10 Reasons Why I Can/Can't Be a Vegetarian

It's Lent now, and while I'm not really active with my Catholic roots, I think Lent is a good spiritual cleansing and can be a test of a new life style for a person.  In simple terms: It's a good time to give something up and see how you can live without it.  It's also good because you have buddies suffering from deprivation too.

This year, I've decided to give up 2 things: Elevators (which I've been working on anyway) and Meat except fish. It's the meat one that I want to talk about today.

The Goal: To eat no meat except fish and what I have in my house from 2 days ago until Easter.  And if I'm offered/given a steak then I will eat it, but I won't go seeking out steak.

The Positive: Check out this website for all 49 reasons (take w/ a grain of salt tho)
1). Math's already a vegetarian - he can help me.
2). We already eat vegetarian at our house 98% of the time (except when I eat lunch meat and bacon and the kid eats chicken nuggets).
3). The meat industry is a pretty bad industry in terms of animal cruelty.  I feel like a hypocrite sometimes because I'm all "Save the puppies and kitties! Oh MEAT?! OM NOM NOM NOM. Organic? Too expensive! Free range? Too expensive! Whole Foods? Too lazy, King Stoopids is right across the street!"
4). Being vegetarian is better for the environment in terms of fuel, water and soil conservation, more efficient use of grains, saving forests and aesthetics (think decaying animal parts).
5). Vegetarianism is healthier - all your nutrition can be gotten from plant food plus meat has hormones and all kinds of crap added to it. Also the vitamins in veggies can help prevent a lot of conditions.
6). Finances: *supposedly* veg food is cheaper, but I don't really find that to be the case. Fresh produce can get expensive if you want to get varied things and meat substitutes are definitely pocket-raping. (Though...the Qrunch burgers by Quorn are amazing!)
7). I already refuse to eat veal and try not to eat lamb due to ethical reasons, so how much more of a step would it be for me to avoid the rest?  Pigs are VERY cute, anyways....
8). I know enough vegetarians that eating with them would be nice and I would have a good group to sympathize.
9). I like a lot of fake meat and vegetarian entrees and
10). some things I prefer vegetarian (like pizza/pasta).  Also, I already can't stand meat on the bone (except ribs and only sometimes) and I am grossed out w/ cooking most meats.

Negative:
1). There's a lot of meat that I really like: salami, ribs, steak, crab, shrimp, baloney, pate, fois gras, prosciutto - even though I don't eat these things very often.
2). I LOVE food and love trying new foods.  It would probably be the utmost of torture for me to be at a Thanksgiving dinner and not be able to eat turkey/gravy/stuffing.
3). I'm not a big fan of beans. Any kind. Refrieds are probably my favorite w/ green beans as a second but I wouldn't want to eat them very often.
4). And I HATE most veggie burgers
5). I'm worried that I'd end up eating a lot of pasta/rice/potatoes which I know from experience will make me fatter. I'm lucky enough to have the "italian fat pasta" gene.  (It's a term I'm coining.)
6). Just thinking about going 40 days w/o meat is making me crave it more.
7). Eating out at a lot of places would involve eating carby stuff like fries, pasta, rice, potatos or salads which might make me want to kill myself.
8). I'd have to give up steak. I know I said it above, but I want to reemphasize...I love steak. LOVE it.
9). I take pride in my flexible eating habits.  You know, don't make your friends cook you something special if you're coming over for dinner etc.  And don't want to become an obnoxious vegetarian. I'm already super against the circus and pretty much told Math's mom not to take the kiddo there.
10). I'm too lazy to go veg.  For Example, if I go to a chinese restaurant, I don't want to ask if their miso soup or sesame tofu is made with meat broth.