My middle name should be changed from Lorraine to "Queen of Cognitive Dissonance!"
I swear that I am by far the worst vegetarian wannabe ever created.
I know why I don't want to eat meat. I've seen Peaceable Kingdom. I've watched Vegucated. I've watched Forks Over Knives. I'm a freaking nursing student. I get the health aspects and benefits of vegetarianism. I know what happens on factory farms. I see the evidence of it every day as the county directly to my south (which I drive through numerous times every week) is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. I see thousands of sick, scared, sadly abused chickens on flatbed trucks every month.
And still . . . I have not successfully transitioned to a plant based diet and had it last for any length of time.
Of course there are the usual excuses . . . and some of them are even true. I live in a rural area in Alabama where being a vegetarian is more difficult than it may be in some other areas. I live in the Deep South where cooking vegetables with some form of animal product is the norm (from pork fat to butter to cheese). I live in an area where people, by and large, are pretty hostile toward vegetarianism.
All of that is true. All of that does add a bit to the complications of being vegetarian in a decidedly omnivorous community.
My biggest problem seems to be that I am lazy as f*ck.
My kitchen is a mess. I hate menu planning and cooking. I'm not home as much as I'd like and my daughter now has school and a job so I'm often eating alone and I hate cooking for one. Which means eating out - and as I've already mentioned that is not a veg-friendly proposition where I live.
So I continuously cave to the convenience of eating just like everyone else. That leads me to feeling like a failure and that in turn leads me to feel like there's no point in continuing to even try.
Of course I go along my merry way doing the mainstream thing for a while and then my conscience wakes up again and prods me to try one more time. *Sigh*
I'm going to make a change for just one month. I am going to eat vegetarian for the month of October. I'm not trying to plan beyond that because it makes me feel overwhelmed. And perhaps if I manage to make it through one month I will feel some sense of accomplishment that might spur me on to another month.
This should be easier than this. It just should be.
Okay - bring on the 2x4s and the pitchforks.
I swear that I am by far the worst vegetarian wannabe ever created.
I know why I don't want to eat meat. I've seen Peaceable Kingdom. I've watched Vegucated. I've watched Forks Over Knives. I'm a freaking nursing student. I get the health aspects and benefits of vegetarianism. I know what happens on factory farms. I see the evidence of it every day as the county directly to my south (which I drive through numerous times every week) is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. I see thousands of sick, scared, sadly abused chickens on flatbed trucks every month.
And still . . . I have not successfully transitioned to a plant based diet and had it last for any length of time.
Of course there are the usual excuses . . . and some of them are even true. I live in a rural area in Alabama where being a vegetarian is more difficult than it may be in some other areas. I live in the Deep South where cooking vegetables with some form of animal product is the norm (from pork fat to butter to cheese). I live in an area where people, by and large, are pretty hostile toward vegetarianism.
All of that is true. All of that does add a bit to the complications of being vegetarian in a decidedly omnivorous community.
My biggest problem seems to be that I am lazy as f*ck.
My kitchen is a mess. I hate menu planning and cooking. I'm not home as much as I'd like and my daughter now has school and a job so I'm often eating alone and I hate cooking for one. Which means eating out - and as I've already mentioned that is not a veg-friendly proposition where I live.
So I continuously cave to the convenience of eating just like everyone else. That leads me to feeling like a failure and that in turn leads me to feel like there's no point in continuing to even try.
Of course I go along my merry way doing the mainstream thing for a while and then my conscience wakes up again and prods me to try one more time. *Sigh*
I'm going to make a change for just one month. I am going to eat vegetarian for the month of October. I'm not trying to plan beyond that because it makes me feel overwhelmed. And perhaps if I manage to make it through one month I will feel some sense of accomplishment that might spur me on to another month.
This should be easier than this. It just should be.
Okay - bring on the 2x4s and the pitchforks.
