why it ain't easy being green.

I recently discovered an additional perk of being vegetarian – helping the environment. Thanks to No Impact Man, I have learned of the potential benefits of refraining from using animal products in assisting our poor atmosphere. After additional research, I have found that this has been investigated in many studies, most profoundly in one done by the United Nations in 2006. This study proved that the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by all the cars and trucks in the world was LESS than that created by raising animals to generate food. Read more about environmental vegetarianism here!

As much as I hate to admit it, my vegetarianism has quite deteriorated as of late. At the risk of sounding as though I’m simply making excuses for myself (I’m honestly not!), it just hasn’t been easy for me. Living at home with my parents and two younger brothers is most of the problem, particularly stemming from the fact that my father told me that not eating meat makes me an outsider in the family. Although it’s likely that this was just an outlet for anger about certain other decisions of mine, it really made me feel that if I didn’t eat the dead animal carcass sitting on my plate, then I didn’t belong.

I may sound completely weak for not standing up for what I believe in, but it’s hard to understand unless you live under this roof that my family works in mysterious ways. There are unspoken expectations about most things, and due to being the eldest I am the first to make any attempt at stretching these boundaries. Perhaps there’s a fair point with one or two things, but I do think that this is something worth fighting for. So I will!

I have a good friend looking into becoming a vegetarian, and the internet is definitely an awesome place to find information/recipes/advice from long-time veggies. However, there’s also a lot of crap (excuse my French) and it’s important to focus on getting enough of the right nutrients etc. I know I’m guilty of not eating enough, and DEFINITELY guilty of replacing protein with easy carbs, but I’m working on it! Trying to get enough iron is one of the most difficult things, and I’ve been borderline anemic as a result of this. My love of chickpeas helps though!

Helpful sites:

http://www.goveg.com/

http://www.veggieglobal.com/

http://www.vegsoc.org/

http://www.vegetariansrecipes.org/

http://www.kurma.net/

http://www.ar.vegnews.org/

http://www.animalconcerns.org/



AND my favourite vegetarian/vegan cookbook:

The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook
















Peace out x