Tuesday, February 02, 2010

I've been trying vegetarianism. Saving money and reducing my personal environmental impact are side benefits worth mentioning, but the main reason is to eat a bit healthier and I figure that this could be the easiest way. I don't want to make a blanket rule to swear off junk food or empty calories because sometimes there's nothing else available, and anyway, such extreme measures aren't needed. But I've tried specific limits on junk food and it hasn't worked - it's too easy to cheat, or have just one more, or whatever. Vegetarianism seems like it would have the best of both worlds, so it seems worth a try.

I call it an experiment with vegetarianism that happened to begin at the start of the year rather than a New Year's Resolution (TM) because if I give up on a New Year's Resolution then I'm a failure, whereas an experiment ending is just a learning experience, and at worst, maybe I didn't learn what I hoped to learn.

Well, so far I've learned that the hardest part is quite simply remembering to stick with it. When I started, I expected that I would catch a whiff of bacon and get hunger pangs I couldn't resist, or else find nothing that looked good on a menu or get sick of the same thing over and over again. That hasn't happened. When I want something greasy, a pizza with vegetables does just fine, or an omelette or a sandwich (portabella mushroom). And as for variety, a little more might be nice, but I'm not missing out on all that much. There's still half a dozen options at the cafeteria for lunch in addition to the grill, and I rarely had meat with dinner anyway except when eating out or on pizza, and it's easy enough to order different toppings.

However, sometimes I just don't think about it until it's too late. One day my roommates made chicken soup, I had had a few beers, they offered me a bowl, I didn't think about it until I had already had a few bites. Another time I was in a diner planning to get a snack of cheese fries, but chili fries was right below it on the menu and looked better, and "chili" doesn't actually say there's meat in it even though 90 percent of the time there is, but I forgot about that until my order arrived. And just last night my roommates made pizza and offered me a piece, and I check and definitely didn't see any toppings but cheese and olives... but there was pepperoni under the cheese. In hindsight, though, I should have known, since I had seen the package of pepperoni slices sitting around beforehand.

So I need to either go back to omnivorousness, or to be more careful about what I eat in general and about my roommates' cooking in particular.

No comments: