Aurora's Blog

For some reason, week 4 was harder than week 3.

I wanted meat again, consarn it!

Since this was the last week of my vegetarian challenge, here’s a little wrap up:

Meat is hiding out in way more things than I ever thought it was. Did you know that there is animal product in Twinkies? Gummy bears? A lot of places you wouldn’t necessarily expect it… there lies meat.

Speaking of gummy bears, they are one of the reasons I imposed this fourth week on myself. I was challenged to three weeks plus a vegan week (coming up next), but here’s what happened.

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I was doing a small half marathon, and around mile 10 I saw gummy bears on the table of snacks for us.

Without thinking about it, I ate a few of them (even though I’d already read that gummy bears have gelatin which as all kinds of weird animal product in it). Once I put them in my mouth, my eyes opened wide and I said something like, “Oh no. I’m on a vegetarian challenge and this is one of those things that secretly has meat in it, isn’t it?”

I don’t remember how I phrased my mini-freak out, but the person running the table thought I was okay and convinced me that I was. I figured she’d know, ’cause she’s a person who’s very knowledgeable about healthy lifestyles, and food, and such.

I just kind of assumed that when she said I was safe, she meant that they got the special vegetarian gummy bears. Maybe that was just what I wanted to believe. Maybe I was absolutely not paying enough attention ten miles into a race.

When I relayed the story to Wendy and Marty later, they said there was a good chance that the gummy bears did contain gelatin (which contains animals), and that the person didn’t know that. Even people who know a ton about nutrition often don’t know that there is animal product in gummy bears.

I talked to the people from the race. Turns out, they were normal gummy bears.

I didn’t have to add an entire week for one slip up. However, I felt the need to do it. I was disappointed in myself. I had already heard the gummy bears thing! I just wasn’t thinking…

Also, adding one more vegetarian week means I’m positioning vegan week to fall on a week where I’ll be with Wendt and Marty for three days in Tahoe. It will be extremely helpful to have them there.

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Back to wrapping up the last vegetarian week, I’ve learned that I used to not think about my meat intake at all. Whenever I’d get pizza – pepperoni, cheese, I didn’t care. Whatever was around is fine. But, really thinking about my meat intake over these weeks has shown me that I don’t really need pepperoni on pizza. It doesn’t add that much for me.

Pepperoni is my favorite kind of Totino’s Pizza Roll, though. Sometimes I’d get the bag with triple pepperoni, never for any good reason. It’d be closer to my hand, or something silly like that, so why not? I don’t need that much pepperoni.

Once I go back to meat, I maybe won’t eat quite as much meat – especially knowing what the meat industry does to the environment (which I didn’t know before).

As far as how it affected my body, I gained a little weight, and sometimes felt a little sluggish. But that’s on me way, way, way more than it is on vegetarianism. I didn’t do it right. I didn’t plan ahead. I didn’t eat a ton of vegetables. I pretty much replaced most of my staple meat dishes with junk food or fast food instead.

That also meant that being a vegetarian was more expensive for me, ’cause again, I didn’t plan ahead. All of the microwaveable meals I usually eat have meat in them. Instead of being a smart person who found new microwavable meals, I’d just eat whatever cheesy dish I could find at a fast-food place around work or my house.

Instead of thinking of it as a lifestyle choice, I more just thought, “Just make a sacrifice for one month. It’s only a month.” I did a pretty horrendously awful job. To the best of my knowledge I did do three weeks completely without meat. That was my goal, so yay on that.

But I was being given a chance to really give something new a shot, and I didn’t take it.  Sorry for that.

Based on how awesome I’ve been at being vegetarian, vegan week is going to be rad, I’m sure… (she says sarcastically)