taking the me out of meat. mabes.

So it has been almost exactly one week since my last non-pescetarian meal. Soooo, the trial's over? But, perhaps surprisingly, I find myself at a loss for what to do now. I don't really want to stop but I don't know that I could really do this for the long haul.

Well, my reasons for doing it in the first place: curiosity, just for kicks (I guess I have to say that, since under my new no-swearing policy "shits and gigs" is verboten? FROWN.), just to see if I could, and a vague concern for my health. Well, also a vague concern for the negative environmental impact of the meat industry (I don't know the details per se, but I know it's bad. Like cow farts = methane etc. etc.). Maybe a teeny tiny piece of me is worried about animal cruelty and such, but I'm sorry to say, not a great part. I'm a stone-cold biznatch in that regard, maybe. If I get my little mind a-pondering about it, it's just very natural for animals to eat other animals, and humans are of course animals--so that checks out just fine.

I will admit though, that every once in a while I might be nibbling on a delicious fried chicken wing when it suddenly dawns on me oh my god I am nibbling the meat off of a dead animal's disembodied arm. And this is coming from someone whose favorite food for a long time was hot wings (before that, it was probably steak). Another example of meat bugging me out would be the time I was at the dining hall maybe a year ago. I started to dig into their veal parmesan, but was ultimately too freaked out that I was eating a poor baby cow. Although maybe if the parm was more delicious I might've been able to overcome this. I'm not sure.

Anyway, I mostly don't have qualms about eating meat. But, but I know that, at the very least, I should eat much less of it. Because, in this, er, one week journey I have come to realize that I have a bit of a problem (of course, a very Liz Lemon-y problem). My problem is that I eat sketchy foods a little too often (Liz Lemon eating cheesy blasters, anyone?), and in doses that are probably not acceptable. The fact is, these sketchy foods are always sketchy by virtue of their meat.

death in patty form

I mean, I just get this whirlwind visual of questionable sludge-looking containers of "chili"--that I devoured, avec tortilla chips, obviously--or a grocery store-bought package of supposed Jamaican beef patties that my roommate Agata and I shared, much to the horror of the other roomies. That whole affair was actually a riot because Agata and I were so enthralled to see the patties in the frozen food isle, so psyched to eat the first patties, and then so, so alarmed when mysterious hard objects were found in the "meat"(?). But because we were such TROOPERS, or rather, we paid good money for a whole box of ten, we continued to torture ourselves by harming our bodies and ingesting them. It was probably after enduring three of those demons that I heated one up, stared at it with pure loathing in my heart, and then immediately had to throw it in the garbage. Anyway, I've since moved out of the apartment but I've been informed that there is still totally a patty left in the freezer, if anyone is interested?

Well, point is, I was really flabbergasted, finally realizing this sad, sad fact about my eating habits. And once I've reached that point, I'd like to think and hope that I might be able to turn a corner. And so, pescetarian for a week. Now maybe what I really need to do is not say Nay to meats, but just be much smarter about what I do eat. But it felt right to go cold turkey on it. Because, honestly, I think I'm a "give an inch and I'll take a mile" type of gal when it comes to crap foods. It's easier to say NO MEAT, NO NO NO and have it be black and white, cut and dry, because as soon as the rule becomes more abstract ("don't eat... so much meat... and don't eat sketchy meat especially... so much" I'm worried I'd bust into a Chick-fil-a and go nom nom nom on a thousand nuggets. Their nuggets are so good, by the way.

It's a bit of an extreme example but it makes me think of Craig Ferguson talking about his past alcoholism, and how he realizes, as anyone should, that alcohol isn't inherently bad, you just need moderation... Yet he knows himself by now, and he knows that he personally isn't capable of moderation. "Just a glass" will inevitably multiply and before he knows it, he's waking up god knows where, soaked in his or someone else's urine. Um. My point being maybe I don't have the self-control to eat meat responsibly??

Oh, by the way, I chose to keep eating seafood because it is on the whole a lot healthier than them cows or chickens or pigs. Plus that leaves me with so many food options still, and I don't feel as tremendously constrained. Not to mention, shrimp and salmon and crab? Deliciousssss. No, I couldn't give that up.

All this said, I think maybe I'll just... try for another week of this. I'm already a little surprised at how relatively easy it's been (who would have thought that Shan could go longer not eating meat than not cursing? Yes, I've slipped on that just a few times, teehee) (but if you think about it, how much easier is it to accidentally say something than it is to accidentally put something in your mouth and swallow it?) There have been some struggles, forsooth, and I think my family is still weirded out by this change in me all of a sudden. But they've been pretty accommodating too; today they nearly bought fried chicken for themselves, and I was all melodramatically "please don't do that to meeee," which convinced them (I don't think I'm strong enough for that kind of temptation yet), and my mom has made a shrimp version of the Filipino dish sinigang (though it wasn't as good as the beef version, I admit). So yeah, it aint easy, but so far it's been doable.

Naturally though, to think of trying something like this in Germany, land of the Wurst... my soul weeps. And oh, those döner kebabs! My sweet darling döner. I would break any vow to eat one of those things right now. See, this raises the issue I have with cutting out meat... I feel like I am missing out on a lot of culturally important things. And I just can't do that. Can I? IT FEELS SO WRONG. Half of the allure of going off to foreign lands is to eat their specialties. But this is an issue I can ponder another time.

The döner kebab is proof that God loves us.

In other news, this picture is truly upsetting me.

One more week. And if I'm already feeling so much healthier, what will another week do for me (and my tummy--here's hoping)? Already the thought of eating meat again turns me off, just a little bit (if I picture a decapitated cow head with vacant eyes, it helps especially). In any case, I'm pleased to be trying something new, especially something that I thought I would never-in-a-million-years even test drive. It's exciting when you realize that what you are is simply what you think you are; it isn't set in stone. For the longest time I always thought of myself as this super-inactive lazy person, but then how is it I got into hour long running a year ago? Riddle me that.