Day Without Meat #1, erm, #2.
Dear World,
Days one and two without meat passed with less incident than I intitially thought they would. Thank God for Boca Burgers and veggie burritos. So far, I don’t miss meat all that much, though I did smell meat cooking when I walked by the Uptown Diner and nearly started sobbing.
After two days, I am feeling better. Really. I have more energy. Yay! I really think it’s been 29 years since I’ve gone multiple days without meat. Wow. My fear is this. So far I’ve only eaten Boca and veggie burritos. That might get really old as this week goes on. The other problem, or reason I feel better? There is NO fast food form of meatless snacks. Fuck that. That may be my undoing.
Keep me in your thoughts as I continue with this stupid experiment in eating better.
Mike, you haven’t even jumped into the world of lentils yet. Once you get to that point, your options start getting old.
On a more helpful note, tofu in stir fry isn’t bad at all.
Your Boca burgers are a placebo. They are tricking you into thinking you feel the greatest you have felt in years. It’s not the meat. It’s your head. Just confess – you are reading “Skinny Bitch.”
If you decide to continue feeding your head with anti-meaty lies, Taco Bell is veggie friendly fast food. Double the beans and take off the meat.
As I was peer pressuring you to eat soup last night, I neglected to remember or tell you that it had delicious chunks of succulent chicken in it. Sorry for making this difficult you, but that soup was GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.
When I tried the vegetarian thing a few years back it forced me to learn to cook different types of food. I had the most luck with Indian cuisine – tons of flavor with all the spices made it pretty satisfying. I now put cumin, turmeric, and fennel in everything.
And then I broke down and went back to steak.
Mike, I have spent the majority of the past 20 years as a vegetarian, and I assure you there are snacks you can eat! Taco Bell is indeed heaven sent, and Burger King has a veggie burger as well! Don’t forget sammies from Subway, and Davanni’s hot veggie hoagie is really, really good! Not to mention all the pizza you can eat sans meat, pasta, falafel (YUM!), Thai food (with veggies and/or tofu), etc. YOU CAN DO IT!
Gimme Lean Veggie Sausage is delicious and easily goes into Hamburger Helper things, which are easily transportable and microwaveable. Yay! I’m so proud of you, Mike!
Thanks guys!
Except for Kelly, who obviously wants me to fail.
Morningstar farms makes yummy spicy black bean burgers, they also make pretty good ‘chicken’ fingers and nuggets. The best part is they’re all microwavable! For fast food, Chipotle does the veggie burrito thing and guac’s included, guac! Yum! Beware the pinto beans though, they have bacon. Guac though! Focus on the guac! It’s fatty and delicious like meat, but not meat! I also generally find that large quantities of cheese in things tend to help hide a lack of meat.
Mike, I go vegetarian for lent every year…trust me, I feel your pain. I end up eating a lot of pasta and cheese to substitute…although, like all good Catholics, I eat fish.
Noodles (& Company) has some great vegetarian dishes in addition to the other suggestions.
I don’t want you to fail, Mike. I am merely enabling your inevitable cheating. This is what girls do when someone starts a diet. “Just have a small triple fudge brownie. It won’t even count.”
Mini burgers from Lurcat – think about it. It doesn’t count.
Kelly, you are a monster.