My Vegetarian Journey

At the beginning of Summer 2019 I decided for myself I wanted to become a vegetarian,the main reason for me to make this decision was because of global warming. We constantly see forest fires in the news that are destroying our planet, people's lives and animals' lives. The cause of these fires are diverse, but one of the main reasons why farmers purposely set forests on fire is to burn down trees in order to expand their farm land to breed animals, that will afterwards be sent to the slaughterhouse to end up at your plate. Another, often-heard fact is about cows being one of the worst polluters out of all the animals, because everytime they burp or release gas (farts), they release a huge amount of methane, which is 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. I'm a true climate activist and try to do as much as I can to be kinder to our planet, everyday. So one thing that I figured would be easy for me to do and that would benefit our planet was becoming a vegetarian.

I am not writing this post to push anyone towards becoming a vegetarian too, everyone has the right to make their own choices but I want to tell my story and maybe inspire others too, to do better for our planet.

To be fair, before I became a vegetarian, I wasn't as a big meat lover anymore as I was 5 years ago. You rarely saw me ordering a steak in a restaurant or anything else that involved a lot of meat, I prefered fish or pasta dishes. The only meals I still ate, wherein meat was involved, were Lasagne, Spaghetti Bolognaise and Chicken Nuggets (🙈). So skipping meat was not that big of a deal for me when turning vegetarian.

I, ofcourse, struggled for a bit in the beginning as some of my favourite dishes involved meat, but I quickly learned that I could still eat these meals with "fake" meat or by just eliminating the meat entirely.

So what do I eat now? And how can I continue eating my favourite dishes without meat?

Well, I tend to get rid of meat as much as possible and exchange it for a lot of vegetables. One of my favourite dishes to make at home was chicken with curry, now I just add some eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, etc. instead of chicken and it tastes reallyyyyyy good. If i'm in the mood for some spaghetti bolognaise or lasagne, I just substitute the real meat with fake meat, that is easily available in (almost) every supermarket you shop at. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to do about my Chicken Nugget addiction, but luckily McDonald's recently introduced veggie nuggets and I am forever greatful because they taste really good (and pretty similar to real nuggets) and now I can still enjoy my occassional dosis of chicken nuggets. Lastly, for any meat dish with mashed potatoes or fries I like to buy fake meat from the brand "Garden Gourmet" or “Quora” as I like the majority of their products and they taste really good, you barely notice the difference with real meat.

So now, how can you do better for our climate while you still continue eating meat, here are some tips for the one's who want to make a difference too:

1. Try to avoid as much red meat as possible (see cow fact at the top)

2. Try to eliminate meat 2 or 3 times per week (become a flexitarian)

3. If you want, eliminate all meat and only eat fish (become a pescatarian) -> I don't necessarily like this idea as fish are already intensely affected by global warming and pollution, so why kill them on purpose to eat them? But it's a good start.

4. If possible, try to buy your meat at the butcher as their packaging is better for the environment. If you want to be even better for the environment; bring your own container to eliminate packaging entirely.

5. Try out the vegetarian life for a week and then decide for yourself if you like it or not.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and I hope to have inspired some of you to become a vegetarian too, believe me, it's not that bad😉.

A bientôt!

Bisous