What Happened When I Became A Vegetarian For A Month
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What Happened When I Became A Vegetarian For A Month

Cutting meat out of my diet certainly made for an interesting experience.

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What Happened When I Became A Vegetarian For A Month
Melanie Leisen 2017

This past month I decided to cut out all meat and go vegetarian. I was originally going to do it for only a week, but I decided that I wanted more of a challenge. So, here I am a month later telling my friend that all I want from McDonalds is fries and a McFlurry since there is nothing else I can eat from there. This month has been tough, but it has been a great experience that I have learned so much from.

First of all, we as Americans consume way too much meat. I thought that going vegetarian would be easy because I didn't think that I ate that much meat, but boy was I wrong. Almost everything I normally eat has some kind of meat or meat product in it, and almost every social event serves mostly meat products with a few sides that are not very filling on their own.

However, once I got past the fact that most of my normal foods contain meat, it was not hard to find options. I ate normal meals like chicken and yellow rice without the chicken, and when I went to restaurants like Taco Bell, I would ask them to take the meat off my normal orders. It got even better once I found frozen foods I could easily heat up in the microwave or oven. I was able to easily eat delicious meals without meat.

Probably the best lesson I learned is that I am capable of anything I set my mind to. There were times that it was extremely hard to say no, like when my friends were offering me a McDonald's chicken nugget or perfectly cooked strip of bacon from Cracker Barrel, however, I did it and it felt good to have that much self control. I was not sure I was going to make it when I switched to a month, but I did, and I couldn't be more proud of myself.

I have one day left and I plan on reinstating meat in my diet, however, I am not going to eat nearly as much as I used to eat. After going without it for a month, I realized that I can skip on eating meat for most meals. I might even continue being vegetarian, but maybe after eating some Chick-Fil-A nuggets and an ultimate Publix sub first.

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