Hi all, not many people read my posts but you know it's nice for me to have a place to put down my thoughts and if people want to read then so be it. This post is about my choosing to become a vegetarian, or at least a compromised version. When I graduated high school for a while I was a vegetarian, but quickly realized in college you ate salad, cheese pizza, and veggie burgers. There was not much else of a choice. I also didn't have much money to spend on food so I had to choose whatever the cafeteria had to offer. So I started eating chicken and then just ate whatever. A few years later down the road I geared myself up again and quickly dropped meat, but again I was hit with the staunch reality of limited food, limited knowledge of what was out there and a general laziness. I mean I really did not like eating salads for 2 meals a day and eggs or cereal in the morning. It was my own fault for not gaining the knowledge I could at the time. Really I didn't think to seek anything about being vegetarian, I just knew what I knew and went from there.
I wasn't armed with much ethnic food, Chinese food was fried chicken fingers, chow mein and fried rice. Italian food was pizza, pasta with red sauce, and typically the "italian" sandwiches we would get from the store. In Maine an Italian consists of meat (usually ham), American cheese, long cut dill pickles, white onions, tomatoes, and green peppers covered in salad oil all on a 12 inch or so white italian roll. They are good, everyone in Maine knows when you say Italian, you want this sandwich. Outside of Maine I realize they have many names: Hoagie, Grinder, Hero, Sub. The difference is the oil, the pickles, and the meat. Veggies always came from the ground and were mostly whatever came out of our garden. We never really strayed from the veggies we could grow. Typically (and I have written about this) they consisted of Peas, beans, beets, corn, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, cukes, potatoes squash, and zucchini. Most of these were cooked in the typical fashion, steamed with butter, salt and pepper. We ate meat with every meal, ham, hamburger in some form, or chicken. So this is what I knew. In Maine being a vegetarian typically meant you ate chicken and fish. It is a meat and potatoes state, almost literally since their big crop is well, potatoes. I knew I was a daring eater and always liked trying new foods, so I decided again to not eat meat and not eating meat isn't cheap, you would think it is since you aren't paying for the meat, but fresh produce is expensive for some reason, reasons which I have since learned.
I have read a lot of books and I have seen a lot of documentaries about the farmers in America and also where food comes from. I have watched Food Inc and King Corn all about the food in America. Also have read Omnivores Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. They all provided me with good info that I could arm myself with and what not. I have also read a lot of diet books and have read about different diets. They all seem to say the same thing, eat small meals with lots of whole foods. I mean its true. Veggies and fruits are good for you, and it doesn't matter how much you eat of them. Obviously the fruit sugar can add up but a balance is good. The meat on the other hand just seems a little out of place. I know where it comes from, I know how they are treated or can be treated. I have just come to the conclusion that I am over meat. I am over the fact of how the meat is treated and preserved. I feel that if I can shoot or kill my own animals I would eat them because then I would have been a part of that animals life. If I could raise and kill my own food I would, but until then, I will stick with raising veggies and learning how to do things that will help me survive if I need to. I know how to cook, fish, garden (we'll see,) knit, crochet, sew, make cheese, and other stuff.
So I guess my whole point was this time I am sticking to it, I am eating vegetarian with the exception of fish and unless I kill that deer or moose or raise my own chickens, I will let everyone else eat them.
Being the pretty hands-off type of guy I tend to be (let nature take it's course) I decided to let my garden do it's thing this year, and see what happens. A lot has happened, but I am sure a lot more could have happened. Here is an example. I did not follow the "gardening rules" by planting my broccoli 12 inches apart, or whatever I was suppose to do because well, I didn't have that much space, instead I did some kind of French gardening method where I kinda of bunched them all together. Look at that, broccoli. The same with the tomatoes. I bought four different plants hoping you know maybe one will grow, what do you know I have fruit on all four of the plants. I crowded my garden, so what, I have a yield, maybe it's not the best yield, but I did it and I put minimal effort into it. I made the beds, added the soil, added the plants and gave it water when it didn't rain, presto, fruits and veg.
