One down! One to go.

OK, I managed to eat vegetarian all day! Fruit and oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. PB&J with veg and fruit for lunch, another snack of ...you guessed it...fruit. Supper was beans-n-rice with some veg. Not bad. Oh, and one giant candy bar mid day because I am weak. But candy bars are vegetarian, right?

Tomorrow I'll be out and about so probably won't maintain the strict vegetarian diet, but Thursday might be a good day to try it again.

A friend, Laurie, recommended I do the "mostly vegetarian" as an option if I don't go full vegetarian. I'm trying! But cutting back and cutting back, I'll get there. Right now I'm feeding a second person who is not up for the vegetarian lifestyle and frankly has enough other things he's working on that I'm not willing to push vegetarianism on him right now. So mostly veg will be easier than always cooking 2 separate suppers.

Laurie also recommended another website for good veggie recipes:
www.christinacooks.com. The recipes look good AND doable.
I've been a longtime fan of www.vegweb.com. The recipes there are vegan so get around the dairy issue I have with so many many vegetarian cookbooks and websites. Of course, I'm sure the people at vegweb would be appalled that I sometimes put the chicken or eggs back in the foods they'd so carefully veganized.

The thing that surprises me is that I'm rarely hungry when I've eaten a decent vegetarian meal. I've always thought that without some meat, I'd never feel full. And yet, a few cups of beans and rice really stick to the ribs. Yesterday's teriyaki tofu with steamed veg and rice lasted pretty well too. I think it will be easier to cut back on meat than I thought.

Of course by my family's standards, I'm practically vegetarian already. These are people who served 3 meats for a holiday meal and at least one at every other meal. My uncle, a former army cook then short order cook then farmer and now retiree, used to make us breakfasts of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and milk from the bulk tank (you know, with the cream still in it) and a side of heavily buttered toast. It was an all you can eat affair. The last time I was home for thanksgiving we had turkey and pheasant and duck. I've been to holiday do's at an aunts house where once the deepfryer got going, anything in the freezer that used to move of its own accord was fair game (some of it was actual game meat). I must say, deep fried walleye chunks in cajun seasoning IS delicious.

Compared to the meat-fest of my youth, I eat very little meat now. Sometimes not even once a day. Compared to most of the people on the planet, I eat massive amounts of meat (and everything else for that matter!). I'll be shooting for somewhere in the middle, but leaning toward the lower consumption folks.