A vegetarian for five minutes
This is not a post for the weak of heart – or stomach! – I am going to say terrible and disgusting things!
You have been warned.
I like to eat. I’m not overweight, or a food snob, nor do I have a particular palate, but I do like food. That being said, I very nearly became a vegetarian today.
I was rooting through the cupboards looking for something more healthy than microwave popcorn for lunch when I decided on salmon. I’m a cretin, I used the tinned stuff in sandwiches because in addition to being a cretin, I am also lazy. Joe has taught me to leave in the little bit of skin and the bones that come in it as they are, respectively, a valuable source of grossness and calcium.
So there I am, mashing up salmon and skin and bone and glopping on the mayo when it hits me: I am mixing up a bowl of flesh and bone with mayo. Actual FLESH! and BONE!! with MAYO!!! I cannot find words for how disgusting this mix became to me. I looked at it, I wrinkled my nose at it and thought “What kind of barbarian eats mashed up fish flesh and bone? What sort of Neanderthal puts mayonnaise in that mix and calls it edible? What in the name of all that is good and delicious am I doing?”
Keep in mind that I have routinely disgusted roommates and boyfriends alike with my propensity for eating food while watching surgeries on TV: open heart surgeries, bowel resections, people having yard waste removed from their perforated intestines, live births (both caesarian and natural), liposuction, reconstructive plastic surgeries, autopsies etc.
I have also volunteered in the emergency room of a fairly large hospital where I saw actual things that would make other people throw up (and I saw a fair bit of throwing up too!) and I have a paramedic for a father.
I am no stranger to gross things.
Yet – today the thought of eating that salmon made me queasy. Me – of all people!
Of course, I am a practical person in many ways – I ate the sandwich anyway. No point in being wasteful after all, but I still feel a little sick. There is whole wheat bread and squashed up fish and mayo sliding around my insides.
It’s days like this where I’m glad I know how to make home-made ipecac.
5 comments
Oh boy…Welcome to what I call–a downward-pants-size dance (in spite of the fact I didn’t get smaller but its really hard to go from a 30 waste to anything skinnier). I remember the day when I realized that pork and all pork related products are REAL animals. Why did this urge me into being a vegetarian? Simple. My hamster just died and I couldn’t bear the thought of eating that, let alone something as cute as a piggy. (yes pigs are cute). Moreover my mere hamster had such a personality it only made logical sense that an animal with a larger brain must have a greater personality (ahh the logic of 12 year olds). It never really occured to me that we were eating the flesh of an animal.
That evening as we were nawing away at a hunk of flesh grinded up with bones, fat and feet i.e., sausage; i was so stuck in the thought of eating every bit of my hampster I just didn’t feel right. Couple years later after meeting a vegetarian (ok…i grew up in the country. they dont have vegetarians out where i lived) i found ways to live without meet for a number of years. Needless to say. I felt good about what i was eating.
Although, now I return to meet but I think of it differently. More of a “if you were me you’d want to eat me too.” But think of eating eggs this way. Its a fetus. Would you eat your fetus?
ewww. just one more reason i don’t eat fish. or red meat. or pork. or anything from the ocean. or veal. or duck. (i only eat chicken…but not very often.) i eat lots of macs&cheese and swiss cheese on wheat toast sandwiches.
@ Nate – I’ll probably still eat meat, but sometimes the very thought of what I’m actually eating makes me feel a little sick.
Pigs are really cute. My friend Sasha grew up on a farm and when I went to visit with her, we’d play with the piglets in the barn. And the baby chicks too. We used to race the baby chicks across her bed until one of them pooped on the cover.
@ Curlywurlygurly – I stopped eating red meat for a long time and rarely ate any meat other than chicken or fish. That was the closest I ever came to being a vegetarian.
I do love me some mac and cheese though – I’d be a lousy vegan. No way am I giving up cheese.
I understand where you’re coming from. My mom used to make salmon sandwiches like that when I was a kid. When I moved out, and bought my first can of salmon, and discovered there were bones in it, that was the last can of salmon I ever bought. And I don’t consider myself particularly squeamish, either.
Mac and cheese is my ultimate comfort food.
I made it through Spring semester of my freshman year of college on canned tuna. I had regular tuna on crackers with mustard for lunch, and hickory smoked tuna on crackers with ketchup for supper. The very thought disgusts me to the core when I think about it now.
I do like salmon patties though…de-bones and de-skinned.
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