Vegetarians - Meat is not the only source of protein

Vitamins

Minerals

Training and Diet

Dietary Mistakes

Is salt intake necessary during effort?

Vegetarians - Meat is not the only source of protein

by Rebecca Moore

At Christmastime last year I went out to dinner with a bunch of people from work. I sat studying the menu while the waitress took everyone's order. When she got to me, I asked if I could order the chef's salad without the meat.

As soon as she left I faced a semicircle of icy glares. Immediately the attack began:

"Don't you wear leather shoes?" (No.) "Don't you eat eggs?"(Yes. As well as milk and cheese to make sure I get enough calcium.) "So you think you're healthier than we are?" (I hope!) "What about the poor little vegetables you're murdering?"

The sarcasm and defensiveness were unbelievable.

I've been a vegetarian for more than eleven years, so I've run into this kind of hostility a lot. But I've never thought that being a vegetarian made me into some sort of higher being. Nor that it automatically made me healthier than everyone else -I still have to be careful to eat properly balanced meals.

Not all of us vegetarians are "out to get" meat eaters. I and a lot of other vegetarians don't try to impose our views on others. I think it's about time carnivores out there stopped getting on our case about our getting on their case.

I became a vegetarian when I was eight-because of camp food. The vegetarians at camp got special homemade dishes, while the rest of us ate gray sloppy joes that came straight from the can. I was never a huge vegetable fan, but I was raised with some respect for my stomach-and I'd have token anything over those rubbery turkey sandwiches.

Then I started taking care of the chickens, rabbits, horses, goats, and salamanders that I was surrounded by for the first time. After only one week, the chickens ran up to me when I whistled. I could snuggle a little chick while I was reading a book, and it would fall a sleep with its neck stretched out over my shoulder. I began to wonder why people dismissed animals as dumb-to me they were absolutely fascinating.

I gradually began to form moral reasons for not eating meat. In the city we get our meat wrapped in plastic, and it's difficult to connect it with the animal it came from. But at camp I could be playing with some chickens in the grass one minute and eating their relatives in the dining hall the next. I started asking myself, Why eat a creature that has a life of its own? I was raised as a pacifist and was told that it was wrong to kill a fellow human being. So why was it right to kill other creatures? It just didn't seem logical.

Upon my arrival home at summer's end I announced my change to my family. My mother thought it was great, but she wasn't about to go out of her way to cook special vegetarian meals for me.

I figured that I would just ignore the entree and eat the side dishes. No problem.

But it wasn't that easy. A lot of times I'd be at school or at home alone and not know what the heck to eat. I knew nothing about nutritional requirements, so a lot of times I'd just eat a Twinkie.

My mom tried to teach me about nutrition. Her trick was to eat as many different-colored foods as possible. If your plate is filled with a rainbow of foods-purple cabbage, green peppers, oranges, red tomatoes-you're sure to get a good dose of vitamins. Now, I realize this is not a foolproof method and shouldn't be relied upon in the long run, but for a few years it got me through those mealtimes when I was left to my own devices.

Still, eating was becoming boring. Around age twelve I contemplated giving up vegetarianism, when all of a sudden my mother and sister announced that they were becoming vegetarians (of course, neither of them credits me with being an influence). So since Mom did most of the cooking, all become well in veggieland.

For me vegetarianism had become a means of expressing my belief in animal rights. My mother and sister made the change to a meatless diet to avoid the unhealthy chemicals and high cholesterol and also because of the faulty economic reasoning behind raising animals for food. A meat-centered diet contributes to such economic and geographic problems as world hunger, soil erosion, and high energy costs. Our food decisions affect nearly everything around us.

Almost one half of the United States' harvested acreage is used to feed livestock, and only a fraction of that is returned to us in the form of meat on our plates: It takes sixteen pounds of grain to make just one pound of beef. 'Meat is not the only source of protein available to us; by combining certain plant foods, we can get plenty of protein.

So what started as a camp rebellion is now a way of life. I no longer wear leather clothing, and I use cosmetics only from companies that don't test their products on animals. I am trying to be an educated consumer, using my buying power at the supermarket. It is impossible to be perfect: I may be wearing fake-leather shoes, but the glue holding them together might be made from animal products. I just remind myself that though I can't change the world by myself, I can do the things that are within my power.

Vegetarians are regular people who have made a conscious decision about their eating habits, people who haven't taken for granted the diet they were "assigned" at birth by their family or culture.

Whether you're a vegetarian or not, becoming more knowledgeable about the foods you eat can't hurt. To all those nonvegetarians out there, don't take it personally that same of us don't eat meat.

Educate yourselves, and bon appetit!

Source: Seventeen Magazine