Confessions of a Lacto-Ovo Aquatarian- Part TWO

It was June 2002 and I was in China when I first started to fancy the idea of living a meat free life. I was 20 and dating this guy who was devoted to an organic/natural lifestyle and was educating me about hormones, antibiotics, artificial colors, flavors and preservatives. It was all so fascinating that I became quickly intrigued with him and what he had to teach me.

While in China that summer I started abstaining from meat. I was curious as to how the livestock was being treated, the feed it was eating and the amount of fecal matter that may or may not make it's way into the animal's feed lots. I became obsessed with being grossed out by meat, but not all meat at this point. I was still eating organically raised animals. In September 2002 I started working at Whole Foods Market and my curiosity about the benefits of being a vegetarian were confirmed and supported by not only my co-workers, but the company as a whole. It was easy to abstain from meat when there was so much freshly prepared vegetarian dishes all around me.

October 8, 2002 was when I officially declared myself a pescatarian. My plan was that I was going to use pescatarianism as stepping stone to full out vegetarianism. Years later I was still in the same place I had started... my problem was that every time I tried to go that extra step I would feel hungry and deprived. Going out to a restaurant would leave me with the option of a salad or pasta. The salad would leave me hungry and the pasta would leave me feeling starchy and fat. I was able to cut out milk and survive on a steady stream of soy milk and cheese was an occasional treat. One thing was clear to me in the very beginning--if I wanted to be a full blown vegetarian I would have to actively seek out store and restaurants that would serve me something other than salad and tofu. As long as I was working at Whole Foods I knew I would be okay, there was an abundance of choices there that I never seemed, in my 3 years of being an employee, to get sick of. It was what happened post-WFM that made me start to think that eating was not fun anymore . . .