Eating Veggies and Reading about Animals

So I’ve been on this exploration of vegetarianism for about a solid week now. After my last post I had to do a little preparation and wrap my head around the idea of being more intentionally about no eating meat and eating more vegetables. But for the past week I’ve been very intentionally about looking at what’s in the food I’m eating and finding other things to eat when I feel the need for a protein snack – I may be developing a slight peanut butter addiction in exchange for meat – and it’s going well. I don’t feel that I’m deprived really in any way.

However, I did take some advice from some friends and colleagues who said that if I was worried about being a burden on my family and friends, who are all pretty serious carnivores, I shouldn’t get caught up on eating meat and not putting that burden on them, should they make dinner or want to go out to eat somewhere with slim picking for the veggies options. But I’ve found that this week when I choose to do that and just order or eat something with meat because I didn’t want to burden others, I just felt bad about it because the meat didn’t really add anything to my meal – I just didn’t want to make a big deal about asking the restaurant to leave the meat off.

So I’m going to count this week as a learning meat. I’ve got to learn that people aren’t offended anymore when you change your order from what’s on the menu. I’ve always been the person that doesn’t want to make it harder on people cooking me food, but really asking someone to leave something off isn’t that hard. So I’m just going to have to do it and stop feeling bad about it.

On another note, if anyone happens to be interested in reading more about animal treatment in the United States and has some free time on their hands to sit down and read an engaging book for a bit, I highly recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I read it this past summer and at the time I didn’t think that it had a very big impact on me, but look at me now. And it’s definitely been a book that’s stuck with me. So if you’re looking for a good read and why you should eat veggies and let the animals be free, this is one for you.