When we last left our hero (me), he was talking about his early experiences in being a vegetarian. For the record, it’s two months later and I’m still meat free, and my virtual recipe box is getting bigger than ever. Next time I have a free evening and am feeling creative, you can expect the first of many photo-recipes to be posted here. In the meantime, I’ve started a few other health-related leads; resumed capoeira, joined the University of Toronto gym (haven’t gone yet, still putting together a workout plan, get off my back!), and trying to cut down on junk food. This post isn’t about any of those.

Two weeks ago, my flatmates and I hosted a party for two (and later three) of our mutual friends who happened to have birthdays around the same time. Looking back, it was a great time; there was a lot of music, a lot of people, a lot of food and cake, and a lot of alcohol. And by a lot, I mean a lot; martini kits, jello shots, beer pong, you name it. I was armed with a bit of vodka and a six-pack, enough for me to get proper drunk, but not enough for me to regret it the next day. The first sign of trouble came when I was in the proximity of the beer pong table and they just happened to need another player. I started to protest that I didn’t have any beer left to pour into the cups, when I noticed that they had already been filled. Being fully caught up in the positive vibe of the party, I shrugged and grabbed the ping pong ball.

I think you can see where this is going.

Suffice to say, my evening ended in several stages; first on the couch clutching a pillow, then in the bathroom clutching the toilet, and finally in my bed clutching the last vestiges of my consciousness. Thankfully, I remember everything; by the time I excused myself to my self-made hell, there were only a handful of people left; myself and two housemates, three of our friends (all of whom were staying the night), and one other person, a friend of a friend who had already left. She elected herself as the “take care of drunky” person and followed me to the bathroom. Looking back, she and I were the last two people left awake when the music stopped, around 5:00 AM. I remember her saying she’d show herself out, and that was it for me.

Not for long, though; two hours later, I was rousted from my sorry state by my flatmate who asked a question that sounded innocent at first… until I realized what he was actually asking.

“Dave, have you seen my iPhone?”

“Urgh… uhh… oof… what? No, what?”

“I just woke up and my door was open and my iPhone was gone.”

I don’t think I’ve ever sobered up so quickly in my life. Everyone else was already awake, taking inventory of their possessions; the final count was one iPhone, one iPod, and two digital cameras missing, and the last person left awake in the house gone. In my drunken stupor, I had left an unknown person unattended in my house, and she had robbed us. A few quick calls to the mutual friend got us an address, and we piled into a car to confront her and get our stuff back, which thankfully we did intact. Once we were sure nothing else was missing, everyone had a good laugh and went back to bed, and now tells the story in comedic “what a crazy night!” tones. Personally, I went back to bed, and haven’t told anyone this story, because I am seriously bothered by what happened.

I’ve had a lot of drunken nights and a lot of remorseful mornings, but I’ve always been the only one to really be affected by my bad judgment. I’ve never gotten in a drunken fight, or said more than a few harsh words to anyone before seeing where I was going and excusing myself. I’ve never damaged property other than my own. I’ve never assumed that my drunkenness somehow makes me more attractive to women. My bad nights have always been my problem, until that party. I got too drunk to know what I was doing, other people were directly affected by that, and I’m having a bit of a hard time dealing with that.

I’ve been drinking less and less ever since I got back from England, and not just because it’s healthier and cheaper; I just don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. I don’t react well to hard alcohols or wine so I tend to stick beer, and while I do love the taste, my stomach always gives up before my brain does. I have a good friend who I met in Japan, who is a “born-again” Catholic and doesn’t drink. I always assumed that the two were related, and it never crossed my mind that a religion in which a key ceremony featured wine probably didn’t have a problem with drinking. Meeting with him just this past fall, I learned that the reason that he had stopped drinking was because alcohol was a big part of his life before his re-entry into the church, and he felt that he had to prove (mostly to himself) that he could be social and fun without drinking. Now that he knows he can, he’s back to drinking, although far less than he used to. I think that’s what I’m going to have to do.

The idea of alcohol being a “social lubricant” is ingrained into our society, but think of what that phrase means; alcohol makes social situations run smoother than they would otherwise. But just like normal lubricant, you shouldn’t need any extra if the situation is already smooth enough. I’ve been at parties where other people are drunk and I’m too hungover/sick to drink myself, and it was never an issue; anyone who gave me the third degree about staying sober usually found that I remembered a lot more about the evening than they did. I don’t need the alcohol, it’s expensive, it’s unhealthy, and it’s never worth writing off the next day because of the inevitable hangover. It’s a drug, plain and simple, and the only thing that makes it more acceptable is that it’s sold in actual brick-and-mortar stores. When you look at all that, it’s hard to justify using it at all.

I don’t mean to make this some kind of deep dark confession, as it definitely isn’t. There are people out there who have a serious addiction and problem with alcohol, and I’m not one of them, and I don’t want my next-morning remorse to diminish the effort they put into their recovery. But just like many of them, it took a single event to make me realize that maybe it’s time for a change. The day of that party has been burned into my brain; will it be the day that I look back on and say “that’s when I quit drinking?” Only time will tell, but it’s certainly going to be that day for the next few weeks.

Then again, Christmas is only two months away…

health

You may not know it to look at me, but I’ve wrestled with my health for years. Not because I’ve ever been particularly unhealthy, mind you; I’ve just always known that I’m merely in average shape when I could be in good, or even great, shape if I would just try. My exercise regiment seems to wax and wane like the tides; I’ll become motivated to get in shape, do the research, and intensely devote myself to exercise and eating healthy for a period of months, and get myself (at least partially) back to the shape I feel like I should be in. I look good, feel good, and am convinced I’ve finally broken my lethargy. But then my circumstances change, I move houses or start work or stop school, and as much as I try to stay on top of my exercise, eventually I have to say “I’ll just go to the gym tomorrow instead of today” or ” And once I’ve said that the first time, it just makes it easier to say it a second time, and then a third. And then it all comes crashing down.

When I was working after university, I had nothing to do in evenings other than go to the gym, so that’s what I did. Then I went to Japan, and stopped exercising, and started eating badly and drinking more (not to excess, but it’s such a big part of the social culture that it’s really hard to avoid). As you can expect, by the time I left I was a fat bastard. At a beach party a month beforehand, I got to take part in a capoeira trial lesson, and it was humbling to say the least. Looking at pictures of the lesson taken by some of my friends, it was shocking to look at how big I was compared to when I’d first arrived, and how red-faced and exhausted I’d become after what was, in retrospect, not a particularly intensive class. That was my wake-up call – I resolved to get back into good enough shape that a class like that would never defeat me again.

When I got to England, that’s exactly what I did. I scaled back the drinking, started running and going to the gym, experimented with a few diet strategies, and found a capoeira group that turned out to be just as exhausting as I’d hoped, and more. In a few short months, the change was shocking; I’d lost all the weight I wanted, built muscle everywhere I needed it, and felt better than I had in a long time. And then my gym membership ran out and I couldn’t afford to renew it under the non-student rates, and I started working which meant I couldn’t exercise whenever I had a spare moment anymore, because I had so many less. When my visa ran out and I ended up back in a Canadian winter with no gyms in sight, my slow decline into physical mediocrity became an official slide, which is where I find myself now.

I’ve been trying to get back on the wagon all summer, and I’m finding it a lot harder than usual. I’m playing capoeira a lot less, running a lot less, snacking a lot more, and drinking a lot more. I think the problem is that I haven’t found a good pattern to get into yet; working in a real job cuts so much time out of my day, it’s hard to come home from my desk and be motivated to do much more than cook dinner and watch movies. The few times I do anything physical, though, I have a great time. I think the main difference is that it used to feel like exercise was something I wanted to do; now it feels like something I have to do, or should do, and that makes it so much less appealing.

The one change I have made, on the other hand, is a big one; for the past few months, I’ve been eating vegetarian. I’m by no means a purist yet; I still eat a lot of eggs and cheese, and if I’m in a location where there is literally nothing to eat other than meat, I’d still rather do that than go hungry. But I no longer buy it and I don’t cook it for myself at home, and there are enough veggie options around the city that I’m usually not stuck for nothing else to eat. The last time I tried going vegetarian, I simply ate what I usually did without the meat included. I didn’t consider that this strategy would result in my taking in way fewer calories than I should have, and after a month I went back to meat-eating simply because I was tired of feeling hungry. This time, I was ready with a huge assortment of vegetarian recipes, and knowledge of how to replace all the protein and nutrients that I would be missing.

And you know what? It isn’t hard at all. I’ve spoken to a few other vegetarians who talk about missing meat when they first started, and I don’t know what I’m doing differently because I totally don’t. I think a lot of it has to do with using my vegetarianism as an excuse to properly cook again. When I ate meat I had the luxury of grilling chicken, boiling rice and calling it a meal. But unless you’re the kind of person that can eat a gigantic salad for dinner (and I’m not), being a vegetarian makes cooking mandatory if you want to get any kind of decent meal. Take a look at what I’ve added to my repertoire lately:

• Gratineed Gnocchi with Spinach and Ricotta
• Ratatouille and Penne
• Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa
• Mediterranean Lentil Salad
• Pad Thai

That’s just what I made for dinner last week. In two and a half years overseas I haven’t cooked as many new things as I have in the past two months. Expect to see the best recipes posted here in photo-journal form.

The most common question when my vegetarianism comes up in conversation is “Why?” Not in an accusatory sense, of course. People are simply curious because I suppose I don’t strike them as the type to be passionate about animal rights. And sheepishly (no pun), I’m not; I think animals should be treated well, just like most people, but I think there’s a big difference between ethical treatment and equal treatment, and treating animals well doesn’t require treating them as if they were humans in different bodies. My problem has more to do with the meat industry itself; after doing a lot of research about it, I feel that it is destructive, exploitative, and unsustainable, and by refusing to buy meat I am refusing to support that industry. I know they make billions of dollars a year and my $10 worth of chicken isn’t going to make a dent, but you know what they say about everyone doing their part.

The other reason is that, when you think about it, it really is kind of hypocritical to eat meat… or rather, hypocritical to only eat certain meats. When I was in China, I ate dog, because it was on the menu and I had to at least try it. I tell people this and they are shocked. Shocked! “How could you eat a cute little puppy?” they say. “They’re so friendly and intelligent and cute!” Well, yes they are, but so are pigs according to many people who grew up on farms, and no one seems to have a problem eating them. People in England would talk about their refusal to eat veal (baby cow) over a Sunday roast lamb (baby sheep), or shake their head at the Canadian seal hunt while cutting into fish & chips. Where did this line come from that separates the animals that are considered “food” from the ones that aren’t? It sounds like a tired joke to say that people only care about saving the cute animals, but it really does seem that way, doesn’t it? It’s like there’s some kind of equation where cuteness times intelligence divided by taste equals how bad you should feel about eating it. That would certainly explain why bacon always seems to be the meat that brings vegetarians back to the land of the omnivores. The only factor as to whether an animal becomes food or not is how much food you get out of it compared to how much effort you put in. Cows and pigs (and chickens if you have enough of them) produce a lot of meat, but dogs, cats and horses don’t, so we eat one and keep the other as pets.

If you’re a meat eater, ask yourself if there are certain animals you wouldn’t eat, and if there are, why not? Is there a line beyond which you feel it’s immoral to eat living things, but up until that line you’re OK with it? For me, there isn’t, at least not anymore. A few of you might be tempted to remind me of my pledge to try any food once, but last weekend I turned down the chance to try a kangaroo burger. And I’m fine with that.

health, vegetarian