A Month of Plant Eating

Ever since I can remember I was a meat-eater. A lot of people I know are the same. Though some of them tend to discriminate against cows and pigs, most of them don't. But as we all know there is yet another strange breed of people live among us who don't actually eat meat at all! You might not believe this but there are some reported cases of them not eating meat for as long as a year or two even. I swear I'm telling the truth. This always puzzled, baffled and intrigued me. Not me telling the truth, there never was any question about that, but people not eating meat. So I wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. How on earth can someone go on for so long without tasting meat? I mean, let's face it. There's nothing like a well prepared steak, a lamb chop or a roasted chicken right? How can you even begin to think that any plant can substitute that? I like a good fried potato or a parippu curry, but comparing that to meat is like comparing a scooter to a Mercedes.

However, like I said, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Which in other words I wanted to see what the world looks like to these plant-eaters. It must be grey scale, boring and tasteless, I was sure. I mean, did I tell you how good the steak is? So I just threw all caution to the wind and decided to become a plant-eater for a month.

Adjusting, at first, wasn't easy. Adjusting in the sense adjusting my lifestyle. As you probably know I live in Japan, and I live alone. And despite me being quite good at cooking - take my word for it even though I myself say it - I'm too lazy for it most of the time. So the combination of not cooking and living in Japan naturally mean eating a lot of meat. Usually I eat my breakfast at a coffee shop which contains at least sausages or bacon. I don't usually have lunch, and the dinner is either eaten outside, bought from a shop or in rare cases made at home. Unless it is the rare case, this means dinner has a lot of meat too. So this left me with no option but to cook most of my meals. This, at first, was a bitch. How on earth am I going to cook so frequently? But yours truly isn't one to give up so easily. I started having breakfast at home. For dinner, instead of cooking same old Sri Lankan food every time I opted for more variety. Italian, French, Moroccan, Russian and Maldivian food were among many varieties I tried. Okay that's stretching it a bit far (Only two paras ago I said that my telling the truth was never in question. Jeez) but I really did prepare different food, particularly Italian style. Then after a few days it was all part of my daily routine. Cooking wasn't a pain in the arse anymore. In fact, I started loving it so much I started improvising even. And I made through that month without even realizing it!

At first I thought I would not stand a chance, that I wouldn't last a week. Even if I did last a month by some miracle, I thought I'd run to a MacDonald's just when the clock hits midnight and gobble down dozen Big Macs. Well, it's been two days since the end of the month and I'm still to eat meat! Never did I think there would come a day I say this, but I actually enjoyed being vegetarian! When prepared well veggies taste as good, you feel guilt free since no more fatty stuff and unless you eat at fancy restaurants home cooked meals are always fresh and better. So much so that I started eating way too much I think I'm putting on again. Simply, you don't really need to eat dead animals it seems.