Eating Junk Food: Now With Less Meat

[Me As An Indignant Three Year Old]:              

How would you like it if I called your food junk food?

Mom has been telling the above story for as long as I can remember.  It pretty much comes up every year during Christmas time and every now and then at an Applebee's outing.  

My culinary pallet for junk food hasn't shifted much since then.  I pretty much crave the same cheeseburger, oscar meyer hot dogs and double decker tacos that I did when I was a toddler.  

One would think that if I cut out the meat then my diet would be way healthier.  Unfortunately thats not the way its worked out so far.  

Protein used to account for around 26 to 30 percent of my caloric intake in a given day.  Now its closer to seven.  What thats meant is that I've been mostly eating fat and carbs (calorie wise) since I've started this diet.  My weight hasn't done much,  I've been mostly stagnant just varying a few pounds each way.  The difference has been in my energy level.  I'm usually feeling good at a pretty constant level between meals.  Now its been really spiking. 

The experiment continues...

Cheese Enchiladas

Dinner tonight was cheese enchiladas.  Thats with lard free tortillas and no meat whatsoever.  Pretty much just mexican manicotti.

It was pretty good albeit artery clogging.  The sauce was sweet more than spicy and the cheese got to be too much pretty quickly.  Add in a little sour cream and salsa and you've got yourself a pretty easy make and bake meal.

Frankly, as its been so far the only thing that could make the meal better is the one thing I can't eat.

Just Glanced at the Ads

Just took a glance around my ads and no kidding had a hiking outfitter, ads for "Vegetarian Diet" and "Vegetarian Dating" and a headline that said "Attention Bowel Sufferers!"

Awesome...

This made my day.

As I was looking around for some famous vegetarians and why they have decided to go veggie (I know that Paul McCartney has been famously vegetarian for decades) I came across the PETA page dedicated to ads of mildly (and I stress mildly here) famous people who have decided to limit their diets and talk about it to PETA.

This is "Masta Killa" talking about how he values all living things.



The irony was not lost on me.  I can't say the same of PETA.


Oh and for all my fellow Weeds fans, this was pretty good too.

Veggie Tenets

My research so far as been as to what makes a vegetarian a vegetarian.  Since I grew up in the modern age the first thing I did was to check out the wikipedia page for vegetarianism.

As it turns out there are a lot of different religions/religious groups that abstain from meat:
Sikhs
Buddhists
Hindis
Rastafarians
Hare Krishnas

Now why these are each important to the world of vegetarianism they really don't fit with what I want to be becoming.  Their rationale is based on the shared spirituality of every living being or to simply encourage non-violence in all things.  They could probably each have a week or two of their own.

So I've decided to call this style I'm going for 'American Vegetarianism' because I don't want to spend two weeks being spiritually connected or non-violent quite yet.

My main ethical drivers will be what I can find on pro-vegetarian websites.  Which so far seem to be: to respect the rights of animals, to lessen enivornmental damage by reducing the usage of land for meat production, to limit the assumed health effects of poor quality and modified meats.

Those'll be the main adopted reasons behind my actions this coming Monday and for the two weeks after.

Early Vegetarians Returning From The Kill

Oh and I need to thank Google Instant for making my life a little better today.  I was searching originally for "returning to meat eating" and halfway through typing my query "vegetarians returning from the kill" came up as a suggestion so I clicked.

This was the first link.



As a huge fan of Larson when I was about ten I just needed to share this.

The First -ism

Yesterday I broke the news to my girlfriend.  Luckily she seems to like this whole idea and even offered her support.  Then our discussion turned to what would be the first lifestyle I would adopt.

Frankly I'm a little scared of this whole thing and I don't want to be overly ambitious as to my first attempt to live as an "other."  Then again, I don't want to pick something thats too terribly easy to do.  That'd just be cheating.

We came up with vegetarianism.  Not so far out of the norm that it will cause a culture shock and not too sissy of a choice that I'll feel sheepish writing about it.

So its settled, for two weeks after I begin I'll live without the main protein staple in my diet.  And to really get an idea of what this will mean for me I'm going to spend the next two weeks carefully tracking my normal diet, down to the last ounce of orange juice.

 I'll use an app on my Droid to note the calories and the nutritional content of everything and I'll keep that going when I turn to the dark side. This way I'll have a baseline to use when I analyze the effects of my first -ism.

Now, just to clarify I'm not going to be giving up all animal products.  I won't go full PETA just yet.  I'll leave that until I'm feeling a little more daring.  So far there still needs to be more research into it but I think I'll give up the flesh of any animal including fish, poultry and all the usual mammals.  Eggs and milk will still stay as fair game.

In the next few posts I'll detail what I find out about the different levels of vegetarianism and what it will mean for my general health.  I'll see a physician and perhaps a dietician to get a rundown of what it will mean for my energy level and what I should expect as far as digestive changes.  I've also heard that returning to meat consumption can cause digestive problems as the body readjusts so I'll look into that.

So far its all very exciting.  Expect more soon as things develop.

The Grand Experiment

As a student studying International Relations I've been exposed to and read about a variety of global systems of ideals.  Whole classes have been devoted to perceptions of identity and how they relate to the ideas and culture surrounding the individual.  I've seen all of these systems, from Christian Evangelism to Bedouin Tribalism, through the lens of my white, American, quasi upper-classiness.  I've had very little opportunity to actually become a part of the issues myself.  More importantly,  I've always found it difficult to empathize with the aggressors, the bigots or the just plain weird.

This is my experiment:  Can I be something else, in every aspect of my life, for a fortnight?  Can I be a Maoist? A Buddhist?  A Tea Partier?

Who are these people and what makes them different from me? What insights will be gained? How will this change who I am and how I understand the world around me? Will I overuse question marks in the process? Who knows...

For each idea system, lifestyle or religion I will research and then subsequently adopt the canons of a true believer.  I'll read the literature, listen to the music and show up to cultural or political functions wearing the weird underwear.

As a college kid in DC I'll have access to all the native foods, embassies and analysis for every group I could dare to attempt.  I'll use these resources to the fullest and I'll record as much as I can here.

For two weeks at a time I'll become, as wholly as I can, an alien.
















-- Look out John Hurt