To be honest, I never had any New Year’s Resolutions until Michael and I were married. And even then, I never really cared too much about them. It started out as something he’d want to do, and then I’d go along with it. Such as having no soda the entire year, which we plan on continuing into 2011 as well. It’s to the point where I don’t miss it and don’t want it. That’s pretty good for someone who used to have at least one soda a day in college…thinking about that now makes me sick.
So I’ve never really had my own resolution – until this year. I’ve tried to do this in the past, but failed every time. Thanks to my sister-in-law, Hillary, we’re now aware of the horrible conditions that the America’s farm animals are raised in. I won’t go into it, but if you’re really interested, go find the movie Food Inc and watch it (you can watch it instantly on Netflix by the way).
It comes down to knowing where your food comes from. So I’ve decided for the year to be a vegetarian when going out to eat. If I buy my meat at our local grass-fed farm, or at a trusting grocer (usually Whole Foods or Earth Fare), then I am happy to eat meat in the comfort of my own kitchen. At restaurants however, it’s all vegetarian for me. This will not be a problem for beef because I stopped eating that at restaurants years ago. Chicken is the problem…yummy delicious chicken. I hope that it will help me eat healthier and cook at home more. I try to cook as much as possible, but when I get home at 6 pm most nights, I just don’t feel like it sometimes!
What are my two biggest challenges? Not getting my normal meal at delicious places like Chick-fil-a. We don’t do fast food anymore, other than Chick-fil-a…simply because it’s delicious. Also, we eat at our local Mexican restaurant way too much. I’ll still go there, but I can’t get my normal meal and will have to think outside the box.
So there it is…my very own New Year’s resolution that will be very hard to accomplish. Wish me luck!
7 comments:
Woohoo! Looking forward to hearing how this goes. I'm reading the Upton Sinclair classic, The Jungle, right now. Whew. Even though the food industry is (slightly) better now than it was then, it's still a good motivator for going "happy," as we call it in our house.
By: Hillary on January 1, 2011 at 6:32 PM
I told Liz, this is much harder than any resolution I've ever made, but there's no way I'm going to let her quit easy. I'll have to limit my chick-fil-a-ness as to not add temptation.
By: Fulton on January 1, 2011 at 8:01 PM
You should try restaurants where the food is all local:
Market - delicious - http://www.eatatmarket.com/
By: Jess Redman on January 2, 2011 at 9:35 PM
That is a big resolution, best of luck!
If you are willing to make exceptions for restaurants that use humanely raised/hormone free/etc... meat, you might consider Chipotle. You can read about how they get each of their types of animals below:
http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/fwi/animals/animals.aspx
By: Jacob on January 3, 2011 at 8:22 AM
chipotle! you're totally right, i forgot about that. I think that's well within the bounds of the resolution. too bad we don't have one close, we'd have to go 70 or downtown chapel hill.
i've never heard of the "market", we'll have to check that out. downside there is it's just really far too.
By: Fulton on January 3, 2011 at 8:59 AM
Chipotle is great. Gotta stick with the pork though because the other meats are still questionable (although still much better than 98% of other places). Unfortunately I usually end up of going vegi at Chipotle because the guacamole is so dang good.
By: Scott on January 3, 2011 at 7:34 PM
I started to get freaked out about the same thing when I read The Omnivore's Dilemma. We've been trying to do a much better job at eating meat that does get loaded down with antibiotics. Best of luck on your resolution.
By: Jason on January 4, 2011 at 8:50 AM
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