Happy Meat Day! Or, Kim's Month As A Vegetarian

The gross illness that I feel right now can only be described as the result of over-indulgence. But before we get to my evening, some context!

For the past few years, I've felt that the meat industry could do with improvement to their treatment of animals, especially more humane approaches. After receiving an invite to Earthlings, dubbed 'The Vegan Maker', I realized that it may be hypocritical to hold these ideals and continue to eat factory-made meat products. So I (thought) I had two choices - change my ideals, or change my ways. Since the former is a lot harder to do, I was willing to try the latter. The way I saw it, I could eat free-range or organic meat products, reduce my meat consumption entirely (aka vegetarian), or a mix of both. I'm a student, and with the downtown farmers' market closed during the winter, I can't afford time and money required to get my hands on free-range meat on a regular basis. So I decided to try an experiment - to see if I could be a vegetarian.

Out of this came the Month of Vegetarianism shared with my friend Jess. She was a vegetarian at one time for a bit, and would mind trying it again, to see if she could 'do it right'. With a promise not eat meat or meat products for an entire month, it was on. We decided on January because of the post-Christmas overkill of food, as well as the relative lack of stress from school.

My experience overall? Here's a few:

1. Veggie Burgers.
It seems that no two veggie burgers are alike. My first one (I don't include the accidental veggie burger I had at Pets In The Park '09) was at Room At The Top, one of the bars on campus, and honestly it wasn't that great. The filler and cooking method led to it being really crunchy, which wasn't what I was really looking for. However, the veggie burger at the Jekyll + Hyde Pub in downtown Edmonton was divine. The rice was a perfect consistency and was similar to a burger patty. I hardly noticed the difference.

2. Tofu.
The one thing I was really hesitant to try ended up being nothing. No, it actually tasted like nothing.

3. Prep and Feel.
Now, for the entire month, I did take a multi-vitamin due to some worry about getting enough iron. This to me is kind of funny, because chances are that I got more iron from those multivitamins than I do from ingesting meat since I don't normally eat a lot of meat. As for eating, I never had a meal where I felt a sort of 'heavy' fullness, though I never went to bed hungry. That's what complex carbohydrates are for, people. Though, I did notice that I got hungrier more often.

4. Availability of veggie-friendly choices.
Really, the question should be why is gelatin in everything. Or, why is chicken in everything so good-looking. Eventually, it became too hard to police the gelatin aspect. It also became an art of navigating my local Sobey's to find something veggie-friendly AND healthy to eat. And since 3/5ths of my DnD group was vegetarian now, we got majority rule on snack choices. Campus was rough, I got tired of eating pasta and white sauce or veggie lasagna from L'Express by about the second week, so I had to get creative/eat a lot of snack food for lunch.
Also, I hate hummus and raw tomato, so there were some limitations.

5. Sausage.
Everyone asks if I miss bacon. Honestly, I don't understand the whole hullabaloo over bacon- sure, it's good, but not that good. What I missed the most was sausage. And everyone proceeded to make a joke when I mentioned this. I do have the best friends.

So what now? It's February 1st - my month of being a vegetarian is over. To celebrate "Meat Day", as it came to be known, Jess and I had a Tim Horton's breakfast sandwich this morning (they had been haunting my dreams!), and then went out to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Hence the gross feeling, because I overate (something I had gotten out of the habit of doing for years now, but NO I just HAD to). Silly me.

As for the decision, the more I've talked to my vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, etc. friends, the more views and personal perspectives I've heard. First, I know I'm not alone in feeling hypocritical. But at the same time, why do I exempt eggs and cheese from the bill, despite being a factory industry? Probably because of my love of cheese. Why do I stand by dissections as a learning tool or the use of animals in scientific testing? Because for me, the knowledge gained by using animals, either for teaching purposes or testing, is a benefit not only to humans but to animals as well. Would you want your vet performing surgery on your pet without dissection or trial experience? I wouldn't, especially after all the dissections I've performed. I trust the animal committees of institutions like the University of Alberta to make the appropriate decisions when it comes to matters like this.

All in all, there are bigger issues here that cannot be addressed through my own self-imposed month of not eating animal flesh. But hey, happy Meat Day! From now on, I'm aiming for less meat consumption throughout the week, with a re-address when the Farmers' Market reopens. It's not the best solution, but right now it's the one that works.