Going Veggie

I never thought I would see the day that my carnivorous husband supported my decision for our little household to be mainly veggie for the foreseeable future. However, he does, he even seems to have kind of encouraged it after we both watched last nights movie.

One of the things that I have been fascinated by since spending a significant amount of time in the US is the food over here. Firstly there are a ludicrous amount of fast food restaurants. You drive down pretty much every highway and you are continuously confronted by neon signs welcoming customers to MacDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Dunkin Donuts... the list goes on and on. Fast food is cheap, easy and immensely popular.

It all seems a little stereotypical, America and the burger bar, and I'm certainly not saying that this is the way all American's eat, lets face it, junk food is becoming a problem everywhere, but you are very aware of it here. Even in the supermarket the shelves are lined with instant foods. Instant cake mix, instant macaroni, throw in the oven pizza, instant pancakes - you can even buy Egg Beaters, which as the name suggests is beaten egg! In a carton! There is obviously fresh produce but even this sometimes seems a little dubious. I bought and cooked a chicken in the summer, I usually do a great roast chicken, even though I say it myself (wiggling my head in pride), but this was so awful we threw it away (and made some instant macaroni instead - no I didn't, just kidding). It was just a bad chicken - and last night we found out why; we watched Food Inc.

If you haven't seen this film, you must. You will never want to eat another burger ever again. (Can I write that? Didn't Oprah get sued for saying something similar?) Having watched how the meat is produced and how animals are treated, I can't justify buying it anymore so we have decided we won't. We are officially veggie, apart from the odd occasion where we splash out and buy some free-range, organic, happy meat but we simply can't afford to do that all of the time. So it's lentil lasagne, vegetable curries and nut roasts in this household for the time being. We will still eat fish to ensure we all get plenty of protein but the red and white meats are going on hold for a while. Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting on my healthy eating high-horse, I was just quite shocked and I want to be sure that I know what I am feeding my family.

I was veggie for a good few years in my student wannabe hippie days so I am actually looking forward to experimenting with some vegetarian cooking again and introducing us all to some new dishes and exciting flavours. I'll keep you posted on how we are getting on and while we are doing that, watch the film.

Have you ever seen a film that changes your lifestyle?

(I'm taking part in Flog Yo Blog Friday - go and take a look)