At the moment, I am with my family in small village fairly close to Alesund (west-coast of Norway). We’ve been here for four days, and we are having an awesome time.
The weather is nice, and the nature is fantastic. This is not our first time here though, but I never get used to the nature. The huge mountains, the sea and the fjords. It’s just amazing.
What’s not quite as amazing, is the choice of food for vegetarians.
We drove from Lillehammer to this village close to Alesund, and we stopped at three restaurants (well, not sure if I should call all three of them restaurants, but the point is; we could buy and eat food at all three places).
Not one of the three “restaurants” had any specific food for vegetarians. They had salads (even the salads was for non-vegetarians), and I could have eaten pizza, if we had stopped at another restaurant I spotted along the road. I ended up eating a more or less successful meal.
Yesterday, my family and I spent the day in Alesund. We went to the Aquarium (Atlanterhavsparken) and we spent a few hours in the central area of Alesund. At the end of the day, we stopped at another interesting restaurant. They served marvelous food, but the only food they had for vegetarians were french fries.
You probably guessed it. I didn’t eat much during our trip.
I understand why most restaurants in Norway don’t have specific meals for vegetarians. That’s probably because they don’t get many customers like me,, and it’s all about the money. But when I think about it, I get a little frustrated. Not because I was hungry and wanted something to eat, but because I think about the animals.
It’s always fascinating and a lot of inspiration to me to discover that one of my idols is a vegetarian. I recently discovered that Anthony Kiedis is a vegetarian (he might even be a vegan).
They way I discovered it, was by reading Scar Tissue, the autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, the lead vocalist of Red Hot Chili peppers.
The autobiography is plain awesome, it contains of 480 pages, and the story begins when he was just a few years old, and it ends sometime before releasing the album “one hot minute”. I got the whole story, from birth to major success, the whole rollercoaster ride of his life.
I would never have guessed that he is a vegetarian. I am not sure why I didn’t think that he would be, it might be because he has been using all kinds of drugs since he was about 11 years old, and he has been in and out of rehab. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with vegetarianism, or does it?
Scar Tissue didn’t explain why he is a vegetarian, therefore I had to do some research. It seems that it’s a combination of ethical, environmental, and health reasoning.
Anyway, I really enjoy surprises like that.
This article is the first part of series of articles about why you should switch to a vegetarian diet.
Other articles in this serie are:
I haven’t been a vegetarian for more than seven years. And I didn’t experience one of those immediate switches to become all vegetarian, to me, it was a process that developed over several years.
If you’ve eaten meat your whole life, switching to a vegetarian diet might be something that could be fairly difficult. I am not sure if you can relate it to trying to quit smoking, because I think that quitting to smoke might be even more difficult.
I think that the most important part when it comes to becoming all vegetarian is to consider the reason why you should stop eating meat. Most people have been eating meat their whole life, and the easiest part is to continue eating the way they have always been eating.
So, the question you should be asking yourself is…
Why switch now?
In fact, there are many reasons why you should decide to switch to a vegetarian diet. You might want to take a look at yourself in the mirror, even though I don’t know anything about you, I know this:
The majority of Americans are not at a healthy weight and this can be the number one reason for them to switch. It seems that more and more people, not only in the US, are becoming obese. Do you think vegetarians become obese? Well, they certainly can, but so far, I have never heard of or seen (even on TV) an obese vegetarian.
Now, aks yourself the following questions:
- Are you at a healthy weight?
- Do you feel good most of the time?
- Do you wake up energized? Or tired and sluggish?
- How is your overall health?
- Is your blood pressure in a healthy range?
- Are your cholesterol and blood sugar levels normal?
If you answer no to most of the questions, you should consider a switch (you don’t have to become a vegetarian in order to feel healthy). Many people actually feel worse after eating, that’s not how food is suppose to make you feel. Food should nourish and feed your body. It should leave you feeling refreshed and energized. The body is a machine and it needs good fuel.
As I just stated, most Americans (and a lot more people in other countries as well) are overweight and obese. This is because they eat too much meat and too much fat. Problems such as high blood sugar, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol and other health related problems are caused by their diet.
All of these problems can be prevented by changing your diet.
You can become a vegetarian because of health related issues, as I just described, but if you are like me, health got nothing to do with the switch. I will update you soon, with the reasons for why I became a vegetarian, and why I will continue to be one for the rest of my life… stay tuned.
After being a vegetarian for a while, you start questioning society and you start thinking about the future and the past. At least, that’s what I have been doing.
Among the things I have been thinking about and questioning, is what our ancestors ate and how far we have changed our eating habits.
Let me tell you what I have discovered.
Originally, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and not omnivores. They did not eat animals (omnivore is a person that eats food of both plant and animal origin). When you look at predators and carnivorous animals you can see that they have teeth designed to rip and tear. Their teeth are not designed for chewing. Animals that are designed for chewing like herbivores (an animal that feeds on plants) have flat teeth that are designed to breakdown food.
Humans have evolved
Humans evolved from being vegetarian. ”Our” digestive systems were not designed for eating and digesting meat. Eating meat is a fairly recent development in human history. It’s believed that people began to eat meat because they couldn’t find the natural foods they were used to eating.
Initially, we were similar to creatures that evolved from animals like herbivore apes. These apes looked similar to us and walked upright with their arms and hands. They naturally search widely for food and ate roots, berries, fruits and nuts. They also lived moment to moment constantly searching for food.
Hunting requires thought and eating meat required fire. Until fire was discovered, humans primarily ate vegetables and fruits.
As a vegetarian, I have been thinking about why humans started eating meat in the first place. This question is interesting, because originally, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and not omnivores.
It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention, and prehistoric humans who lived in frozen areas ate anything that they could to survive. What I am saying is that, the prehistoric man had to eat meat in order to survive. This would be the first time that they had ever eaten meat. And because of this, it changed the way people would eat forever.
The first meat that was eaten would have been cooked by fire that was natural started by natural forest fires. Without fire, they could have possibly eaten raw meat as well. The digestive system most likely rebelled to eating the raw meat, but as they became adjusted meat became a part of their regular diets.
You may have heard of people who have lived vegetarian lives for a long period of time and then became violently ill after eating meat. This is similar to what prehistoric men would have gone through.
We are not really designed to digest meat, but we have adapted to it over time.
Sometimes, at least when it comes to food, being a vegetarian, I wish I’d live someplace other than Norway. It’s hard to get the right ingredients to be able to make vegetarian food, and it’s close to impossible to buy great vegetarian fast food.
I love burgers, and I try to make my own vegetarian burgers from black beans. They are ok, but not as tasty as the ones I have bought at places outside of Norway.
My favorite fast food burgers is from Quorn. They make their burgers from mushrooms. I buy them fairly cheap in Sweden, not too far from my home. They taste delicious.
But as I said, I’d really like to be able to buy some of the other burgers that I’ve heard so many good things about.
The top six vegetarian burgers I’d really like to taste are (in no particular order):
1. Boca Burgers
2. Amy’s Veggie Burgers
3. Gardenburger
4. Morningstar burgers
5. Lightlife burgers
6. Yves burgers
Have you tasted any of the burgers?
Learn a vegetarian pizza recipe that is easy and healthy in this free how-to video on easy vegetarian cooking recipes. Expert: Ursula Horaitis Bio: Ursula Horaitis is a raw food chef and culinary instructor. She owns Good Mood Food Deli and Juice Bar in Huntington Beach, California. She teaches cooking classes at the café. Filmmaker: Nili Nathan
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