Vegetarian: Day 22

Breakfast: So I skipped breakfast again.  I had some snacks before lunch, a molasses cookie and some dry roasted peanuts.  Yeah I'm healthy.

Lunch: I went to Boston House of Pizza today to try their vegetarian sub.  I love the other place I go to, but their vegetarian sub does not match up.  This sandwich was a thing of brilliance, I'm not sure how I feel about it but I know that I am satisfied.  It is basically an eggplant sub with no sauce, but it is piled high with other veggies: lettuce, tomato, roasted red pepper, grilled onions and peppers and olives.  I said "hold the olives" because I'm not a fan, but I did fail to mention the American cheese all over this thing.  Damn that's a good sandwich.

Another rare meal where I did not "miss the meat", a true satisfying meal.

Dinner: I wasn't really too hungry thanks to a good lunch, but I played trivia at a pizza place and had a couple slices of cheese.

Vegetarian: Day 21

Day 21...no sh*t.

Maybe it was the week off, but last night's basketball game was the best I felt in a while.  At one point my chest hurt like maybe I was going to have a heart attack, but with the exception of that, I felt awesome.  In my mind I picture my heart becoming healthier, but maybe it's like those old people that smoke and drink and live to be 100.  Maybe I need to eat crappy food in order to preserve myself?  Okay I'm crazy, let me just tell you what I had to eat today.

Breakfast: Coffee.

Morning snack: A molasses cookie.  Need lunch.

Lunch: Stop & Shop salad bar (Lettuce, the other kind of lettuce, lots of cucumbers, pea pods, feta).  I usually load up on peppers but some jackass replaced the peppers with red onions.  Oh yeah, give me the red onions...that's fresh.  Jackass.  I'm also going to eat a banana and another cookie.

Dinner: Ah yes, the veggie tacos from The Gaff.  I tried a couple new songs at open mic and they kinda sucked.  The tacos, however, were good.  The chef at the Gaff said I did a good job and said I was "the veggie taco guy".  My life has taken an interesting turn...

Vegetarian: Day 20

If I can make it 20 days, then I can make it 20 more days. And then 6 more days after that.

Breakfast: Starbucks iced coffee + coffee cake = rocket fuel

Lunch: I'm tired.  Boca burger, sun chips, small "salad" (Lettuce, peppers, cucumbers)

Afternoon snack: More sun chips. Coffee. Nothing is working. I am tired. Could it be that after 20 days my body cannot handle the normal day without me eating some steak or something?

Dinner: *drum roll* sweet potato fries and a veggie burger

Notes to self: need to lay off the veggie burgers, need to eat breakfast more

Coffee Cake: too many ingredients

http://www.starbucks.com/menu/food/bakery/reduced-fat-cinnamon-swirl-coffeecake?foodZone=9999

Ingredients

cake mix (sugar, enriched wheat flour bleached (flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), nonfat milk, food starch-modified, leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), egg whites, maltodextrin, wheat starch, salt, pea fiber, corn flour, datem, mono & diglycerides, propylene glycol mono & diesters of fatty acids, guar gum, soy lecithin, sodium stearoyl lactylate, soybean oil, tricalcium phosphate, glycerol monooleate, natural flavor, oleoresin paprika (as spice and coloring), polysorbate 80, polysorbate 60, ascorbic acid (as dough conditioner), citric acid), water, lite sour cream (milk and milk fat, nonfat milk, food starch, gum acacia, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, whey, lactic acid, citric acid, phosphoric acid, natamycin), sugar, brown sugar (sugar, cane syrups), vegetable shortening (palm and canola oil), wheat flour, enriched (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), unsalted butter (pasteurized cream), palm kernel and palm oil, spice, milk, whey powder, natural flavor, cultured buttermilk, lactose, soya lecithin, soybean oil, pan spray (canola oil, soy lecithin, may contain mineral oil, and/or natural flavor).

Thanks to Starbucks for this nutritional information.  Please let me know if you need me to remove this from my blog and I will.

Vegetarian: Day 19

Meal 1: Pizza again. I love pizza, and it's the weekend.

Meal 2: Oh man this was awesome.  So I really wanted mexican food so I went to my local place and scoured the menu for vegetarian items.  The "plata vegetariana" I got last Friday left me wanting more, and the drippy veggie burrito I had this Friday didn't really cut it either.  I mean, they were good, but I was in the mood for a quesadilla.

Enter the "quesadilla especial".  Corn, zucchini, red pepper, cheese and chipotle sauce, and came with lettuce hot sauce and guacamole on the side.  Holy crap.  This was a good meal.  My one complaint was that it fell apart easily and I had to eat a lot of it with a fork.  In the end, this was a nice dinner and I didn't miss the meat at all during this meal.  So far, my experiences with mexican food have left me wanting chicken or steak or something.

Sidenote, I was out playing pool with my friends today, at my friends' regular place.  They get hooked up pretty nicely there.  The chef came over with a bowl of something and said to us "lobster bacon potato hash" and walked away.  That was it.  Just walked over to us and gave us a bowl of his latest crazy creation, on the house.  I ate one of the potatoes but steered clear of the bacon and lobster.  Mmm it was like a magical homefries.  To be a meat eater, or at least a lobstertarian...

Vegetarian: Day 18

I stepped on the scale today and I've accidentally lost 5 lbs.

Breakfast: Large iced coffee...egg white and cheese on a croissant, scratch that, veggie egg white omelette and cheese on a croissant.  I'm doing my taxes today, at least it's a cold day and the Bruins are on today, so I'm just going to enjoy the indoors and do my taxes while I watch the B's go at it.

Lunch: Amy's Kitchen Texas veggie burger.  It was better this time.  I have the sneaky suspicion that these burgers will taste awesome on the grill, but shitty in the microwave, where the Morningstar ones I feel were made to be nuked.  I microwaved this time, maybe I will cook on the stove next time...possibly with peppers and onions...and bbq sauce...*drool*

Dinner: Pizza and drinking.

Vegetarian: Day 17

17 days? Whaaat?!  Happy Friday, reader.

Breakfast: Powerbar Harvest energy bar- Toffee Chocolate Chip which is Powerbar language for "granola bar".  Yippee.  I like to eat these after the gym sometimes, even though I know that energy bars are pretty much BS.  They taste good though.  I was running late and really wanted iced coffee, so when I got to the office I ransacked all of the ice and filled my coffee mug with it, and fixed myself a surprisingly decent makeshift iced coffee.

Lunch: Veggie burrito from El Amigo. Zucchini, peppers, onions, mushrooms, salsa, sour cream, beans, lettuce, awesomeness.  It was really messy though, my one criticism.

Early dinner: Amy's Kitchen veggie burger. Wasn't as crazy about it, I think I like Morningstar more.

Still hungry: Ellio's pizza.

Vegetarian: Day 16

Breakfast: I need to fix this immediately, I've stopped eating breakfast.

Lunch: Small salad (Lettuce, pepper, mushroom, baby carrot, chick peas, kidney beans, cherry tomato, cucumber...I kinda forgot to put salad dressing on it, woops...I'll get through.  Frank's Red Hot?  Don't mind if I do.

Update: Oh man that's hot, I put a lot on there...

Dinner: Amy's "Texas Burger" Veggie Burger and some barbecue flavored Popchips.  So far, these veggie burgers win in terms of the texture.  The "texas burger" also has a nice bbq flavor.  I added lettuce ketchup and cheddar cheese, it was good.

Shoutout to some of my fans

Alright, I want to take a minute to thank a few of my "fans". 

Thanks to my mom for making mac and cheese instead of the French Canadian meat pie she was going to make that first Sunday I was over the house.  Nuff said.

To my one follower, Anne, thanks for the invite to the Worcester VegFest 2011, I'm going to try and make it. *cough* PLUG *cough* ...woo, sorry about that.  Get it, Woo?

To everyone that left me a Facebook comment, gave me a food suggestion, anyone and everyone on the book of face who has put up with my postings, thanks I really appreciate it. 

To my coworkers who give me a hard time and talk to me about the scallops wrapped in bacon they ate over the weekend, thank you for making me laugh.

To my friends in the A-Team, they aren't really "blog guys" but I have to shout them out because the past two weekends we have ordered food and they have been really cool about the vegetarian thing.  Good thing I didn't give up beer, you can only push guys so far! You can take away my meat, but you can't take away my freedom!!!

Anyways...I decided to write this entry in the first place because a really good friend of mine was commemorating and remembering something not so good, and I wanted to make him laugh.  He has been among my biggest supporters, as well his fiancée, his sister and his brother-in-law.  Thanks guys. 

This last part is for him, it may not be everybody's sense of humor but I hope you get a laugh out of it.  Well that's...what?!

"Secondary selfishness"

Call it right, call it wrong, but I'm a big fan of what I will call "secondary selfishness", for lack of a better term.  Instead of a long winded explanation, I'll state it simply: it's that win-win situation, when you feel good because you did something good for another person, maybe even to the point where sometimes you do good things for other people because you want to have that good feeling. 

I like volunteering.  I also like the feeling I get when I know I did something good, I feel proud of myself and I have a good conscience.  Giving up meat for Lent has been the same thing.  Lent is a religious event, and I am observing that, that's the primary "benefit" if you want to call it a benefit.  The "secondary selfishness" is that I knew my health could improve, I knew that my blood pressure and cholesterol could go down, I knew that I could even lose weight in order to feel and look better. 

Throughout my life, receiving a lot of attention (too much attention) has made me feel uncomfortable. Believe me, I don't like being ignored or neglected, but I don't need much attention to be happy.  So believe me, I was not looking for the attention as a "secondary selfishness".

However, attention came. People were proud of me, people were giving me vegetarian recipes and ideas and writing me emails and sending me text messages, people who I haven't talked to in months were sending me messages on Facebook and chatting with me.  Around day 6 or 7, that uncomfortable feeling really was kicking in.  It wasn't because of the positive attention I was receiving.  It was the positive attention I was giving to myself. 

I was proud of what I had done, what I was doing and what I will do in the future.  I was feeling great.  I was in a good mood and I felt like I was accomplishing something. It felt pretty awesome, but at first it was strange because I was getting that "too much attention" vibe, and to make it even more strange, I was getting that vibe from myself. 

Hey maybe I'll get over that "too much attention" someday, and keep feeling proud of myself and what I do, and if Lent is my way onto that path, then I'm a blessed and lucky dude.

Vegetarian: Day 15

As I update this entry, I am watching Man vs. Food.  This guy's voice sounds like he just ate a full meal, every time.  As if he is stuffed, trying to force words out of his bloated body and like he is standing next to a window sill with a pie in it, getting ready to pounce.  I digress.  And maybe I'm bitter, confused and strangely not interested in the featured sandwich, a bulkie roll including pulled pork, ham and bacon.  I better just type my meals out before this becomes a new entry...

Breakfast: Coffee.  Not cool.

Lunch: I didn't eat lunch until late.  I went to Guiseppe's Subs, which had a special of homemade eggplant parm sub.  Count it!  This was delicious, this is what eggplant is supposed to taste like.  Thinly sliced, lightly fried, and tons of it.  All crammed into a sub roll and covered with marinara sauce, and I ate this at around 2:30 eating nothing but graham crackers up unil that point, this sandwich was gone in 60 seconds.  Well not that fast but you get the idea.  It was awesome, I might have to go back next Wednesday.

As I move on to the dinner section, the dude on Man vs. Food is catching his breath, possibly grabbing a bite of a polish sausage, and claiming that the chefs are putting 190....190 lbs of ground beef into a pan.  Don't worry, they're just making a hamburger for 20 people to eat.  Which is still what, 10 lbs of ground beef a person?  Does my math suck, or is that screwed up?
Dinner: Probably a blessing in disguise, eating a late lunch made me less hungry for dinner.  I went out to dinner with eight or nine coworkers, plus the president of the company, because of a new project teh company is rolling out.  Originally, the plan was to go to a steakhouse.  I planned on eating a s**** or maybe mac & cheese again.  I decided to blur out that word because I friggin hate those things, all leafy and lettucy with a couple slivers of pepper or onion or cucumber.  And more often than not, smothered in some combination of oil and other flavors, aka s**** dressing.

Anyways, we ended up going to an Italian restaurant.  The soup had chicken broth in it.  Okay, no soup for me!  All of the specials had meat in them, even the butternut squash ravioli.  Which sounds friggin awesome.  They had a section for "main courses" and a section for "pasta".  I went for the pasta because all of the main courses featured a meat or fish.  There were actually only 3 vegetarian dishes in this section.  One was roasted eggplant, and I didn't really want to eat eggplant again.  The second dish was gnocchi with "pink pomodoro sauce", which sounded like vodka sauce to me.  The third dish was penne alla arrabbiata, which is penne with "spicy sauce" basically.

I tell the waiter that I am between the gnocchi and the penne.  I have asked waitresses (off the clock) if they are okay with a person giving the server two choices and asking for help in picking one.  The consensus is "Yeah that's fine" and "We want you to be happy with what you get...and hopefully that means a big tip".  What servers do not like is this "Umm...I don't know what I want to get...what do you think?"  So I could be wrong here, but I feel like my "pick from this 2" technique is pretty sweet.

The waiter said the arrabbiata was the way to go.  The menu did say the sauces were made to order, and after getting the meal, I believe it.  It actually tasted a lot like the "marinara" sauce I make.  My "marinara" is probably more like "arrabbiata" because when I make sauce I put stupid amounts of garlic and crushed red pepper in there.  I mean, the kitchen smells like garlic for days.  I made this sauce one day last year and the neighbor asked me what was smelling so good.  Bam!

Anyways, this entry is getting too long.  Here is the kicker though.  I ordered one of the three vegetarian pasta dishes on the menu...and the waiter asks me "Do you want some chicken...or maybe some shrimp on it?"  Ah the classic upsell.  Hell yeah I want some chicken.  Then again if I wanted chicken I would have probably ordered something else.  So I said "No thanks". 

But then, a light bulb appeared over my head and I thought..."I'm in a restaurant, scratch that, an Italian restaurant...and there's something about an Italian restaurant that makes me feel like I can order whatever the hell I want, and they will make it that way.  "I want the (whatever), but can you (add, subtract, whatever)".  So I asked, in vegetarian fashion, and perhaps in Italian fashion "Actually, can you throw some vegetables in there"?

Yahtzee.  There were onions, roasted peppers, zucchini, I think some roasted eggplant in there.  I hit the jackpot.  This was awesome.  Good lord the Man vs. Food guy is making out with a chorizo sandwich.  Get a room dude.  Now they did get some tomato onions and avocado on there, after the fried egg stuffed with hot dogs.  Back to my dinner, it was really good.

Actually, Man vs. Food guy is now eating 12 sliders and half a pound of onion rings, it's so hard to look away.  His strategy, because he has to eat all of this in 30 minutes, is to keep a bowl of "au jus" handy so he can dunk his sandwiches in it.  I typed in the guy's name "Adam Richman" and Google finishes off the sentence with "is gonna die".  I honestly can't stop watching this right now.

I will close by saying this.  The difference between restricting your diet (with meat, milk, sugar, whatever) and this Man vs. Food cat is simple: be mindful of your decisions.  If you have no limitations or restrictions, you really don't need to think about your decisions.  Unfortunately for Man vs. Food guy, he was limited by the clock, and only finished 10 sliders and a quart of gravy.  No t-shirt for you my friend.

Out of Steakhouse Experience

I will be enjoying all of my meals today within the confines of the "work day", because I am going out to dinner with my team and the company president to discuss something or other.

The original plan was to go to Stockyard, a steakhouse.  Neat.  No better place to derail my plans than a steakhouse right?  I'm sure the cows were massaged and loved and well fed and all of that stuff.  They were clean and lived a long peaceful life.  And then, before the cow died, it mooed in such a way that said "Please turn me into steak so that people can enjoy me well after I'm gone...I love you all...moo"

However, Stockyard has a shitty function room.  So, we are going to Papa Razzi, an Italian place.  Victory.  Hmm, I hope they have steak at Papa Razzi. Juuuust kidding.  I'll have some pasta thing.

But you know what, I have survived 2 weeks as a vegetarian, a fortnight even.

Vegetarian: Day 14

Breakfast: Coffee and a muffin. I need to lay off the sweets.

Lunch: The tasty yet relatively unsatisfying tastes of the "vegetarian sub".  I actually attempted to spice this up a little bit by adding some marinara sauce to the broccoli, pepper, onion and mushroom sandwich.  To my dismay, there was a piece of meatball floating in the cup of marinara sauce.  Fail.

Snack: I tried another Nature Valley creation, the trail mix bar.  It was aight.

Dinner: Oh man.  I had open mic again tonight, and because no other players really showed up, I played forever.  I think I played a full 10 song set.  Which brings me to my next question: where's my money man?  Anyways, the bar has been raised.  Which bar?  The grilled cheese bar.  It was made on texas toast and grilled on that panini press thing.  I believe it had cheddar AND american cheese, not just one or the other.  Add some sliced tomato, we were in business.  I actually made fun of the bartender last week who said she gets the grilled cheese all the time, I apologize, that's a damn good grilled cheese.

This reminds me, on Monday I was at my local bar and I was asked by other locals why I chose to go vegetarian.  This may be a story for another day, but I briefly described the picture I saw of "chicken mcnugget paste".  I'm not going to post the picture, but google it for yourself.  The guys who own the bar were hanging out not too far from where I was sitting, and one of the owners drops a gem of a line.

"That's some good ass paste".  It's hard to argue with that point.  Disgusting as it is, the powers that be have found a way to make that shit taste delicious.  Something to think about.

Vegetarian: Day 13

Breakfast: Starbucks.  Egg sandwich wasn't going to do it today, I had a coffee cake and a grande iced coffee.  I'm ready to dominate.

Lunch: Falafel. Oh man falafel. See "falafel food coma" post. Typing is hard to do right now. Breathing is hard to do right now. Here is a poem:

The chick peas, the hummus,
The lettuce and tomato,
Try this falafel,
it's like a flavor tornado.

Dinner: I was going to get a vegetable quesadilla at my favorite Monday night place, but the kitchen was closed because there were only two other customers besides me.  So, I made Ellio's pizza.  I actually have the ingredients to make some pretty boss veggie quesadillas, frozen vegetables are key. They are good and they are wicked cheap.  I will hook that up some other night.

Falafel Food Coma

Ughhhhhhhhhh

That is all.

Thank you for reading.

Vegetarian: Day 12

Meal 1: Samosa

Meal 2: Mac & Cheese, Beers

I also had iced coffee and a couple granola bars, and some grapefruit juice.  Here's to having a normal day of eating tomorrow?

Indian Food: The Final Frontier

I checked out a couple Indian grocery stores, and I'm starting to think I have found the key to making this vegetarian thing work.  First off, I bought a samosa to eat for lunch.  These things are great.  It's this crunchy chewy empanada kind of deal, and it has potatoes and peas and spices in it.  Until mashed potatoes on a stick is a real thing (pay attention carnies) the samosa is the way to go.  Also, it was only 60 cents. What the hell is that?  I'm alive to tell the tale, so it couldn't have been that bad.

I bought some "roti", which I believe is basically just tortillas, but they are half the sodium of tortillas and I think you're supposed to heat them up in the oven, even though I think the microwave is probably fine.  I have been making my veggie burgers in tortillas, which while delicious, is probably doing a number on the old sodium.

I also bought some black tea and I bought a frozen food meal of "channa masala", which is chick peas in a curry sauce.  I have learned that "masala" just means mixture, so if you've ever had chicken tikka masala, it means...um, chicken tikka mixture.  What does tikka mean?  I'll get back to you on that.

Pretty much everything at this store is vegetarian, because I guess a large part of the population in India are vegetarian.  There are maybe six guys from India at my company and I think all of them are vegetarian.  So I don't think I will be bored by trying new things from this new supermarket, although I'm sure I will find plenty that I do not enjoy.  There is thing called "paneer", which I believe is just cottage cheese...I'm not looking forward to it, I might just skip it altogether.  (If you're reading this and paneer is actually delicious, because let's face it, cheese is delicious, then let me know)

I may have to convince the guys here at work to take me to the Indian buffet down the street, I've never been in, but it looks pretty legit.  I am no stranger to Indian food but I am no expert either.  I just know there's a certain Indian buffet in Framingham that has left my stomach in shambles on more than one occasion *shudder*.

Alright that's all I've got for now, thanks for reading, leave a comment if you want...I will smile if you do.

Vegetarian: Day 11

Weekends are always strange.  Shout out to my friends, who considered both my vegetarian diet and my friend's lactose intolerance: we got pizza AND wings.  Case closed.

Meal 1: Egg White & Cheese on a Multigrain Bagel, Dunkin' Iced Coffee

Meal 2: A bunch of pizza with green peppers on it

Tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day parade!

Vegetarian: Day 10

Breakfast: Iced coffee.

Lunch: I went to Taqueria El Amigo, home of so many delicious and different meats. My typical go-to there is the burrito combo, featuring a burrito with "chorizo con papas" (sausage with potatoes) and a "lengua" taco...and yes, this is tongue.  Which is surprisingly and magically delicious.  Don't knock it til ya try it.  At this moment I have lost all of my vegetarian readers.

Anyways today I ordered the "plata vegetariano", which was surprisingly and magically delicious as well.  It was a plate with rice, beans, lettuce, hot sauce, salsa, guacamole, with a cheese quesadilla stuffed with potatoes, and a poblano pepper stuffed with cheese.  It was awesome, especially the stuffed pepper.  I also enjoyed a cool refreshing tamarind soda, which for those of you don't know, is a soda made with some weird kind of fruit, which may or may not be crab apple.  Maybe dinner will be less weird, but let me tell you, I am in a frame of mind where work does not currently seem possible.

Dinner: I cooked a bake & rise pizza from Hannaford, it was roasted vegetable kind (red & green peppers, broccoli, onions & mushrooms). I ate some now and I'm saving the rest for later, could be good weekend grindage...bud-dy.

Vegetarian: Day 9

Springtime, it's in the air.  Happy Thursday.  And March Madness.  Did I forget anything else? No? Ok moving on.

Breakfast: Dunkin Donuts Veggie Egg White Flatbread Sandwich

Lunch: I sat outside and enjoyed an eggplant parm sub.  Delicious.  I also drank an Arnold Palmer, wishing I was watching basketball and drinking the alcoholic version.

Dinner: Bud lights.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Dunkin' Veggie Egg White Flatbread

Alright so before I write my Day 9 entry, let me get the low down on this breakfast treat.  I should start making my own breakfast.  Then again, I should start doing a lot of things. 

This sandwich has the same calories as the Starbucks one (280), also roughly the same fat content (9-10 grams) and almost as much protein (16 grams vs. 18 grams).  The sodium is lower (690 vs. 900) but still pretty high.  I think sodium is hard to avoid unless you don't eat restaurant food, and even still, I feel like they are adding sodium to everything.

As for the taste, it's alright.  I think Starbucks wins the taste test, but it's probably because of the spinach and the sundried tomato cream cheese, which is probably the source of that extra sodium.  Basically, you just can't win.  I am going to experiment with cooking with egg whites, because I want a vegetarian source of protein without destroying myself with cholesterol.  I think that one of the greater advantages of vegetarian eating is a reduced cholesterol intake, because cholesterol is only found in meat products and by-products, which does include egg yolks, cheese, milk, etc...but the diet on the whole is lower in cholesterol.

So in conclusion, egg whites for the win.

Vegetarian: Day 8

Breakfast: Office coffee & graham crackers...once again I was running late. Note to self: buy more graham crackers

Lunch:  I don't feel like walking in the rain to get a falafel, so instead I am ordering a spinach & feta calzone.  It was alright, but I think I was expecting more spinach, more feta and less mozzarella.  So I can see myself eating more graham crackers today, maybe a boca burger later.

Also, I had a pretty sweet idea on my walk to pick up lunch.  Breakfast sandwiches with veggie burgers.  I would scramble up some eggs, get some good cheddar cheese, then use either english muffins or those frozen food section bagels.  I think it could be good, maybe I'll try it this weekend.

Snack: Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Cashew Bar. Meh.

Dinner: Veggie burger from Morningstar, fries and a Frosty from Wendy's.  Call it a reward for making it through one week.  I went shopping tonight and got more good stuff, including the ingredients for those breakfast sandwiches.  I bought MorningStar black bean burgers, eggs, sharp cheddar cheese and whole wheat bagels.  Probably going to end up putting salsa and hot sauce on these bad boys.

As a side note, I'm not crazy about Wendy's french fries, I think I'll skip those next time.  Frostys on the other hand, are as delicious as ever.  But I noticed tonight that fast food does not cater to the vegetarian.  Each of their salads has some combination of chicken, chili, bacon and eggs on it.  The only vegetarian items, correct me if I'm wrong, are the frostys, fries, drinks and broccoli cheese baked potato.

I'm going to stay away from Wendy's for a while.

Vegetarian: Day 7

Breakfast: Coffee and graham crackers.  Looking forward to lunch.

Lunch: I was going to have a falafel but I will have that tomorrow at lunch, to commemorate 1 week of "meat-free". I don't know if I can call myself a vegetarian yet.  That being said I had the "Vegetarian" sub at Athens Pizza today.  Ingredients: Grilled vegetables (pepper, onion, mushroom, broccoli, tomato), American cheese, sub roll. 

I added Frank's RedHot when I brought it back to work, because hey, I put that sh*t on everything. I think I deserve some free hot sauce after that shameless plug.  I also think I am going to be hungry in like 2 hours.

Afternoon snack: I had one pita bread left and had some hummus with it.  Just remembered I had 3 more Boca burgers in the freezer, maybe I'll eat those tomorrow. Note to self: get burger buns.

Dinner: MorningStar Farms Garden Veggie Patties, whole wheat tortilla, lettuce, Sriracha ...and if you're not down with Sriracha, google it for yourself.  I've been looking for recipes on veggie burgers, but it's my first week, baby steps...

Vegetarian: Day 6

I'm really getting after it today...

Breakfast: Egg White Spinach & Feta Wrap (read previous post)

Lunch: Small Salad, but I went kind of overboard (Baby spinach, cherry tomato, red yellow orange & green pepper, cucumber, feta, chick peas, kidney beans, croutons, Italian dressing...cheaaa). For the record this was only 1/2 a lb. at the salad bar, so $2.50 suckas...also, Boca Burgers were on sale so I heated one up, cut it into pieces and threw that in the mix too.  Note to self: don't get Bocas again.

Dinner: Granola bar, sweet potato fries.  The bar before my basketball game, the fries after. Woops. Not a real meal.  But I wasn't that hungry...

"Almost Perfect Breakfast" (or "Why Processed Food Will Make Our Hearts Explode")

That, my friends, is the Egg White, Spinach & Feta Wrap from Starbucks.  This thing is [BEEP]in tasty.  I was eating this thing and thinking "Damn I don't care about being a vegetarian, this is the best breakfast ever".  It's a good sized wheat wrap, heated up in one of Starbucks' diesel "warming ovens", with egg whites jammed inside.  To make the egg whites taste that much more delicious, they throw spinach in there, and what I have learned is sundried tomato cream cheese.  Holy [BEEP] that's tasty.

I ballpark the calorie count at 500.  Wrong again, I'm off by over 200 calories.  280 calories for the wrap, which is a normal person's serving of chips, assuming they eat only 2 "real" servings...at least they estimate how many chips is in a "serving"...who eats 8 chips? C'mon man.

Speaking of chips, there was one blatantly terrible awful thing about this perfect breakfast that pretty much ruined it for me and I will most likely never eat this again, unless I eat it after a workout.  But before I get into that, let me give you some more of the nutritional facts.  Under 300 calories makes it great for low-calorie diets, because I kid you not, I am full right now. 

The 18 grams of protein probably have something to do with that.  18 grams of protein in a vegetarian breakfast wrap, are you kidding me?  I feel like a friggin genius right now.  As if I invented this beautiful sandwich, basically the polar opposite of the pancake-wich made famous by the global powerhouse of fast-food aka "that Scottish restaurant" as my weird family sometimes calls it.

The wrap sits in at 10 grams of fat, 3.5 of that being saturated fat, to which I say "not bad".  One meal down and I'm at 16% daily value for fat, I'll take it.  I may never have a sausage egg and cheese on a croissant ever again, which at Dunkin Donuts means you are putting down 51 grams of fat, which after a night of drinking may be incredible...but you just ate 80% of your fat intake for the day and it's not even noon yet.  For reference, a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese from "the Scottish place" has 41 grams.

Low in cholesterol (thanks to the egg whites), 6 grams (25% daily value) of fiber (wheat wrap), I think I've found the super food.  What could possibly be wrong?  Oh wait, how much sodium is in this beast?  Oh wait, 900 mg! [BEEEEP].  For reference, that's the same as THREE medium french fries, THREE.  Or you could have 1 Big Mac, which is close enough (but more) at 1080 mg.

Okay, I'm done writing about this, I'm going to fill my water bottle again and drink up.  Damn that was a tasty breakfast though.

Vegetarian: Day 5

This episode is brought to you by: MorningStar Farms Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuits.  They're...just ok.

Brunch: You guessed it, MorningStar Farms Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuits.  They're...just ok.  And they are vegetarian, I've had at least one person suggest the "crumbles" from MorningStar, which would be the veggie sausage ingredient in said fake sausage egg and cheese biscuit.  It's weird, it's not a sandwich, but rather a biscuit...and all that stuff is inside of it.  I won't get them again, but they were edible.

Dinner: Homemade Mac & Cheese, homemade hummus, not-homemade pita bread, salad (green lettuce, red lettuce, onions, peppers, oil & vinegar).  I think it's important to break down what the salad is.

That's all for now.

Vegetarian: Day 4

Okay so for the record, this was my first Saturday as a vegetarian and it was by far the hardest day.  Overall this was a weird day, this was the night of "springing forward", so technically I was at the bar until 3 in the morning.  Lots of meat eating going around, but I'm learning to be a hunter of vegetarian options, because I am a hungry person.  This is also the first day I skipped breakfast.  I thought we were having brunch or lunch at my friends' apartment but we never got around to making lunch. So, here's the menu.

First "meal": Milk Duds, Corn Nuts and Sweet Tarts (Pauly Shore reference anyone? I hate Pauly Shore.)

Second "meal": We were all starving so we got pizza. I've been eating a lot of pizza. Today's was green and red peppers, it definitely hit the spot and I thought we were getting just cheese.  My relationship with vegetables is changing, I'm starting to like them more, and I'm starting to eat the ones I don't like as much because my choices are limited

Third "meal": Waffle fries and Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Til 3am.  I'm really happy to start new tomorrow, I think I'll have a salad.

Vegetarian: Day 3

Breakfast: Iced coffee and graham crackers...hey it was Friday

Lunch: had a stupid lunch meeting but get this...spinach & feta pizza, vegetable pizza...I think Friday's will be easiest because a few other people don't eat meat on Friday's...also a lot of the IT guys are Indian and are vegetarian, and there were a lot of IT guys at the meeting. So I kind of won here.

Dinner: This was my first date as a vegetarian, and I picked a place that makes the best mac & cheese in town.  I also drank a lot of Guinness, which is also vegetarian.

Note: The weekends are going to be harder with more temptations / reminders of my vegetarianism.  I met up with some friends after my date and they were eating burgers with cheese and bacon on them...mmm bacon...(sorry vegetarian readers)

Vegetarian: Day 2

Breakfast: Clif Mojo Bar - Peanut Butter Pretzel flavor.

Snack: serving of Sun Chips - Jalapeno Jack flavor.  Off to a delicious start. Hmm what's for lunch...

Lunch: Hummus, Pita Bread, Small Salad (Lettuce, Cucumbers, Red Peppers, Baby Corn, Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil)...note to self, next time turn all this into a sandwich, maybe add chick peas

Afternoon Snack: Peanut butter granola bar, Navel orange

Dinner: 2 veggie tacos from The Gaff...they gave me the energy I needed to wield my guitar and melt faces off with my "wonderful voice"...I also enjoyed several Narragansetts, another great vegetarian option

ROCK

Broccoli & Cheddar Roasted Potatoes

Not vegetarian.  You sons of bitches.

Notable Vegetarians

Hey - so I think I'm going to end up learning a lot about being vegetarian because I am a major nerd and I will learn and learn about things because quite frankly, I spent a lot of alone time as a kid.  So you have been alerted, nerd alert complete.

My source is the almighty Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians#United_States) but I don't expect you to read all of that.  The most important search for me was to find athletes who can sustain their performance while being vegetarians.

Right off the bat, no pun intended, Prince Fielder.  That tub of lard? Or shall I say vegetable based fats? He surely gets his protein, averaging some 40 home runs a season for the Milwaukee Brewers and hopefully the Boston Red Sox someday.  How about Bill Walton? That hippie.  He's been through a lot though, and he seems like a pretty smart dude.  Raja Bell, a basketball player who makes a living on playing good defense.  Herschel Walker, one of the nastier running backs on Tecmo Super Bowl.  Tony LaRussa, he's old and seems pretty healthy.

Okay so there aren't that many on this Wikipedia article, but I'm on the search for more.  How about non-athletes, according to this 100% accurate and totally reliable source?  Albert Einstein. Boom! Paul McCartney. Bam!  Hayden Pennetiere. Schwing! Leonardo da Vinci.  Code!  And numerous former Playboy playmates, which I believe would include Miss Pamela Anderson.

I feel like people have been keeping this vegetarian thing from me for all this time, and to that I say, screw you, screw you you big jerks.

Vegetarian - Day 1

I am giving up meat for Lent.  Two days into this I can already tell I am going to learn a lot, from learning new recipes, to trying new things at restaurants I frequent, to angrily discovering that something that is seemingly delicious and vegetarian had to contain meat in it, for no apparent reason what so ever, other than to just sprinkle some dehydrated beef broth in there.  Through all of this, I will also connect with friends, family, coworkers and others to learn about why they gave up meat, for a couple months or forever.  This should be fun.

I am going to try to keep it to one post a day, just to share my menu for the day, but I'm sure other stuff will come up along the way, and as expected I might miss a day but I'll try and post the menu anyway.  And, if I cheat and eat meat along the way, I'll come clean about it.  And if I eat a chocolate frosted donut or I drink 10 beers, I'll probably come clean about that too. Probably...

Day 1:

Breakfast: Egg White Flatbread (veggie) from Dunkin'
Lunch: Falafel from Crown Cafe
Dinner: Frozen pizza (cheese)

I can eat healthier than this, but I felt good today.

Note: No booze today, so technically I have given up meat AND alcohol so far...the alcohol part will most likely end tomorrow night at open mic...