Last week, a close friend of mine, who has been vegan for almost a year now, persuaded me to watch some documentaries about becoming vegan, which led me to decide on whether or not I want to change my diet for good. Overall, giving up a lot of my beloved eats like Chipotle chicken burrito bowls, hamburgers, cheese, eggs, bacon, sandwiches, you name it sounded intimidating, so I decided to stick with a week of being vegetarian so I can still have eggs and cereal for breakfast when I please. Prior to my decision on strictly becoming vegetarian rather than vegan, I know I would have to sacrifice stuff I eat daily which would change how my body reacts to alternatives and whether or not I had enough research to comply with the demands of a vegan diet. So, the first few days of being vegetarian, I mainly indulged in pancakes, eggs, bagels, peanut butter & Nutella sandwiches because I am a total sucker for breakfast food and I can eat that type of food any time of the day. I felt very positive and motivated to make some temporary changes, as well as saving myself some sadness thinking about the idea of the slaughterhouse footage I witnessed and imagining the animals being shipped all over the world to live in our digestive systems. After a few days of sticking to breakfast food, I began to expand my taste buds to some substitutions for things I love like hamburgers; my college has garden or black bean burgers at the campus grille, so I decided to start off with the black bean burger. It sounded so exotic, fresh, and it was absolutely delicious. It tasted somewhat like the Mexican grille food almost with a bunch of condiments. I am pretty sure I've had about 5-10 since I tried being vegetarian. On another note, after I began to incorporate various foods into my vegetarian diet, I began to notice that I didn't hit the "full" feeling in my stomach after a meal. I remember one day I made a veggie burrito bowl at the Mexican grille and then about 5-10 minutes later, I ordered a Papa John's veggie pizza because I did not feel fully satisfied with the amount of food I was eating. Overall, being vegetarian made me feel like I was doing something right for the environment and the animals that walk across it each day, however, my appetite and stomach were not satisfied because I was never full and my system had to get used to not eating meat 24:7. Before I became vegetarian, I would eat meat with 1-2 of my meals per day. The documents did allow me to think and empathize with these animals and what would happen if I were placed in a truck on an interstate, not having a clue where I was going, and then ended up being killed to be eaten. Being vegetarian or even vegan opens up a lot of opportunities to try new foods, however, it is imperative to check nutrition facts and ingredients because if you are serious about making a permanent change to your eating habits and lifestyle, you have to make sure you are doing what makes you happy.
