On Becoming And Staying A Vegetarian - Is It Possible In A Fast-Paced World?
As you may know by now, I decided to not have my VegFusion vegetarian blog on its own. Rather, vegetarian-related posts will now be here, as many of my hot food recipes are actually vegetarian, or can be. I know that people who are staunchly vegetarian would not be happy with such a decision, but let me explain.Anyone who is staunchly vegetarian is already "converted". I am not trying to convert anyone. Many many years ago, purely for health reasons, I decided that I would like to try becoming a vegetarian. Fortunately, I come from a culture in which vegetarian food figures very highly. There are many delicious, nutritious choices for indian vegetarian food, and fusion dishes derived from them. In fact, many of my punk rocker and deadhead friends of my youth were introduced to vegetarian food through various East Indian friends. Some of them even went to the Indian temples around Toronto or Montreal, Canada for the evening "prasad" (offering) given free (or for a donation, if you desired). The prasad was always vegetarian, and usually contained rice and lentil soup, and sometimes a vegetarian curry.
Over the years, I've been able to tweak many meat-inclusive recipes into vegetarian ones. And while I managed to be near-vegatarian for 8 years and vegetarian for 3 years, I found it hard to maintain. My previous lifestyle of being a consultant meant eating away from home. This meant salad and french fries for lunch or supper far too often. Sure, I could have a veg pita or a veg sub. But none of this is satisfying if you have it every day. Finding a hot vegetarian meal within your lunch break becomes a holy grail. The temptation to cheat and get a burger is overwhelming.
The rest of my immediate family has managed to become and stay vegetarians; however, all of them work primarily in the city they live in. Me, I might be in 4 or 5 different cities in the same day, or more in the same week. I didn't always have time to make myself a lunch, and I had limited time, often having to eat while driving a stick-shift car. It wasn't so easy to stay vegetarian.
But that was all 5 years ago. Nowadays, it is very easy to find a good felafel sandwich stand or even a reasonable good veggie burger at a fast food joint. You may have more success becoming vegetarian than I did. For different health reasons, I have been eating meat again for a few years. Nevertheless, I like to spend 2-3 days a week either reducing the quantity of meat in my meals, or skipping meat all together. It's a balance that's worked for me to keep my health problems in check. Which is not to say that you could not maintain a fully vegetarian diet.
(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://curryelviscooks.blogspot.com
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