Though it’s a lot easier now than it was 25 years ago, the fact is that this is not a vegetarian-friendly country. Eating out is often an exercise in saladry. (After a couple of decades of that, I don’t accept invites if my only option is that “great salad bar”. Even to a veggie, after a while it’s just leaves.) You watch food network, and often the veggie courses are little more than sides rather than entrees.

Me? I’ll eat tofu straight-up. I think it tastes fine on its own. I cook up my own wheat gluten (a/k/a seitan) pretty often, and being a native New Mexican, my life would not be worth living if there weren’t beans around. I’ve never worried about not getting enough protein, even when I was very athletic. Protein is pretty much everywhere.

I’ll confess that I’m not a big fan of vegetables, even though I’m a vegetarian. Lots of being made to eat poorly-prepared (or canned…yuck) veggies made me such a non-fan. I’m better now, but still not an oh-boy-look-at-that-tasty-asperagus sort of person. There are a lot of choices. I just wish the economic realities were such that the choices were easier to budget.

It’s never made sense to me that flesh is consistently cheaper than veggies…even though it takes veggies to grow the flesh. It’s the subsidies. And with corn being over-produced and diverted to make fuel and HFCS, there’s even less affordable supplies of the foods we are supposed to be eating to be healthy. It’s annoying.

I’ve totally lost track of any point I think I was trying to make. Being a vegetarian isn’t the easiest thing, but it is getting easier. If you have any questions or other follow-up, please feel free. I’m going to link to a little blog I wrote a while back: From the Stomach of a Vegetarian