You are what you eat. I have heard this saying time and time again yet, it has never meant anything until now. Over summer break I made it a goal of mine to research the importance of diet in heath. I watched several documentaries including Food Inc, Food Matters, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, Fork over Knives, and several others. I also went to the library to find books on the topic and found that my library was very limited. Some books I did find were The Food Revolution, Natural Cure “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, Skinny Bitch, Eat to Live, and a few others.
At the end of the summer, in an attempt to add more fresh fruits and vegetable to my diet, I decided to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. I can’t deprive myself of anything or else that will be the only thing I want. To avoid cheating I have told myself that if I have a serious craving and want meat, then I can eat it. Otherwise, I would cut meat out as much as possible. The most shocking part is that I was able to convince my husband to do it as well. He really didn’t have much of a choice because I do all the cooking but I was very proud he made the decision on his own. So far we haven’t eaten meat in 3 weeks! I think we deserve gold stars.
The hardest part about the switch hasn’t been living without meat. In fact, I don’t even crave it anymore! The worst part is explaining my decision to all my friends and family. Our society is so used to eating meat and dairy products that most people think it is unhealthy if you don’t. Interesting right? I find myself having to explain my decision to everyone and it's getting annoying. Hopefully that aspect of the switch will die down over time.
I agree with your decision to try to live a healthier lifestyle and I have many times thought about going vegetarian myself. However, I know that cutting meat out of your diet means having to replace it with something else. There are of course tofu and bean products to give you the proteins you need but I think the biggest mistake a lot of people do once they decide to become vegetarian is that they start eating more and more carbohydrates instead. If so, the “healthy decision” to convert to vegetarianism actually makes you less healthy and you lose much needed protein.
ReplyDeleteNow of course I’m not saying this happens in all cases and I am sure a lot of vegetarians are great at handling their diets, but I also know that you really don’t have to cut meat out completely to stay healthy since there are some meat that are very good for us (fish, chicken, and turkey for example) and a lot of meatless food that is really bad for us.
"You are what you eat. I have heard this saying time and time again yet, it has never meant anything until now"
ReplyDeleteExplain this more. Surely you are not a vegetable now, right? I'd like to hear what significance the adage has found in your life.