Becoming a Full Time Vegetarian

Lately, I have been considering becoming a full time vegetarian. I am already a vegan for part of the year and a pescetarian for another part of the year. Whenever I lived alone when I was away at school, I would sometimes become an accidental vegetarian because it is more expensive and tricky to prepare when all you have is a refrigerator and microwave. So, I know that it is possible to go without meat for a while.

There are a lot of benefits to becoming a vegetarian (or at least a pescetarian). It is a (usually) much healthier diet. It would motivate me to become more creative with what I eat and how I prepare it. There is the moral and ethical viewpoint about unnecessarily killing animals and the greenhouse gases that cattle cause that I would know that I am no longer contributing to. And, as mentioned above, it is a lot cheaper when you don't have to buy meat. Essentially, if I ever live on my own, this would be the perfect diet for me in that I would not end up blaming my mom's cooking for keeping me from being a vegetarian and I would be trying to save money anyway.

I don't think I could go all out vegan, at least not for the whole year, for one reason: cheese. I've tried vegan cheese and it does not taste like regular cheese. I enjoy cheese too much to give up the real thing full time. I honestly think I could be a vegan plus regular cheese easily. Well, not easily easily, but I know that there could be a point in my life where that is a possibility and I won't feel the desire to break that or that my dietary choices are suddenly too difficult to live with. Although, I may start off as a pescetarian though, so that I could ease into the process. Also, I love shrimp and it will take me a while before I can say good bye to it forever.

I do not know when exactly I would start this. It would be difficult while I am living at home or if I happen to be living with roommates that are not vegetarian and/or understanding of it. I have semi-started a few times but, I think I want to set an actual time point that I would start and then transition into it. I am hoping to have a job and/or start a graduate program (uuugh) by the fall. I keep imagining myself living on my own and in a large city, so if those are the circumstances that arise, I think I would be able to accomplish it much more easily. Whether that does happen or not, I think I want to start my transition this fall. I will slowly get off of meat (if I am not mostly off of it by that point) until I am a pescetarian for a few months and then eventually (and by eventually, I mean within a year or so), I will be a vegetarian.

So here's looking at you fall 2014! I will be a full time vegetarian by the time I see you!