The Conspicuous Consumer

About two months ago, I made the decision to become a vegetarian. Not that I am some sort of off-the-deep-end animal rights person that thinks people are wrong for eating meat - to be honest, I like meat. I really do. What made me choose to become a vegetarian was the health benefits of a diet that doesn’t consist of 3 or 4 meals a day full of fattening, artery clogging foods like beef, bacon, etc.

So, two months in, I can say with all honesty that I really don’t miss meat all that much. Yeah, I’ve cheated a couple of times and had a buffalo burger when I was in Park City, Utah a few weeks ago and some chicken on a salad at a restaurant last week. In fact, I’ve felt better than I can ever remember since I stopped eating meat on a daily basis…

In fact, I’ll come right out and say that companies producing vegetarian and organic frozen entrees are consistently producing some of the best pre-packaged meals I’ve ever had. Kudos to Amy’s Kitchen for enabling me to eat healthy meals even when I only have about 5 minutes of prep time.

All that comes before is wonderful, but it brings me to the “struggling” part. I love to cook. I consider myself to be somewhat of an amateur gourmet. The problem with vegetarianism is that your protein choices just don’t give you too many options for high quality, gourmet meals. Yeah, I can make a mean tofu stir fry or tofu scramble, but what I can’t figure out is how to use something like tempeh or tofu to replicate some of my favorite animal protein based dishes like my sauteed salmon on top of homemade gnocchi with my infamously fattening (but good) pink cream sauce.

Consider this a cry to the vegetarian masses…