So US VegWeek 2013 was from April 22 to 28. I took the pledge and I vowed to be a vegetarian for a whole week.
It was a tasty experience.
On the first day I made spaghetti with no ground beef, asparagus and fresh ciabatta bread. The days after that included veggie sandwiches, cheese enchiladas, cheese pizza, vegetarian qorma, vegetarian Navajo tacos, salads and lots of oatmeal. I did have eggs, cheese and milk.
I had a good plan, which is where most of the success of being a vegetarian is. I would make sure to go shopping and have everything I needed for dinner and lunch. Sometimes this was hard because I think I made more trips to the grocery store for some of this stuff than usual. I had to change my cooking pattern and include a lot of different kinds of vegetables in one plate when usually I have a meat and one or two vegetables on the side. It was a challenge, but it was delicious. I think that's why it wasn't such a huge inconvenience for me. I liked what I was eating every day.
My sister, on the other hand, was miserable for a while — she actually had dreams about steak. She would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday for lunch, or raid the kitchen for odd ends of melons, cheese, crackers, fist fulls of peanuts and cereal. She would be hungry all the time especially after work when I was cooking. "I think I'm a lot hungrier when I don't have meat," she said.
She didn't plan her meals and she turned into a scavenger during the times I didn't pack leftovers.
We each had to add a day to the week because meat sneaked into one of our meals. So April 29 was the last day being a vegetarian. On April 29 we were at a barbecue place looking to order our favorite steak at Ranchway. Sure enough they ran out of steak, because it's so popular. My sister almost cried and we were both kind of dramatic. I wasn't as devastated as she was, but she got her chunk of beef ribs and I got my cheese enchiladas (which was vegetarian, haha). That was funny. We'll go there again on Saturday.
During this week I think I felt healthier. I certainly didn't get any stomachaches and I didn't feel full for long periods of time. I think I had more energy too. I realized how much meat is involved in everything and how much we take it for granted. We don't give a second thought to the fact that meat comes from living things that had to die. It's like meat has become something other than the flesh of an animal (because that's just gross), it turned into nuggets, sausages and cartoon characters.
I think I will make a personal pledge to cut down on the meat I eat and make sure to stick with Vegetarian Mondays and Wednesdays. Mmm, I have some left over garlic-lemon mayonnaise. I'll make more California grilled veggie sandwiches!
