Several months ago my husband and I decided to experiment with removing meat from our diet. We wanted to see if we’d notice a difference in our health. We started out with an easy enough goal. We would go two weeks without eating meat. Of course, he decided he wanted to try this the day after I do the grocery shopping and have filled the freezer with chicken, beef, lamb, and salmon. I’d been pushing him to try this for several years, so I didn’t voice a single complaint. Besides, we’d just decided to start fixing our cats homemade food (post on this coming soon). I decided to use the meat for that.
We met our two week challenge easily, so we added a month to it. That wasn’t quite so easy. My husband had a business trip, and he indulged. We decided to have upside down - a chicken dish - for my birthday.
We’re now still mostly meat-free. I call it a quasi-vegetarian diet. We’ve eaten fish or poulty a few times in the past few months. We don’t make a fuss when we visit other people. If they’re serving meat, we just eat it at least for now. For years, we’ve had some kind of meat, poultry, or fish almost every night with the occasional vegetarian meal thrown in for variety. My husband complained almost every time there wasn’t meat on the table.
It can be a struggle to get enough protein in a vegetarian diet, and the fact that already we ate a low-carb diet created some challenges to eating meat free. Plus, we avoid processed foods. However, I tend to like a challenge. And, I love cooking. Those who know me well are nodding right now.
As soon as my husband said he wanted to try this, I got out a stack of my cookbooks and started searching for all the vegetarian recipes I’d been wanting to try for ages. I ended up with over 50 recipes to try or try again, bought a low carb vegetarian cookbook, and downloaded some recipes we saw on television. I still have several cookbooks to go through once we get through the first list of recipes. I’ve also bought two more vegetarian cookbooks in the last month and expanded the original list. There are a few recipes we liked enough to eat several times.
We don’t really miss the meat. It seemed like a treat to have turkey on Thanksgiving, but we were over that pretty quick. We sent a nice portion of the turkey home with our guests. After the second day of turkey, we gave the rest to our cats. We roasted a duck on Christmas, but the cats enjoyed it more than we did. I ate about half a breast. My husband ate a little more than I did. Our three cats ate the rest over a couple of meals. While the cats feasted on duck, my husband and I ate portobello burgers and were much happier with that.
So, are we going vegetarian? I don’t know yet. We may still eat fish in season. There are a couple of chicken dishes that we like. My husband loves a couple of lamb dishes. So I’m guessing we’ll continue to eat our favorites on occasion. And, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not about depriving ourselves. It’s about feeling better and about supporting humane lives for animals.
The idea that we treat animals like products instead of living, breathing beings saddens and angers me. When we watched an episode of “How It’s Made” that focused on chicken, I lost my appetite for chicken. To watch baby chicks being pushed along on the conveyor belt and sorted like apples broke my heart. I had to leave the room to keep from crying or throwing something at the television.
Over the weekend, my husband told his Mom we’re vegetarian now, so I think he’s embraced the idea and is enjoying it. I haven’t told my parents yet though I did tell them we were experimenting with the idea. I still have a hard time saying we’re full on vegetarian because I don’t think we’ve been “meat free” long enough to make it official.
We’re not going vegan though. We discussed it but were both reluctant to give up half and half in our coffee, cheese, and eggs. I think I could quit eating scrambled eggs (the only way I eat eggs by themselves), but I don’t think I could give up all the foods made with eggs.
I’ve almost quit having heartburn since we stopped eating meat every night. I think I’ve even lost a little weight. That’s surprising because we kind of fell into a habit of eating more carbs than usual as we adjusted. I feel overall lighter, more energetic, and more focused.
So, all in all, I love our meat free experiment. I’m enjoying cooking new recipes. I like the way I feel. Strangely, I don’t miss meat at all. At least not yet.
I’ll keep you posted…