Vegetarian?

I'm not sure why I'm a vegetarian anymore.

Every reason I have can be argued against.

I eat chicken/quail/duck eggs (fish eggs? I don't know). I consume cow and goat milk products. I ingest gelatine every time I eat gummies and marshmallows. I guess I'm not really a strict vegetarian.

1. The environmental reason - the one I guess I believe in the most. Less energy is used to produce grain than it is to produce a chicken. I eat eggs though, which take a lot of energy to make (by the chicken). The environmental reason also doesn't hold when a piece of food gets thrown away. For example, if I happen to have a slice of sausage pizza, and I throw away the sausage, I'm wasting all the energy it took to grow corn, grow the cow, process the cow into sausage, transport the sausage, and cook the sausage on the pizza. Also, I eat a lot of processed foods (chips, chocolate) that take a ton of energy to process, transport, and package. Finally, the most environmentally friendly thing to do is to eat the minimum number of Calories needed to be a vegetable. A.k.a. not waste Calories by exercising. Fundamentally, the best way to be environmentally friendly is to die and decay in a forest somewhere.

2. Cost/convenience reasons. Being a vegetarian seems to be cheaper (unless you're really into buying vegan cheese and fake processed soy pepperoni that sells at some $13/lb) if you live on dairy, beans, nuts, and soy. Also, I don't know how to cook animals.

3. The "disgust" factor. Factory farms, squishy chicken butts being mashed into nuggets, fecal pieces in ground animal flesh...it's gross, yes, but it's also something that is easily avoided by being ignorant, or buying dead animals from a different company.

4. The "moral" reason which I haven't been believing in ever since I read on Wikipedia that lions eat animals. Well, duh, I knew that, but in the context of "Why can other animals eat animals, yet we can't?", it makes perfect sense that we, as animals, are able to eat animals. I guess I don't have much compassion for animals.

5. The health reason, which I never ever took into consideration, really. I know that I'm not protein deficient but sometimes I worry that I'm iron and vitamin B12 deficient. I'm not obese or overweight. However, I'm a living example that "vegetarian=healthy" is false, and I dislike that stereotype. Dude, I eat so much candy.

Apr 2005 - no chicken nuggets

Oct 2005 - no chicken, no gelatine.

Apr 2006 - no animals except fish/seafood, no gelatine.

Jan 2009 - no fish, no animals, gelatine okay.

Jul 2011 - I dunno.

I think it's just that I've been a vegetarian for so long (okay, not really that long) that it's just become habit. So now, if you asked me why I'm a vegetarian, I say "I just feel like it."

Maybe I should be a flexitarian-freegan-vegetarian-freeloader.

Dinner at China Chalet a.k.a. 天府 [Tian Fu]

My dad's birthday is around this time of year so we went out to eat dinner to celebrate it since I'm now a college kid and I can't come home much. Actually, I could if I had the money or the time. The truth is that college kids are poor. Well, most college kids are poor. There has to be some millionaires at Penn...

Anyway, my dad likes Chinese food [what a surprise! Not.] so we went to Tian Fu [天府] because that's where we used to go when we used to live in Florham Park in 2006. All I can say is, at least Niffy didn't yell out, "The food here isn't that good" because that's what she apparently said when my family went to the Greek restaurant a few weeks ago [without me, unfortunately]...

She nearly got hit by a car though, so I guess that's how karma works. It was a black SUV and it stopped for my brother and I as we were crossing the road. Then, it started to go again, and my sister decided to RUN across the road...

Then she proceeded to blame us for not warning her about the car. It was really crazy and confusing. It was like the time she was on the metro platform and I was on the metro and I was trying to keep the doors half open so that she could GET ON to the metro, and then the train started MOVING. Anyway, I keep digressing.

This was cow pieces with peanuts, water chestnuts, pepper, chilies, and oil.

Fish pieces with peppery batter and snow peas and oil. I am not condoning these acts of massacring animals. My mum did tell me that she apparently has had high cholesterol [ish] for the past 7 years, and she's finally decided to eat fewer animals now, instead of having to take meds [sigh. The U.S. and its pharmaddiction], which I support.

Three different animal pieces [chicken, pig and shrimp] with vegetables and, oh, yeah, oil. This one actually was supposed to have crunchy rice with it but there were only three chunks of crunchy rice, which I don't think counts as it being "crunchy rice with meat". It should be "meat with vegetables and a tiny side of crunchy rice". Whatever, it benefits them for advertising...

And there was rice vermicelli with vegetables and oil. Seriously. Why. Do. Chinese. Restaurants. Use. So. Much. Oil. Needless to say, I got pretty much zero protein but I did get all the unsaturated fat I need for the week.

Chelo's

Thursday the 22nd of July: Chelo's for dinner. Though we were driving from Weymouth MA to Seekonk MA, the GPS told us to drive through RI... so we did, and on the outskirts, we happened across this restaurant, at which we had a great dinner. I don't understand why NJ and NY have all these toll roads, whereas we someone managed to avoid tolls everywhere else...

"Stuffies" appears to be a RI concept. We didn't get it; not my loss though since it's apparently this giant stuffed clam. My brother should've ordered it though; he was sort of regretting it. Eh, next time.

Warm bread rolls.

My dad got some French cow pie thing, which I believe is another RI dish. According to my brother, it was dry and too "meaty", because he was comparing it with the famous Australian Meat Pie. The mashed potato was really nice, though, and the CORN WAS AMAZING.

My grandpa got steak. He attained his goal of being able to live the "American Dream", which, for him, means consuming some steak with vegetables and mashed potato. This stuff, if done authentically in China [which I kind of doubt], is really expensive. Here, though, it's an average meal.

My mum got some seafood pasta, ate a few bites, and left the rest for the next day because she "wasn't hungry". This is why I DON'T order when we go out to eat. My mum barely ever gets through half of her meal... my sister never finishes her kids meal... my brother finishes about 50% of the time...

My brother got a "bananaberry salad", wherein the banana pieces are actually fried banana chips. They were with a balsamic dressing and a balsamic strawberry dressing. I don't like balsamic dressing. I like to use balsamic vinegar as an ingredient for jam and baked items, because it's just used to accent the flavour of everything else, but I honestly dislike the taste of balsamic vinegar itself. But not too deeply... I can tolerate most foods. Except liquorice. Anyway, I digress.

My curly fry swan!

Joe's American Bar & Grill

Such an iconic name. I wonder how filled-to-capacity this chain restaurant was, during the 2008 elections?

We went to the Braintree Mall on Wednesday the 21st, after visiting schools in Cambridge, and I honestly think that I shouldn't've ordered. In a family of 6 [for now], we should always order 4 items in an American restaurant. We have never finished 5 items, let alone six. Usually, I'm the one who doesn't order, simply because there is no main dish that I can eat due to the animal pieces. Also, though, I usually am the one who likes side dishes anyway [think salad, the bread, mashed potato... you know].

That day, my dad didn't order but I did, just to "change it up a little", though in all honesty, neither of us should've ordered. I got the spinach and artichoke dip, which is basically ubiquitous in any American grill style restaurant. In fact, if it wasn't for the seafoods section of the menu, one'd think that he/she had just walked into Applebees with different decor. Or Chili's with different decor. Or TGI with different decor. That's the problem I have with American restaurants. Sure, they offer a sense of "homeliness", but they also use the same cookie cutter. Except, Joe's American apparently makes all their food from scratch, whereas TGI reheats it.

My brother got chicken fajitas. I wish I could have a corn tortilla for once in my life instead of flour tortillas...

These are the best oyster crackers. Ever. Someone needs to send me a box of these. NO, NOT THE "Premium" brand oyster crackers [those have PHO]. It HAS to be this brand!!!!

My grandpa doesn't like coleslaw. This coleslaw wasn't as oily as the one from Clark's but I don't think I'm a huge fan of not-sour-enough-and-too-fatty coleslaw.

My brother's clam chowder. Okay, I tried some of the soup part. It was okay. Creamy. I like corn chowder more.

Spinach and artichoke dip with fatty cheese. Funny how we turn two vegetables into heart attacks, right? It was really creamy and definitely tasted more real than the kind from Applebee's. I'm serious. There were actual chunks of artichoke that LOOKED like chunks of artichoke! The pita chips were too salty, though. I liked how they gave us some celery with it, because at least that's a little different from the other stores out there, which probably don't even stock fresh celery.

My mum got this fish thingy with a corn and cucumber salad, which was quite amazing since I never imagined that the two could get moshed together so yummily.

My sister got a cheese pizza, with thin crust. It was amazing crust - look at the grill marks on the back! The topping wasn't that interesting though, and it was drenched in lipids.

Joe's American Bar & Grill, 250 Granite St. Braintree Mall, Braintree MA.

CANDY STORE OUTSIDE!

Vegetarian!

"Are you vegan?"
J asked me that today when we were on the bus to the track meet [at which I did terrible. Worse than terrible, actually]. I wonder what makes him think that I could be vegan [considering I don't really talk to him much...]? I replied that I'm a vegetarian, though I've honestly considered being vegan in the past. I don't want to though, because chicken eggs and cow's milk yoghurt are huge components of my meals.
Why am I vegetarian, though? Here is my train of thought, a mish-mosh of propaganda welded together into my own beliefs.
1. Homo sapiens are evolutionally able to eat other animals - the teeth are evolutionally adapted to eating animals, AND plants. A.k.a. we are omnivores [no disputin' that].

2. Homo sapiens are evolutionally able to drink cow/goat/buffalo milk. We have enzymes. If PETA [or any other narrow-minded activist] tells you that "humans are the only species to drink milk from another species, so humans ought to be vegan", you should retort back: "So what? We're the only species that eats Boca Burgers."

3. I hate Tyson and its stupid chicken farms, oh, I mean, cages, oh, I mean, shoe-boxed sized jails. I hate McDonalds and its uncaring shredding of rainforests [for raising crappy food] and its Republicanism [sorry to bring in the politics] and lack of the concept of welfare [for both its workers and its ingredients]. I hate other restaurant chains and other animal killing operations for the fact that they're basically monopolies and jerks and freakin' uncaring. Thus, I will not buy their stuff [usually dead animals in marinade], so they won't profit. They should DIE. I could go on for hours about this.

4. This is my favourite reason ever. In simple terms: if I have a hectare of corn, I can feed myself for... let's say a month. If I have a hectare of corn and feed it to a baby cow, a month later it would've eaten all the corn. If I eat the cow, it could feed me for, perhaps, 4 days [if I made cow-butt soup or something]. Doesn't sound like much, but if you're comparing billions of people, you have a WHOLE lot more food for people.

5. I like being a rebel.

6. I'm not really into the whole animal activist crap. PETA sickens me because they are so extreme and NARROWMINDED. People Eating Tasty Animals is actually a very appropriate backronym for them, because what they do is way too absurd to be taken seriously, and they basically kill off caged animals when they "set them free into the ocean" because caged animals do not develop right, and thus aren't able to live in their natural habitat. Plus, they put a really bad name on we vegetarians/vegans. I can be a vegetarian and respect people for consuming animals.

7. People who truly care about me will respect me for being vegetarian. Great way to tell what side people are on.

8. I don't really miss eating animals. Bacon smells good. Tuna sandwiches smell good. But I'm kinda indifferent to them. It's kinda like telling me stuff about baseball. I don't really care.

9. I figured out an answer to the [grammatically incorrect] question that people always ask. "Where do you get your protein from?!", they exclaim. From now on, I will say, "Where do you get your narrow-mindedness from?" and if they reply, "What?" I will say, "Where do you get your common sense from? I get my protein from food."