My essay starts off with a brief rant about my "health nut" of a mother. In college my mom had a short stint with body building (yes she is pretty muscular - not freakishly though), and she is currently the Manager of Cardiology at a hospital.
Health is her job.
She tried her hardest for a short while to change what my family ate to some pretty, in my opinion, extreme health food. Things like pesto sauce (blah), tofu (please no), and black beans (a.k.a bad beans). After a little while of hearing complaints every time dinner came around my mom was quick to pull back on the extreme foods and gave us more options. She is still pretty strict with what my dad eats though. 
A good portion of my essay was centered on my brief period of vegetarianism though. By brief I mean REALLY brief. Say.. 3 months brief. What was weird though, was that when I took my first bite of meat after those three months I actually felt a little sick. The meat I ate was from a chicken salad I bought from McDonald's. After everything I have learned from reading Slaughterhouse, looking back on that sick feeling I had is a little nerve wracking. There have been far too many cases of E.coli for anyone to be ok with feeling sick after eating meat. Luckily, nothing detrimental came from that sore stomach. I continue with my essay by saying how reading Slaughterhouse and remembering what I learned from watching Food, Inc. my junior year of high school have caused me to have thoughts of trying vegetarianism again. There is one problem with that, though. I love meat. That is the main reason I did not succeed with my first attempt at being vegetarian.
Recently, though, I watched a TedTalk that a man named Graham Hill did that has re-inspired me. His idea, as a meat loving man, was to be a "weekday vegetarian." Eat no meat during the week, eat whatever you want on the weekend, and decrease your carbon footprint while doing it.
I am on my second week of trying this plan, and so far it has not been too bad.
I like that idea, I'm glad it's working for you. I remember you bringing that up when we had to watch those TED talks. I might have to go that route too. Ideally, I'd only want to eat meat that came off of a farm, but there's only so many places you can get that
ReplyDeleteThis past year I was living with all vegetarians and I too decided to become a vegetarian. The one thing I noticed is that all those cheap meats foods became less tasty after a period of abstaining.
ReplyDeleteI think abstaining from anything has that effect, Austin. Every year, I give up something for Lent, and every year, when I go back to eating whatever it is that I gave up, I find that it's just not as good as I remembered! I always spend the first 2-3 weeks craving what I gave up, then find that my body "forgets" about that food. One year I gave up pop, and I've really never gone back to drinking it unless I'm really desperate for a little caffeine. Another year I gave up bread products and found that salads and vegetables were actually more flavorful than most of the sandwiches I had been eating. It's always hard for a few weeks, but then you find substitutes, expand your food options, and the cravings dissipate.
ReplyDeleteLyndsie, I think that's a great plan. It forces you to eat meat in moderation, but doesn't force you to give up anything that you really love :) I should try the weekends only plan with chocolate!
My paper was a lot of rambleing too. I didn't really know what to write about so I just wrote about my favorite things my mom makes.
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