Becoming a vegetarian

Ever since becoming a vegetarian i've noticed my preferences for food have changed. Obviously I've made a choice to not eat meat anymore, but I've also noticed a more general change to my eating habits that I did not plan. Before, each meal basically consisted of a slab of meat accompanied by either a greasy starch like french fries or corn, or a salad covered in an acidic salad dressing. In the first few months after making the big switch I was basically surviving on potatoes and corn, so I was basically eating exactly the same as before accept i was substituting meat with what i would have normally eaten as a side. After a while this started to get tedious as I became tired of eating the same foods over and over again (baked Potatoes, Corn on the cob, french fry's, macaroni and cheese, mexican canned corn). I don't know too much about nutrition but I would hazard a guess that the aforementioned foods do not do a good job in providing a lot of the vitamins and nutrients i would normally have gotten from meat.

So, I started searching out more veggie options. I started going to restaurants that I normally wouldn't go and stopped going to restaurants I used to go to all the time. This change almost happened subconsciously. As i've mentioned before I'm not a health nut- staring at a menu, I've always chosen whatever promised to be the most delicious. That hasn't changed - the changes in my eating habits were basically the result of the subconscious associations and feelings I draw from perceiving food through the sense of smell, taste and sight. Whereas a steak on the grill used to smell delicious, now the smell of most meat is often nauseating. Whereas before salad was always basically a digestive aide, now I find myself physically drawn to the vibrant colors of fresh fruits and vegetables - their COLOR is now a trigger for hunger - bizarre! The taste of food is now a lot more enjoyable, and i've become adverse to food that is salty. Ironically, now that I have chosen to restrict the kinds of food I eat, I have allowed myself to enjoy the kinds of food I previously took for granted. The following picture actually makes me hungry, where as before it would not have.



Whereas my perceptions during the presence of food have changed, my perception of hunger has also changed. Severe hunger, felt as an ache in the gut, has not changed. However, the feeling I get right before lunch time, regular hunger , has changed. I used to feel it in stomach as well, like pressure was being applied to my abdomen. Now, hunger is a sensation very similar to being thirsty, except my throat doesn't feel dry. Its a kind of tenseness in the back of my throat.

Its been almost a year now since I became a vegetarian and my only regret is that I didn't switch sooner. Throughout my life I have been closely acquainted with people that were vegetarian, yet I failed to honestly evaluate the decisions that they made using the rational criteria i've so passionately applied to other choices in my life ie religion, politics etc. (More on this later.). Really, there was no excuse but ignorance and that is a pretty poor defense...