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1 year ago….August 31st 2009…at approximately 10:30am…..I stopped eating meat. I remember it well.

My parents had come to visit for a few weeks, and we took them out to breakfast before their flight. We ate at the Flying Biscuit Cafe in Raleigh (Cameron Village). I had the Flying Eggs Benedict, which is an open faced English Muffin topped with two awesomely sunny-side-up eggs, canadian bacon, and moon-dusted potatoes on the side. I’m a big fan of bacon. I was back then. I still am now. I just haven’t eaten it since then.

I don’t really know why, but at lunch time that day, I decided that I would try going vegetarian for a while. My goal was a month. Melody is and has been a vegetarian for 5.5 years now. She stopped eating meat sometime in the middle of 2005.

To clarify, we don’t eat any food with a face, or any food that had a mother. I had to include that 2nd stipulation due to mussels, oysters etc. That means no beef, pork, chicken, fish, lamb, venison, goat, alligator, kangaroo….you get the gist.

So, I stopped eating meat originally because i thought it would be easier on our shopping and cooking processes. Melody doesn’t eat meat, so therefore everything we cook at home was pretty much vegetarian already. If the dish allowed for it, I would have meat cooked separately, and then i’d add it in afterwards. But, if we went out for dinner, or if i bought lunch, I would eat meat then too. So…basically I was a home-vegetarian, and away-from-home omnivore.

My ulterior motive was to lose some weight. I’ll give the ending away now and say that didn’t work out as a bonus result from this dietary choice. Having said that though, I do feel like i eat a whole lot more healthily than i did prior to this past year. I make better choices at lunch even though there’s only a minuscule benefit gained from cheese pizza as opposed to pepperoni pizza.

My biggest problem causing the lack of weight loss, is that I have not been exercising as much as i should be. Maybe if i still ate meat, I would be even heavier than I am now. That’s a scary thought. Moving on….quickly.

The biggest benefit over the past year is that I’ve begrudgingly become a much less picky eater. Melody will attest that I still have a really long way to go, but I am much more apt to choose pasta now, or some other vegetable dish than what I previously would have. One of my favorite meals now, is a pasta with a sauce that melody makes from mushrooms, garlic, wine, cream, and other things that make it into awesome-sauce. I would have requested or made a meat portion for that type of dish previously, which I now know is not necessary.

I am very surprised that I made it a year. Anyone who knew me before then would be very surprised too….which was proven when i met up with friends in April who i haven’t seen in a few years. They couldn’t believe that I…Nick Young….had not eaten meat in 8 months. It’s probably even more surprising to them that I made it another 4 to round out the year.

I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I have toyed with the idea of going back to meat….and I’m sure I will one day. But i don’t think I will just yet. It’s much easier at home when we eat the exact same thing (or close to it). And I know that if i go back to eating meat, i’ll be tempted by the cheesesteak and burger places that are about 70 yards from my office building. At least if im still vegetarian, I have a distinct intestinal reason to stay away from those places.

I have also toyed with the idea of going off soda for as long as possible too. I think i’m going to do this one…although with me not drinking beer or wine, when I go out for a drink, I don’t really want to relegate myself to drinking straight liquor….i’ll need a mixer in there on those occasions. But i think i’ll give up soda for 99% of occasions, and that’s got to be a good thing. I think the last statistic i saw said that the average american drinks the caloric equivalent of 13 pounds per year of soda. That could easily account for my weight gain since college on it’s own.

The documentary “Food Inc.” gave me more resolve to stick to this dietary choice, as it’s very difficult to watch millions of animals get slaughtered so inhumanely, and be drenched in chemicals, antibiotics and preservatives just so they can be shipped to my dinner table. There are responsible ways to consume meat, but typically people aren’t using them. Most people are buying commodity meats that come from massive feed lots, factory farms, and run the risk of outbreaks of salmonella and who knows what else. Just 2 weeks ago, there was another food recall of over a billion eggs…yeah…a billion…with a B….due to salmonella poisoning that could be traced back to 2 farms. The fact that we still call a place a “farm” when it produces that many eggs….that tells you what state our food industry is in. Everything is based on quantity…not quality.

Anyway…before i continue on that rant about food safety, organic farming and all that good stuff (which is separate to my recent vegetarianism)….i’ll get back to my original subject.

I still like the smell, and can still imagine the taste of the meats I used to enjoy. Bacon, Pork, Ham, Canadian Bacon…and the magical animal it comes from…….beef, venison, chicken….i love them all.

When I pointed out to Melody that it had been a year…her response was to hold up 5 fingers…..demonstrating to me that she isn’t all that impressed with my feat of non-meat. She’s been without it so long…a year seems like nothing to her.

I cannot picture being old, grey, and not having had a steak in 40 years….so that tells me that i’ll go back to eating it at some stage.

It might be soon. It might not be. Right now, I’m happy not eating meat.

It’s been a challenge, and I can’t remember ever going this long without anything (that I like). If for no other reason, it’s been a triumph of will power. I’m happy with myself for getting this far. But now that I’m here, I’m not sure where to go next.

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