My month without (red) meat

Let me start this off by saying that I have nothing against people who eat red meat. To each their own. It is their body, not mine. But mid-August I was speaking with a friend about how she  converted to vegetarianism. It blew my mind how after just one semester she had completely changed her outlook on food and the treatment of animals.

“Wings are meant to fly, not fry,” my vegetarian friend Megan Gregg, 11, said.

After hearing her full story, I decided that I would try vegetarianism out for myself. I had never done anything like this before in my life.

I started researching recipes for vegetarians and fun new foods I could try out to supplement the hole in my diet where meat would have been my source of protein. I found an overwhelming number of studies done that showed how cutting red meat from a diet decreases the risk of cancer, hardened blood vessels, type 2 diabetes, and it can cut down what people spend on groceries. With my family history, it was at least worth a try.

I was met with some obstacles though. My dad ranted to me how unhealthy vegetarianism is and how it was not something to be tried long-term, and my mother did not join me either. So I went at it alone and changed my goal to pescetarianism. It is a bit different due to the fact that I am allowed to consume fish, shellfish, and eggs instead of no meat. These would be my source of protein for the month of September.

I became anxious about it the closer September came. I did not want to tap out and have all my research and early enthusiasm go to waste, but I was becoming unsure whether or not I would enjoy this diet. But when September hit, it was not as bad as I thought.

Cutting most meat out of my diet took me a while to acclimate to. It was really hard to stop myself from reaching out and grabbing a slice of pepperoni pizza and instead grabbing a piece of cheese. I switch off every week between parents, so making sure they both had meals for me that I could eat was a little more time-consuming than I had originally thought. It was rough because I suddenly realized how much meat my family consumes per week.

The first few weeks I was afraid to try anything new. I stuck to salad, vegetables, fruits, and other healthy foods. In my mind I was scared that if I tried something new and hated it, I would hate it and quit right then and there, but when I tried breaded eggplant while out to dinner with my family, I was pleasantly surprised.

From then on, I tried to make a meal that had something in it that I had never tried before. I also learned a million different ways a person could serve fish.

In the end, the diet for me was more restricting than freeing because my family the whole month forgot about my diet and I was forced to eat salad for almost four consecutive days one week. I enjoyed it because it got me to try new things I would not have chosen before, but I am not unhappy that soon I will be able to eat chicken tacos and pork chops again.