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After 6 Months Of Being A Vegetarian, I’m Still Alive And Well (And Getting Enough Protein And Fat)

 

This week makes six months since I last consumed any meat. Since most people I know don’t actually know a real vegetarian, I figured it would be a good idea to address some common concerns about those of us who no longer eat animals.

Getting Enough Protein and Fat: Six months ago, I weighed 158 pounds. Now, I weigh 156 pounds. So maybe I lost a petty amount of weight, but I’m no human praying mantis. I consume plenty of good fats from avocados, nuts, and olive oils and lots of protein from beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and green vegetables. Not to mention, I still consume some dairy products; I’m not a vegan.

Still Being Hungry: As I learned from the documentary Forks Over Knives, 500 calories of a high fiber vegetarian meal actually makes a person feel more full than if they ate 500 calories of a meat-centric meal. Whenever I am hungry, I eat. But if I am still hungry after a meal, it’s only because I didn’t eat enough food.

Psychologically Wanting Meat: Though proper vegetarians get more than sufficient amounts of their necessary nutrition, what about the the fact that it’s fun to eat meat? I admit: the thought of a big, juicy burger sounds pretty good. So do some fried shrimp and scallops.

That’s what’s ironic about this. I don’t crave or any miss chicken or salmon or any other kind of lean, healthier meat. I just miss the unhealthy kinds of meat; mainly the fried, high-fat stuff.

So I eat lightly fried okra or homemade baked fries instead.

The thing about psychologically wanting meat is it’s kind of like wanting dessert. You don’t eat dessert because you’re still hungry. You eat it because it tastes good and it makes you feel good.

Therefore, if I won’t allow myself to drink soda (which I never do) then I can also subdue my psychological desires to taste animals.

But for me, it’s a slippery slope.

So will I ever cheat? Will I ever have an “off day” and sneak in some fish and chips?

Here is what I’ve decided:

If I ever “cheat” and eat meat again, then I must also eat all kinds of meat from that point forward; including fast food products as well as pork and shellfish, which for me is taboo because I am kosher.

Since I know what I am not willing to go back to my old ways of eating, I know I will not eat meat again. It’s one big slippery slope for me.

It’s the “all or nothing” mentality that makes this thing work for me.

But speaking of cheating, something I love about being a vegetarian is the lack of “food guilt.”

At work parties, I can totally load up on some chips and dip as well cake and donuts and not gain any weight- Because I have no meat needing to be slowly digested inside of me, the “non-meat junk food” just slips right on through with my vegetables and whole grains; evidently.

Not to mention, by being a 100% vegetarian, I view it as my own built-in insurance policy against cancer, Diabetes, and all those other troublesome diseases. If all else fails, I’ll just go vegan.

If you are curious to learn more about how going vegetarian “shuts off” your body’s cancer cells, I invite you to watch Forks Over Knives on Netlix.

Please, don’t just take my word for it; instead see for yourself the death-sentenced cancer patients from the 1970’s who are now alive and well because of their choice to no longer eat animals.

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Mandatory Vegetarian Labeling Could Prevent Us From Eating Castoreum, Scale Insects, And Pig Bones/Skins

I didn’t know there were pig bones in my Jello, bugs in my Kool-Aid, or beaver anal glands in my vanilla milkshake…

By U.S. law, food packaging must include the ingredients; but not “ingredients of ingredients.” If you are either kosher-abiding or vegetarian like I am, there is no real way to know for sure that you are steering clear of animal products that require the slaughter of an animal.

We vegetarians are no longer a marginal minority in America. Isn’t it only fair and appropriate that we can know which processed foods are animal based, and from which animals they are processed from?

As a contracted writer for Parents.com, I have learned a lot about these secret “ingredients of ingredients.” In Why This Dad Despises Red 40 And Crimson Lake Food Dyes, I explained how red food dye is neither kosher nor vegetarian:

“Crimson Lake: Made from the powdered and boiled bodies of scale insects (parasites of plants) this dye is commonly found in yogurt, juice drinks, ice cream, and candy. Though I am a vegetarian, I still abide by kosher law, which prohibits the consumption of any insect other than the locust. Crimson Lake is also known as Carmine.”

In 3 Ways Kids’ Easter Candy Isn’t Vegetarian (Or Kosher) I told how marshmallows and “natural” vanilla flavoring are not animal flesh-free:

“Marshmallows: What makes marshmallows themselves so special? Well, it’s just that they are made with gelatin, which is comprised of cow hide, pig skins, and bones of both.

‘Natural’ vanilla flavoring: How can you know when a vanilla flavored food is made with actual vanilla or just castoreum, which is the oily secretion, found in two sacs between the anus and the external genitals of beavers? We can’t, thanks to the FDA.”

Even if you’re not a vegetarian or don’t care which foods are approved as kosher, wouldn’t we at least want to know what’s in our food?

I mean, exactly what’s in your food? Maybe we don’t. That’s the scary part.

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My First “Feature Story” on Parents.com; A Father’s Day Special, Separate from The Dadabase

Father’s Day is a week from today, you know.

Becoming the daddy blogger for Parents.com has opened up another opportunity: the invitation to write a couple of slideshow features for them. Talk about being at the right place in life and the right time… The first story, which is now up on their site, is “Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad.” Perhaps by default, I ended up becoming the “go to” guy for this story, having just been hired as their daddy blogger and this being my first Father’s Day. Seriously, what an honor!

Not to mention, it’s kind of funny that I was given the authority to decide what the seven ways to be an awesome new dad should be.  They actually left it up to me!  I could have said, “Dress up in a giant chicken costume as you rock your infant to sleep every night in an effort to truly take them under your wing.”  Or “Eat baby formula with your infant to lead by example.” But I guess Parents.com trusts me enough not to do something outrageous like that.

When writing the piece, I tried to be as creative as possible.  I never like pointing out the obvious when I write.  This story isn’t “Seven Ways to Be a Decent New Dad.”  My assignment was to write about being an “awesome” new dad.

With no further ado, here is “Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad.”

(Click the title in the sentence above in blue letters to read the story on Parents.com.)

Partially Unnecessary Explanation of the Link:

It is a link to the story I’ve been talking about this whole time.  That’s the whole reason I wrote this post you’re reading right now; simply to promote it. Seriously, at the end of the day when I read my blog’s statistics, if it says there are 57 people who read this post, it should also show that 57 people clicked the link. Yes, I can and do keep up with that stuff. It’s sort of my job/obsession.

When I wrote the final “dad from day one” post which ended with a link to the first “Dadabase” post, only 1/3 of the people who read the post actually clicked the link at the end.  That means that 2/3’s of the people who read it, missed the whole point! I want to prevent another similar disaster from happening.  Come on team; let’s go for a 100% this time.  I believe in all of you, my friends.

Just in case you missed it the first time, here’s another opportunity to click the link; this time in a giant font so that there’s no possible way to have missed it:

Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad

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dad from day one: My Big Secret is that Parents.com has Chosen Me as Their Official Daddy Blogger- Now Introducing “The Dadabase”

Six months.

The picture above was cropped for my new header.

One of my favorite movies of all time is the so-relevant-to-real-life Marley and Me– which is based on the autobiographical book of the same name. The author and main character is John Grogan, a newspaper columnist who captures his everyday life in stories in his column.  The first time I saw Marley and Me, I remember thinking, “That would be so cool to have such a widely read column.” Around the same time, in 2009, my wife bought me two “how to become a writer” books for my birthday.  I had the inspiration and the guidance, I just didn’t have the right story topic yet.

A year later, my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby.  The idea came to me to become the only dad in history to document my fatherly thoughts and perspective every single week on a blog, starting with the beginning of the pregnancy.  So on April 13, 2010, I wrote my first “dad from day one” entry.  And today, technically, I write my last.

From this picture I sent in to the Parents.com staff, they designed my new logo.

Here’s why: Parents.com, the website for Parents magazine (first published in 1926), has decided to pick up my daddy blog series; starting today, right now, at the conclusion of this post with a link.  “Dad from day one” is being rebooted into something much bigger, yet it will still be faithful to its roots.  (And I’ll still be writing my “nonparenting” posts here on NickShell.com).  I decided to go with a new name for my daddy blog that I felt will be most appropriate, since I’m the only daddy blogger for Parents.com’s new featured blogs.

I needed some help coming up with the perfect name, though.  So I recruited the help of my facebook friends, and Diana Jung Taub had the idea to play off of the word “data.”  I added the word “base,” then my wife gave me the official article “the.”

I liked the idea of Jack’s hand holding on to my finger, a symbol of fatherly strength.

The Dadabase will pick up right where “dad from day one” is leaving off.  But whereas “dad from day one” has been a weekly series (I wrote at least one post each week for it), The Dadabase will basically be a daily series.  I am contracted to write a minimum of 4 posts per week and can write a maximum of 25 each month.  If I write the maximum, which predictably is what I am planning to do, that’s around 5.5 posts per week.

With Parents magazine’s already existing paid circulation of 2 million people and a total readership of 15 million people, my daddy blog is about to hit an instant growth spurt- a pretty big one.  I’m good at keeping secrets (I’ve known about this since March as I’ve been in a nearly daily contact with the editors up in New York City) but I’m so happy to finally share the news with you, my faithful readers.

My little blog is growing up, just like my little boy, who this whole thing is about in the first place.

Okay, welp… it’s time to shut down the lights in this little place and move all my stuff to that high rise apartment in the sky.  I’m movin’ on up- and I’m taking you with me.

Enter:  The Dadabase.

(Click on the the underlined phrase above this sentence to be transported there, it’s the link…)

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dad from day one: Jack is Now Six Months Old, Officially Has Blue Eyes and Weighs 19.2 Pounds

Week 26 (6 months).

Despite the cliche, “they grow up so fast,” I will admit that these past six months have been the quickest six months of my life.  And yes, Jack has definitely sprouted up very quickly.  Six months ago my wife and I held a baby in our arms, with zero personal experience.  Now, we have no longer have a newborn, but instead an infant.  An infant who can eat ground up fruits, veggies, and grains- not just formula.  Who is attempting to crawl.  Who is outgrowing his original car seat.

And I’ve been waiting until Jack turned six months old to officially say what has been pretty obvious for a while now: Jack has blue eyes.  I know there was a possibility that his eyes could get darker up until this point.  I never thought that it was even possible for my wife and I to have a blue eyed child.  It’s pretty funny, actually.

Not only has Jack changed in so many big ways since November 16th, 2011.  But I have as well.  You can’t be a parent and not become a different person in the process.  Even in just six month’s time.  Especially in the first six month’s time.

Am I writing this morning about Jack or myself?  Equally both, at best.  At age 29, when we found out we were going to have a baby, I had reached a point in my life where I evidently stopped growing and maturing as a person.  And since he was born, I’ve made up for any lost time as far as personal development.

I’ve undergone so many changes in the last six months that the best and perfect comparison would be to Desmond on Lost, who traveled in and out of time, disoriented of where and “when” he was.  I do feel spaced out, in the most literal way that the phrase “spaced out” can be used.  I’m trying to remember what it means to “be myself,” when becoming a father obviously changes that version of “myself” who I completely understood and had figured out.

Of course, these “who am I?” sort of thoughts aren’t red flags for some kind of personal crisis.  Instead, this is just me pointing out that I (and I assume other first time parents, too) undergo so many changes in their life at once that they have to take time to deliberately and specifically figure out who this new person is that they’ve become.  Not a bad version of who they are; just the different version that is required of them in becoming a parent.

By no means does a person stop growing up just because they turn 30.  Instead, some of the greatest maturity is happening at that age, for me.  And at six months old, I think it’s safe to say that Jack is experiencing some of the same thoughts in his own little baby brain.  The question is whether or not he’s more spaced out than I am.