I could have had a V-8!

I think I’m turning into a vegetarian.  Well, not the tree hugging, Birkenstock wearing type…but some kind of pseudo-vegetarian, nonetheless.

That I would even remotely consider myself one is somewhat shocking to me.  I’m not sure whether it’s because I simply can’t be bothered to cook anymore or for health reasons, but more dinners than not are now meatless wonders. 

Hear that sound?  That’s the sound of my Mother dancing around in her grave, for once she believed that I would die of malnutrition from not eating any vegetables.  Who’s having the last laugh now?  She’s gone and I’m still here trying to figure out if I should eat a turnip.

I blame Dr. Oz.  Every time I turn on his show, he’s not only telling me all the horrific things that meat is doing inside my body…he’s showing me!  And it’s not pretty.  Once ingested, my beautiful steak dinner turns suddenly turns into artery clogging, inflammation producing, fatty lumps of goo wending their way through my bloodstream leading to myocardial infarction.  Yikes.  It’s a wonder we don’t croak right at the dinner table.

Mind you, meat is not what it once was.  It used to actually taste like something.  If you buy grass-fed beef from the Farmer’s Market, you stand some chance of it tasting like something you’d want to put in your mouth, barbequed or otherwise.

Here’s what’s been happening lately.  I begin to get hungry.  My mind tells me to eat a big juicy burger.  I ponder that event…roll it around in my mind a few times.  During this period of reflection, I recall all the fatty horribleness and by the time I get home, I either munch on a carrot or quickly make myself a salad.  Or pasta.  Or anything that doesn’t involve a burger.  Funny how I never fanaticize about eating a vegetable…any vegetable.

I can honestly say that only once in my entire life have I ever craved a vegetable and that was when I had my wisdom teeth out.  Note to self: do not try to eat crunchy salad vegetables when your mouth is sore post surgery.  That little experiment ended badly.  My poor body, in starvation mode from not eating anything hallucinated that a vegetable would save it.  Fat chance. 

I can only surmise by this that tofu is next.  I have briefly tried tofu and the conclusion that I came to is that it’s a wonderful invention for those who have never tasted meat.  I’m not terribly crazy about the texture, but then I once said the same thing about mushrooms; a vegetable I can’t be without now. 

The value of tofu for me is lessened by the fact that it doesn’t appear to have any taste of its own. Beware things that have no taste, for they can kill you.  That’s how I came to find out that I am allergic to zucchini.   Yes zucchini!  People laugh at this for reasons I have yet to determine.  Not a lot of yucks about people stabbing themselves with Epi Pens having had the misfortune to sit near someone eating a peanut, but zucchini sends them into guffaws of laughter. 

Having surmised it had no taste, I ate a dinner plate full of it the first time I ate it.  Spent the entire weekend being sick.  For me, the worst sight of all is a piece of lasagna half eaten by yours truly when I suddenly notice a layer of zucchini.  It’s like realizing that you just ate half a cockroach.  At least if I did eat a cockroach, I guess I could consider it meat.  Bleck.