Becoming Vegetarian

Since watching Food Inc., I have had little to no desire to eat meat, any meat (I have eaten two meals that were meat dishes. Unfortunately one meal was chicken patties from Tyson {why did I eat that} and steak that was in the freezer).  I totally understand that there are those farmers' that actually slaughter animals in a humane way.  Actually, it's not just the slaughter that bothers me, it's the way that the animals are treated in general.  I never thought that I'd be the animal lover, PETA type person for becoming a vegetarian, but as the movie stated, how you treat animals is how you treat the world (paraphrased).  I can't believe that is how we treat what is going into our bodies and most of us don't think anything of it.  I never thought about it before this movie.

I have made many new and different dishes made mostly with beans.  I never thought that I would enjoy bean dishes as much as I have.  Two days ago, for the first time ever, I made chili with out meat.  I had bought a bag of chili mix and it had wheat berries in it.  It called for eggplant to replace the meat, but I forgot to buy it.  I made the chili anyway and it was absolutely delicious!  I had it left over again last night. I did add cheese and sour cream, but that it how I eat my meat chili also.

The good thing about becoming vegetarian, is that I now need to find new things to cook.  It helps me to be more adventurous in the Kitchen, which is definitely something that I want to do.  I have two vegetarian cookbooks that I have only used a little.  if anyone reading this blog has any good recommendations for recipe sites or cookbooks, please let me know.  It's great to experiment, but is also good to know of tried and true recipes, cookbooks or recipe sites.  I had a Moosewood cookbook and I got rid of it.  How stupid. I never thought that I'd ever want to be eating vegetarian dishes.

I'll write more about my trials and tribulations of becoming a vegetarian.  I have a husband and a son that don't seem to have a problem eating meat.  It should be interesting to see if I still feel this way after some time has passed.  I hope that I still eating a mostly vegetarian diet even after time has passed.  I just hope this isn't another one of my failed attempts at doing something healthy and good for me!

Amy