On food...and meat.

Before I begin, let me offer my disclaimers and qualifiers to this post.

I was not supposed to turn out this way. I’m a quarter Italian and I’ve grown up in Carroll County. There are a lot of cows here. My father (through which my Sicilian blood is filtered) has a special place in his heart (and stomach) for red meat. My mother thinks chicken has its own corner in the food pyramid.

And this is why I am embarrassed and appalled to announce I’ve become a vegetarian.

Well, kind of a vegetarian.

(Let me pause to reiterate that I think vegetarians are weird. They never eat burgers at cookouts or turkey on thanksgiving. They make people cook them separate dishes without meat. It’s just strange. And now I’m one of them.)

Let’s back up. In March 2009, a professor recommended to me the book Skinny Bitch, so I read it. I had a mixed reaction of horror and skepticism. There was no way I would ever stop eating meat, but there were some legitimately nasty things occurring in the processing of beef, pork, poultry, etc. I pushed them out of my mind, my mom started buying eggs from local farmers, and we all felt better about ourselves.

August 2009. I randomly run off to a foreign country in the Caribbean, where my diet changes drastically in a lot of ways:

A) I start eating way more fruits and vegetables. They’re cheap and easy to get.
B) I eat less in general. We’re poor, so my snacking habits all but disappear.
C) Everything I eat is prepared via propane stove, thus breaking my dependence on the microwave.
D) I eat significantly less meat because I don’t know where it’s from, I don’t trust my cooking skills, and I don’t trust my cleaning skills.

The result of this is that I had more energy, felt better, and lost weight. I said to myself, hm, there might be something to this whole not-eating-meat thing. I decided when I went home I would try to continue this little experiment.

Meanwhile, I discovered that one of my favorite novelists, Jonathan Safran Foer, had delved into the realm of nonfiction by publishing a book on…eating! Specifically, eating animals. I’m not done with it, but it pushed me over the edge into a tofu-eating vegetarian.

Foer is about to become a father when he starts to think about his own dietary tendencies, and decides to look into the food industry to help him decide what to feed his son and how to raise him.

My family members aren’t pets people; we’ve had them, but my mom has never liked them. That said, we aren’t huge into animal protection or anything. But even I cringe at the inhumane circumstances the author found. Not only that, but the entire process that our meat has to go through from “moo” to “yum” is pretty disgusting. I thought I could be safe eating chicken from time to time, but after what I’ve read, there’s no way.

But Natalie, you say, what about protein? You need your protein! Yes, yes I do; and that’s why I eat eggs and black beans. What else you got? What about your absolute favorite dish of all time, Cheesecake Factory’s Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp? Well, yes, there is a good possibility that I will eat that. You did notice I said a kind of vegetarian.

What I mean by kind of vegetarian is that I think I will occasionally eat meat. If I’m a guest at someone’s house and that’s what they serve, I will eat it. If there are ribs at a barbecue, I could be tempted.

But for the foreseeable future, consider me sold to the dark side. Make fun of me all you want, but I'm still eating my garden burger.