I Lava My Vegetarianniversary

Somehow in the muddled up reality that I've been inhabiting lately I totally missed celebrating my First Vegetarianniversary. 

Uh... that's kinda big.

Warning, this is gonna get vegetarian-high-horse-y.  I try not to do this, but dammit, its my big day.

A year and 4 days ago I was totally freaked out by meat thanks to bottle feeding a dying baby goat and making the connection that every time I had Indian food I ordered goat curry.

I was done, that was it.

The goat died, it really had no chance.  Doug brought it home from the Cherry Auction, a flea market swap meet kind of place where it's easy to wanna impulse buy the heck outta some livestock.  Problem is the animals there aren't healthy.  At all. As soon as I'd washed my hands and put flowers out in the pasture under the tree where we buried him I tried to eat a hamburger and couldn't make it happen.  I smelled goat shit.  I heart the pitiful bleating.  I pictured the limp neck and legs that would no longer hold him.

Done.

I was the girl who blogged about cheeseburgers with such love and devotion that (with the help of an article run about my blog in the local paper) my favorite place to grab one sold out of buns. That's right.  Sold the fuck out based on my voracious appetite for meat.

But I think that once my mind made the association it flipped a switch that couldn't be turned off and adopting a mostly vegetarian diet was pretty straightforward.  I decided to base my eating habits on my sister's because she's been at this whole no-meat business since she graduated high school- I could go to her for troubleshooting.   She follows a Pesca-Lacto-Ova-Vegetarian diet, and so have I for the last year.

I've only had meat once or twice in trace amounts since making the switch.  I enjoyed an egg roll made by Cho- you can't turn those down because they're so amazing- despite some ground pork and bacon in with the veggies.  And of course, I had corned beef for St. Patrick's Day... a slice almost as big as my pinky fingernail!

I've missed some things.  The Cheddar Burger being one of them, I also miss beef stew and the way the meat melts in your mouth, but then I always remember the reason I'm abstaining. Flesh, dude.  I'm willing to bet I'd cook up nice and tender too if I were in a crock-pot for 16 hours.  Let that marinate for a few seconds.

Yeah.  Gross.

I also like that I can still make terrible food choices and have crazy calorie days when I want to.  I think my love for Chile Relleno Burritos (so important it gets proper noun designation) transcends the love I felt for cheeseburgers.  And french fries, oh my god, don't get me started.

That said, I'm gonna be tweaking things a bit with my diet.  I'd like to say I'm giving up fish, but the sushistarved side of me just isn't ready for that step yet.  I am, however, going to have one day a week where I eat all vegan.  Just to try it out, y'know.  I'm looking at Fridays right now.  I might increase it to two days, and who knows, I might naturally fall into a vegan eating pattern some day.

To prepare I've purchased The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone on my Kindle, as well as Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.  Even if I do still enjoy my Chile Relleno Burritos and all of their eggy cheesy goodness and I am not ready for a full vegan lifestyle, at least I'll have an arsenal of delicious recipes that I can make regardless of what dietary path I take.

Side note: I never thought this would happen but I'm even creeped out by leather now. 

I really LAVA being a picky eater now.  I love that my diet is more environmentally conscientious than it was last year.  Overall it's been a great switch and I look forward to trying out some tasty new things in the coming year.  Happy Vegetarianniversary to me!