The Veggie Life (Part 2) – National Vegetarian Week 2015 and veggie life update!

“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”
― Albert Schweitzer

Hey guys,

Apologies again for the break from WordPress again.

So this week Monday 18th – Sunday 24th May is National Vegetarian Week – yay!
Here is a link to the page which explains everything you need to know about it http://www.nationalvegetarianweek.org/ .
Really do go and check it out; you don’t have to be a vegetarian to find it interesting.

Given this I thought it would be a great idea to write another The Veggie Life Blog. If you haven’t read the first in the series of blogs then you can check it out via this link – https://ashleighbekkah.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/the-veggie-life-part-i/ .

This blog is just going to provide a quick update of how I’m finding being a vegetarian, so it’s great way for you to be nosy!
I want it to encourage you to possibly give it a go for a day/week/month and see how you find it.

Side note – Stay tuned for my next few The Veggie Life blogs. They’re going to include reviews of some really good places to try veggie food, some super easy recipes, veggie meals to try, and also a discussion on fox hunting.

So… I’ve been a Veggie for ten months now, nearly at the year mark. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things it’s not a massive amount of time, especially given that some people have been vegetarian for most of their lives, but hey ho, better late than never!

I don’t want to yak on too much, I just want to mention a few things that have happened since I made the decision in August.

I’m not going to lie and say that becoming a vegetarian is an easy transition when you’ve previously eaten meat, because it’s not. It can be tricky, and you probably will get tempted by the smell of bacon or (fill in the blank) at some point. It’s normal, and you shouldn’t feel disheartened by this because when you’ve been used to eating meat, you will initially miss it if you go cold Turkey (pardon the pun). In this situation though you just have to remind yourself why you made the decision to not eat meat and it puts your cravings back into perspective.

It does get easier though. I’ve gotten to the stage now where I can watch someone eat TGI Friday ribs and not even be slightly tempted. I can have a Toby Carvery without the meat and not miss it in the slightest and I can go into McDonald’s and be satisfied with fries and a veggie burger no problem.

You get used to not eating meat to the point where you don’t even think twice about scouring the menu for the Veggie options and look forward to eating them, rather than complaining that you want the fried chicken.

It’s at this point where I could lie to you all and say that I’ve been completely true to vegetarianism over the past ten months, but then this would not be an honest blog.

I haven’t actually digressed and intentionally eaten meat.
The only time i’ve physically eaten meat was at Yo Sushi!, when I picked up the duck option off the travelator instead of the veggie option. I realised as soon as I bit into it and I put it aside – it wasn’t a nice surprise!

I’ve also been caught out a number of times when i’ve eaten something which has contained gelatine without realising such as the creme egg yoghurts, I didn’t even think to check until afterwards.

I will admit though that prawn crackers have been my downfall and I really struggle not having a sneaky few when they come free with a chinese – which isn’t good because I have intentionally eaten them.

I guess what i’m trying to say is that everyone has hiccups at some point. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t struggle from time to time. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a vegetarian though. You’ve just got to keep it up and make sure to check that what you are eating is vegetarian friendly.

A lot of people have asked me if I plan to be vegetarian for the rest of my life and I never really know how to respond to that.

When I think about 50 years down the line it’s incomprehensible, especially coming from a person who doesn’t know what she’s doing tomorrow half the time! I’ll be honest, being a vegetarian for life is a scary prospect to me because i’ve only been a veggie for ten months.

It’s difficult to determine now what your life will be decades down the line.
Given this I decided that I would be a vegetarian for just a year.

Now, before you all start to judge me and say that i’m not a committed veggie if I go back to eating meat in two months time that’s not the case.

I’m at the stage where i’m extremely happy being veggie and I have no current desire to eat meat at all.

I’m sticking to my values of why i’m not eating meat. I don’t feel that it is essential for me to eat an animal and I still believe that I can live happily without eating meat.

Yes sometimes I may get times where I want to eat meat but that doesn’t mean that I have to eat it in order to survive and that’s what is important.

By giving myself a realistic goal of a year it was so much easier to stick by what I felt was right. It helped during the times when I felt that I wanted to eat meat that I had an end goal.

Now that it’s coming up to the year mark I still want to be a vegetarian and I’m going to give myself another realistic goal to work towards.

I know that not everyone would necessarily agree with this and would make the point that if you are a vegetarian – it’s for life, but for me personally, having a realistic goal to work towards if far easier than one which seems unrealistically far away.

So what i’m saying is that yes it can be difficult at times being a vegetarian especially if you’ve not been one your entire life but in the grand scheme of things it’s pretty easy.

I’ve enjoyed it so far and I don’t want to eat meat. I’ve got no real desire for it and i’m quite happily plodding along without it.

If you are considering it, try what I did. Give yourself a realistic goal, even if it’s only a day, and see how you find the veggie life.

It’ll be easier than you think, especially given all of the vegetarian products on offer these days! You definitely won’t be short of other ways to recieve protein. I’ll leave some links below to some of these products.

I’d really love to hear about your experiences with vegetarianism.

Let me know how you find being a vegetarian if you are one, if you want to be a vegetarian, or even if you have no desire to become a veggie at all.
Leave a reply, like, reblog and share if you found this interesting!

Thanks for reading,

Ash.