Day 1: Dealing with the Vietnamese

There was a lot of discussion about when exactly to start this experiment. We have some leftover meat in the freezer, for instance, so should we eat that first, give it away or give it to the dog? The last week we were also on vacation with the family, so we decided not to make that the first week since we'd spend most of our mealtimes defending our new lifestyle.

Officially then, things kicked into gear today. We had egg sandwiches at Starbucks for breakfast, not the most auspicious beginning because a. Eggs are kind of a compromise on my part since they still support factory farming and are rotten with cholesterol and b. They don't have an egg and cheese-only sandwich, so the barista merely took a slab of sausage and threw it in the garbage. If there's any point to eating vegetarian it's to save the lives of animals like pigs (much more on that later), so this still puts us in the negative category.
As I said, not the best way to start. Then, to complicate things, we found out our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, the one that initially attracted us to Nutley and then burned down and then moved to Montclair, is now just a few doors down from us. So that got us thinking: Is there anything vegetarian there? It turns out there is quite a bit. The spring rolls weren't quite as tasty with tofu instead of pork, but they were serviceable. My red curry with vegetables was great except for the occasional mushroom (which maybe I'll learn to love now, though I doubt it). Nina's soup was also fabulous, but she strongly suspected that it was made with chicken stock. We were tempted to ask, but the owner's English is at the third grade level at best and he was extremely busy tonight. Nina said she kind of didn't want to know so she can continue enjoying it. I differ with her on that opinion, to put it mildly. We left the meal as we often do these days, with Willow screaming because she fell and hit her head on the floor and with me frantically looking for her hat.

Why are we doing this? Here are a few quick reasons:

1. Factory farming is unbelievably cruel. You wouldn't subject your dog to anything close to this, so why are we so blase about putting, say, pigs--which are smarter than dogs--through it?

2. A meat diet isn't great for you. And it's really not good for me. My cholesterol count was 240 last time I went and, while a diet of red meat seems to be a fine choice for Nina's father, it could conceivably kill me.

3. Speaking of which, since my metabolism is slowing down, meat is an especially bad choice for me. I've been a steady 182 or so pounds since college, but recently hit 191 (today it was 189). I'm willing to give up steak to avoid a major gut.

4. Factory farming is also really bad for the environment. Switching to a veg diet might even do more to offset your carbon footprint than riding your bike to work.

5. I hate that over-full feeling after a meal and I think that I'd avoid that with a veg diet.

Those are my primary reasons, in that order.

--Todd

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