Back to Beans and Rice

For about one summer, I decided I would experiment with being vegitarian, even vegan for a while. My ensentive was better health because I have always fought acne and I had read several sources that suggested that one's diet can be the cause and the cure. I even cut down on foods packed with preservatives like bread and other processed foods.

It was easy for me to cut out the meat, because it doesn't really appeal to me anyway and I detest preparing it, thus rarely did unless I was making chicken encheladas with frozen, boneless chicken breasts that I could plop into the boiling water without even touching them.
Being Vegan was especially challenging. I only kept it up for a few weeks. Cheese that doesn't melt? Yuck. Mm, I could have lived on those Tofuti Cuties, though. Yumm.

I eventually gave up on it partly because there were so many fewer vegitarian choices at restaurants ten years ago, and my family certainly didn't cater to my diet, so I was having to prepare seperate meals for myself. Plus I couldn't afford my own food fill. I remember going to the health food store and paying $60 for one bag of groceries! Oh, and some of the things I tried, like the dehydrated tofu chicken gave me terrible gas!

I still love trying new vegitarian dishes when I go out to eat and I almost always get the 7 layer burrito at Taco Bell. About the time that I realized that the church is not true, just a few weeks ago, I also felt the desire to adopt a vegitarian diet again. Not solely for better health, but out of respect for the animals.

I am still disturbed by what I learned from my X after he went to some Vegan seminar and they showed a film about the treatment of the animals that are (my impulse is to say 'grown') raised on the farms of the butchers for some of the fast food chains. He brought home a book from the library that was from the same authors of the film he saw. I was thoroughly disturbed by the images that I saw. They weren't even photgraphs, but drawings of what these two sisters observed.

It was enought for me to swear meet off again for a while again. Not that I was even eating any at the time. I was living on moth infested boxes of scalloped potatoes, rice and pasta that had been given to us.

My point is that I want to live according to my OWN personal beliefs. Therefore, I have given up meat for the past three weeks or so. My mother even made a vegitarian meal for my birthday dinner last Sunday, at my request. The problem is once again, that I have only afforded a few groceries since I have been unemployed, let alone being able to stock up on the staples I need in order to get enough protein.

What I have noticed is that ever since last Saturday, I have been feeling lathargic. I figured it was because I stayed up until 5am Saturday morning reading about NDEs, or because I haven't been exercizing for the last week since I starting working. But even after catching up on sleep, I can't shake this feeling like I just want to lay down. And just last week I was feeling great, almost bouncing around. I realized today that it is likely that it's due a lack of protein. I need to remedy the situation, and fast before my body starts suffering.