Chile Chews' Quit Now Challenge - Update

At the beginning of the month, I joined Chile Chews Quit Now Challenge. You can find my introduction to this challenge here. I realized yesterday (when Chile popped over to my blog to ask me how the challenge was going) that I hadn't posted an update on this challenge, so here we go.

How successful have I been with sticking to the challenge?
I’ve been relatively good about eating vegetarian lunches (or as Chile says, quitting “animals in my lunch”). I have to admit that I’ve amended the rules a bit to allow for food provided by clients at lunch meetings, as I can’t always inform them of my eating habits in advance and I don’t want to offend the clients.

What have I learned from the challenge so far?
First, I miss being able to order anything I want. It’s a little bit difficult to eat vegetarian meals in downtown St. Louis restaurants, especially when there’s a tomato scare. I don’t often walk more than 2-3 blocks to buy my lunch, and the restaurants within that radius have a limited number of vegetarian options (usually 1 or 2) on their menus. A few restaurants I’ve tried have no vegetarian options at all. Other places have removed the vegetarian options from their menus because they cannot serve tomatoes until the FDA deems them safe from salmonella. So I’ve learned that, if I don’t see anything on the menu that sounds good, it never hurts to ask if the chef can make up a vegetarian option or omit the meat from one of their standard meals.

Second, I’ve learned that vegetarian meals can be incredibly tasty and satisfying. So far this month, I’ve eaten a grilled vegetable panini, a strawberry orange salad, cheese quesadillas with corn and salad, a grilled cheese sandwich with creamy tomato soup, a tomato-basil-mozzarella sandwich on Italian bread (before the tomato issue was publicized), penne with chicken, mushrooms and summer squash (by special request, I got this without the chicken), a vegetarian taco salad, and rotini with broccoli. Nearly all of these meals were quite tasty, and I generally didn’t miss the meat at all.

Third, vegetarian meals are cheaper than those with meat. This helps with the rising prices people are seeing all over the world.

And last, I’ve learned that I feel slightly more energetic and generally a bit healthier when I eat more green stuff and less meat. Last week I “accidentally” at vegetarian meals for two and a half days before I realized it, so clearly I can cut out a significant amount of meat from my diet. So far, this has manifested in covering more of my dinner plate in greens and less in roast beast.

How will this challenge impact me when June is over?
I did a little research about how much protein I really need in my diet, and discovered there isn’t a clear and concise answer to that question. Estimates range from the World Health Organization’s guideline of 4.5% of daily caloric intake to the National Research Council’s guideline of 8% of daily calories. I’d guess that I have historically eaten about twice that amount, so I feel comfortable with targeting a diet that cuts meat out of all breakfasts (with exceptions for special occasions), most lunches and a dinner here and there. We're also buying nearly 100% local, naturally pastured raised meat, which I'll talk about in an upcoming post.

So my thanks go to Chile for challenging me to eliminate some of the excess from my life. I know this is a small step, but eventually all the small things do add up.