Adventures with Vegetarianism

[aprilstarchild]

People who know me, know that I've jumped on and off the vegetarian bandwagon enough times to lose count. Well, I'm back on it again. Going to a protest about the world's food supply, and thinking about how everything I put on my mouth affects people/places around the world, can do that to you. I've stuck with it pretty well, or so I thought. It hasn't been too difficult, but then, I haven't really started telling people, "I'm a vegetarian," which somehow always jinxes it. Maybe from now on I'll just say, "I'm trying to eat less meat." For some reason, *announcing* it makes me panic--oh no, how will I live without it for the rest of my life!--and I sort of freak out. And then I eat it again. And feel guilty every bleeping time. So. There's a Teriyaki mom'n'pop place behind where I work, and I often eat lunch there. I always get the same damn thing: wakame udon. Udon is a kind of noodle soup. Wakame is a kind of seaweed. I order it so often, I don't actually have to order it anymore. I'm actually referred to as "the wakame udon lady" by the owners. I must be the only non-Asian ordering the stuff or something. In any case, the soup comes with half a boiled egg, and this stuff that looks like radish. It's obviously not radish, it's died with cherry pink food coloring as to resemble radish, and it's soft. Not long after I decided to give dead animals the heave-ho again, I started wondering what the heck they were made of. I tried eating'em real slow....they tasted fishy. Shit. So today, when I paid, I pointed at the picture on the menu, and asked what it was made out of. "Fish cake."

Oops.