From a spiritual standpoint I find abstaining from particular vices to be cleansing, especially if you don't complain about it. From a non-religious standpoint I can say many Lenten seasons have come and gone and left me free of an unhealthy vice either temporarily or permanently. (I'm looking at you Diet Coke!)
This year husband and I decided that we would make the same sacrifice together:
no beef, poultry or pork for 40 days.
Admittedly this was going to be an easier task for me. I was already leaning into a semi-meatless diet. Over the past few years I've become a lot more selective about the kind of meat I consume. Even as a kid I would tell my parents I didn't want "big meats" and I never enjoyed BBQ (I know, people think that is weird) even though I like BBQ sauce.
Husband on the other hand. Not. So. Much. He is carnivorous. To illustrate: if this were Jurassic Park he would be the T-Rex eating poor baby goats in the rain. The man loves meat. For months he's talked about celebrating his birthday at "Animal" a restaurant in Melrose that apparently is a meat lovers palace (I already made the reservation). Despite these feelings he jumped wholeheartedly into this sacrifice and I have to believe it was mostly the scientist in him. He, like myself, was curious.
Could we go 40 days on veggies, fruits and fish?
What would our health be like?
Would we want to keep going?
COULD WE GO 40 DAYS ON VEGGIES, FRUIT AND FISH?
We did! Only once did Andrew slip up and eat a small piece of chicken at a work function without thinking about it and the other time he was sabotaged at Saladfarm by a bacon bits happy worker. Other than that we were full on Pescatarian! I have to say it wasn't that bad.
To start we armed ourselves with recipes. I can't imagine going into this unprepared. We planned our shopping lists with purpose! Thankfully we live in the pinterest age and there are so many choices. Since we were both working we didn't always have a lot of time to cook so we found 20 things we could do and just doubled that and BOOM 40 days meat free.
The real challenge was dining out.
Even in health conscious L.A. it's not always easy to find vegetarian dishes and even when the restaurants cater to the veggie friendly crowd the temptation is still there. Because Husband and I had such opposite work schedules (mine being all day, and his being all night) there were many times where we'd have to grab something fast on our own at work. When's the last time you tried to get something meatless at a fast food place? And don't tell me salad. They're just too sad.
One thing husband was excited about was that our grocery bill dropped significantly. All those chicken breasts and meats add up! We knew they were the more expensive items on our weekly shopping trips, but the true impact wasn't felt until we gave them up.
WHAT WOULD OUR HEALTH BE LIKE?
This is why husband initially was interested in this. Both of us seemed to have more energy. Since this experiment we've returned to eating meat occasionally and I seem to find the more I consume the more I need to make a coffee run. In fact, as I'm typing this we've had more meat than normal and I have been drowsy all day. I feel much more aware of how I feel after I eat certain things.
Weight wise I didn't notice a HUGE change. The scale moved 3 lbs. for both of us. I truly think that if we were going to do this for weight loss we would have to drop dairy as well. I noticed our intake of cheese went up when the meat went down. It seemed like the easiest, tastiest substitution especially in restaurants.
WOULD WE WANT TO KEEP GOING?
The day we broke fasting was...interesting. In fact here is a little picture of
For husband, being a vegetarian or even a pescatarian is high on the unlikely scale. So many of his favorite things are meat. He hasn't stopped eating meat and probably won't but his intake has changed considerably. Some days he'll go without meat and not even think about it but he loves meat and will probably never give it up.
I on the other hand really didn't want to go back to eating meat. Even though health wise I hadn't seen a major change, I knew that the little change over time would make a big difference. I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be to not eat meat when you're constantly eating with someone who does. No one is holding a gun to my head forcing me to eat meat, but like all things there is strength in numbers. I wonder how couples manage to cook/eat with each other while having different diets. There are some things that I love that are meat (In-N-Out burgers!) and there are still some meats that I can't stand the thought of.
THE VERDICT?
We both agreed that we liked not having meat in our house. So when we had the chance we still bought fish or vegetarian items at the grocery store. Lately we've incorporated a little meat here and there but still no chicken breasts (which we had every other night almost).
Maybe we aren't vegetarians or pescatarians but I do think that going 40 days without meat was an eye opening experience and I can see that there might be a time when it will be a permanent lifestyle change for me. As for husband? I'm not holding my breath
