Going vegetarian, part 2

Previously in Quasiordinary Adventures, I mentioned that I’ve been vegetarian for a little while now. To start off, I simply realized one day that my meals for the previous three days had just coincidentally happened to be meatless, so I thought I’d keep it up for a little longer just to see what happened. Two months later, I’m not sure exactly what my motivation is for continuing now, which is why I am trying to figure it out by blogging.

 

My initial motivation was pure curiosity. I’ve had many friends who are vegetarian (for all the common reasons), and I always wondered what it would be like, or perhaps more interestingly, could I possibly live that way? Would I be just as happy living a meat-free life, or would it leave me always feeling unsatisfied, restricted, and inconvenienced? So what have I found?

1. Do I feel unsatisfied?
   Some people may feel that a meal just isn’t a meal without being anchored by meat, and there was a time when I might have agreed. My family dinners when I was growing up were very often based on the traditional American meat-and-potatoes. My mother was and is a great cook, but she mostly cooks like her mother, who didn’t stray too far from her family’s English traditions. And where I grew up in rural Oklahoma, there weren’t many opportunities to experience ethnic food other than "Southern" cooking and a bit of Southwest/Tex-Mex influence. One of the largest industries in my hometown was beef; chicken farming was pretty common as well. So there wasn’t much question as to whether meat was what was dinner — only what species.
    
   Since then I’ve broadened my culinary horizons significantly. I’ve lived in or near good-sized cities (Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Seattle) for the past 12 years, where I’ve grown to love a diverse selection of ethnic foods. Some of my favorite dishes have meat, and some don’t, and until this change I didn’t really think about it. I can feel very satisfied and fulfilled after eating a falafil sandwich, vegetable yakisoba, or various tasty vegetarian South Indian dishes that I never remember the name of.
    
   So vegetarian food is not innately unsatisfying to me. After eating a veggie meal I never feel like I missed the meat. Even now I don’t crave a steak dinner or anything like that. However, it can be a little more difficult to find a satisfying variety of vegetarian meals, which brings us to my next concern.

 

2. Do I feel restricted?
   Whenever I would go to restaurants with vegetarian friends, I’d often notice that some restaurants had little more than a green salad and token veggie burger to offer them. So I’ve always had a concern that as a vegetarian living in a culture of meat-eaters, it would be difficult to find enough variety to keep meals interesting.
    
   Fortunately, Seattle is one of the best areas in the U.S. to be vegetarian. People here are noticeably more liberal, health-conscious, and environmentally-friendly than in other parts of the country, and there are quite a few vegetarians, so it shows on local restaurant menus. Add to that the large concentration of vegetarian Indians in the vicinity of Redmond, and it’s pretty easy to find good vegetarian food around here.
    
   Still, I do feel a little bit restricted when I limit myself to looking at only a small percentage of a menu that has many potentially-tasty items containing meat. While often a simple request to the server can open up a few more meat-free options (and around here nobody flinches at such requests), I’m still left with a lot fewer choices than the omnivore next to me. Luckily, I’m stubborn enough to not let it bother me much.

 

3. Do I feel inconvenienced?
   I like most fruits and vegetables well enough, but I like them a lot better when they’re fresh. Who doesn’t? The problem seems to be that obtaining and consuming more fresh fruits and vegetables requires more frequent trips to the grocery store and a little more meal preparation time at home. Vegetarian dishes prepared from canned or frozen ingredients seem to be pretty bland, whereas that isn’t as much of a problem with meat dishes. So I’ve found it difficult to shop for more than a few days at a time, and I have to plan my meals accordingly so that I eat most things before they spoil. And then I have to spend time cleaning, chopping, and otherwise preparing those vegetables. Maybe it’s not more preparation time than meat would be, except I find myself cooking at home a little more because as I mentioned above there are fewer good options for take-out vegetarian food.
    
   Since I’m a single guy who’s usually busy with work or sports or various other activities, you can imagine how much time I want to spend on food preparation: as little as possible. I’m not lazy (okay sometimes I am but that’s beside the point), but it’s difficult to justify expending a lot of effort just to feed myself. While I may be a little more skilled in the kitchen than your stereotypical bachelor, I don’t really get satisfaction out of cooking unless I know others are going to appreciate the results. Thus I eat a lot of take-out food, and most things I prepare at home are quick and easy.
    
   I think this issue is the biggest problem I have with a vegetarian lifestyle — it just doesn’t conveniently fit in with the rest of my life and my surroundings. But, it may be something that could improve with research and practice. I could experiment to find easier, tastier, less perishable options for home-cooked vegetarian meals. And I’m sure there must be more places around here to get good vegetarian takeout food. I just haven’t found many good options outside my mainstays of Qdoba, Quiznos, and, umm… Taco Bell. :) Does anybody have more suggestions?

So there are the reasons why I might not want to be vegetarian. Again, there’s nothing terribly conclusive. However, all three of those reasons might carry a little more weight if I wasn’t blatantly cheating. Stay tuned for a future blog entry where I examine my cheating ways, consider whether I can stop cheating, and eventually get back to what I think are my real motivations for continuing vegetarianism, or not.

My next car

Finally it looks like someone is making a decent fully-electric production car. Not a wimpy econobox with pathetic range and acceleration, but a desirable sports car that will demonstrate that there are actually advantages to ditching internal combustion even aside from environmental factors. Below is an exceprt, but you can read the full article over at wired.com.

The Tesla Roadster is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries — the same cells that run a laptop computer. Range: 250 miles. Fuel efficiency: 1 to 2 cents per mile. 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds. Top speed: more than 130 mph. The first cars will be built at a factory in England and are slated to hit the market next summer.

The biggest drawback seems to be that in between that 250 mile range, you have to allow for a 3 1/2 hour recharge time — so this model isn’t so well-suited for road-trips. But you can bet that battery technology will continue to improve.

 

OK, so this can’t really be my next car until the price drops some — $85K is definitely more than I would spend on a car. But if it’s successful, then others will follow, and there will be lots more options on the market.

Going vegetarian

For the past 7 weeks now, my diet has been almost strictly vegetarian. (Technically pesca-vegetarian, but I’ll get to that later.) It was an experiment at first, but now I’m starting to think I will keep it up at least for the foreseeable future.

 

Why? I’m not exactly sure, and that is the reason for this blog entry. Naturally, writing helps me organize my thoughts. Since I’m writing something that other people might actually read, I feel at least a little bit obligated to make sense. So by trying to explain to you that I have good enough reasons for being vegetarian, I am convincing myself. I hope.

 

There are a small number of traditional reasons I can think of which people give for being vegetarian. I have known a variety of vegetarian people and they have all stated one or usually a combination of more than one of the four reasons below. None of them are bad reasons, however I don’t think any of them apply directly to me:

1. Religion
   Probably the majority of vegetarians in the world abstain from meat because it is a principle or law relating to their religion. I respect that reasoning, though I personally don’t follow a religion with significant dietary restrictions. But anyway, I have never been one to make any kind of moral or lifestyle decision based on religion. I think the fundamentals of right and wrong and the principles for being a positive contributor to society are ultimately independent of any religious doctrine. It’s just unfortunate that many people do seem to need the convenient excuse or motivation of religion to guide their morals. Speaking of morals, that brings us to the next reason.
    
2. Avoiding animal cruelty
   The most vocal vegetarians, at least in the USA, complain about the unnatural cruelty imposed on animals as part of the modern industrial meat farming process. So by abstaining from meat, these "ethical vegetarians" are showing compassion for animals by not personally contributing to the cruel meat industry, or any killing of animals at all. Cruelty to animals is morally wrong, so avoiding it is right… Right?
    
   Well, the universe is a very cruel place. (Reference the Douglas Adams quote.) Meat-eaters might argue that survival of the fittest and killing and eating animals is just a part of nature, and who are we to call nature immoral? Also in my opinion, one cannot go around constantly worrying about all the suffering going on out there without being very very depressed. I’m not saying you should give up and not care. The world is definitely a better place because there are a lot of people who do care.
    
   So, this argument is inconclusive for me. If I really think about trying to be a good person, then I might lean slightly toward avoiding meat for this reason. But this has never been enough to get me to avoid meat before, and my morals have not suddenly shifted.
    
   As an interesting aside, cultured meat has the potential to allow ethical vegetarians to experience guiltless meat-eating in the not-too-distant future.
    
3. Health
   Many vegetarians claim that a vegetarian diet is healthier. There have been famous scientific studies that present supposedly compelling evidence for vegetarianism. However I’m not quite convinced, for several reasons:
    
   • There are studies these days that "prove" anything, especially in the area of nutrition. It’s obvious that science doesn’t yet truly understand all the complexities of human biochemistry and nutrition.

    

   • I haven’t read those studies, because frankly nutrition is boring. But I have read some of what people say about them, and if there’s one things everyone agrees on, it’s that nobody agrees about anything.

    

   • Vegetarianism alone doesn’t ensure a healthy diet. It’s definitely possible to eat a very unhealthy diet that is vegetarian but includes lots of fat and junk food (and maybe not enough protein), while it’s also possible to eat a very healthy diet that includes meat.

    

   • I’m one of the healthiest people I know, and I’ve been eating meat in no small quantities all my life. While I definitely don’t obsess about my diet (nutrition is boring, remember?) I keep it reasonably healthy, without too much fat or junk food (and no alcohol), and I exercise frequently. While I almost never have any reason to visit a doctor, last fall I went to a free health screening at work. They checked all my stats: cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure, BMI, and several other numbers of forgotten nomenclature. Everything was basically spot-on ideal. The nurses were asking me for healthy lifestyle tips, and said that whatever I was doing I should keep doing it! I realize that’s partly just due to the fortunes of good genes and young age. But it certainly doesn’t make a case for a significant change in my diet.
4. No taste for meat
   I list this last one because it is a reason that vegetarians will often give. But it’s almost never really a cause for vegetarianism — it’s more of a self-perpetuating effect. After meat is avoided for an extended time, it becomes a foreign substance that is seen as unpleasant and unwelcome. Personally, I think it will take me a long time for me to reach that point, if I ever do.

So, after analyzing the traditional reasons for vegetarianism, I could say I’m sympathetic to the idea, but not anywhere near being ready to commit. However I do have another reason which is slightly non-traditional but fits me very well.

 

Unfortunately it’s late and I think I’ve written enough for today, so you’ll have to wait to hear about that in part two, coming in a few days. Then I’ll also have to take a look at the reasons not to be vegetarian, weigh the two sides, and see what I come up with.