A Month without Meat

A little over a month ago I was talking to David about training for my next marathon, and was saying (not for the first time) how I needed to up my protein intake to compensate for all the miles I was running. Somewhere in the conversation I also got the crazy idea that maybe I should challenge myself to a month of high-protein eating, but to add a twist to it, see if I could maintain a high-protein diet that was meat free. I’ve never been a huge fan of steak, but ate chicken pretty regularly so while this would be somewhat of a challenge I didn’t think it would kill me. Since David’s the nice guy that he is, he agreed to join me in this challenge!

The Challenge

Well the month came and went, and we did it! Well okay, I had one slipped weekend. I had friends visiting me for the weekend and didn’t want to get into a discussion of why we were doing this, and we shared food several times and I didn’t want to be more difficult than I already am in a food setting, so vegetarianism was thrown to the wind for two days, but I immediately got back on track after they left, and was successful in my venture for the remaining time! I set a goal of eating 100g of protein a day, and after the first two weeks of logging everything I ate, I saw that I was able to get to somewhere in the 60-80g range each day. Not bad.

My Veggie & Meat Substitute Arsenal

I was half interested in the pure challenge of getting enough protein without eating meat, but was also interested in seeing if I noticed an improvement of how I felt or how I ran after making the change. As it turns out, the only difference I felt after a while was HUNGER! I couldn’t seem to satisfy my appetite at first without meat, but quickly learned what foods could keep me satisfied.

Fake Meat, My Favorite!

In the first three weeks I ate a lot of meat substitutes. Meatless burger patties, tofurky lunch meat slices, meatless meatballs, etc. In the fourth week though I went true veggie and only had eggs, beans, tofu, and other soy products as my source of protein. The fourth week wasn’t as bad as I thought and I like that I was forced to eat more vegetables than I normally would. I had a couple friends who were veggies who gave me several suggestions of vegetarian items that they really love but … they are all focused on cheese! Ewe! This cheese hater wanted no part of that.

In case you’ve ever been curious to try various meat substitute products but didn’t want to take the plunge, here’s my review of what I did try.

Meatless meatballs from Trader Joe’s

YUMMY! These meatballs are totally vegan and are a mixture of mushrooms, soy protein, and various other natural ingredients.

Tofurky lunch meat

Imagine a fruit roll up flavored like turkey meat. Yep, that’s about what its like. It’s not bad in a sandwich, but after trying it for a week I don’t think I’d get it again.

Morningstar Farms Meatless Bacon

(or FAKON as I like to call it)

Imagine a fruit roll up flavored like bacon, but with a true, chewy plastic consistency of a fruit roll up. Yep, that’s fakon! I can’t say I hate it though, and enjoyed restoring the “bacon” to my English muffin, egg white, and bacon breakfast sandwich in the morning.

Soy chorizo

I tried two different varieties, one from Trade Joe’s and one from Whole Foods. I REALLY liked these. I don’t normally like chorizo since its just soooo greasy and fatty, but fake chorizo is the bomb! I cooked it once in a stir fry of tofu noodles and tomato sauce it was an interesting take on spaghetti and meat sauce. The next time I pan fried it and put some in a tortilla/lettuce wrap. Yum, yum, yum!

Fake Chicken Strips

Now these are my absolute favorite! These little strips of “chicken” are great in a salad, stir fry, or just eaten alone. They’re made from textured vegetable protein which I think is similar to magic fairy dusty. Magic fairy dust full of protein!

I tried some various other vegetarian foods which mostly consisted of tofu in some form. The worst thing I had? An Indian vegetarian burrito from Whole Foods. It tasted like someone chewed up spinach and tofu and spit it back into a tortilla. Seriously. Sorry!

Its now been two days since the challenge officially ended, and David and I are on our flight right now to Aruba for five days! We’ve discussed whether or not the challenge will continue since it will limit our eating options during the trip. It looks like we’re going to go pescatarian for the trip, except for a nice steak dinner for one night. I have to reward my challenge partner for his dedication and support during all of this!

Once we get back I can’t decide what I’m going to do. I like that this challenge has forced me to eat more vegetables and to become more conscious of my protein intake, so I’m thinking I might continue as a vegetarian for a while, and then eventually switch over to a pescatarian. I saw a disturbing documentary a few months ago called Food Inc which really turned me off of the chicken farming and cattle raising industry. Not enough to make me stop eating chicken because of the farming methods, and not enough to make me want to spend $16 on a free-range breast of chicken, but enough for me to consider if I can find my protein requirements elsewhere. We’ll see what happens next week!