{"id":9810,"date":"2010-06-17T12:06:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T16:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=9810"},"modified":"2021-02-25T11:25:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T16:25:35","slug":"i-am-a-vegetarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/i-am-a-vegetarian\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking News: I'm a Vegetarian (and here's the recipe that taught me it)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever discovered something about yourself that everybody else already knew?<\/p>\n

It took qualifying for the Boston Marathon<\/a> for me to realize I was a runner.  And yesterday I had another Earth-shattering revelation—I’m a vegetarian.<\/p>\n

\"CloseI was making Korean Cabbage Salad with Tofu (recipe below) from Robin Robertson’s Vegan on the Cheap<\/em>.  The recipe calls for Asian chili paste, which I had to buy since I’ve never used it before.  When it came time to add it, I took a little taste to gauge the heat, to avoid inadvertently killing my wife.<\/p>\n

It tasted like fish.  Smelly, fishy, fish.<\/p>\n

I took a look at the label and read that it contained shrimp.  For the tiniest fraction of a second, the old me, the still-eating-fish-every-once-in-a-while-and-certainly-not-giving-a-damn-about-shrimp me, thought, “Just go ahead and use it.  You bought it, you’re stuck with it.  Nobody will even notice.”<\/p>\n

But immediately I knew that I couldn’t do it.  That there was no chance I’d do it.  Exactly like when some tiny part of you really<\/em> doesn’t feel like running or going to the gym, but there’s no question that you’re going to do it.<\/p>\n

Because it’s part of you; that’s who you are.  And a vegetarian is who I am now.<\/p>\n

What’s funny is that I never expected to get here.  When I started this new diet<\/a>, I still ate fish, because I thought it was healthy (I still think it is).  But not eating certain animals taught me some compassion, and I came to like the idea of being a person who chooses not to eat any animals at all.<\/p>\n

But even once I stopped eating fish, “vegetarian” wasn’t who I was.  “I” was a person who would still eat crabs once a year at the beach because that tradition was more a part of me than being vegetarian was.  And the fact that beers like Guinness<\/a> were made with fish bladders wasn’t something that would stop me from drinking them.<\/p>\n

“I’m vegetarian,” I said, “but I’m not going to be a Nazi about it.”<\/p>\n

But yesterday I realized that “vegetarian” is who I am now (and I guess the old me would call the new one a Nazi).<\/p>\n

I never made the conscious decision to stop drinking Guinness or to skip the crabs at the beach.  But I didn’t need to.  Those things just don’t sound appealing to me anymore.<\/p>\n

And neither does using chili paste with a tiny amount of shrimp in it.  I tossed it in the garbage and used some black bean garlic paste that I happened to have instead.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to take a step back today and discover something about yourself that everyone else already knows.  (I can only imagine how many of you are runners that won’t admit it, for example.)<\/p>\n

Korean Cabbage Salad with Tofu<\/h2>\n

Here’s the recipe I mentioned.  Like many of the meals from Vegan on the Cheap<\/em>, it’s good but not knock-your-socks-off.  Easy to make, healthy, cheap, and pretty good.  This one comes in at under $1.50 per serving, and since we’ve cooked mostly from this book this week, groceries for four people ran us only 125 bucks for the whole week.<\/p>\n

I’d recommend serving it with some rice, or maybe even Asian rice and beans<\/a>.  It’s got some good protein from the tofu, and lots of raw vegetables, but it’s hard to think of this salad as a meal on its own.<\/p>\n

From Vegan on the Cheap, <\/em>by Robin Robertson, Wiley, 2010<\/p>\n

Makes 4 servings<\/p>\n