Leaning Vegetarian

I blinked, and all of a sudden, it’s August.

We’ve been leaning vegetarian for a month now, and while there are certainly some changes, it’s been surprisingly smooth. Or, at any rate, as smooth as daily life usually goes.

The six things I have noted about this month:

1) It’s not as expensive as I expected.

The largest expense this month turned out to be meat – we found a source for antibiotic-free, pasture-raised, humanely treated beef for our carnivores that was rated as “best steak I’ve had in 20 years”. Flour, rice, quinoa, tempeh is less expensive than an equivalent serving of meat, and we had snow peas, tomatoes, carrots, and mustards out of our garden. A bigger bump in the finances was caused by spices and condiments. There were a number of things – garam masala, more cumin and chile powder, allspice, Bragg’s aminos, nutritional yeast – that weren’t yet in the pantry. These shouldn’t be a monthly expense though.

2) I’ve lost nine pounds.

I’ll admit it; I have a soda pop habit. I can give up coffee, and I can cut down pop, but I feel particularly deprived without the fizz. I wound up cutting back (more due to finances and time than intent) but I certainly didn’t concentrate on avoiding pop, or chocolate, or pretzels.  The grain- and legume-based dishes seemed to be more filling than I expected, so I had the benefit of both lower calorie and more sustaining meals, so I was less likely to crave something at 3 pm.

3) The prep does take a significant time investment.

I need a large chalkboard in the kitchen with my intentions for the week. Then I’d actually remember that to have hummus for lunch on Monday, I’ll not only have to prep it Sunday, but I’ll have to soak chickpeas Saturday night.  And even for plain old daily fare, the chopping and cutting also takes time, so fewer of the dishes are suited to dashing in at 8 pm for dinner at 8:30 without planning well ahead.

4) The meat-eaters get grumpy if we have fancy food and they get hamburgers.

This is all my fault. I admit that we’ve gotten carried away with ‘ooh, new stuff – watch this with this new unusual ingredient’ while fixing something pretty basic B-flat for the guys. That’s not fair. Time to break out the better recipes again and make sure I’m not skimping on the equal time.

5) Discount beef really loses its appeal.

I wasn’t expecting to lose my taste for meat. I’ve never been a big fan of ground beef: it’s kinda OK in tacos, but shredded is so much better. But after a month of mostly vegetarian dishes, some shrimp, some fish, a dab of that excellent steak, the economy ground beef at the supermarket is, first, flavorless, and second, seems to have a strange consistency. I knew that it had far too much water in it when it would boil on its way to frying, but it’s completely stopped tasting and feeling like food.

6) We need better leftover logistics.

But, y’know, leftovers make you feel good twice. Did you ever think about that?
When you first put them away, you feel really intelligent: “I’m saving food!”
And then, after a month, when hair is growing out of them and you throw them away you feel really intelligent: “I’m saving my life!”
- George Carlin

This one is a little hard for me to quantify – I’ve never been great at using leftovers creatively, or in anything approaching a timely manner. I tend to be like Carlin’s Ice Box Man above. I know it’s most efficient to make a big pot of beans, or boil a good dollop of quinoa, and store it for later. I know the tempeh freezes well (and this is where the solution to #3 lies) and I’ll need to plan ahead here as well, and keep an eye on all those miscellaneous containers in the fridge.

On to month two! Thanks for reading.