3 Thoughts on Vegetarianism

Today my 40 days without meat came to an end and I have a few things to share with you all. First of all, a disclaimer. I am not vegetarian, vegan or anyone else. I don’t think I could ever be as I love meat too much. However, I am an Orthodox Christian and once a year, before Easter I go on a 40-day lent, where I don’t eat meat. I enjoy going through with this annually and view it as a cleanse: both physical and spiritual. Whether you are religious or not, I recommend trying something like this for a period of time at least once.

Note: for those of you who don’t know the difference, vegetarians don’t eat meat, fish and poultry, while vegans besides those three things also say no to any animal products such as eggs, dairy, etc.

Now that we have this out of the way, I went without meat for the past month and here is what I learnt:

1) Vegetarians are still considered some type of weirdos. Even being “vegetarian” for a month made me feel different and often out of place. People still question your sanity and/or religious views based on what you choose to put or not to put in your body, REALLY!? With this experience and realization I learnt to be much more considerate of people’s tastes (food or anything else). So should everyone else.

2) It is a shame how uneducated people still are. This second point sort of comes out of the first one. It is ok not to be vegetarian or whoever else, but give the concept a read at least on Wikipedia. And even if you don’t, please refrain from asking silly questions. Nobody really said it better than Lily Singh (iisuperwomanii). Watch her hilarious (but also kinda sad) video here.

3) It is still hard to be vegetarian in this modern world. When you go out to eat, there are barely any vegetarian items on the menu and even if there are, it’s usually some salad, a below average veggie burger and maybe some asian noodle dish with tofu – not a whole lot of options.

To be fair, I cannot not mention that there are absolutely amazing vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Vancouver, where a burger made out of quinoa and black beans will taste like a beef patty (or even better)! And where the foods you eat will open a whole new palette of flavours to you. Here are some of the ones I’ve tried:

• MeeT in Gastown – cool space and variety of gourmet vegan food
• The Foundation on Main St – it took me a good few minutes to read through all the veggie burger options
• Chau Veggie Express on Victoria Dr – bowls that will fill your heart (great house wine too!)

On this bright note, I’m done my rant. People, let’s be more educated and considerate of each other!

Xoxo,

Sasha