Adventures of a New Vegetarian, Episode 2: I Can Has Chick'n Fingers?

I went to Publix this morning to pick up a few things and found a fabulous. First, Green Giant has these individual trays of broccoli and cheese, corn, and something else, which are perfect for us since we can't cook like we'd like to. I'd rather not use the plastic even though we recycle, but to have veggies when we want, I'll try to cut plastic somewhere else. Anyway, I decided to try Morningstar Farms vegetarian Chick'n Fingers. Pretty awesome! They actually tasted almost exactly like cheap frozen chicken fingers. Admittedly, given the choice, most people would choose organic chicken breast tenders over cheapo chicken fingers, but you eat whatcha got. If you are going to be vegetarian and like chicken, these are perfect. Sadly, I realized that Stouffer's cheddar potato bake, which I love, has bacon in it. It's weird. I've eaten it a hundred times and never paid any attention to the fact that there was bacon...

One last annoyance from our grocery adventures...everyone who knows me knows I love potatoes, and I seek out anything made with them. I especially love potato soup. Unfortunately, most canned potato soups tend to have bacon in them. (Apparently bacon is my new nemesis.). When I saw the Campbell's Select Harvest potato soup without bacon, I was happy...until I checked the ingredients. Chicken! Anna said it was probably chicken broth, but why in blue hell would you put chicken in potato soup? Seriously...

Stay tuned for more Adventures of a New Vegetarian...same veggie time, same veggie station...

Making the Less-Convenient Choice

I just skimmed an article at the Huffington Post about the rising cost of obesity-related health care. The article itself, what I read of it, wasn't that bad, but I'm pissed. In all of these articles and news reports castigating overweight people, no one ever talks about two issues that are very much behind the problem: poverty and the culture of convenience we have here in the U.S. I've blogged a ton about poverty, but this whole convenience thing has been bothering me a lot lately.
Fast food and junk food are a huge part of people's diets here in the U.S. I should know; they've always been a part of mine. While much of the reason is it just tastes good, the bigger part is that it's easy. It's a hell of a lot easier to go through a drive-thru or pop a pizza in the microwave than to actually cook something healthy. Again, I should know. It actually takes thought to go to the store and choose organic, vegetarian, and otherwise healthy food. And most people here don't do that.

If it was made easier and more affordable to eat healthy, people would be healhier. Yes, exercise is important. Hell, we'd rather watch the biggest loser or dance your ass off than actually do the stuff they're doing on the shows. However, you can exercise all day, but if what you're eating is unhealthy, you're gonna be unhealthy.

(By the way, a fabulous side effect of eating organic and/or vegetarian and vegan is that you reduce your carbon footprint like crazy...)

What people need to start doing is making the harder choices. If you have the money, eat organic. Buy the organic free range chicken and cook your own chicken nuggets. Or even better, if you can, go vegetarian. The problem for the people who can afford it is learning to do what might be less convenient, but for a lot of people, it's making it affordable and available. I couldn't have gone organic in Thomasville, except for whatever veggies I got from my father-in-law, even if I'd had the money. Make vegetarian and organic as accessible as mcdonald's to the general population, you save health in the U.S. and the planet in the process...

A little scattered, but I'm just sayin...

Gone Veggie..Adventures of a New Vegetarian, Prologue

Yeah, so I finally decided that I could not ignore my conscience anymore, and I became a vegetarian. Unlike the last couple of times I've tried to go veggie, I haven't been craving the stuff I "can't" have. Yet...we'll see how it goes, but so far, I'm doing pretty good...I tried chocolate soy milk, which I can definitely add to my fridge, but I don't know about regular soy milk. For the things I'm not losing--eggs and dairy products--we're buying organic, which we've mostly been doing for a while. No matter what, at least I'm reducing my carbon footprint and, most importantly, animals are not dying for me to eat. I just hope I stick with it this time.