The week of eating meatlessly. day 8.

I should be truthful - on day 1, last Sunday, I had steak for lunch, left over from a fancy dinner a few nights before. Dinner was vegetarian, and every meal thereafter, until tonight, when I end my week with a cookbook club that meets once a month. I believe I heard that salmon and duck would be on the menu. Still, 21 vegetarian meals in a row (ok, some of those were breakfasts of fruit and tea and the occasional muffin) is nothing to sneeze at. It is the longest consecutive time I have ever gone without meat in some form or another. I feel good. I haven't lost any weight, or at least not more than a pound or two. But I have been thinking more about what goes on my plate, and it has been a good exercise in creativity, balance, and planning.

The hardest part of this whole exercise has been consciously avoiding meat. Craving fish, and remembering, "oh, not this week." Thinking about a roast chicken, and catching myself before I turn towards the butcher counter. The dried seasoned tofu I love so much isn't something I can pick up on the walk home from work, whereas I have a supermarket, a butcher, a cheese shop, and a flower shop that sells vegetables within walking distance. I have to plan a little bit ahead. But the meals during this week have been good, better than good, and I hope to incorporate more of them into my life in the future. A long trip followed by a week or two of continued gastrointestinal turbulence led to a recent laziness and apathy in the kitchen; this week has changed that.

Planning ahead, eating more vegetables, eating more fruit, eating less meat, are all things that I want to continue. Over the past few years, I have been buying more and more of my meat - and all food in general - from farmer's markets. It costs more - so I buy less of it - and tastes better - so I savor every bite of what I have. I won't go into how cheaply produced meat will cost us more in the long run; that is a conversation for another time. But I will think about eating vegetarian more often, perhaps a few days a week, if not more.