I've been considering the vegetarian lifestyle recently. Mandy spent much of her life as a vegetarian and only because of practical purposes did she succumb to eating meat again (mostly because of my meat eating needs). Finn has not directly eaten meat yet, so I think he's a vegetarian by default. After reading several successful accounts of people switching, I have weighed the pros and cons of such a lifestyle.
I haven't heard of anyone who, after going on a meat-less die,t have negative results. No doubt just the opposite. I think the main frustration for me would be convenience. Eating out in Greenwood is very difficult on a meat-less diet; the majority of our restaurant choices consist of major chains that specialize in the type of food that 90% of Americans enjoy. This alone wouldn't be a problem if they offered decent entrées that didn't revolve around meat.
Finding lunch that is fast and "healthy" is pretty much impossible in Greenwood, mainly for the same reasons as above. The most frustrating part of my day is if I'm very busy with things and I need something fast for lunch. South Greenwood provides only a few choices: Burger King, Subway, McDonalds, and KFC. Boones is an decent choice if i had 2 hours for lunch and Howard's is a great choice if I had a limitless lunch budget; however I don't know if either of these offers vegetarian lunches. Mark my words, if anyone opened a Chick-fil-a in south Greenwood, they would make a KILLING, but that's a bit off topic.
A solution to the eating out problem is simply order meals without the meat or order meat-less appetizers as the meal. Both of these might be good solutions if what you got was substantial enough to call a meal, which depends on the venue. Pasta would become a staple when dining out, but that would get a bit old.
Another problem I face with vegetarianism is doing it right. I believe you can have a meat-less diet and still eat just as bad, if not worse, than with the meat. When you don't have meat as the center of the meal, what are you going to substitute it with? This is where a certain degree of creativity and knowledge must be used in making healthy food choices, and I must admit, I don't have either the knowledge or the creativity, but I expect both can be learned.
Anyway, that's all I've got on the matter. I've got a lot more research to do and I feel that this would be a progressive change. I'll keep you, dear reader, updated on my progress.
-Brian
