Deciding to be a Vegetarian

During the last year , June 10-2020 , when I was reflecting on my diet intake and its effect in my health, I realized that meat did not agree so much to my body. I had never thought to be a vegetarian so when I thought about experimenting myself to be a fully vegetarian ( with the exception of eggs and milk products of course) my palate discouraged me from that thought. With constant juggling of my mind I got the hold of these two extreme thoughts and made them sit over to reach to one compromising solution. It might sound funny and silly to the people reading this. But the mental conundrum of a meat loving person deciding to to be a vegetarian is a serious business. So I came to the decision that I would give my palate a year to satisfy its urges and also get used with the idea of being a vegetarian. So the mental standoff was resolved.

I come from a community in which meat is essential in every rituals. We are a community that loves meats. We entice the people from other community with the varieties of meat cooking. I think there are very few people who does not love meat. Most of us relish it. The same is true for me. Me and my wife (girlfriend at that time) decided to forego the buff food items from our food options four years ago ( exception to that – we ate buff meat when it was brought from our village) . From that moment we had eaten very less buff food items. Buff or red meat for the matter used to give our digestive process a huge pressure afterwards and sometimes even took ill due to it. Then there was a media report about the way the buff meat was processed in Kathmandu which was very revulsive and frankly vomit inducing. If anyone is thinking of leaving a meat that tv report can do a good job of desensitisation. So I think the decision as of now to become a vegetarian started with the decision not to eat buff items.

To make myself clear there is no ideological reason as such motivating my decision. I don’t and will not bash the people who eat meat. I am experimenting myself for a year from June 10, 2021 to the June 10 next year to remove meat from my diet. Lets see what happens. And if I think that this was a bad idea I would resume eating meat again.

I like to experiment on myself. But ofcourse that would be with behaviours deemed safe physiologically and also can be reversed back if found unsuccessful. I have done many trials in myself. However most of them were failures but these failures always force me to think from another perspective or angle. So to say that I like experimenting myself would not be an under statement. Gandhi also did a lot of experiments in himself which made him Gandhi we know of today. Without those experiments Gandhi wouldn’t have experienced his truth. Well again I am not in the path to becoming Gandhi. You can read his experiences about his own experiments on himself in his autobiography – My Experiments with Truth.

My family members including my wife are doubtful about my commitment. This hurt my ego and I have to prove them that I can live happily without eating meat ( Just joking – but they are not 100 % convinced). The only problem that I fear is that I might lack protein in my diet. But this will give me an opportunity to research about it hopefully. So on with my new experiment with myself. After all if it doesn’t kill you, you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment on yourself. That’s research for you by you.