stop eating meat

and I’m still a vegetarian.

I had a few near misses though. I ordered a dish with meat in at a resturant the other day. I ended up sending it back to the kitchen, although the mistake had been mine and they replaced it with another vegetarian meal free of charge… thank goodness for the kindness of strangers!

I was hopelessly embarassed though and sat cringing for about ten minutes. Luckily I was with an old school friend who is well versed in the kind of mistakes I make.

I’m not sure if sending the food back was the right thing to do though. I worry the food might have been thrown away in the kitchen, as I’d already spooned up a forkfull (but not put it my mouth) before realising the mistake.

If it had been untouched surely someone in the kitchen would have had it… I worked in a hotel kitchen before, and took practically lived off leftover untouched meals whenever I had shifts there. I really hope someone in the kitchen realised I hadn’t been eaten from and took it home.

It makes me sad to think the poor animal died in vain.

Being a vegetarian as an adult is really not the same as being a vegetarian whilst still in parental care. When I was a vegetarian the first time round I wasn’t responsible for shopping or cooking and it was much harder to forget my vegetarianism… my mum did all the remembering for me really (bless her)!

Now as an adult I have a whole cache of meat-eating shopping and resturant habits, which I need to unlearn. It’s taken time to realise that I can’t have a kebab anymore after a night out, I can’t use the MacDonalds coupons from the Metro to get a BigMac and fries for £2, and I can’t offer to finish my sister’s leftover chicken anymore after dinner.

Ok… so today I took the leap. Thought I might as well. New Years Day is good a day as any… or better perhaps, as it might be viewed as the cusp of something new, and a clear cut-off point from the past…

I thought ‘fresh new year, may as well start now’. And I did. I cooked at home today, and I took my portion out of the wok before I added the prawns to the dish I’d be serving to the others. It felt good and tasted good (although the prawns on the plates of the others did look very tasty too…)!!

Thought I may as well go the whole hog and not do any seafood or meat or chicken. Will still have eggs and milk though- and will make sure they are free range when I get my own place, as I can’t commit to that yet because I’m not the one getting most of the shopping at the moment…

Will also try to have soya milk whenever possible when I move later this month.

Very excited about this!! It’s feeling good and right already!!

I keep finding less and less justification for eating meat. It is not good for animals and not good for the environment. I don’t quite understand the effects of feeding grain to animals on people who are in need of food, but am appalled by the idea that food might be going to animals when people are hungry (although I love animals and don’t want to see them suffer either).