Monday, December 17, 2018

Blogmas Day 17: Vegetarian for Over a Year

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. This will be a bit of a different post today. I wanted to share with you all that I have kept on with being vegetarian for over a year, 18 months to be exact. Since September 2017. The reason why I decided to go vegetarian was mostly for my health and after watching documentaries which I learned about how animals are treated in factory farms I was turned off eating them. Also a large part of why I am happy to vegetarian is for the ethical reason of not wanting to eat animals and wanting them to live.

Photo source 
Being a vegetarian is not easy at all and sometimes I even think of being vegan, when I am at home and then I go out into the world and realize how hard that would be for me, not saying it is impossible but it would be even tougher. Just because you have to cut out dairy which is in a lot of food products.

When you are vegetarian you get questions like "why don't you eat meat?" asked randomly, like your values are being questioned and you have to have conversations about not eating meat with meat eaters while they are eating meat which feels so awkward. Even after all of this it is still important and meaningful enough for me to keep going.

I don't really miss eating meat, only on occasions when I think it would make social situations less awkward, on holidays, or coming up with meal ideas seems difficult but there are so many alternatives that I feel like even as a meat eater, I sometimes had moments of wondering what to eat for dinner or lunch. I do have thoughts one and awhile about going back to eating meat and how it would be easier and why not just some of the time. But I feel like it would be a big decision at this point to eat it again even in small doses that I would have to be sure it was the right thing. But honestly, I don't feel the need to. I do eat fish sometimes but I still feel like I am vegetarian and Pescatarian (you only eat fish or other seafood) feels like vegetarian and is a form of vegetarianism.

I just went out for lunch with a friend who eats a limited amount of meat and shares a similar outlook and values as me on eating meat. We like to go to vegan festivals together and try out new vegetarian and vegan restaurants. There is a new vegan burger restaurant called Boon Burger in Oakville, and they also have locations in Burlington, and Hamilton which are all not far from Toronto. We went together this past weekend and I tried the burger for the first time and it was amazing! I also loved their poutine which was to die for. I have missed having poutine as well.

Delicious burger and vegan!

Yummy vegan poutine
I love how there are so many delicious options out there in restaurants now. The new A&W burger is so good I recommend trying it. I love going to a restaurant called Fresh and there are many locations in Toronto. There are so many restaurants in Toronto I have yet to try such as Doomies and I should try more of them.

My advice to you if you are thinking about going vegetarian is to watch the documentaries on Netflix like Forks Over Knives and Cowspiracy and more. I also watched Vegucated and Earthlings and those were so good but are not offered on Netflix.  Also I think it is good to learn as much as you can and educate yourself on reasons why it is good for you and also ethical reasons so when people ask you feel confident in your decision. Also to talk with other people or read blogs or watch YouTube videos to see that so many other people made this decision and what tips and recipe ideas they have to share. I recommend looking up James Aspey if you are interested in learning more, he is a passionate vegan and has some amazing informative and thought-provoking videos. Do not be too hard on yourself if you slip up with eating meat here and there, it is progress and you don't have to cut it out cold turkey, you can take baby steps to eventually cut it all out if that is what you would like to do. There are a lot of resources online about going vegetarian you can read guides. This article called The Beginner’s Guide To Going Vegetarian Without Getting Sick is very informative and helpful on knowing how to go vegetarian the healthy way.

Thank you for reading my blog post today and I hope that you join me again tomorrow for an update on my knitting and reading for blogmas day 18!

Have a great day!





1 comment:

  1. Interesting post. I have flirted with the idea. I am happy to eat meatless meals. My body seems to feel better on them. I know that the conditions for animals that reach our dinner plate are awful. I am not sure how I feel about that - but I do feel veggie choices are satisfactory for me. But I am married to a meat eater so I am still committed to buying meat products. But sometimes I make two meals so that we can each have what makes sense to us.

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