jayfurr | Lent

I'm not a religious man, although at times I think of myself as a spiritual man. I'm also deeply sentimental in many ways. Don't even get me started about how much I like furry and feathery little critters. I feel guilty if I see that my birdfeeders have gone empty and birds are hanging around looking woeful wondering where the chow is. I've gone out barefoot in the snow to refill a birdfeeder so the birds wouldn't have to wait until after I've had my morning shower and gotten dressed. If I ever saw a woodchuck get hit by a car on my way to work and struggle away, slightly injured, I'd probably stop and see if there was anything I could do for it. I'm sort of peculiar that way. (Never mind the one time years ago that someone arrived at a party in Durham, NC and told us that they'd seen a recently-struck-by-car deer lying dead by the side of I-40 and I whimsically said "Hey, let's go pose for pictures with it!" -- and did so. Sometimes I confuse myself with the stupid-ass things my reptilian hindbrain tells me to do.)

Despite that, I've never made much of an effort toward vegetarianism. I guess it's partly to do with the distancing effect of letting the killing take place far, far away in distant slaughterhouses and it's partly due to the ubiquity of meat in our culture. If I leave a customer's office at 5 pm, having skipped lunch again, and decide to stop off at a fast food restaurant for a quick bite on the way to my hotel, it's not real often that I'm going to have a lot of vegetarian options to choose from. I shrug and get a hamburger.

But I've decided to actually give it a try for the next six weeks. Starting on Ash Wednesday, I've given up meat. Since I don't eat fish or any kind of seafood to begin with, I'm not weaseling and saying "Ah'm givin' up meat -- but pass the catfish and tater tots!"

I've got various vegeburger options at home -- faux ground beef, vege-franks, chik'n bits, etcetera, in cans at home, the result of a buying splurge when I found out they were orderable from Amazon.com and could even be bought at a 15% discount if you 'subscribed' to them. Amazon never cares if after the initial order shows up you cancel your 'subscription', so it's like, hey, free 15% discount.

The vege-franks are sort of weird, not really that much like real hot dogs, but if you put a little mustard on them they're actually OK. The chik'n bits are, however, surprisingly good -- add them to a recipe that calls for chunks of chicken and you scarcely know the difference. But best of all is the faux ground beef -- it comes in a can, slightly moist in a big cylindrical hunk, without any pre-added spices so you can use it wherever you'd use ground beef. Add it to chili or sloppy joe mix or whatever and you'll never know you're not eating the real thing. And even though we're trying like mad to save money while Carole's unemployed, I've ordered a couple more products to help me through Lent: chik'n bits and 'fried chik'n' (think "fake chicken nuggets").

I'll readily grant you that fake meat out of a can isn't going to be to most people's liking, but it works out a lot cheaper than going to a local organic/vegetarian-oriented grocery and buying a la carte, and again, I find these weird Frankenfoods surprisingly palatable once I stop thinking of them as 'meat' and accept them for what they are. (And again, if you do the 'subscribe' option, Amazon gives you 15% off the listed price.)

I'm also hoping that skipping meat and trying to eat a vegetarian, salad-oriented and fake-meat-oriented diet will help me lose weight. Now, if I can just fight the urge to make up a big bowl of pasta or couscous to have with dinner each night that I'm at home... :)

For the morbidly curious, here are the items I referenced above.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I've lost almost 60 pounds eating bacon and steak.

Good for you.

I'd find that a very boring diet.

Not just bacon and steak. There's also butter!

Jes' keep puttin' them beans on the table & you'll eat good!

Nice post. I really like however you've combined this with a spiritual endeavour.

I lean towards being a pescetarian (i.e., fish and vegetable matter) but like yourself I eat furry and feathered critters with, ahh, some regularity. Sometimes because I love cooking and sometimes just because it's what's available..

Maybe I'll try this out too..

I love cooking too. But I've got to train myself out of the mindset that all cooking projects start with a big hunk of some form of meat. :)

Good luck if you decide to give this a try.

I commend you for your efforts, and and the reasoning behind them. I couldn't do it, though. I barely eat vegetables to begin with, and just love meat way too much. And, I have visited a slaughterhouse, and witnessed the butchering of pigs and cows for meat, and watched my daddy wring the neck of a chicken from my Uncle's backyard for Sunday dinner. More than once. And never once has it affected my penchant for being a meat eater. Not even the thought of the cute and cuddly bunny that my hassenpfeffer was previously, or the soft brown eyes of the Bambi that now graces my plate, all yummy and tender and delicious is enough to curb my appetite and yearning for good ol' meat, whether domesticated or wild game or fowl or game bird, fish, crustaceon, mollusk, or whatever it is. I'd venture a guess and say that I can count more different types of meat I eat than there are vegetables I'll eat. LOL! I'd starve to death on a vegetarian diet. :P

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