The end of an era

Ten years ago, during a time where I was very focused on my spirituality, I decided to become a vegetarian. Everyone thought I was crazy (my mom, especially) but I stuck with it. I was really committed to the animal rights aspect of it, and since my general code of conduct is "harm none", I realized that should carry over into my diet as well. There was no good reason to eat meat if I could get all my nutritional needs met through plant sources. I did have my share of struggles through the years, not necessarily due to food cravings (though my mom's been close to breaking my resolve on several occasions), but because of being a fat guy who was veg. There were times when I was embarrassed to tell people that I was vegetarian, simply because I could see the gears turning as they processed that. The follow up statement was frequently "You don't look like a vegetarian." Then they'd proceed to ask me how long I'd been veg, as if my heaviness was just due to the fact that I hadn't been following it long enough yet. People tend to pictures vegetarians as tall and lean, and I certainly don't fit that stereotype. It would bring up some body shame issues that were at times hard to deal with, particularly since I dont frequently have issues with being a big dude.
It took me a long time to realize that having a meatless diet and eating healthy were very different concepts. I think I ate mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese for a full week before I realized I needed to expand my options a bit (or eventually die of scurvy). My diet's been a lot better the last year or two. I still eat a ridiculous amount of pasta and bread, but every meal I cook now involves a vegetable of some kind (usually two or three). I have to give credit to my friend Tania for this, she got me used to eating well and when she moved out all I had to do was keep the ball rolling.
Which brings us to today. My biggest issue with eating meat was the fact that the animals were treated so shitty leading up to their slaughter. I won't get preachy here, but it's beyond tragic what these creatures go through. Most countries don't have the same factory farm productions in place that we do in the US. I always said that if I had the opportunity to eat meat abroad, I'd go for it. Let's be real here, food is a huge part of getting to know a culture, and I'll be damned if I'm going to rob myself from that kind of experience. Being a vegetarian is also something that reeks of privilege; families that can't afford food aren't about to turn their nose up at meat. Walking into this new placement and asking them to exclude meat from my dishes is not only impractical, it's offensive. I knew I'd have to reintroduce meat into my diet prior to my trip, and I wanted to do it as soon as possible to give my body time to adjust. Now let me tell you something, I was giving my body time to adjust mostly to appease other people, my body's tough, I'm not a vegan so it's been exposed to certain animal products fairly often throughout the years. I really didn't expect any issues with eating meat again, but I wanted to do it now to avoid vomiting all over the sweet children.
I went to a new southern restaurant named SoCo with my AirBnB roommate Kensey. I'd gone up there two weeks ago with my friend Alana and it was really good food, plus I read online that they served creme brulee sometimes for dessert, and nothing makes my tummy happier than creme brulee. I had to put lots of thought into what my first dish would be and I ended up going for the Brooklyn staple of fried chicken and waffles. I was in the middle of a pretty serious conversation with Kensey when the food came out so I didn't draw out the first bite and make a big deal of it, but I was still super trepidacious. The skin (eww I dont want to call it that!), ok, the breading was delicious, perfectly crunchy and oily. The chicken itself was incredibly juicy and tender. And it didn't make me vomit at all ;) It was weird, it came back to me like an old memory, I distinctly remember thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember how you taste..." I actually found myself disappointed when I was done with it, I wanted more (and if I wasn't with someone I may have actually gone to KFC on the way home to take a piece for the road). So yes, i survived my first introduction of meat. Here are some before and after pics. The waffle is a weird color because it was red velvet cake flavored (um, delicious).


I then got home and proceeded to get extremely nauseous. I spent two hours sitting in my room feeling like I was going to throw up, all the while I was in absolute disbelief that my body was truly going to reject this meat. I watched a few movies and chilled out and it eventually passed. I'm not feeling great but I dont think I'm going to hurl anytime soon. By the way, Tangled is the best Disney movie I've seen in a long time, the music was decent and it was actually pretty funny (then again, I was watching it at 4am so my judgement may be a little skewed).