I'm surprised at how often there really are veggie foods available

[Critters2]

I just had lunch with some parishioners. They wanted to go to a rib place everyone in town has been talking about. I figured there'd be nothing I could eat, but that I'd go along, have a drink, and enjoy their company. But the daily specials were "BBQ Beef Brisket" and Red beans and rice. I asked if the beans and rice were an entree, and they were. Okay, I know there was probably some pork fat in the beans, and I wish that weren't necessary. But I actually didn't find any chunks of meat in it. And it was really good, and the pork fat would have been incidental--the pigs died to be meat first and foremost.

Every once in a while, I think about how really easy it is to avoid eating meat--and wonder why more people don't do it.

Okay, that's it. Just me thinking aloud.


On edit: I don't feel real good about eating at a place based so strongly on animal suffering, but I also like such restaurateurs to know there's a market for non-meat meals.

[NMMNG]

1. The thing I find most disappointing

Is that many places I go the only things I find that are meat free are deep fried/junk foods like mozzarella sticks, nachos, onion rings, etc. Some places offer salads but they're often just iceberg lettuce with a few chunks of tomato and an onion slice or two (boring and nutritionally useless). The best I find many times are the veggie burger and fries or a salad (and in some places all dinner salads come w/ meat so I have to pay full price and have them hold the meat). It gets a bit boring after a while--and I don't eat out all that often.

That's one of the biggest problems living in a non-urban area. It's just assumed that everybody is a raging omnivore. :shrug:

[Debau2005]

2. And you have to be careful

when you order a salad and specifically say "no bacon." I have found a lot more places have better alternatives, but I live in the Metro Atlanta area with a lot of restaurants to chose from. We also have several vegetarian restaurants around.

I don't trust the deep fried items, I wonder if their "fried" meat items such as chicken tenders are fried in the same vat of grease.

[NMMNG]

4. I've learned to specify "no bacon"

Some places seem to throw that on any sort of a salad. x(


As to having meat and non-meat items fried in the same grease that doesn't bother me. As long as my food doesn't actually contain meat products I don't worry if the oil they were prepared in or the grill they were fried on were previously used to prepare meat. If I worried about that around here I would never be able to eat out.

[Critters2]

3. And I can't stand lettuce.

Imagine how people react when you tell 'em you don't eat meat and you don't eat lettuce. They act like that's all there is to eat.

Interestingly, I found people in rural Iowa much more supportive of my veg'ism than here in suburbia.
I lived in a county where factory farms were very controversial, and when I'd explain that I didn't want to support them, people would bend over backwards to help me out (always with a "I'm glad you're not supporting the factories, but I could NEVER give up meat" :eyes: ) Here, people are so removed from food production that they think meat just grows, complete with plastic wrap, in the back room at Jewel. And meat--especially steak--is a status symbol. And status is VERY important here!

And yes, there may have been meat fat in the red beans, but I didn't pay anyone to kill a hog. Why don't people think about these things?

[NMMNG]

5. Most omnis are incredibly ignorant about what veg*ns eat

They think salads and beans are all that exist besides meat. :eyes:

It's weird how you'll find more support either in the big cities or in the small rural areas than in suburbia. There seems to be something about the suburbs that just demands conformity to a certain lifestyle and little or no deviation will be tolerated. x(