Going Veggie (the vegetarian’s perspective)

When I went vegetarian when I was 15, it was the easiest decision in the world, and just as easy to carry forward into my life. Okay, so I had to put up with the constant, stupid, insufferable jokes (“Does that mean you can’t eat cock?” “If God didn’t intend for us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat!” etc) and the parents telling me off for not eating what they were having, but, food wise, it was simple. I had never been a big fan of meat anyway, so cutting it out of my diet completely was simple. It got harder when I cut out all meat derived products like gelatine, rennet and cochineal, but after a bit it got easier.
My diet expanded from pie and tates (my Mum’s staple creation) and I began to eat spag bol, chilli con carne, lasagne, random Quorn dishes I discovered on the internet.
I wasn’t under any illusions about how difficult it would be when Wayne, my meat-eating boyfriend, went veggie for a week, though. One of the things he said last year, before we were dating, was that he could never date a vegetarian – “I like meat too much!” (Haha. Yeah, sure, Wayne...)

As explained in his blog, his week-long vegetarianism was a consequence of him losing a (horrible and really kind of mean) bet. Apparently, there’s a curse on him; when a girlfriend meets his mum, they split up within 6 weeks. And so he bet that we would do the same.
He lost, and the vegetarianism began last Thursday.
The first meal that he had was supposed to have been cooked by yours truly, but somehow I managed to wriggle out of it and get him and Kain to cook it for me. It was a sausage hotpot using some tomato and leek sausages (Tesco was out of the Quorn ones), beans, tomatoes and onion. It was quite yummy. I don’t think I would be able to eat lots of it, but as it cooks for 6 and we were dividing it between 3 people, I wouldn’t really, anyway. The best thing about the meal was the chips Kain had made. They were absolutely delicious!

The best food came from either Limes Restaurant in Derby, or, strangely, the random café in Drayton Manor. Wayne agreed that both of them were pretty damn delicious, and are things that he wouldn’t usually have eaten. So, although he didn’t enjoy his week of veggie-ness (“bland” was his word of the week), it did open his eyes to the massive world of food that exists beyond pepperoni pizza, and I suppose that’s one thing. It did the same thing for me too – I had become rather set in my ways, eating the same things and not trying anything new. My diet basically consisted of nothing, spag bol, pizza, and veggie burgers and chips.
I hope that it also opened his eyes to the difficulty vegetarians have when buying food, eating out, and even when hanging around people who eat meat. Meat by-products have got into almost everything, ruling out chocolates and desserts, sweets and cakes, and soups and cheeses. When you go out, not everything is marked, so you have to go through everything, checking to make sure there’s nothing bad in there. And there’s the fact that very few restaurants have a wide range of meals suitable for vegetarians.

So…yeah, I think some good things have come out of it for both of us. And I am very proud of him for sticking with it for the whole week, even despite my not being at his house to keep an eye on what he’s been eating for several days.