Chicken is Not a Vegetable!

Not eating cheese would make me angry and bitter, but
seeing this cute mouse would make me happy!

You know, I'm not sure if I have ever told you this, but I am a vegetarian, and I do not like or eat meat. Now, I know that many Southerners consider fried chicken to be a vegetable, but I don't eat that either, nor do I eat fish, shrimp, or other shellfish. My rule is that if it ever had a face I don't eat it. I am not a vegan, though; because I love cheese eggs, and all dairy products, and if I could not eat these things I think I'd be pretty irritable most of the time!

My reasons for being a vegetarian are twofold. First, I have never liked meat too much. When I was a kid I didn't really eat meat when my mom cooked it at home, except for chicken. I would eat hamburgers when we went out, though. My archenemy was cube steak. I dreaded the times my mom would make that, and, although I would try a bite, I disliked it a lot. I sure am glad my parents were not the type of parents who’d make us sit at the dinner table until we finished a certain food. I'd probably still be sitting there today, with the cube steak having disintegrated into dust. Hell, I'd still be sitting there a million years from now, and the scientists from the future would have to use radiocarbon dating to figure out just how old the cube steak and I were. Cube steak really seems like something that would have a long half-life.

Anyway, I never liked meat too much, plus I have always loved animals. I think most mammals and lizards are cute, and that many birds and some sea creatures are cute. I hate bugs, but I don't really put them in the same category with other animals, kind of how Velma was part of the Scooby Doo gang, but nobody really liked her. I will always go out of my way to pet any pettable animal, and will even try to make friends with non-pettable animals too.

One time there was this dog I found wandering the neighborhood. He was a big black dog, and when I approached him in front of my house, he growled and snarled at me and bared his huge colossal teeth. But I wasn't deterred. I was going to find the dog's owner and get him home! I lured him into my backyard by making a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of dry dog food. Once he was in my backyard, I closed the gate and I gave him several cans of wet dog food, each time trying to approach him to look at his tags so I could see where he lived. I did this for the better part of an hour. Yet, each time I tried to get near him, he went crazy like he was a famous person and I was a paparazzo trying to snap nude photos of him or something. I'd move toward him and he'd growl. I'd reach for his tags and he'd snap his jaws at me. You get the picture. The guy just did not want me near him, although I must say he was pretty rude about it! He could have been a little gentler with me and simply stopped calling or told me he needed to do his taxes, as some other guys have when they didn't want to be around me. Finally, I gave up because I enjoy having fingers and a hand. I fed him a couple more cans of dog food and then let him back out on the street, hoping his owner would be out looking for him.

I felt really bad and guilty that I could not get that dog back to his owner. As you can see, I'm a sucker for animals! Because I love animals so much, the idea of eating them really bothers me. I was around 16 when I realized that meat was made of animals. Before then I hadn't really considered it, or maybe I thought meat just grew on trees, or that cows gave meat like they do milk or something. At that time I read something about pigs having intelligence equivalent to that of a two-year-old child, and I just couldn't eat pork products anymore. Then I decided that cows looked pretty smart too, and I wouldn't eat beef products either. I gave up beef and pork in 1995, and other than a couple of unfortunate times when one of these meats has inadvertently ended up in my food at a restaurant, I have not eaten them since.

In 2002 I read a disturbing article about chicken production, and I gave up chicken, turkey, and all other manner of fowl. I had a brief chicken renaissance in 2006, when I learned I was anemic, until I realized that I had actually lost my taste for chicken, and that it is red meat and not chicken that would provide me with iron, so I also realized I was stupid. I stopped eating fish and the like in 2009, and now I eat no meat at all, though, as I said before, dairy products are the bomb!

Now, I know vegetarians are annoying to many people, and I totally understand why. First, they often want everyone around them not to eat meat either, and they will sometimes force horrible disturbing articles about meat production on unsuspecting carnivores. Also, sometimes they are very hippie granola-like too, and they do things like play hacky sack out on the green space at college while wearing a macramé hat. I mean, come on! Nobody likes people who do that!

I'm here to tell you that I try very hard to be a non-annoying vegetarian. I do not want my friends and family to hate me and want to murder me when they have to go to dinner with me.  First, I do not care at all if other people eat meat. As long as you do not ask me to go hunt down a turkey and kill it and cook it for you, I couldn't care less if you eat a turkey sandwich. Plus, I do not mind if you eat meat right in front of my face. I will gladly go with you to Sonny's Barbecue and shovel in the excellent garlic bread and french fries while you eat 50,000 pounds of pork ribs mere inches from me. (I would be more concerned about how many Weight Watcher points my meal had than about the fact you were eating meat.) I might even prepare meat for you if I liked you a lot, particularly if you were an attractive age-appropriate male with good income prospects and the ability to return text messages.

Also, I know how irritating it can be when you try to make dinner plans with a vegetarian, and they're all like, "But there's nothing I can eat at Sammy's House of Carnivorous Meats! We can't go there." Once again, I am here to tell you that, if forced, a vegetarian can find something to eat at most modern restaurants, even at Sammy’s House of Carnivorous Meats. Many restaurants, even popular chains, now feature vegetarian menu sections, and even the ones that don't often still have vegetarian-friendly items. I enjoy going to Outback Steakhouse, for example, because they have most excellent baked potatoes and salads. In fact, their garlic croutons are so good, that if a six-year-old little kid had the last Outback croutons in existence, I would steal the croutons from said kid and even make him cry.

Did that chicken touch my salad? Shh! Keep it on the DL!

Now, I know many vegetarians would argue that most restaurants do not have a wide selection of vegetarian items, which is true. You will usually only find a wide variety of choices if you go to a strictly vegetarian restaurant like Cafe Sunflower in Atlanta, or The Laughing Seed Cafe in Asheville (two of the only all-vegetarian restaurants I have visited). But I happen to be pretty boring when it comes to what I eat. I will find one meal I like at a restaurant, and then, every time I go to that restaurant from now until the end of eternity I will, without fail, order that same meal. If I were a really adventurous eater I might be upset about the lack of vegetarian items in most restaurants, but since I'm not I am all set! In the past 18 years I can count on one hand the number of times I was at a restaurant and there was nothing there I, as a vegetarian, could eat. I am also pretty easygoing about meat touching my food. If I see some chicken sitting right there all rubbing up against my salad, then I will probably not want to eat the salad. But, if I don't know meat has touched my food I'm all good! At Willy's Mexicana Grill, for example, I know my tofu is probably cooked right next to the steak, and, as long as I don't see it or know about it, it is okay. I have a “don't ask don't tell” policy when it comes to this issue.

Further, I am a slight hypocrite in a couple of ways when it comes to being a vegetarian. First, I was devastated to learn a couple of years ago that barbecue flavored baked Lay's potato chips are not vegetarian because there is something meaty in the flavoring they use on them. Well, I really love barbecue flavored baked Lay's potato chips, so I simply conveniently forget this little nugget of truth, and eat them anyway. Problem solved! And, also, I wear leather shoes, which, I guess is kind of hypocritical for an animal lover, but I just wanted to put that out there in the interest of full disclosure.

I hope you have enjoyed my take on vegetarianism. I promise if I ever go to dinner with you, that I will not be a pain in the ass, as long as you promise to buy me a Gigi's cupcake afterward. Happy eating!

Mouse in cheese image courtesy of http://www.theguardian.com/

Salad image courtesy of http://www.pizzastationsi.com/