Vegetarian Update

Things are going fairly well as to not eating meat. We still have meat in the freezer from before The Change and we are using it up slowly so DH made his regular spaghetti sauce with meat on Thursday. Other than that we've been meat free since just after Thanksgiving. We haven't starved, and in fact, if you remember my theory about being able to eat more? Umm, no. I've gained 4 pounds!!! Yikes! I've got to get that back under control. (Eating 5 pieces of Ghirardelli chocolate yesterday didn't help; I can't blame it on going vegetarian.) (But the peppermint bark is REALLY good and it was only a sample, and the other 4 pieces- they were all just sample sizes too so that totally shouldn't count, right?)

We're staying veg while eating out, too, although that backfired yesterday. The Eldest and I went to an awesome art show and ate at a Mediterranean food restaurant (somewhat spicy) then we all ate Thai food for dinner (very spicy) and that's not such a good idea with a sensitive stomach, I'm afraid. My tummy hurt! We did manage to find tasty vegetarian dishes to eat at both places, though. We had to ask at the Thai restaurant and the waitress was very helpful by giving us some options for items not listed on the menu. The Mediterranean restaurant had a ton of vegetarian options clearly marked as such on the menu, which was GREAT. There are some exclusively vegetarian restaurants in the area and we've checked out a couple of them, too. It's fun to explore new places and new cuisines, although the younger two children aren't so happy about it. There's been a lot of pouting lately! The Youngest, aka The Wild Child, was happy to eat chicken fingers at the Thai restaurant, though. I've told him he can, it's his choice when we go out. Just because we're vegetarian at home doesn't mean he can't eat meat on occasion when we eat somewhere else. The rest of us are sticking with it, though. The Middle Child decided she wasn't going to have chicken anymore when I told her about the fecal soup thing, as in chicken swims in it after slaughter. Which is true! You can research it if you don't believe me. (And that link is only one of many on google, so if you don't believe that source there are many, many, many others.) The manufacturers are allowed to let the chicken absorb water, which makes it heavier which means they can charge more for it, but the water they are absorbing typically has fecal matter in it. Yuck.

So that's how things are going up to this point. I found a link for a Vegetarian Starter Kit which is now in my "Links I Like" section. I haven't gone through all of it yet but I'm planning to. There is a Vegetarian Food Guide Pyramid thingy, only it's not a pyramid, on the site which looks like a good reference. There's still a lot of learning to do and a lot of new things to discover! There are resources everywhere so the information is readily accessible, which makes learning about vegetarian nutrition and recipes a lot of fun.