To make this a proper journey, I suppose the best place to start is in the beginning. I won’t bore you with all the details, but a quick synopsis won’t hurt too much. I spent the first 30 years of my life eating meat. I was almost always a picky eater, though, and admittedly, the meat I would eat was limited to leaner cuts of beef, white meat chicken, and the occasional ham.
As I got older, I began feeling more and more guilty thinking that an animal had to give its life for me to eat. I was able to push that thought to the back of my mind, however, thinking that it would be too hard to switch to vegetarianism, and that my husband would never go for it. I think there are a lot of people out there at the same point in their lives. I’ve spoken to several about it at the checkout counter when they saw what I was buying and asked me if I were a vegetarian.
It was Christmas 2010. My uncle made (delicious) pot roast for dinner. My aunt was not going to eat any because she had recently become a vegetarian and started drinking green smoothies. We discussed her new diet, how much weight she had lost (a considerable amount) and how good she felt. My husband and I agreed to implement the green smoothies into our diet, but I still wasn’t convinced that we could make the switch. The next night, as I heated up the left-over pot roast, I knew that I didn’t want to eat meat anymore. My husband, who had been craving steaks almost every week, also decided that it was time to change.
I can’t say that switching to vegetarianism has been easy – especially for someone like me who enjoys eating out at restaurants frequently. I also am pretty into food and like to cook a lot. Doing a massive overhaul of my recipe list is taking some time, but truthfully, a lot of my favorite recipes that I used to make with meat, have been just as good or better without it. Eating out is a totally different story.
I’m looking forward to sharing life lessons, favorite recipes and outside dining experiences as I progress in this journey with you. Please feel free to share your own experiences here too!
The Blogatarian 