Meat

Blogspot tells me this is my 365th post. How can that be? This blog started 6/28/07 and today is only the 17th. I doubt I posted twice a day. Maybe the blogspotter counter is off.

Yesterday, after talking to a friend of mine, I got to thinking about my conversion from a omnivore to a herbivore. I asked him about fishing. He's been fishing and has caught a few muskies. His property on the Rum River is flooded and the river is nearly up to his deck. He caught a couple small northern pike with his bare hands in his front yard. Like my friend, I used to fish quite often. I used to eat and enjoy eating meat. But now I eat no meat; no steak, no chicken, no fish, and no pork. I think it's been 12-15 years since I ate meat. I do eat dairy products and eggs. Lately I can't eat plain eggs anymore. After my trip to Africa where I was served eggs every morning, I haven't eaten a plain egg since. I get my protein from beans and bean products, nuts, gluten and dairy. I am not an animal rights activist. I think it's fine and healthy for other people to eat meat. The reason I have become a vegetarian is that I intensely dislike the idea of chewing muscle. I cannot imagine catching a fish, feeling it pull and tug on my line, scooping it up, filleting it, cooking it, and eating it. I am now at the point where I don't want to feel it struggle and tug on my line. I used to clean buckets of fish. I was fairly skilled at filleting northerns and removing all the "Y" bones. Talking with my angling friend reminded me of where I used to be and where I am now. I've changed. In a way, I am depriving myself. Meat has SO much more protein per calorie. I try to follow a low calorie, high protein diet and that is hard to do when you don't eat meat. Some soy products will give me a gram of protein for ten calories but that is about the best I can get. Salmon will give you a gram of protein for only five calories. But, avoiding meat is where I am right now and this is what feels comfortable for me.