Until we “meat” again…

I thought the best way to observe my behavior would be to take a daily journal of what I ate and write down a general idea of how I felt. I ate meat once a day all week except for Monday and Wednesday where I had none. I also noticed that I barely ate any fruit all week, I may have only had two apples and a handful of grapes. I am going to make it a point to go to the Easton Farmers Market each week and get locally grown vegetables and fruit.

As I walked into my house Saturday night I was suddenly hit in the face with a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen. At first I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was and then all of a sudden I knew: homemade hamburgers. As I was taking a bite of my hamburger I couldn’t help but think this will be my last hamburger for a while. Sometimes the only thing to satisfy your hunger from a long day is a nice juicy hamburger. Now I am going to have to resort to chowing down on some nice crunchy veggies. When I first decided to make this lifestyle change I didn’t think it would be that difficult but after realizing this would be my last pieces of meat I began to second guess it but at the same time I am excited to try this.

This past week I noticed I was very tired and I seemed to always feel slow and sluggish except on those two days where I didn’t eat any meat. This may be due to stress but maybe it is because of my diet. I’m very curious to see if changing my diet will influence how I feel.

I had trouble finding an article of a person’s account of his/her experience of giving up meat. I did find a very interesting article that gives 6 gruesome reasons as to why we should really take into consideration giving up meat.  http://wholefed.org/2013/05/01/six-reasons-to-give-up-meat-adopt-a-plant-based-diet/  The six main points made in this article are antibiotics, fecal matter, mortality, cancer, and the cruelty of the animals. The section that had the most effect on me was the one dealing with fecal waste. It said 69% of the packages of raw ground turkey meat and patties tested positive for fecal bacteria. Gross! That is absolutely disgusting who would ever want to eat another piece of meat knowing that. Luckily I don’t eat much ground turkey but come on now that makes me uneasy about all other meat products too. (Welch 2013)

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.” – Sir Paul McCartney

 

I found a very shocking statistic in the article: 2,500 gallons of water are used to raise one pound of beef. “The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a destroyer.” – Newsweek. (Welch 2013)

 

Six Reasons to Give Up Meat & Adopt a Plant-Based Diet |. (n.d.). Whole Fed Plant Based Solutions.