When I stopped eating meat about 15 years ago and told friends about my changed status, my wife would sometimes interrupt. “You’re not a vegetarian,” she’d say, “you’re a crap-etarian.”
She was right. Pushing away from the table one Thanksgiving, I said, “I don’t care if I never eat meat again,” and, for the most part, I haven’t. But my conversion was incomplete. I switched no other element of my diet. I consumed just as many cheetos and ice cream sandwiches, just as much peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, and breakfast cereal—maybe more, because I had all those missing calories to make up.
I became a vegetarian without understanding what “complete protein” means.
My other problem was not liking vegetables very much. They’d never been my favorite food and, for some reason, vegetarianism didn’t change my mind. I love fruit, bread, and especially cheese, but even now, semi-reformed by fifteen years experience, I don’t dream of devouring beans and rice or stir-frying up a steamin’ mess o’ veggies.
So why am I a vegetarian? I get that question a lot. My son won’t listen to my conversion story anymore. If he hears me start the tale of that fateful Thanksgiving, he corrects me, “They’re asking you why, not when” and then, he sits down, puts one ankle over the other, leans back, crosses his arms and waits in the universal sign for “This ought to be good.”
He’s always disappointed.
While I’d love to present idealistic or philosophical or scientific or health reasons I’m a vegetarian, the truth is, I’m not really sure. I’m the only vegetarian in my family. No vegan, I eat eggs and dairy products, and I eat fish occassionally—especially when sushi is available. To some vegetarians I might not even count, especially when I say, as I do, “I’d eat meat if I ever felt like it. I just never feel like it.”
I know one thing—I’m sick of meat forever. If my son would ever let me get this far in my story, I’d say that I grew up in Texas eating beef every night. My family must have split a steer with the next-door neighbors. I remember our garage freezer being jammed with white-wrapped blocks of icy flesh. Each cut had a different and odd name scrawled in black magic marker on the outside—beef shank, brisket, skirt steak, rib eye, tenderloin, top round, bottom round, and T-bone. They all sounded like insulting epithets.
“Come here, you rump roast!”
And, to me, all of them tasted the same. It didn’t help when my mother decided we ate too much beef and switched us over to chicken. I filled up on that too…in about a week. As for the other white meat, you just have to chew too much.
Chewing is another issue. Eating flesh has always seemed unnaturally difficult. I know what people say, that I just haven’t had a proper cut of meat properly prepared, but, when I taste a bit of meat these days, I always have the same reaction. Humans couldn’t have been meant to tax our jaws that way. Pringles are so much easier.
Maybe I just don’t like to eat, period. Other people seem to get so much more out of food than I do. I appreciate good cooking and cook because I appreciate being cooked for and want to do my fair share. I also enjoy someone else enjoying what I’ve made. Every once in a while, I even set out to show my love by making perfect pork chops.
Left to my own devices, however, I might be satisfied with a trough.
I’ve made an uneasy truce with my diet. I’ve learned the secret of complete protein, and I’m sure it’s made me a healthier and happier organism. I haven’t had to sacrifice or stint, and I don’t regret any of the last 15 years of vegetarianism. Yet, I don’t understand it.
My son finds my consumption of ersatz meat ridiculous—all the boca burgers and tofu based breakfast sausage and slices of simulated cold cuts drive him crazy. “If you’re going to eat that stuff,” he says, “why don’t you just eat the real thing?”
I wish I had an answer that would satisfy him—and me—but at least I’m not a crapetarian anymore.
Filed under: American Life, Children, Confession, Culture, Essays, Family, Human Nature, Life, Musings, Parenting, Thoughts, Vegetarianism
[...] Confessions of a Confused Vegetarian I’m learned the secret of complete protein, and I’m sure it’s made me a healthier and happier organism. I haven’t had to sacrifice or stint, and I don’t regret any of the last 15 years of vegetarianism. Yet, I don’t understand it. … [...]
well i was the same one day when i ws fishing for the very first time i sw the dead fish and almost threw up so i gave up meat cold turkey (i mean tofu) but for the first year and a little bit now all i ate was junk and it was anoying because i just got sick all the time! but im doing better now i have a balanced diet of protiens like beans and lentils, which are awesome!!! but if youre considering becoming a vegetarian i suggest not going straight into it like i did but gradually becoming one and i dont mean a vegetarian by the hour (like my cousin) but actually trying to stop eating meat. the best way to stop is bu stop eating all fastfood meats and processed meats lie lunch meat because all that is is pig snouts hooves eyelids and hair (yeah gross, i know) so gradually replace the meat with alternatives like tofu and lenils and beans and eggs and stuff like that not cheetos and junk like cake and icecream
D – Back in ‘85, one of my husband’s cohorts, a young lawyer, very argumentative and Born Again Christian, maintained a running argument with me about the Bible being the “true Word”. So I asked him why he wasn’t a vegetarian, since in Genesis there is clearcut reportage that before their Fall and expulsion, Adam and Eve were vegetarians, and God had no plans for them to eat the many animals in Eden. We engaged in a heated debate about this; man can lawyers ever try to run verbal rings around people!
G
I people ever press you on why you are vegetarian, you could cite Genesis as a reference to why you are one. That should stop them in their tracks!
What a great idea!—the people who know my religious leanings (I’m a pagan) would certainly be taken aback. They might, however, see my quoting the Bible as a sign that the second coming is near.
I’ve thought of other curious ways to explain it: a research project sponsored by the US government, a special diet to slow my preternaturally rapid hair growth, a former life as a bison (there were so many of them, everyone must have been one), a life-changing conversation with a squirrel in the park. You’d think I’d have some answer by now, but I fumble around every time. —D
I used to be a vegetarian but had to return to eating meat after I went back to continue my studies. There was nothing for me to eat at my university and it made me weak. One day, feeling anemic and listless, I passed by a McDonald’s and had a cheeseburger. There went 3 years of meatless diet. It’s different where I’m from. We don’t have health food coops and vegetarian stores so we mostly had to fend for our tummies.
After that fateful cheesburger, I went back to eating meat and for one whole month I kept getting the feeling that I smelled funny eventhough people told me I didn’t. I realized that, when I was a vegetarian, this was how meat-eaters smelled to me. It made me sad that I was back to smelling just like them.
Great blog, as always, D.
liz
One day one of my friends—from out of a quite remote county of nowhere—said, “The Chinese think Americans smell of butter.” I’ve wondered about my scent, but I’d put it in that $20,000 Pyramid category, “Things You Can’t Do a Helluvalot About” along with snoring and saying “um.” When it comes to eating, you can’t not—it’s hard to adhere to any dietary plan when you’re famished, and so you must—there’s just not a helluvalot to do about it.
So forgive yourself—I can’t confirm it via the web, but I bet there are tons of people out there who think you smell perfect. Thanks for visiting! —D
Hello! Did you know that humans have teeth that were meant for eating vegetables only? ((: So being a vegetarian is definitely what’s best and most healthy for us! Dont worry! Oh and please do visit and link our vegetarian restaurant site too! Thanks so much!
Hmmm. Have I capitulated to advertising by posting this comment? I hope not. I’d heard that our teeth are made for vegetables, but then I’ve heard about many indigenous cultures chewing leather to prepare it for clothing. I’ll make it a policy not to judge anyone according to how they use their teeth. —D
It causes me great pain to know that you live in the city of spectacular steak and italian beef and don’t eat them. I’ll just have to go there and eat both our shares.
I’m afraid you won’t be the first person to say good food is wasted on me. I might enjoy food more if I didn’t eat so fast that I appear to be folding time. Where did that terrible habit come from?
You are, of course, welcome to come to Chicago anytime and eat my share. I’d even accompany you to some of those spectacular establishments and scour the menu for alternatives. —D
You are just lovely and funny. Crapatarian. ha.
I have a totally rad recipe for Tofu if you ever want it. Actually a couple of them. Check out my other blog…on my roll, LOve and Veggies. IT has lots of recipes.
We are not veggies but eat that way quite a bit. So much in fact that just today our son shocked some IKEA customers when he examined his chocolate organic soft cookie bar thingy and said, “Hey mama, I see this is organic but it is vegan chocolate?” We are such goobers.
Mmmm. Goobers…NOW that is a good craptarian food. Peanuts have protein!
Your kids sound so smart and so…on your side. My daughter has made noises about going vegetarian in the past, but they all love meat too much and, to varying degrees, find me silly.
I really like seitan, but I’m no good with tofu, really. We have a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago–Karyn’s–that does amazing things with tofu, and I’d love to get a recipe that could turn my family on to how great it can be. My wife would be supportive, but my kids say they’d rather eat the putty you use for drywalling. Maybe if I didn’t tell them…or serve them tofu and drywall putty in a taste test comparison…
And, yes, I’ve heard that peanuts and almonds are good for you, but I think that’s only if you eat a handful after exercising briskly at the health club, not if you eat the whole package while you’re watchin’ the teevee.
Remind me to tell you about the time my husband and I went to a Vegan potluck when we lived in San Francisco. After leaving, we went immediately to the nearest Burger King
The words “vegan potluck” might strike fear into many. —D
I don’t know why I eat meat… I hade a period of light vegetarianism, and I don’t even remember how I got back to meat. But we make a lot of vegan food at home too, so I’m not a great friend of meat.
That tooth thing: we have different types of teeth, the flat veggiechewing ones and sharper meat-ripping ones. I firmly believe what David Attenborough says: humans are opportunists and therefore omnivores, which makes the species very flexible.
I do understand some of the environmental points of eating less meat (that producing meats wastes more energy), but it is not as simple as political vegans claim. I mean eating soy-products grown in Asia wastes more energy than eating a pig or a cow from a fram near by…
By the way, is a pagan the same thing as a non-believer? My grandfather once called me a pagan (or indirectly my son, because we would not baptize him), and I thought that was quite arrogant of him… I just don’t subscribe to any religion…
What you say about teeth makes sense—they seem to do any sort of job we ask of them. In any case, while I think it’s really interesting to think about what pre-history people might have done, we are where we are and what we are like “in nature” is only part of what we ought to be studying to make good decisions from now on. I know nothing is ever as simple as political people claim, and I should be aware of the environmental impact of our diet, but I’ve never thought that far. We don’t think far enough these days, and I am a good example. I only know I don’t like meat and haven’t considered much beyond that.
My understanding of pagans is that they DO believe, just not in the established religions. “Pagan” the adjective has a connotation of being primitive, possessing beliefs transcended by our own. In Wordsworth’s poem “The World is Too Much With Us,” he says he would rather be “a pagan suckled in a creed outworn” and suggests that pagans’ belief in multiple gods influencing the forces of nature was, in many ways, more vital and genuine than our civility.
Me, I was just trying to be funny using that word. But I am sort of a pagan. My mother called me one because neither of our children are baptized, and I do roll my eyes the more complicated God becomes. Having said that, I don’t begrudge anyone their beliefs because, after all, what do I know and what do any of us know for sure? Thanks for the information and your comment! —D
Your early crapetarianism reminds me of when I first went vegetarian. I subsisted off peanut butter & jelly and tomato soup & grilled cheese, except when I was eating in the cafeteria which wasn’t usually much better (and often a lot worse). What forced me to change was going vegan and no longer being able to rely on cheese to fill me up.
I’m impressed—I’ve tried to cut back on cheese, but cheese IS something I like. I’m sure I’d be an even healthier and happier organism though, if I could go vegan. I just can’t see it. Thanks for visiting! —D
Lovely, lovely blog – hilarious and so easy for me to relate to. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 7 years old and figured out what meat actually was. Today I’m 23 and stay busy waging battles with my meat-devouring husband over what our children will eat (note that we are not pregnant and do not have children – apparently we just like to bicker).
I’m off to dig up some information on Adam and Eve’s diet, so I have a weapon against the Bible bangers of the Midwest. Thanks for the laugh!
I had a conversation today with someone who just could not believe I did not like meat. First I have to go through several versions of “What about…?” Then, when I say it’s a matter of taste instead of philosophy, I get a few questions to say, “You must have another reason because meat tastes great.” Thank goodness these conversations are usually more funny than frustrating. Good luck with the first couple’s diet—thanks for visiting! —D
I am a vegetarian and I believe that if someone thinks that it’s not good to eat meat that they should have their own opinion. It’s no fair to judge someone because of their beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with being a vegetarian. If there was more in the world, the world would be a better place! Oh by the way I have used a fake name but the emails correct!
I have made a fake name, my email happens to be 100% real. I am a vegetarian and I feel that vegetarians are treated differently than the carnivorous people and i don’t see why. We are actually helping Earth stay alive. More than 75% of the worlds green house gases come from meat plants, and they think we come from the devil!!!!! THEY ARE KILLING EARTH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I am happy there is peta, and I run the editorial for my school newspaper and I am currently writing on me and my fellow vegetarians and I am proud I have stomped the foot down. I will type more later. Lazlo