I am at least a third generation vegetarian (do they give out prizes for that?). My father and his parents were vegetarians all of their lives and my mom and her parents had been mostly vegetarian (a few cooked hens at a few Christmas dinners), and my mom hadn’t had any meat for many years by the time I came along. So, I grew up vegetarian. It’s not that I wasn’t aware that other people ate meat. We lived in apartments in Cincinnati so smelled more meat than most omnivores do in their lifetime. I just never found myself the least bit curious about eating or even trying some meat (though I was once asked if I was going to eat meat, what it would be — the answer is fried chicken).
My wife was mostly a vegetarian her whole life, and has been since she experimented with eating some hamburgers in England in ’91. That experiment left her sick and vowing to never wander off of the veggie path ever again. So we have raised our children vegetarian. We all tried to be vegan for awhile, too. That adventure was made possible by Silk soy milk — I hadn’t liked any other kind of soy milk before then. We did ok, but were never quite able to find a good soy cheese or soy ice cream, so slid back into those two dairy products. Our two girls have been raised vegetarian, and only having some dairy cheese and ice cream once in awhile. I felt it was important for them to have the option to eat dairy when they got older. I knew if they never had any dairy while they were growing up, their bodies would most likely react violently against the introduction of it later in their lives. I think it’s worth the opportunity to be able to eat some dairy, especially when at a party and there are no non-dairy substitutes. They hate the taste of dairy milk, though, and refuse to have it. It’s soy milk and soy yogurt only for them, I guess. So some dairy cheese once in awhile is how they keep their bodies able to digest dairy.
That being said, being a vegetarian certainly does not alone guarantee that you are eating healthy. It’s entirely possible to kill yourself on fat and sugar alone!
I recently found out that I have basically been sleep deprived pretty much my whole life because of severe obstructive sleep apnea (I had a sleep study done at the Stanford Sleep Center). I also realized that being tired all of the time had affected my appetite, and overall health. I got into a habit of carb loading. Being so low on sleep, my body was frequently in survival mode. And when the body is in survival mode from being tired, it wants the quick energy of carbs. I pretty much became addicted to carbs and was riding the ups, and downs, that come with that nutritional lifestyle.
While I’ve been at home with a herniated disc for the last couple of months, I have also discovered that I have high blood pressure (hypertension) and that my bad cholesterol (LDL) is too high and my good cholesterol (HDL) is too high. It seems that all of the stress of work, the inability to get a full night’s rest, and my mostly sedentary lifestyle over the past decade have really done a number on me. It’s kind of frightening, since I eat a lot better than millions of people out there. It gives me a much better understanding of just how bad things can get if you eat very poorly.
Since I’ve been in bed a lot these days with a herniated disc, I have had a lot of time to think to think about a lot of things. Naturally, my mind often dwells on my health — specifically how I can make sure I never end up in such a mess again. I think I’ve pretty much taken care of the sleep issue, one of the foundational pillars to wellness (I sleep with a full face mask and CPAP machine blowing air at a pretty high pressure). I’m about to get my back fixed by having a UCSF surgeon suck all of the back “goo” out of me that has extruded out of my disc and is pushing up against my sciatic nerve (the surgery is called a discectomy).
The big thing I now need to work on is my diet (I can deal with work stress later, and with more sleep and stuffing my mouth with good, natural, living food will surely make the world a much less stressful one for me). It goes without saying that what I put into me will affect my wellness and overall performance. It’s quite simple. I need to eat better. More veggies, fruits, whole grains, and water. I also need to cut down on processed foods, especially those high in refined grains and sugars. Like Michael Pollan says so eloquently, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Reading about how so many ultradistance runners are mostly vegetarians and even vegans makes me extra happy that I am vegetarian, and that I always have been. Trying to go vegetarian after being in the habit of eating meat has got to be incredibly hard. I have it easy, having no desire to eat meat. I don’t think I have a strong enough will to say no to meat after living off of it and never look back. My hat off to those who can pull that feat off.
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