Vegetarian Week and Running

By all means, I am not a vegetarian, I couldn’t be. I like meat as much as the next guy though I prefer chicken over pork and beef. However, once in a while I think about it and wonder how it would be. I have several friends who are vegetarian and during my university years a discussion about vegetarianism came up more than once. In 2010 I finally decided that I should do a little experiment and Veggie Week was born.

Every first week of the month I would do a Veggie Week. For me that means the following:

– no meat
– eggs, milk, butter and fish are ok
– traces of meat are ok, like cooking fat

I know that there are vegetarians out there who do not eat any meat products, in any form. I personally think that it would be very difficult for me, especially when you go out. At the university we always had a vegetarian meal at the cafeteria which made things easier. Though sometimes the option was really not to my taste and I had to resort to pasta with sauce.

After I moved to Canada I didn’t “observed” my Veggie Week at first. Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered, I sort of was burned out from moving and stuff. But I have picked up the habit again.

Biggest challenge: what to eat for supper?

Lunch is not big deal, mostly. I have some form of starch, mostly a lentil roll with some cream cheese, various vegetables and fruit. That’s going just fine. But supper is a whole different story, maybe because I am not a big meal planner.

Last time I was on Veggie Week I fried some prawns and spiced them with some sweet chili sauce. *yummy* I can eat that by itself, it’s so delicious and simple. Another dish I made was perogies filled with mushrooms and mushrooms on the side. My husband got some pork filet with it. (I was a bit jealous.)

Soups are also a great option because most of the time you are able to omit the meat. Unless you talk Soljanka for example, that just doesn’t work without the meat. But Lentil Soup will work fine, just make sure you use vegetable oil instead of the bacon and obviously omit the sausages/meat. A friend of mine once posted a Banana Curry Soup for me. And while it was tasty I have to admit that it tasted a bit better with chicken in it. (I had that a little later, not during Veggie Week.)

So, what else is there except fish and soup? Egg Salad is a nice option, that will give you your protein for sure and you can add things like mushrooms or asparagus.  You could also make a Vegetarian Lasagna. This recipe uses meat but you can easily switch meat with spinach or other vegetables. (I haven’t done that yet but should for next time.) Of course you can always have some salad, potato salad or Noodle Salad are fairly easy to make. So are carrot salad, cucumber salad, a simple Cesar salad, or mix vegetable salad.

Ratatouille is a bit more labourious because cutting alone will take some time. Then, the ingredients need to be cooked separately, before it is all put together. But once you made it, it will provide for several meals. The same holds true for Onion Tart because you have to make a dough and cut everything. I believe it took me an hour or so, and that is without baking.

Besides having a Veggie Week once a month I am also trying to stay in shape with running. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. This year I ran my first half marathon in 2 hours and 16 min, which was a huge accomplishment for me.

I also run for Diabetes because two important people in my life have it. My grandfather and my sister-in-law. While you can live with the disease without much trouble once it is diagnosed and you pay attention to it, there is still no cure. People still need to inject themselves and while the quality of life is certainly high, it still is a disease that I would like to see to be cured in my life time.

Click on the picture for the link.

In a week my 10km run is coming up in the 2nd Annual Run for Diabetes here in Saskatoon. I am fundraising for the run as well, my goal is $250. Right now I have reached 30% of that and I would like to get at least 50% if not all of it. It would be kind of you to donate to the cause, even just $5 will do the trick. Thank you! Run for Diabetes Link.

While writing this post I noticed, there are a bunch of things I can eat each Veggie Week. However, I am wondering if you have other suggestions. I can’t have those things every month, that would be boring! Shoot away in the comments, I love to hear from you.

Happy eating!