What I Ate - 13 February 2010

Today I ate:

2 pieces of Vogels with peanut butter.
1 trim latte.
Halloumi with cucumber, mint and lemon salsa at Capitol.
Homemade pizza with olives, mushrooms, red onion, courgette and mozzarella, and homemade wedges.
3 Mac's green apple drink.
Tomato and basil bruschetta made by Tonya.

Yesterday I caught up with my friend Traci who was in Wellington for the weekend.  Her friend Tonya is a vegetarian and has been so for seven years.  Tonya told us about how she decided to be vegetarian one day when she was a teenager.  She was eating a pasta dish that had been made with mince when it occurred to her that the meal would be that much nicer if it wasn't for the meat.  That got me thinking...Why do we eat such terrible meat?  By 'terrible meat' I mean mince with lots of fat in it, and sausages that are probably 40% flour.  I know that a lot of families can't afford to buy really good quality meat and produce, but why would they choose pre-cooked sausages over say a curry made with chickpeas?  I suppose a lot of people don't really know how to cook with pulses, but gosh, it is worth looking into.

I have quite a sad story to share, which I have probably told a few of you already.  I have a friend from childhood who is in her early twenties and has two small children, the youngest of whom is a newborn baby.  A few weeks before the birth of the baby, she put a status update on Facebook saying 'Jill [not her real name] has $18 to spend on groceries this week.  How am I going to feed a family of three on that?'  I wanted to tell her to go and buy a packet of lentils.  She wrote later that she had bought meat, rice, and a packet of frozen veges to make stir fry with, and then had somehow found some extra cash to buy bread for breakfast.  Between that and a few meals at her mum's house, she was ok.  As my mum would say, we don't know we are alive.

Even though I intend to go back to eating meat in March, I think I will eat it much less often than I have in the past.  I don't want meat to be the default any more, because there is no need for it to be.  Also, I think that when I eat meat, I will make an effort to eat meat that is (a) all right quality, and (b) was raised in a way that I don't think is cruel.