Meat-free month update: half-way

Image by SEPpics

On Blog Action Day, 15 October 2009, I pledged to try eating vegetarian for a month. When I set out to write this update, I was surprised to discover that it's been over two weeks already! That goes to show how easy and satisfying I've found vegetarian eating MOST of the time.

How I've been feeling

In my last update I noted that my energy levels had been good. I have continued to have plenty of energy. I haven't missed the completely stuffed feeling I used to get sometimes after eating a rich, meaty meal. There were a few days near the start when I constantly felt hungry and never satisfied. That has died down, and I have found that so long as I eat enough protein and eat a variety of foods each day, I usually feel satisfied.

Meat cravings

When I started this meat-free month, I feared that I would start to crave meat after a few days, and suffer some kind of withdrawal symptoms. But the cravings I feared haven't really materialised. I had decreased my meat consumption over the last few months, and I wasn't eating all that much meat before I started my meat-free month. I think that's made changing to a meat-free diet less shocking on my system than it would be for someone who was used to eating a lot of meat. As my meat consumption decreased over the last few months, I found that I wasn't missing eating more meat, and I have hardly missed meat since I started my meat-free month. But, I've found that there are a couple of situations where I really want to eat meat. The first is at barbeques after I've had a couple of glasses of wine. It's spring in New Zealand, and I've been to two barbeques since beginning my meat-free month. The first was a work do. We had delicious food and plenty of it. I had specially bought some vegetarian sausages and they were yummy. Once I had eaten I felt full, but I didn't feel satisfied. There was a lot of leftover meat, and I found myself really wanting to eat some. I resisted, and ate some more bread and dessert. I had another glass of wine and tried to stop myself from thinking about the chicken nuggets. I couldn't. In the end I gave in and scoffed a nugget. I hid in the kitchen where my workmates couldn't see me. I'd told them about my meat-free month, and I was hideously embarrassed to be cheating on it. After eating the single chicken nugget I felt instantly satisfied. The second barbeque was at my apartment, on Halloween. Once again I bought vegetarian sausages, and made sure that there was plenty of salad and veges. Once again I had a few glasses of wine. Once again I ate until I felt full, but I still didn't feel satisfied. Once again there was leftover meat. And once again I caved. That time I ate half a meat sausage, and it tasted great.

While I'm confessing, the barbeques are not the only time I've cheated. The other situation in which I've found myself unable to resist some forbidden flesh was eating out at a nice restaurant for a friend's birthday. Everything on the menu that sounded good had meat in it. The only vegetarian options were on the breakfast menu, and we were there for a late lunch. I'm pretty sure the kitchen would've made a vegetarian version of one of the menu options for me, but I didn't even ask. The stir-fried calamari sounded far too good to pass up.

Cooking

I haven't done all that much home cooking in the last couple of weeks. But when I have, I've found vegetarian cooking quick and convenient. Not having to cut up meat for a stir-fry or curry speeds things up, and veges cook quicker than meat. It's spring here and we've been enjoying good weather, so light meals have been the order of the day. I have found one aspect of vegetarian cooking a little challenging: deciding what to make. When you cook with meat, the meat is the central focus of the meal, and it suggests what you should make with it. For example, steak calls for potatoes and salad; chicken breast calls for green curry or honey soy sauce and vegetables to join it on rice. When you have a vegetable crisper full of veges and a couple of cans of beans and chickpeas on the shelf, it just doesn't seem so self-explanatory. But this is just a product of the way I'm used to cooking, and I'm sure I'll get better at coming up with meal ideas over time.

Eating on the run

Most Auckland cafes have a decent selection of vegetarian options. But it's always a miserable selection in comparison to the options containing meat (specialist vegetarian cafes aside). A couple of times when I've been grabbing lunch on the run in the last couple of weeks, I've thought to myself, "This would be so much easier if I wasn't avoiding meat." It seems vegetarian eaters have to eat according to what's available, rather than what they feel like eating.

My overall thoughts and feelings on vegetarian eating so far

After the first half of my meat-free month, I can say that vegetarian eating is a lot easier than I thought it would be, especially in social situations. I even survived a long weekend with Hayden's extended family visiting without eating any meat. Looking ahead beyond the end of this month, at this stage I think I'd be happy to continue eating a mostly vegetarian diet. But I don't think being a strict vegetarian is for me. I really enjoy meat from time to time, and would feel like I was missing out if I tried to cut it out completely. I'm interested to see if my feelings on this change in the second half of the meat-free month.