It’s well over 25 years now since I gave up eating meat. It was hardly a conscious decision as my meat consumption had dropped to about one main meal a week that was meat based and probably a couple of meat based snacks and rather than having a big memorable cut off day it was more of a realisation that I had not eaten meat for several weeks and a resolve to maintain that position.
Considering that I had gone from such a very small amount of meat to no meat at all I expected to feel little or no affect from it but to my surprise noticed an almost instant increase in my energy levels, my stamina and speed.
At the time I was working in forestry and a lad in his early 20s spent the beginning of his first day sharing his opinion that veggies were wimps and unless, like him, they eat meat at least twice daily, played two football matches a weekend and attended the gym several times a week they could never hope to be as fit and strong as he was.
His face showed a mixture of relief and contempt when I told him that as I was about ten years older than him, didn’t play football and had no idea where my nearest Gym was and a veggie to boot he’d better come and work with me.
Two hours later he was begging for a break and didn’t look too pleased when I reminded him of his need to eat meat.
By the way, it wasn’t heavy forestry, just clearing scrub and general tidying.
I did find one major downside though. I was single at the time and it severally restricted my dating. Some people carry the smell of their last meal quite strongly and though I have no problem sharing a table with somebody eating meat (unless it’s kidney, in which case I wish they wouldn’t) some people smell strongly of meat to the point where it is no more pleasant than being in the company of a sweaty person long overdue for a bath. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting it’s a hygiene problem, in fact I think a long hot soak makes it worse as that opens the pores but it certainly narrows the choices.
These days it is so easy not to eat meat and there is so much choice available, to the extent where confirmed meat eaters will often prefer the veggie option (flash of anger there, went to a wedding and the handful of veggies were well catered for at the reception. The meat eaters fell on the veggie food like locusts and wiped the plates clean before the veggies could get much more than a look in. when those plates were clear the meat options were then started on) it’s hard to imagine that in the early 1980s the only veggie option available when you ate out was what the meat eaters were having, but don’t serve the meat, OK?
Things like a meal out in a pub with friends was always overshadowed by the worry that they might not serve anything you’d eat, not even an omelette. There were flashes of elation though when your enquiry for the veggie option was met with a negative but then you found yourself being quizzed “do you eat pasta, do you like so and so, what about so and so” and eventually a recipe was agreed on, you end up with an enjoyable meal and a bill that shows your custom made meal was cheaper than any thing else on the menu.
Gradually over the years the eating places that didn’t have an acceptable veggie dish or three on the menu became the exception rather than the rule and greengrocers who would at one time have ordered you out of the shop if you’d dared to ask for a courgette or a pepper were suddenly offering strange and exotic vegetables and worse than that, knowing more about them than you did.
Being a veggie does reveal some people’s weak grasp on biology, after about ten years, my mother who also claimed to be a veggie, served up roast chicken forlunch one visit. To our protests that she couldn’t have forgotten, she insisted she hadn’t but chicken was alright for vegetarians wasn’t it?
My father thought it was great joke when we ate out to try and trick us, we’d usually try to steer him to places that knew us and would tell him in no uncertain terms that the vegetable soup was made with chicken stock and there was no way he was going to be allowed to order it for us. He would all ways be asking if we weren’t bored with the lack of choice! This from a man who’d had bacon and egg for virtually every breakfast since the end of WWII, sausage nearly every Sunday tea, roast beef , lamb or chicken most Sunday lunch and no more than seven or eight varieties for the rest of the week! Most of our cooking was on the hoof, (!) no set recipes and even if an attempt was made to replicate a recipe there would be enough variety in it for it not to be too much like the last time.
Big question, do I ever miss meat? I think the answer is very rarely, though I used to enjoy bacon butties, the item supposed to break most veggies, I’ve never been tempted. I occasionally miss sausages but some of the meat-free possibilities take care of that. The need for something to get my teeth into is satisfied by grilled or fried tofu.
My last awful confession, I’m single again and housework is not high on my list of priorities, housework is done because it needs doing not because it’s an everyday task taking priority over everything else. The remains of a veggie meal left for several days is far less unpleasant than the remains of a meat dish left for the same time. My grill pan never needs much more than a wipe and, well you get the idea.
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