The Butt Ugly Weblog

Still standing

A year ago I decided to become semi-vegetarian, and by that I mean actively choosing non-meat/fish option if it's available. So I guess this is the appropriate time to review how that has affected my life.

In short, not much.

I lost some weight during last spring, but I gained it all back during Outi's pregnancy (oddly enough, I probably gained more than she did). My health is not better nor worse, and life is pretty much the same. More stress, but that's probably not the fault of the diet. Since the wife insists on eating meat every day, my vegetarianism is pretty much restricted to office and restaurants, but it's still about half the meals.

I guess the biggest concrete change is the fact that the queues to the vegetarian dishes are much shorter at the office cafeteria, so I don't have to hang around with my tray so much. And the fact that I've discovered a number of very good dishes I wouldn't have otherwise sampled. And yeah, my tolerance for badly cooked meat has gone down. Meat is still great, but since an average industrially made vegetarian meal is just as bad as an average industrially made non-vegetarian one, it's pretty much the same difference which one you pick. It's kinda like whisky or beer - if you don't consume much, it's nice to sample different kinds, experience new tastes and be a bit snobby about not drinking Budweiser.

The point being: it probably won't make a difference in your day, unless you get all ass-tight about it (or you live in a place where a vegetarian meal is the same as the regular but without the meat). But it does lower your overall impact to the world, so it's probably - aside from changing the lightbulbs - one of the easiest ways to do something. Just stand in the other queue, cometh lunchtime.

(Though not, please, in our office. I very much like the short queues. ;-)