Wednesday 29 January 2020

I Have Become A Slow Veggie


Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yesterday I was in Penarth for the specific purpose of having my hair cut in what seems to me to be the only barbers in the town centre where an appointment to cut the fighting silver spiders that pass for my hair these days.I

It was the right time to go given that there was a hailstorm just a few minutes previously meaning that the place in Glebe street was empty. Not only that the lady actually doing my hair, the owner, lived in the Cardiff area of Danescourt, not far away from Pentrebane. Pentrebane is only second in my experience to Ely as the place with "the reputation" in the city. I lived there with the wife since 1997 before we moved to Bridgend and whilst it's not Paris or Milan I had no problems living there.

Anyway I digress. The cut (needed anyway but made pressing as I'm going to a funeral on Friday) was done and efficient. Exactly how I want my hair to be. Not hippy but not US marine either. It was about one pm. Lunchtime. And I was hungry.

I have I must admit toyed with the idea of becoming a vegetarian for a while now. And whilst the demarcation lines between the veggie and the veganie are still new to me the way the environment is going it seemed like the right thing to do.

But.....

And there really are buts for a 56 year old man contemplating to become a non-meat eater. Let's go through them.

1) I am not a regular cook outside of a microwave. OK of course I should learn but if you look at most vegetarian cookbooks it's noticeable that it includes a vegetable that I've never heard of before or is not easily obtainable. So my lack of knowledge of the culinary arts plus the seeming need to become the Indiana Jones of plant based food just to get that extra ingredient is daunting.
2) Being a shift worker when I return to the house at around 22:45 I'm not going to cook anything from scratch oh no. My cooking abilities consist making holes in the seal and heating up a microwave meal. And I tell you vegetable lasagne aside I've yet to try a non meat microwave meal I've truly liked.

3) And I truly cannot express this strongly enough. Meat is tasty. The sizzle of a bacon sandwich, the glories of a sausage, the roast beef to make that Sunday meal complete. These are taste bud memories to be treasured,

So back we are then to lunchtime in Penarth. I fancy a sausage roll. A Sausage roll is one of life's quiet little pleasures. It warms you up. It fills you up. You wash it down with something and you're ready for the rest of the day.

I enter Greggs knowing that they are now selling a Vegan sausage roll for the same price as the meat version. I buy both.

Now this was obviously not a blind tasting but I tell you whilst there was a difference it was slight. Genuinely it could pass itself as the meatier package.

The doubts in my mind have gone away. I will become a non meat eater....but slowly.

For the reasons I gave earlier I will need time to adjust and plan. So my 2020 new year resolution is to become a slow veggie. By the end of this year I intend to have at least one day meat free, by the end of 2021 that will increase to four and by the end of 2022 I plan to have completely changed my diet.

Will it work? We shall see. I intend to chat about my progress as I go along.

Until the next time.

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