Becoming vegetarian? Yeah, I kinda am...

If you had told me a year ago that I would be entertaining the thought of being vegan or seriously maintaining a mostly vegetarian lifestyle, I would have laughed at you. But here we are, early 2012 and I'm not missing meat as much as I thought I would.

Things all started back in October with us watching Fork over Knives. In the documentary, it talks about eating a whole foods, plant based diet. Now I was raised (probably like many of you) that a dinner was this: maybe a salad before the meal, then your starch, a veg, and a meat as the main event. So, this new way of thinking really seemed revolutionary. After the video, we decided as a household to give up meat for a month (Kristen and I also gave up dairy).

I had to change how I cooked. Thankfully, my roommate, Kristen Faroe was raised in California where they know how to do veggie diets well. We had lots of Asian dishes, curries and peanut sauces, Mexican foods, whole wheat pastas  etc, etc. At the end of the month, I found that I wasn't miserable and that I didn't miss meat as much as I thought I would.

Now we eat meat once or twice a week and we've incorporated dairy back into our diet (I love cheese, sorry vegans). I'm happy and I feel healthier. When you look at the rest of the world, they eat so much less meat and dairy than we do (and they're skinnier).  Plus, it's probably ethically responsible with the condition of many farms these days. When we do get meat, we try and buy organic/grass fed stuff; quality over quantity.

Now in comparison, last year I attempted a gluten free, heavy on the vegetables and meats diet..the blood type diet. I was pretty unhappy because there seemed to be so many restrictions with what I could eat and, frankly, so much meat wasn't doing it for me (I'm O positive). Now some people have had great success with this plan and that's great for them, but I couldn't do it.

So anyway, there is our food journey! If you want recipes or have questions please ask.

(I still splurge and make poppyseed chicken and mac and cheese sometimes, we all have our vices.)