RickSpace

Andrew Hill who is a never-ending source of topics for me has inquired as to why exactly I have a policy of not eating things that once had a heartbeat/were living but now are not. That’s my way of expressing vegetarianism as I understand and embrace it.

Information

There are many types of vegetarians, but NONE of them eat meat… that means no shellfish, no fish, no chicken, nothing like that. It’s meat because it was an animal and therefore it is contradictory to a non-animal diet. But, here are some of the recognized types, in the order of most common to least (and funny enough, in order of least strict to most, heh):

1. Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian - Eats Eggs and Dairy products, probably doesn’t think a whole lot about other animal products and animal-tested products. The focus here is, you don’t eat things that have ever been alive. This is where I spent the longest time thus far being a vegetarian.
2. Lacto Vegetarian - Same as #1, drop the eggs, because they had the definite potential of becoming an animal.
3. Total Vegetarian or Vegan - Does not consume or use animal products of any source. Whereas the first two are mostly diet-based, this is usually a lifestyle choice. Leather is out, fur coats out, animal-tested drugs and cosmetics are out, etc. One of the many reasons for this strict adherence is that dairy cows are frequently kept in horrible conditions (the alternative of death would be a kind release), as well as chickens for producing the eggs. Obviously testing drugs on animals to see whether they lose their mind, die, etc isn’t the best for the animals either, and becoming a leather seat or fur coat isn’t in the animal’s best interest either.
4. Raw Foods Vegetarian - No foods cooked over a certain temperature (somewhere from 92 to 118 degrees Fahrenheit, depending upon whom you ask)… many Raw Foodists still eat meat, just not cooked above those temperatures, but there are Raw Vegetarians/Vegans.
5. Macrobiotic Vegetarians - Consume only seasonally available locally grown organic products… mostly just whole grain cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruit, seaweed, and fermented soy products. There is a further spiritual belief in balancing the yin and the yang (to over-simplify, the sweet and the salty) while never consuming foods that are extremely yin or yang.

My wife and I are currently somewhere between 2 and 3 with her closer to 3 than I am. I still eat some dairy because I friggin’ love cheese, but I have found that it doesn’t treat my body too well since I’ve gotten off of my constant diet of it. By and large though, we eat grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and soy products and that is absolutely all; it’s a wonderfully simple and yet taste-filled diet. I find now that before I dropped meat, everything I ate was meat-flavored.

Okay, so our reasons for deciding to become vegetarians:

At the time, all we decided was that we would stop eating red meat because of my blood pressure. As a 25 year-old soon-to-be-father, I had a resting blood pressure of 180/140ish I believe it was. It was ridiculously high, especially the diastolic (bottom number) indicating likelihood of a stroke. I was eating red meat 1-3 meals per day, with the other 1-2 meals being other meat… almost always fried, usually with some sorta gravy or sauce, and generally with a side of… well… meat… or french fries. So that was my diet. We dropped red meat and immediately noticed that we were eating chicken/turkey 3 meals a day, every day, and for snacks. This is not overly healthy either; you can eat healthy amounts of white meat, but I cannot. The way my personality is, if meat is in my diet, it is in every meal, so without red meat, it was white meat every meal. So less than a month after dropping red meat, we dropped red meat.

In about a 3 month period I dropped 30 lbs and went down to a 140/100 resting bp. That’s still on the low end of dangerously high, but it was with no diet change and no other effort other than not eating meat. Now, over a year later, I have basically maintained that weight with no exercise, and am at like 120/80… Diastolic is still on the high end of safe, but systolic is pretty well perfect. I should have been exercising as well, but to me, this proves the power that my meat-based diet had over my health.

Now that I was a vegetarian, I still ate eggs and dairy products, and that was fine with me, but eggs did start to bother me. Some of the ’sentimental’ reasons for becoming a vegetarian had started to take hold. Regardless of the importance you put on an animal’s life, it feels pain (they scream/cry when injured/being killed), it recognizes its own (our dogs know us from other humans and each other from other dogs, and all social animals group together and have social dynamics when interacting with other groups) and are overall just not as far behind us as we like to pretend. The idea of putting an animal through immense pain and discomfort in being raised in a factory, shipped roughly to a slaughter house and then… slaughtered… just so I could enjoy a burger…. it makes me sick now that I was okay with this for so long. If you take that background for context, and add to it that I’m firmly pro-life, I think you will understand why eggs started to become a problem. I was eating a potential animal whose parent was put through the pain of living in a coop. Basically, eating scrambled chicken fetuses didn’t appeal to me any longer.

Dairy has been harder and is still a process. We are very close to being dairy free and the only time we’re not is when we go out to eat and even then Shaina pretty much is (because of lactose intolerance) and I try to avoid it if possible. With dairy it’s the fact that in cheeses and such, fat and cholesterol are still so high, and you are in fact eating/drinking the mammary secretions of another species… that bothers me as well.

The path to vegetarianism (and still on the path to veganism) was made easier by the fact that you can eat VERY well with no animal products. We eat Chinese take out, Thai food, select Mexican food (qdoba/moes southwestern grill are good places for this), Italian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, etc… we eat whatever we want. We make Tacos/Taco salad by just using TVP (textured vegetarian protein) instead of ground beef… everyone who has tried this has told us it’s indistinguishable from beef tacos. I make an alfredo sauce that is arguably identical to Olive Garden’s that is HEAVY in dairy products… recently I made an attempt at making it vegan, and it turned out fantastic. We have such a wider variety of flavor in our diet now that I truly never miss meat anymore.

Andy has asked before that I share some recipes, so I plan to post some of our favorites here in the coming days. I can’t guarantee all are healthy, but I can honestly say they are lower in fat and cholesterol than their meat/dairy twins.

So, in short, I have the diet I have because I love animals, had a health problem corrected BY my diet, eat more varied more flavorful dishes since starting this diet, and overall feel much better about myself while on this diet. It has become a lifelong diet decision/commitment for myself, Shaina, and Shiloh until she is old enough to decide for herself and by then, hopefully she will decide not to eat animal products but that will be for her to decide.