Resolution for World Environment Day

That I will not eat meat (apart from fish and eggs) on weekdays. Starting today.

Today’s meals so far have been…

Breakfast: Sunny egg sandwich with coffee

Lunch: A decadent 4 courses comprising of tuna tartar with soba noodles and roe, scallops on a bit of mash potatoes, crab cake, tuna steak with corn and tomato relish and rocket salad with a dessert of crepe suzzette wrapped around some fruits and cream. So full.

Since I don’t have control over dinner tonight, I might just exempt myself for that one meal. Next week’s gonna be tough… because I’ll be on leave and on holiday. Hmmm…. should I exempt holidays and special occassions besides weekends also? Need to be realistic, you know. I must remember to limit the food intake tonight though, judging from the amount I’d just consumed for lunch.

Prescetarianism

One of the days last week, I got to know the eating habits of a prescetarian. He called himself a fake vegetarian.

Anyway, a prescetarian diet is similar to a traditional Mediterranean diet. Incidentally, both are not diets in the dieting sense at all. Both are the eating habits or lifestyle practices in meals that don’t contain any mammals or birds. Which means, one still consume seafood and fish as a source for… well, the need for meat.

Indulge me while I stray some more. I have just recently wondered whether my personal contemplation into healthy living, or more specifically, healthy eating, has anything to do with my arrival into my thirties. Also, coupled by the fact that I’m closeting the contemplation itself. To the outside observer, if there are any even remotely interested in my groceries, I still love meat. Okay, when I admit it to my hungry self, often prior to lunch or dinner, I adore meat. But I also realise that my mind is stepping up to the plate in more ways than one and inserting assertions… insisting that my health and longevity has to be maintained by a nourishing supply of what those Cretans eat on a daily basis. 

Eating healthy isn’t about bland tofu on a salad of beansprouts. It should be delicious and worth eating for every meal, or you don’t eat at all. Minus the indulgences of saturated fats and chewy gaminess of meats that take years off your life.

Up till lunch today, I managed to stay off any sort of meat. The challenge would now be, what’s for dinner tonight that won’t divulge my closeted Cretan-dieter-wannabe to my other half? Because I’m not so ready yet to force fish and vege on him without him wanting it for himself first.

Trying vegetarian for half a day…

That is, breakfast and lunch. If I’m bringing food for lunch from home, it’ll be bread (the healthiest kind available that day, i.e. avoid those preservative infused sliced white breads. Today’s and Wednesday’s was wholemeal pita) and one of the three dips I paid with my arm and my leg bought – roasted eggplant with feta cheese (that was today’s lunch), chickpeas and grilled peppers in olive oil (Wednesday’s) and grilled eggplant (as yet unopened).

If I do eat out, something which I’ll try to limit, and if meats are expected to be consumed, I’ll go for fish (yesterday’s lunch) or chicken (unfried version). I will then reserve dinner for fish and/ or chicken and vegetables.

Fruits should accompany either breakfast or lunch. Today, I brought an apple.

I have two more wholemeal pitas that I think won’t last till I come back from the worktrip next week, so the idea is perhaps try to make a pita pizza. During the weekend. Making a mental note to go and buy mozarella and fresh basil leaves. As for the tomato paste spread, maybe the supermarket aisles will educate me about which kinds are good.

Planning a picnic…

… and hoping it doesn’t rain.

And serving food that kids will eat. I need to do some research first.

Sometimes…

… it’s not so much a battle on the state of my health as it is a self imposed control of my spendings.

I have a weakness with my wallet when it comes to food, can you tell?

Okay, maybe not yet.

Dei! Don’t take offence…

Just in case the title is misleading, bending toward racist sentiments, let me be clear.

I have nothing against the people. It’s the food… no, let me be accurate. It’s the culture that pitches to the young, the still somewhat healthy, the generation that, partly thanks to such a culture, will live shorter lives than their fathers. The mass endorsement, by sheer apathy alone, that for 24 hours in each of those 7 days a week, it’s actually hip to consume predominantly fat and sugar.

But then again, as a friend would say, “Let’s not have the pot call the kettle black”, or is it the other way around? Anyways, my point is, I was one of those who grew up on the mamak stall culture. Similar to, I think, one who mindlessly consume the frieds and deep frieds in fast food nation (ours included), the same mindlessness of hanging out in the middle of the night at the local mamak stall, consuming tap-water-iced lemon teas or “teh tarik” laden with condensed flavoured palm oil extracts while munching on marjarine infused “roti bom” used to be among my hey-day activities.

My intuition has been ringing alarm bells in my head lately. Just so I don’t go bonkers, I’ve decided to soul search the source of the raucous. With the very best of intentions to stop the ding dongs. That is, if I have the strength left to overcome those annoying gargoyles manning the towers. They go by the names of “Temptation”, “Bryani” and “Mutton Curry”.

Hey! Good luck to you too!