and heck, maybe even losing some weight.

Then there’s my earth.  See, I’m a treehugger.  Maybe not as extreme as some.  I reuse and recycle everything that I can.  I buy things packaged in recycled materials when they're available.  I do a bunch of little things that are supposed to help. Replaced all my light bulbs with compact florescent light bulbs.  My heater is set on a low temperature, air conditioner set on a high one, clothes washed in cold water, chargers unplugged when not in use, no lights on in rooms no one’s in, canvas shopping bags in use.  Lots of little things that add up, you know?  Now I can add not perpetuating the harmful effects livestock have on the earth and the people who live on it to my little list. 

Seeing as this is something where facts, not opinion matter, I offer you these:

A report from Cornell on how many humans could be fed with the amount of grain livestock consumes: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html

World Rainforest Movement’s report on the underlying causes of deforestation: http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s report on methane sources and emissions:

http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html

My plan of action:

I’m going semi-cold-turkey (pun intended).  I still have a few servings of chicken and fish in my freezer and refrigerator.  I’ll use them for one meal every other day until they’re gone.  When it comes to specific ingredients, I’m going easy on myself in the beginning.  Once I get the basics down, I’ll go a little more in depth – dissecting the ingredients in the not-obviously-vegan things I think I should be able to eat.  I’m not completely ditching dairy products, as I think I might go into shock from all that change. But, I am replacing it when and where I can (especially the cheese, because let’s face it, cheese might be super yummy, but it’s SO not good for you).

I’ve stocked up on beans, hummus, veggies, fruits, soy yogurt, veggie cheese, veggie burgers, veggie “chicken nuggets”, pita chips, organic granola bars, almonds, meatless meatballs, and I’m sure there’s something I’ve left out.

Today is day one. I've had a granola bar, almonds, humus, pita chips, carrots, an apple, and water. Veggie burgers and fries are on the menu for dinner. 

So far, so good. 

What’s in the bag…..

* * Disclaimer: I’m a copycat.  Milo Ventimiglia, Russ Cundiff, and Dino DeMillo did this a few years ago on their production company’s - DiVide Social Club & Divide Pictures - blog, and I am a nerd and found it fascinating. So, naturally, I'm stealing their idea.

Just in case I have even one fan on the planet who reads this blog....

In Serenity's bag...

1) Two mechanical pencils

2) One large pink eraser

3) Five cough drops

4) Two Tylenol Sinus pills (Thank you, Mr. Flu for hitting right before Christmas and keeping me down so long I’ve yet to remove the residual meds.)

5) My laptop

6) Two of my very own unfinished novels each on their own CD

7) A notebook with notes, plot lines, character worksheets, sketches, and research on all things pertaining to one of the stories on one of those discs 

8) The 100 Monkeys Live and Kickin’ Part Too DVD

9) My iPod

10) A DVD crammed with stock photography and some of my own 11) A printout of a Periodic Table of Super Hero Traits

12) Four unused Hallmark Christmas cards

13) A smaller notebook with ideas for another possible story that I’m not letting myself start on until I have finished one or the other of the two aforementioned ones

See, wasn't that fun?

For more information on Divide Social Club, check out these links:
http://www.dividesocialclub.com/about.html
http://myspace.com/miloventimiglia
http://twitter.com/miloventimiglia