Sweets goes veggie

There’s been discussion on vegetarianism and how difficult it would be to make the switch. In general, it is the guys that say they wouldn’t make it a week. Being one of those guys it was presented to me to go a week without hamburgers, chicken, pork or any other meat product for a full seven days. That’s easy, I assumed.

 

To prepare for such a drastic change in my diet, it was necessary to brush up on the facts about vegetarianism. Being a student athlete and just a devout meat eater, it would have been too much for my body to go completely vegan. Out of the four main types of vegetarianism, lacto-ovo vegetarianism, or eating dairy products and eggs but no meat, was the sensible way to go. I had a couple of days to prepare my diet for the next week but even with all the preparations, that wouldn’t prepare me for what was to come.

 

In order to maintain a healthy diet some satisfying and healthy substitutions were to be made. A trip to the store was in order to survive the week and what I found was very pleasing. In all the major grocery stores in town they had a section specifically for vegetarian foods and products. Hy-Vee has the largest selection and, not to mention, variety in their newly expanded healthy food section. ‘Buffalo Wings,’  ’Meat Nuggets,’ and ‘veggie burgers’ were proven to be some appetizing meat substitutes.

 

Throughout the week, it was important to eat foods that fueled me sufficiently and keep me satisfied. That week’s diet was mostly made of a protein shake packed full of additives and spaghetti. Eating out with friends brought a new challenge to the already challenging week. Luckily, Burger King has a veggie burger, even though it is not on the menu in the drive-thru. Looking into how many fast food chains actually had vegetarian foods, the results were disappointing but, nonetheless, expected. Subway, for their Veggie Delite, and Burger King are the only two fast food chains along the restaurant-abundant 58 Highway.

 

In my quest for good vegetarian foods, I decided to look into the food choice for vegetarians at school. Just as the results for the fast food chains, what I found at school would be disheartening to any vegetarian. For vegetarians the choices for lunch are cheese pizza and now, grilled cheese; all other choices there are chicken nuggets, all the pizza choices, sub sandwiches, grilled cheese with meat in the middle, so on and so forth. Point made, there are far less food options for vegetarians at school. The vegetarians at school I found brought their lunches instead of eating school food.

 

After finding foods, it was time to see just how the vegetarian diet affected athletes. Looking into the effects I was surprised to find that there are many professional athletes that are vegetarian. Being a basketball player, it is important to have enough gas in the tank for the fast-paced sport. With the week coming to an end the greatest change that I noticed was the increase in energy and decrease in fatigue. In this case the switch to vegetarianism was beneficial to me as an athlete.

On the seventh day, the week of vegetarianism was coming to a close but the knowledge gained from the experience was fresh in my mind. In that week the world of food was opened to me and also how such a beneficial diet goes without widespread publicity. Publicity, not in the sense of photographers and commercials, but being on fast food menus and being available to high school students where the vegetarian population is increasing the most. At the end of this experience the guy that said no way to vegetarianism now sees that it could just be the way.