A Part of My Life Spent being Vegetarian

Like a lot of things in the world I did this by choice. I was not raised as a vegetarian. Yes I knew that they were out there because my sisters had chosen to be a vegetarian at a young age. Many times I had thought about it but I just could not give up the burgers that dad made on the grill.

But there are times when you change your mind. Sometimes when you least expect it. For me that is when I chose to become a vegetarian. And it was not because the sisters pushed me into it. Although they had brought it up a few times.

It was by choice. A choice that I did not see coming my way. A small thing that I was not suspecting until it was right in front of me. It was my pet crab and dinner one evening at college.

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Or Vegetarian, how did this happen?

As I mentioned I did not see this one coming my way. This was in college. My roommate and I had a fish tank in our dorm room. He had all the fish and I just had a pet cray fish. Granted he lived in the bottom of the tank and would crawl around once in a while. But it was relaxing to watch the fish tank while studying.

One evening at the dining hall they were having Cajun night. As it was the closest to our dorm I headed over. As we were going through the line there was a whole pan of crawdads. Also known as cray fish. I did not eat anything that evening for supper. For some reason seeing my little lobster staring up at me was not appetizing.

At that point I stopped eating meat. I did not realize that I had stopped right away though. It was actually noticed by my friends. And that took a few weeks. But by that point it seamed natural. And easy to do. Yet there was a running gag. I'm vegetarian but I don't like green vegetables.

I never picked up any of theses cook books from Mooswood. But there was a book store a couple of blocks away that I did get them from.

Today we still have all our Moosewood cook books and they're loaned out more ofter then any others in our collection.

Yes there are many stories that can come from ones life. The hard part is just picking the right ones to use. Follow that one up by trying to remembering all the details.

Story #1 As with anything new you have to learn. The biggest thing in this case is to read the labels and their ingredients. There was more than one time, that if the wife was not there, I would have had to take the receipt back with me. Then exchanged what I had just purchased. Yes the way you eat can involve a learning experience. As a guy I was willing to ask questions. Taking the product to an associate and saying what is this in the list of ingredients? Just so you also know I will pull over and ask for directions when I am lost. If my dad can do it so can I.

Story #2 - The Soup. We had gone with some friends to see an Irish singer. All went well the first day. The second day we ordered the soup of the day. And it listed as a French onion soup. About halfway through both my wife and I look at each other with a quizzical look on our faces. I called over the waitress and asked what was in the soup. She went and checked in the kitchen. When she came back she told us it was a vegetable soup with a beef broth. In the good news we had stopped eating the soup at the half way mark. In the bad news both of us were sick for the rest of the day as the broth worked its way through our systems.

Story #3 - Wedding Day Yes the wife and I were both vegetarians when we tied the knot. There were only about three of us at the time that were. My sister was the other one. It was nice to have a special meal set up just for us on that day. OK so the rehearsal dinner was also a little bit for everyone. Meat on one side and veggies for the wife and myself on the other. Its also amazing that we found a grooms cake that was easy to have available. A chocolate cheesecake. Gee that was easy and easy to eat. Sorry to say it was also popular and there was none left over.

Story #4 And finally the image that's used above. I once had as a t-shirt with this image on it. It was fun explaining to people why I wore it. Just imagine wearing that to a prison ministry and sharing with so many men why you were a vegetarian. Bringing up the lobsters staring up always brought a laugh. And sometimes a simple laugh is a great way to reach out to others. This allows them to feel more comfortable as they are sharing with you.

While my wife was pregnant with our daughter she craved meat. Believe it or not she was able to switch back with no issues. This meant she was having to prepare meals for three. And not the same thing for everyone. Baby was the easiest of the three. When it came to her and I though, that's when things got a bit harder. She would have to do meat for her and no meat for me.

I thought about switching back more than once. I was never sure how to approach changing back from being a vegetarian. There were several things to take into consideration. The big one being how will my body react to having meat in its system again. After all there was that beef broth incident shared above that I did not feel like repeating.

A former roommate and I - also one of the guys in our wedding party had gone on a men's retreat through our church. I had talked to him about this and he suggested getting prayer. So I dragged him over to the head pastor and another friend and they prayed for me that evening. I did not feel any different.

The next morning at breakfast but there was sausage, ham and bacon. I chowed down. And went back for seconds. My body did not react the way it had to the beef broth. I was not dizzy or nauseous. In fact I shared with everyone there about how prayer works. Pretty much they all knew that I was a vegetarian. This was a great testimony about what God can do through prayer and faith.