Day 21

             Today I had another veggie sub from Subway. I definitely think this is something I can do more often in the future, which is get a veggie sub rather than one with meat, especially since it’s also one of the cheapest subs. At dinner I had the same thing as always – rice, vegetables and fish. My parents pretty much just keep my meals the same and just take the meat out and replace it with seafood. They have been good with the idea of me not eating meat, but they also keep asking me when I’m going to be done with it so that we can barbeque. I think I may have also convinced my dad to eat less meat in the future, which was helped by the fact that his cholesterol is high. I also want to try and get them to buy more meat that is organic, local, and farmed ethically, like free-range turkeys. But that will be hard since it might be more expensive, at least free-range turkeys are. I think around Thanksgiving I saw that regular turkeys are about 30$-40$ and free-range ones are about 70$.

Day 19

Today my parents barbequed again at dinner but I wasn’t bothered by it. I haven’t really had any trouble with not eating meat, but I think it would be harder to continue for a longer time. I think it was easier these 3 weeks because I let myself eat seafood, and somewhat because I’ve been eating lunch at home, so it was easier to find something to eat rather than have to pack something, especially since I always had a turkey sandwich. I think it’s also been simpler because I knew it would be done after 3 weeks and it’s much easier to get through something if you know it’s going to end and you can stop caring after that time. Although, I thought it was going to be much harder before starting and it has been the complete opposite. The only slight difficulty has been remembering to watch what I eat, especially when not at home and am somewhere else where I’m not paying attention to my food. 

Day 18

Yesterday, for dinner, I had a vegetarian sub from Subway, which is exactly like all the other sandwich choices, but it has no meat. You go straight to cheese and vegetables you want on it. I’ve always thought that a sandwich with absolutely no meat, and no meat substitutes, and just vegetables wouldn’t taste very good but the sub I had didn’t taste very different and was good. I think this could be a choice I side with more often in my future Subway trips, especially since I don’t know where Subway gets its meat, and considering they’re a large fast food chain, they probably don’t get it from local, organic farms that use extremely ethical and environmentally friendly methods. Today, I was at Relay For Life, so I was at school for 12 hours. I ate a bunch of junk food, and vegetarian pizza at lunch, which wasn’t new for me, and a veggie dog for dinner, which was new for me. The veggie dog tasted a little funny and the texture wasn’t that appealing, but I don’t generally like hotdogs anyways. It wasn’t too different from a regular hotdog but definitely tasted worse. I think I will stay away from all hotdogs as much as possible in the future.

Day 16

            Tonight I went to the IB dinner, which wasn’t an actual dinner, but there were appetizers. It was harder to make sure I didn’t eat meat because I didn’t know what was in the food, but I had people pre-eat things for me and I’m pretty sure I didn’t eat any meat. Even though it hasn’t been very hard not eating meat, I don’t think I will continue doing it after the project. I think I will eat less meat and when I do eat meat, I want to try to buy the right type of meat. I’ve seen at Farmboy that they have a local and organic meat section. It’s small, but at least it’s existent. The meat comes from local Ontario farms. There are also many free-range options like for turkeys and eggs. I think I will also try to consider buying better animal by-products that aren’t meat as well, like eggs and milk. Lots of people forget about the fact that even if the animal isn’t killed, it doesn’t mean the animal doesn’t suffer. 

Day 15

            Yesterday for lunch I had hummus with pita bread, and today I had a pasta salad. This is the only meal where I’ve had to adjust because I usually have a turkey sandwich. It has been easier to find something to eat because I’ve been eating mostly at home the past 2 weeks and a few times at a restaurant. If I had to bring a lunch as usual, I probably would have considered buying Tofurky so that I could continue making sandwiches, which are easy to bring. I also managed to eat almost no seafood today either except for a tiny bit of salmon at dinner. 

Day 13

            I had another veggie burger today at a pub on Bank St. Again it tasted no different than a regular burger made of meat. I think this could be something I try to have more often in the future rather than a real meat burger.  Through this, I’m finding that I can go without eating meat, and that I am able to do it whenever possible. Even if I don’t continue to leave meat out of my diet, I know that I will be able to eat less of it. I think I will also try to eat less seafood for the rest of this project, because it seems to be becoming a substitute for meat, and since I consider seafood to be meat, I don’t think I would really be able to appreciate the vegetarian lifestyle if I ate a ton of fish. Today, for seafood, I only had some shrimp for dinner, so I think I will be able to eat less of it.

Day 12

              Yesterday, my parents barbecued and I had to sit out on it, which was one tempting moment that I wanted to eat meat. I ‘ve had a couple of instances where I forgot I wasn’t eating meat and almost did – I was about to have some sort of soup with beef in it and I was also about to eat a chicken pie. But I managed to have a good enough memory to remember this project before eating anything. There still hasn’t been much difficulty in doing this so far, except for remembering about it. This kind of shows me how I don’t, and I’m sure many people don’t, think about what we eat before we eat it, and how food is so little of a problem here that we don’t have to think about what it is we’re eating.  And because we don’t think about what we’re eating, we also wouldn’t think about what impact the foods we eat have on people and the environment.

Day 7

Monday I went for sushi at lunch. Again, being able to eat seafood makes this a lot easier, since I can substitute meat with fish. I don’t know if the production of seafood is better or worse than the production of meat, but if it is better – as in more environmentally and ethically friendly – than it could be a good permanent alternative to eating meat. This sushi restaurant in particular also had many vegetarian choices on the menu, which were marked making it easier to know what I was able to eat. I think more and more places are offering vegetarian options because more people are demanding it, therefore making it easier for vegetarians to eat out. I this is also introducing vegetarian meals and fact that they can be just as good as those with meat, helping to encourage a meatless diet.

Day 4

On Saturday (Day 4), I ate lunch at a restaurant and had a veggie burger. I’ve never had one before and it tasted no different than a regular burger. So far, I’ve had no trouble not eating meat, although being able to eat seafood makes it much easier. My dinners haven’t changed much other than I eat fish instead of the usual pork or chicken etc. Since I don’t normally eat meat at breakfast, the only thing that has differed significantly is my lunches. I usually eat turkey sandwiches, but now I’m eating hummus and pita, salad, and other things. This also hasn’t changed grocery shopping much other than I avoid the meat section.

Statement of Intent

For the next 3 weeks, I will be giving up eating meat except for seafood. This includes turkey sandwiches, pepperoni pizza and any type of chicken. I have chosen to do this because food is something that many don’t even consider or contemplate as an environmental issue. It also is a concern of morals because of the methods of production that humans have chosen to use in order to further their own gain.

            In the production of meat, the animals’ needs must be taken care of, for example: food, water, shelter etc. So, the maintenance of livestock already requires much more energy and resources. Meat also requires a much greater land area to produce compared to plant production. This, in addition to bad practices of grazing, results in more deforestation and an increase in the risk of desertification in some countries. In contrast, plants such as fruit trees produce more with much less area and are therefore more efficient. Since such large areas are being taken for agriculture, other ecosystems are being destroyed as farms move in and push these environments back, also harming the habitats of other living organisms, and consequently the organisms themselves. Farmers have also taken to feeding their livestock with corn because it is cheap. However, they end up having to feed the animals a greater amount of corn (because they need the energy for other necessities like movement) to produce a considerably less amount of meat. This is becoming more and more of a concern as developing countries begin to acquire tastes for the diets of Americans, and are demanding to eat meat. Meat production, however, is not just an environmental issue. There are questions about the treatment of the animals – feeding them antibiotics, crowding them in small, dark areas, and slaughtering them cruelly. Therefore, there are also queries on whether this is what we want our farms to be like and how far we are willing to go to eat meat.

            By not eating meat, I will be supporting the cause of creating a more sustainable diet that not only produces less harm on the environment, but also allows for a higher yield of food that could help in the problem of hunger occurring globally. However, I also feel that completely giving up meat is not necessary. Meat produced from farms that carry out healthy farming practices can be bought from butchers and farmers markets and promote a healthy relationship between meat and meat eaters. This project is not measurable, though it can be mentally noted when meat has been avoided and how often I usually eat it. I am not being completely vegetarian as I am allowing my self to eat seafood, which I still consider meat. This is so I don’t lose all my major sources of protein so suddenly as I have never given up meat before. It also isn’t very healthy to abruptly change your diet, so I’ve decided to keep fish.

            I think the most difficult part of this will be remembering to not eat meat, because it is so second nature to just eat what you want when it is there. Even if I really want to cheat, I think I’ll want to not cheat even more because this is something I’ve always wanted to try anyways.