Flexing my tarianism.

I blame Dr. Oz.

Growing up, I was never much of a fish eater. When I was 15, I stopped eating red meat, basically to annoy my parents and fit in with my hippie friends. By the time I was 16 or 17, I wasn't eating any meat at all. It started out as teenage rebellion, but I stuck to it for a few reasons. First, I'm stubborn as hell. Second, I felt much healtiher, which in retrospect probably had less to do with giving up meat and more to do with giving up the heavily processed meats and meat accoutrements consumed by my family. Finally, I did a great deal of reading about the meat industry in the United States and was appalled at what I learned.

I was pretty happily vegetarian until about 2006, when I started craving, of all things, the same fish that I had never liked before. I had always told myself that, if I ever really wanted meat again, I would find a responsible way to eat some. So, for the past four years, I've incorporated some fish into my diet in mostly environmentally sound ways (I won't claim that I don't get careless from time to time).

Then, a few things happened which made me consider putting a bit more "flex" in my "flexitarianism." First, I got way more invested in cooking, and food in general. Now that I pay more attention to food, it kind of makes me sad that I can't go into a great restaurant and order anything on the menu. Second, I watched a TV documentary on which the aforementioned Dr. Oz conducted an experiment with a group of vegetarian women athletes. He split the women into two groups, one which stayed vegetarian and one which ate some meat for about three months. He measured their athletic performance before and after the experiment, and the group that ate meat showed marked improvement (interestig, because Dr. Oz is a big fan of vegetarianism). Finally, I became an athlete myself and developed both an insatiable hunger and a craving for protein.

I went over and over all of this in my mind for the past few months, and finally decided that I could only answer my own questions by conducting my own experiment. So, yesterday, I went to Whole Foods and bought 1/2 pound of locally raised, organically fed and hormone-free turkey lunch meat and a small box of turkey burgers. At the time of this writing, I've eaten all of the lunchmeat and one of the burgers. My observations thus far:

-I definitely overcooked the turkey burger.

-I used to love turkey lunchmeat and apparently I still do.

-I seem to feel fuller for longer after the turkey meals, but its too soon to really be sure.

-It is very hard to know if the meat I buy has been ethically raised or if I'm just paying more to ease my conscience. I think I'll try to farmer's market next week.

-I started with the turkey lunchmeat because it was the only meat I could imagine myself eating without feeling queasy. Oddly enough, now that I've had a little, I'm still grossed out by the thought of chicken, but I kind of want a hamburger.

-I am nowhere near ready to tell my mother or most of my family (aside from those who read this) about this experiment. I think that 15+ years is long enough to prove that my vegetarianism wasn't a whim, but I still worry that they will all give me looks which say "we knew you'd be back."

Stay tuned for more updates.