vegetarian for February

Okay. As of 45 minutes ago I became a temporary vegetarian. I'm already mourning the loss of cheese and butter. I suspect missing eggs will follow soon. The meat I can go without pretty easily for a month but denying myself cheese and butter will be tough.

As Roxanne reminded me the other day, there's lots of tasty edibles like muffins that contain these banned substances. In the case of muffins it's eggs. That'll go for cake also. Sure there's mixes that only need water but that's because they already have egg solids within them. So I can't have them either.

On the other hand, I get to eat as much rice, beans, and pasta as I want. Potatoes and bread too. Just no butter on that bread or potatoes. And no meat sauce on the pasta, and no franks or bacon in the beans. It's going to be a long month--but fortunately it's the shortest month of the year!

For anyone just seeing this blog for the first time, I've got a bunch of food sensitivities and so I've (finally) decided to explore a few of them and my first exploration is going to be meat and other animal byproducts. So for the length and breadth of February I'm not eating any meat, butter, eggs, or anything that I notice contains anything of animal origin. I'm sure the occasional item will slip by but I'm going to try to keep my diet simple to bypass potential confusing items. Maybe in a few months I'll experiment with dropping corn and its byproducts out of my diet.

What do you think of this t-shirt? I don't know if you'll be able to read what it says on there. It's got the word "Vegetarian" displayed like it would be in a dictionary and then it defines it as: "Old Indian word for bad hunter". LOL

Isn't that picture below pretty? Of course pretty doesn't necessarily mean tasty, dammit. I suspect I'll be playing with potatoes a lot this month but I recently noticed that I can't even have potato soup. You have to use milk or cream to make it. *sigh*

Does anyone have any favorite vegetarian recipes? I know Pearl has quite a few on her food site. I'll probably be visiting often for suggestions. I think Noi is a vegetarian also.

Comments

Anonymous said…
oh! you poor thing.

it's easy and not so easy to develope a vegetarian based taste I agree. I'm not a veggie person, but I guess the best is to go with veggie oils to cook, fresh greens and veggies, and fresh fruits or dried ones for snacks. You can hace potatoe chips as long as they are fat free. you can make your own tomatoe sause. drink plenty of water to wash them down..oh dear, i'm dreaming.

Any how, try make your own food as experiments to put fun to it and see how it goes.

I know; it's far easier said from done.
3:25 AM
Anonymous said…
Um, how do you feel about Tofu?

I think I read you don't like vegetables so I'm worried about this I'm not going to eat meat for a month.. what praytell ARE you going to eat?

Tiff makes black beans in her crockpot...I think she posted that recipe the other day.

I make baked sweet potato fries a lot, and I have a recipe for spinach quesadillas but again, Ithink you hate vegetables.
Guidance please and I'll send you some recipes!

Good luck. I love animals. But I eat some of one every day.
10:27 AM
utenzi said…
Cravey, there can be no greater expression of love than to make the one you love part of you. By that definition of love, I'm very much one with pigs. And chickens too, plus a few cows. Maybe a handful of bugs when cycling with my mouth open. Some bee spit--gotta get that fructose!

Tofu? Ummm....no, I don't think so!
10:51 AM
Anonymous said…
Tofu can be yummy. HAve you thought of just elimnating one thing at a time? This seems like a lot to get rid of all at once. But, you do seem like an all or nothing kind of guy.

Good luck!
11:12 AM
Anonymous said…
Going without the dairy products is tough! Poor you. I'm not a vegetarian or vegan so my recipes would not be helpful ecept that most italian recipes should be okay for you (without the cheese).

Aren you going to reintroduce things one at a time so you cna pinpoint if any one thing is a problem such as milk adn it's products, meat etc.?

Thanks for the nice comments about the new look of my blog :-)
12:40 PM
Anonymous said…
Good luck with that. You lost me at no butter. No way could I eat veggies without it.
12:43 PM
Anonymous said…
Tofu can use useful when cutting things like that from your diet. You can throw it in a stir fry, make veggy kebabs with it (works nice with some kind of sauce on them). I prefer rice milk to soya milk, but love the soya milkshakes. You can replace yogurts and cream with soya yogurts and soya cream. Be careful with pasta, it can sometimes have egg in. Check everything that has a label, it amazing where you can find dairy/meat products hidden in things!
3:37 PM
srp said…
Remember that pasta often has eggs in it. Oh, my the bad carb overload that will be this month... If you have food sensitivities then I would have gotten you off corn first. It not only is a high glycemic index carb it often is associated with food allergy.

Frozen food section. Look for frozen soy beans. Vegetarian. Lots of fiber. Very low glycemic index and very high in protein to get you through. They do have vege burgers... supposedly taste like meat... but they don't and usually they have way to much salt to make up for it.

Did you give up fish too?
11:31 PM
carmilevy said…
My wife makes killer vegetable soups. She batch-cooks them, then freezes the portions. This is how we get through the winter. It's wonderful comfort food, and the bean-heavy varieties (lentils...who knew?) are particularly high in protein.

I'm sending you some virtual good vibes. I admire your determination to see this through.
1:15 AM
SassyAssy said…
Good luck with that! I went to a special non-traditional doctor and had a special blood test ran that isolated 40 different foods I am allergic to...such a joy to juggle the diet around.

Moosewood Restaurant puts out vegetarian recipe books. I also have a motherlode of them at home. I will send some your way.
4:30 PM
Noi Rocker said…
Haha! Sorry to dissapointu Utenzi! I am no vegetarian!

Hey if the diet is making you miserable, maybe you should allow yourself to eat dairy products such as milk, cheese etc..
11:05 PM
Anonymous said…
I tried vegetarainism but it was far to carb loaded for me. Even beans and rice, which when put together create a complete protein, and tofu are mostly carb. The carb loaded diet made me (over)eat without getting satified. I need a power packed protein at every meal. Are you going to eat fish? I thought dairy and wheat are the biggest culprits to food sensitivites? I also tried what I did for health reasons. I have some variety of Chronic Fatigue. If I don't start my day with eggs I don't make it far or long.
2:11 PM
Anonymous said…
It sounds like you're going VEGAN, not just vegetarian. Vegetarians can be ovo-lacto, and eat animal byproducts that don't hurt the animal (milk, eggs) but no actual animals. I was ovo-lacto for about 20 years but then started eating meat again due to health concerns. Hard to believe, but I don't do carbs well.

Anyhow, if you look up VEGAN cooking sites, you'll find quite a bit of decent cooking. My sister is VEGAN and she's really big on greek food because so much of it has no animal products in it.

Good luck!
2:17 PM
Anonymous said…
Once your eyes start to screen out the no-nos a diversity of options start to pop up. Spices and odd veggies may start to become more important.

You might want to skip some days this week -- it's pretty dairy heavy. (blush) oops. Course, there's always the archives. :)
3:01 PM
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