Vegetariana: Part One

I don't eat meat.



It's true. I became a vegetarian about 6 months ago. What on earth prompted you to do such a thing? I'm not entirely sure. I have a few hypotheses but I'm no scientist. All I know is that I gradually lost my taste for meat.

A little over two years ago, I had an epiphany. I decided to look at the wrapper of my granola bar because I wanted to know what exactly I was putting into my body. Okay, that's legit. Well, it turned out that I didn't know over half the ingredients. What exactly was I putting into my body? Eating food should not be rocket science. So I decided to eat whole foods as often as I could. Are you talking about that over-priced market in La Jolla that sells fresh edible flowers? What are you, some kind of tree-huggin' hippie? Ha! Sadly, no, not at all. Whole foods, defined by the source of champions, Wikipedia, would be:

"...foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients, such as sugar, salt, or fat. Examples of whole foods include unpolished grains; fruits and vegetables; unprocessed meat, poultry, and fish; and non-homogenized milk"

Okay, my mom would have a fit if I drank non-homogenized milk, so I don't. But I do consume organic dairy as often as I possibly can. Yeah, yeah but who cares if something is processed right, I mean, aren't there government regulations out there to ensure we don't eat stuff that could harm us. Do you really trust the government to have your back? Do you really think the government has YOU and your health in their best interest. Unless you are the sole financier of every congressional candidate's next campaign, no, no you don't matter to them. {Hey, I'm disillusioned, remember?}



So back to my story. I gradually lost my taste for meat. I started backing off red meat, so cows mostly. Then dark pork and chicken meat. Then it was chicken and finalmente, fish got the axe too. In all honesty, I think I lost my taste for it because I could taste all the additives and the way it was processed. Gross. And I think the only way I could tell is 1.) I already had avid taste buds to begin with (I'm a foodie for sure) and 2.) I was on this whole foods diet for over a year. It was at about the year mark I started "noticing" my meat tasted funny but tortured myself with it anyway. Finally I gave in and gave it up.



And there you have it. I wish I could say I'm a vegetarian for a noble reason like "I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint" or "I really, really love animals and disagree with the way they are raised to be slaughtered" but no, I just lost my taste for meat.



Believe it or not, the same thing happened to my Dad and he's been a veggie for over 10 years now. He was eating whole foods way back before it was even popular. I'm not kidding, he was probably the first in line at the new Trader Joe's in Valencia. He even used to tell my teenage body-conscious self that drinking his organic whole milk wasn't going to make me fat. {For the record, I drink 1% and not because I think I'm fat.} In addition, many of my whole foods foodie friends eat little to no meat as well. So I don't know, maybe there's a connection {or maybe not} to the eating-whole-foods-and-loosing-your-taste-for-meat-thing.

Hmmm...I think someone should turn this into a thesis. Anyone need an idea to research? Because I'm no scientist. I'm just a vegetarian.