08 November 2009

World Vegan Day and my Epic Fail

November 1st was World Vegan Day.



The week prior to World Vegan Day, I did a pretty good job at eating vegan foods for three days, vegetarian for four days, and meat on one day. I thought that was pretty good.

And then I hit a wall!

I realize that its hard to stick to my dietary ideals since 75% of my meals are consumed at work. 15% are consumed by ordering, eating out, and grabbing on the go. 10% are consumed at home.

Those numbers may be a bit off but almost all my meals are eaten at work. Personally this is great because it cut my grocery bill beyond 50%! My place of employment is an excellent provider and takes care of its people. But perhaps I should start preparing my meals at home and bringing them to work if its really important to me that I cut down on my consumption of meat and pay closer attention to carbon footprint my food choices leave.


However, it's just so easy to grab a plate of whatever is in a conference room meeting whether its a vegetarian dish or spicy chicken basil. It's right there. And if I don't eat it, it will sit out and be thrown away and isn't it better to eat it than to have it spoil and be thrown away! (That's so un granola of me!)

It's the convenience factor. Its just right there. If my job didn't provide food, almost all of my meals would be vegetarian with some vegan things here or there.

I went to a Bears football game a week ago and that is where I had my epic fail. Without thinking I went for the hot wings, burgers, and salad with bacon bits. There was also italian beef and hot dogs and sausages. And I went to town. On World Vegan Day. Perfect day!!! :(

I ordered all that meat even though I took the time to order a vegetarian dish for a colleague who was only eating the fruit provided. If I had enough sense to notice that he was a vegetarian and then order him an appropriate meal...why didn't I do it for me?


I began to wonder if perhaps I didn't have a strong enough conviction to stand by my sustainable ideals. Some people are vegetarians for religious reasons, for environmental reasons, for animal right reasons, for dietary reasons, for traditional reasons. And they have been that way for years and have adapted to that lifestyle. But for me, if I'm somewhere where meat is the only option, while true vegetarians will opt out and wait till they go home to eat...I will just grab what's available and eat the meat. Where does that impulse come from? I'll have to figure that out another day.


While I do enjoy veggie burgers and veggie italian sausage and all that good stuff, I haven't come across a good vegetarian hot wing. After a simple google search I found two recipes that I am going to give a try.

2 comments:

Shelagh said...

I'm trying to figure out some of the same things... and doing a much worse job. It sounds like you are already eating a pretty vegetarian-heavy diet, whereas I'm still just dabbling in the veggie arts. But I still come up against that same feeling like "do I have to be a complete vegetarian or can I just eat less meat?" For me, I've decided to be ok with eating less meat (because my main motive is the environment) but I'm hoping that I can start gradually increasing the number of meat-free days. Is this going to be like those smokers who try to "cut back" - I really hope not!!

Anyway, don't get too down on yourself... you're inspiring me to try more vegan dishes!!

Sheena LaShay said...

I'll be posting the marathon food I cooked the other night to prep for my long week of tech rehearsals in theater and most of them recipes were vegan or vegetarian. I've never been a huge meat eater, nor most of the members of my family. My five year old sister is the one who when at a restaurant will say she wants, "meat." Not a hamburger or steak or something, just "MEAT!" So its never been a huge part of my diet. But I'm like you, while I probably won't be a full vegetarian, I'd like to have lots of vegetarian dishes, vegan dishes and even raw ones. I have yet to get to the raw dishes. Ugh. But thanks for the encouragement!