Monday, August 01, 2005

Let's Meat in the Middle

Before I left for Korea I was a vegetarian. Shortly after I arrived in Korea I realized that maintaining that lifestyle was going to be very difficult if not impossible. I started eating meat, telling myself it was the culturally sensitive thing to do, and promised myself that I would return to being veggie as soon as I could. Chiang Mai is a vegetarian's dream. Every restaurant offers vegan, vegetarian and macrobiotic options and I haven't had a single one (not entirely true...we had some great fallafels). I have found that I really love eating meat. I used to always tell people how easy it was to replace meat with non-meat alternatives and how usually you couldn't even tell the difference. That's true. But I have yet to see a decent soy replacement for a big juicy steak. What am I to do? Part of me thinks that I should go back to being veggie and do what I know is the right thing for the environment, the food market and the third world. The other part of me can't wait to get home and bite into my Mom's famous roast chicken and some Tim Horton's chili. So, I've decided to launch a campaign. Well, David Suzuki launched it...I'm just advertising it. Eat one meat-free meal a week and help Caroline live guilt free. I figure if I can convince six other people to eat veggie for one day a week then that should equate to one full-blown vegetarian and relieve me from duty.

That way I can have my steak and eat it too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't think I'll ever be a full vegetarian -- I just love chicken too much, and I can't eat soy products (they really don't agree with me, in any form). But I do try to eat meat-free sometimes, and I almost completely avoid red meat, so I do pretty well.

So I'll eat at least one meat-free meal dinner a week for you, and that means that Dan will also be eating one meat-free meal a week (since I'll be cooking it). There's two!

I wish it wasn't so expensive to buy organic meat. There's a Whole Foods near my apartment, and all the meat looks so damn good, but I can't afford to eat like that all the time. I wish I liked tofu.