Carnivores take stab at vegetarianism

vegetarian

Have you seen Food, Inc., (http://www.foodincmovie.com/) yet? If not, it's a must-see documentary on the inhumane treatment of animals and alleged tactics to control the food supply by a few conglomerates in the food industry. It's playing at the Times Sunday, April 11 courtesy of Outpost Natural Foods. What about "Meet Your Meat" (www.meat.org)? That's another documentary hosted by Sir Paul McCartney that puts a spotlight on factory farming of cows, pigs, and chickens. If that doesn't spoil your appetite for consuming animals, I don't know what will.

After my friend and I watched it we decided to take the Web site pledge to go semi-vegetarian for 30 days. This is nothing new I know, but it's a BIG deal for us dairyland carnivores. That being said, I confess that I've slowly been eliminating meat from my diet for years. But for some reason, maybe because it's spring, I've got the urge to just stop eating stuff that makes me fat and hurts my heart. My girlfriend agrees, so today is Day 1 of our co-challenge.  

Wikipedia defines vegetarianism as:

"Vegetarianism is the practice of following a plant-based diet including fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, nuts, and seeds, with or without dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat meat, including: red meat, game, poultry, fish, crustacea, shellfish, and products of animal slaughter such as animal-derived gelatin and rennet. There are a number of vegetarian diets ... "

This is what I ate today:

Breakfast -1/2 cup of organic vanilla yogurt with a sprinkling of granola, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and 2 cups of Alterra full-strength coffee with half-n-half.

Lunch - 1 small green pepper, 4 small slices of pepper jack cheese and 4 wedges of grapefruit in sugar.

Snack - 1/2 can of Dr. Pepper, 3 chocolate Kisses, a handful of salt and vinegar potato chips.  

Dinner - A bowl of Cheerios with sugar and 2% milk, 2 cups of Rishi black tea.

Not the very best, admittedly, but it's only a start.

I weighed myself too - and came in at 164 pounds, give or take a few. I don't know how accurate the scale is but that's my starting point. We'll see in 29 days if I have managed to lose any weight by not eating meat or regular milk. I will still eat organic cheese, eggs and possibly fish, or fish oil supplements. I also will continue my exercise regime: walking to and from the bus stop every day and up and down my stairs at home - whoo-hoo!

My girlfriend is supposed to be keeping track of what she buys and eats too. I imagine us shopping arm and arm at Outpost to stock up on delicious exotic, organic foods like soy milk, tofu, cheeses and dark green vegetables. Oh, and organic wine, naturally.

The first day is always the most exciting... but I'm hungry already.

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