My Summer as a Vegetable

This past summer, I decided to challenge myself by being a vegetarian. Honestly, I’m a steak and potato girl. Beef burritos, sesame chicken, pork chops and applesauce, sign me uuup. Growing up, a meal wasn’t a meal without meat. So yeah, this would be a challenge.

Before getting into the logistics, let me give you a little background about why I decided to do it, and why I’m planning on doing it again.

It has been proven that vegetarians have healthier diets, when they do it correctly. Meat can vary in protein and fat content. Protein can be found in eggs and various plant sources and with a background in culinary I knew I’d have no trouble making up for the loss. Cholesterol, however, is found only in animal sources and can lead to multiple health issues if not properly monitored. (See “You Are What You Eat”)

My biggest challenge was probably eating at other people’s houses. I felt guilty turning down food, and felt like a burden when they would make me something special. I often turned down that offer and found something to eat that was already made. That generally meant a lot of potatoes and pasta, all of the carbs.

In order to keep a balanced diet, I had to make sure that I wasn’t replacing meat with more carbohydrates because that’s automatically the easiest thing to do. More pasta, more rice, more bread, why would I complain? Here’s a quick carb lesson- carbohydrates will break down into sugar. Sugar makes energy. Excess energy is turned into fat store. So, too many carbs will result in excess energy, which will be stored if not used and turn into fat. See, that was quick.

The type of vegetarian diet I chose is called Lacto-Ovo, this means that I was able to eat milk products and eggs. Doing so, I kept dairy (calcium), and some animal proteins in my diet. To replace meat, my protein came from a variety of sources such as beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, and tofu. The tricky part about protein is that it comes in many different pieces called amino acids. Amino acids literally build the structure of your body and some we even produce ourselves. Other amino acids that our body needs have to come from the food we eat. Animal-based proteins are the only source that will come with a complete set of all the body’s essential amino acids that we don’t make ourselves. In order to get a complete set of essential amino acids from plant-based sources, it is important to combine different foods throughout your day. For example, a handful of almonds in Greek yogurt, multigrain bread with peanut butter, hummus with sesame seed crackers and brown rice and beans.

By the end of the summer, I honestly felt really great. I felt like my meals were lighter, I wasn’t as weighed down after a meal, and the best part of all, I lost 5 pounds! I didn’t feel so weighed down after a meal, as I would if I had just had a cheeseburger. It also made me more conscious of what I was eating in general. If I wasn’t going to eat meat to be healthier, then why would I replace all of that fat with French fries and pizza? Not that I didn’t eat those things because I definitely couldn’t give that up, but I wouldn’t choose them as options all the time.

Overall, I would recommend vegetarian diets to people, especially those with heart and cholesterol issues. For my carnivores out there, this would be a big commitment, so start smaller. Meatless Monday is my favorite thing in the world, well at least top 5. I think it’s a great start to lowering cholesterol and risks for heart disease.

Keep checking back for plenty of vegetarian recipes throughout my next summer as a vegetable. I'll have some meat ones on there too ;)

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