Quasi-Control

It has been over 3 months since Aubrey and I started our experiment with vegetarianism.  We initially planned on just doing this for 6 weeks but that deadline came and went and a unanimous decision was made to continue.  In the few months we have done this I’m proud to admit that I’ve cheated very few times.  Granted we aren’t militant about our vegetarianism and have both accepted the fact that we’ll probably end up eating some meat sometime but we’re trying to avoid it.

The first time I had meat after starting our experiment,  I was with a friend and we got burgers at Bartleys in Harvard Square. The next time I cheated was when I ate some turkey for Thanksgiving, and the last time I ate meat was about two weeks ago during lab meeting. I had just finished taking a final, was running on 4 hours of sleep, had a massive headache, and was famished.  The only food options were roast beef and turkey sandwiches so I chose the turkey.

Each time I ended up regretting eating the meat.  Bartley’s was so heavy and filling that I felt sick for hours (but that could also be from the frappe and fries I got with it). The turkey for thanksgiving wasn’t as great as I remembered turkey should be, although some people said it was some of the best turkey they had eaten.  And while the sandwich in lab meeting did stop my stomach from digesting itself and provided me with energy, it failed to make me feel any better.

Each time I decided to eat meat I realized that meat serves as a satiating filler in our food. Meaning it is used because it satisfies our hunger more so than other foods do. It does this because its density weighs down the gut making us feel like we’ve eaten a lot. So its easy to eat some meat and feel full.  In fact I’ve noticed that I tend to feel much less full after eating a satisfying vegetarian dish.

I just finished watching Food Inc with Aubrey. It is a great movie. I didn’t feel like it was overly steeped in propaganda, rather that it portrayed what is going on in an informative light. It raises questions that the average consumer would never think about and provides then provides simple things that all consumers can do to effect change.

I highly recommend this movie. In fact I’m willing to buy a copy and ship it to anybody that wants to watch it (you just have to promise to ship it back).

If you want to know what you can do visit:http://www.takepart.com/foodinc

The documentary touches on so many topics that I’m not going to try to elaborate on them all but it nicely sums up many of the reasons that Aubrey and I have decided to take control of our diets by going vegetarian.

When I was at SfN I went with a friend to Chicago’s china town. The restaurant we picked was full of Chinese people and only one of the people who worked there spoke English, and she spoke it poorly.

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This particular post is the culmination of several months of thought and study. I ask you to read it completely; and if you feel inclined please respond with your thoughts.

A number of months ago I wrote a blog post about vegetarian chili, where I mentioned that I’ve been teetering on the edge of vegetarianism. A week ago Aubrey and I decided to do a six week experiment in Pescetarianism, which is essentially vegetarianism but where you can eat fish. (The pescetarianism was a compromise I made with Aubrey as she told me she’d die before giving up her sea food).  Along with not eating meat we’ve decided to cut out a lot of junk food as well (no soda, no ice cream, no cookies, etc).

The point of this post isn’t to declare our recent decision rather I want to explain my motivations for making this change and that our recent decision isn’t just about meat. There are a several motivating factors behind this recent decision, and I guess they can roughly be divided into three major categories (although I’ll be the first to say these categories aren’t perfect): Health, Responsibility, and Spirituality.  Keep reading and I’ll explain more…

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