The Art of Zen Living

It’s been a little over a week since I began eating as a vegetarian.  I’m trying to find some downsides that really are downsides, but I’m not having much luck.  Yes, it makes it a little harder to go out - I went to Carrabba’s with my mom and my cousins, and there was only one thing on the menu that was vegetarian.  There were several fish dishes that I could have eaten under my “fish is OK” rule.  In practice, I don’t really like eating fish - at least not that often.  It feels like cheating.  In the 10 days I’ve been eating like a vegetarian, I’ve eaten fish twice, so I’ve been glad the option was there.  Having said that, I think that a large part of the reason for having to eat fish twice during the first week is simply a lack of experience on my part.  With a little more experience, I think I could have avoided at least one, and possibly both, fish entrees.

I am finding a lot of benefits.  I think it’s important to once again note that I’m not simply eating a vegetarian diet - you can eat nothing but cheetos, twinkies and Oreo cookies and say you’re a vegetarian.  In reality, you’re a “crapitarian”.  I’m looking for fresh vegetables, whole grains, and whole foods.  The less processing, the better.  Most of what grows out of the Earth, from what I can tell, tends to be healthy and good for us - it’s only when humans get a hold of it and start to process it that things start to get bad for us.  Sustainable practices is more of an environmental concern, but it’s something I try to stay aware of and support.

Here are my top five observations:

1) I’ve cut refined sugar almost completely out of my diet - and I don’t miss it.  There is an amazing variety of sweetness out there that you just can’t taste when you’re body is used to refined sugar.  The sweetness of an apple is different from the sweetness of a banana and neither of those are even close the sweetness of a tomato.  This isn’t news, we all know that.  What I didn’t realize is that there is a subtle sweetness to other things - eggplant has a hint of it, as do walnuts and pecans.  One variety of rice (Wehani) I found has a wonderful nutty sweetness to it.

2) Soy milk really can replace regular milk. I had my doubts about this.  Milk is used in so many different recipes I had this assumption that it had (like eggs or baking powder) certain properties that made it react a certain way when baked or cooked.  Seems like that isn’t the case.  So far, the only thing I’ve found is that in certain bread recipes you really have to let the bread cool all the way to room tempature before it tastes right.  If you eat it while it’s still warm, there’s a bit of a bitter after taste.

3) It’s worth taking the extra time to prepare your food. In the past, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make my life as busy as possible.  After all, if you weren’t a “Bisy Backson” then you weren’t Important Enough.  As it turns out, I’m quite Important Enough, and far More Busy than I’d like to be as it is.  While that’s a topic for another post, taking the time to prepare my food gives me a good reason to be too busy to be busy.  I get to stay home, make some wonderfulness that will be fed to myself and people I care about.  What’s more important than that?

4) I have total control over what goes into my body. Remember that old saying “you are what you eat.”?  Have you looked at the ingredient list on the back of some of your food items recently?  How about these: BUTYLATED HYDROXYANISOLE, OLIGOFRUCTOSE, FERROUS GLUCONATE and PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL?  Some of them are safe, some are not - can you tell the difference?  Me neither.  I love products that have lists like this: “Corn.  Water.”  I can identify BOTH of those, and I know that NEITHER of them are bad!  Way to go me!

5) The number of foods, flavors and textures out there are just awesome. Eating right sure is expensive, isn’t it?  Or, that’s what the marketing department at the food conglomerates want us to think, anyway.  Takes more time and money than we have!  I haven’t found that to be the case at all.  Packaged foods are expensive, yes.  To make a healty version of chemically prepared foods isn’t cheap.  But if you’re eating whole foods, you can do eat very well on a reasonable budget.  I started looking around an noticing things I’d tried but forgotten (friend plantains - YUM!) and things I’d never noticed before (Wehani rice) as well as things I’d laughed about in the past (tofu, as it turns out, is great because it’s bland - one night it’s asian, then next, cajun!).

BONUS: I’ve also realized that this is a low fat, low GUILT diet. If you want to get an idea how much guilt you have about what you eat, carry a note pad with you for just two or three days, and every time you think “I shouldn’t have eaten that”, make a little hash mark.  In the past 9 days I’ve made 2 hash marks - once I went a little crazy with the almonds, and the other time I went a little over board with the plantains.  Neither of which are even really “guilt” foods!