My Meat-Free Month

A couple of weeks ago, we were having dinner with some friends, one of whom is a vegetarian.

We were grilling, and there was much teasing about her vegetarian hamburger. It was all good fun, but it reminded me of a time while at Kansas State when I went a week without eating meat just to see whether I could do it.

Although I succeeded, I didn't try very hard to eat a varied diet, and it was pretty miserable. Seven straight days of peanut butter and jelly for lunch make for a boring life.

Thinking about that week made me wonder whether I could make it a month without meat. Well, for reasons both good and bad, I am the kind of person that once that challenge makes it into my head, I am pretty much stuck trying.

So here I am on Day 5 of the Meat-Free Month. It hasn't been bad, and my wife has helped me find some more interesting things to eat.

However, there are some issues. For example, last night our air conditioner broke at home, and a repair person could not make it until today (I hope). So the house was hot, and it was ill-advised to cook and add to the heat. I needed to get dinner out quickly.

In such instances, vegetarian choices for fast food are slim pickings. As a friend recently told me, you pretty much have to choose between Taco Bell bean burritos and a veggie sub from Subway. And, seriously, I am into this, but I have no desire to eat lettuce and cucumbers in a piece of bread.

All the good fast food salads have chicken, and besides, there is not much protein in a salad.

File this under arbitrary thoughts, but I will provide occasional updates here. I think that it would be pretty difficult to make a life out of this. It's probably the best thing to do for myriad reasons, but for a kid who grew up in a BBQ mecca like Kansas City, the odds are long.