Hello!
Thank you for visiting Meat the
Adventurous Vegetarian. Here you will read about the chronicles of the
least likely of people to stop eating meat. Not only will I quit cold turkey,
but also warm turkey, steak, chicken, fish, and glorious bacon. Now before you think
I am a saint of some sort, I will go ahead and admit that I will eat eggs,
milk, cheese, other dairy, and the like. According to Vida Compassion, I
will be a lacto-ovo vegetarian. Weak-sauce right? A real challenge will be
giving up all remnants of animal products and consuming an entirely plant based
diet. I will explain why I will not do
that, but first, a little bit about myself.
My name is Vikrum Jain, a freshman
biology major at Santa Clara University. Unlike most freshmen, I did something
I will not regret 10 years down the line. I walked on to the Division 1 varsity
basketball team. Now, again, before you view me as a miracle worker, I was a
practice player all year. My job description entailed learning the other team’s
plays on the fly, running those plays with the other practice players, doing
anything the coach asks, and essentially being a body bag. No, I didn’t get a
jersey or sit on the bench. You could say I was a glorified manager. This may
seem less than ideal for an aspiring athlete such as myself, but I thoroughly
enjoyed the experience, as I got better by playing against larger, stronger
collegiate athletes. While I have a competitive height at 6’8, I was outmatched
weight wise, giving up 30, 40, 50, and as much as 80 pounds on a daily basis.
Obviously, I needed to gain weight to level the
playing field. This is where my diet comes in. I began to eat ravenously,
consuming copious amounts of food largely consisting of meat. I often ate 4 or
5 large meals throughout the day excluding snacks. Before you think I fattened
off of pizza and ice cream, the plan was for me to gain lean muscle mass. This
involves a balanced diet high in protein, carbohydrates, and calories and a
weight lifting regime that adds size in all the right places. Progress was (and
still is) slow, but I am gaining weight and getting stronger to prepare for
next year at a healthy rate that will be sustainable.
Now to the eggs and milk. To gain
lean mass, one needs protein. Eggs and milk products such as cheese and yogurt
are excellent sources of muscle-building amino acids, and dropping them will be
very detrimental to my athletic goals. The question pops up: why not replace
those chicken and dairy products with soy to go full vegan? Well, isoflavones,
or chemicals found in soybeans responsible for yellow pigmentation, are
structurally similar to the female sex hormone estrogen. They bind to the
estrogen receptors, and under certain conditions induce weak estrogen like
effects. In high concentrations, they help post-menopausal woman achieve
necessary estrogen levels (Messina and Wood 2). Last time I checked, I am not a
post-menopausal woman and never will be (hopefully). I am certainly not saying
I will neglect soy completely during my vegetarian adventures, but I wont
consume a high amount of it. This is why I need to keep eggs and milk protein in
my diet; I do not want to rely heavily on soy as it may have adverse effects on
a growing 18 year old.
After that fat spiel, you are
probably wondering why I am doing this anyway. Why go vegetarian even though I
might turn into a woman (not actually though). It all started when I learned
about the horrid conditions industry-grown animals had to face and how that
negatively affected their meat products, I began to think eating meat was not
the best thing to do. After I thought of how reliant on meat I am, I figured
giving up meat might be too extreme of a move. When I was presented with this
project, I embraced the idea that I could take a risk and really challenge
myself with this new set of dietary restrictions. The physical goals I would
like to achieve are being more energetic and having a lower body fat
percentage. Environmentally speaking, forgoing meat will reduce my carbon
footprint, and morally speaking, going vegetarian means I will not eat anything
with a face. To summarize, going vegetarian for two weeks will hopefully be a
testament to my will power, and help prove to myself that anything is possible
if I work at it.
Aside from eating faces and sappy
clichés, I will further inform you on the gravity of this challenge. The best
way to do this is to show you a two-week log of what I normally eat. Although
this food log was from almost 6 months ago, it is still valid, as my diet
hasn’t changed much since. Only my eating schedule is different because I do
not have practice from 12 – 3pm. I still have workouts but they are not as time
consuming. This two week sample size is large enough to show a variety of foods
in my diet but small enough for you to actually read and not skim over. I know
you guys will skim over it regardless but its worth a shot. Might as well write
what I ate for Tuesday, April 23, so you guys don’t have to look over two whole
weeks of data.
I started my day with and apple, a
protein shake after I lifted weights, and shortly after I ate a three-egg
omelet with vegetables and tofu. Yes, I ingested tofu. Did I feel particularly
feminine? Not quite. Two hours later, I decided it was time for lunch. I polished
off beef lasagna with a side salad and garlic bread. After an hour and 45
minutes of mind numbing chemistry, I decided it was time to eat again. I gobbled
a turkey and apple sandwich (surprisingly delicious) and eight pieces of
California roll sushi. After a refreshing nap and some work on this post, I got
hungry again. Notice a trend? I eat a shit ton. For dinner, I eagerly finished
a breaded chicken caprese with mozzarella and pesto sauce. Who says Benson food
sucks?
As you can see, meat is a huge part
of my life and I will sure miss it over a two-week period. That’s 20160 whole minutes
without eating animals. I am excited,
though, to take on this challenge. Who knows, I might even give up meat for the
rest of my life. But not really though. That is most definitely not going to
happen. I would say that is the last possible thing that could happen. At this
point, I think I have a higher chance of winning the lottery even though I
didn’t buy any tickets.
So far in this blog there have been a lot of
corny jokes and bad puns. You might think, where are the meat and potatoes?
Well, in the next few posts, there wont be any meat, but a lot of potatoes.
