As of June 30th, I have recorded 40 times where I ate meat. Just for clarification, meat means seafood, chicken, pork, and red meat. Basically, if it came from a living animal, then I count it. I don't count eggs, since the chicken didn't sacrifice it's life for my meal.
Since I regularly eat three meals a day, that is 181 days x 3 meals per day = 543 opportunities to eat meat. 40/543 = 7.3% of the time I ate meat. Less than 10%, which is much better than I anticipated at the beginning of the year.
As I stated in my last blog about how I counted these meals, I actually ate more meat than the 40 meals, but I didn't count meals where I didn't have much of a choice in what was served.
That being said, in hindsight, I should probably keep track of those meals, and remove them from the denominator, to give a more accurate percentage of how often I avoid meat (when it is my choice). My guess would be closer to 10% of the time, if I took out those meals. Not bad, but I wouldn't call myself a vegetarian quite yet.
If you recall, I also penalized myself $5 for each meat "violation" so I've dished out $200 so far this year to organizations like EDF, CarbonFund, WWF, and Ocean Conservancy. I think next year I'm really consider picking organizations I DON'T like, so it really hurts to donate that money. Right now, I don't feel bad eating meat, because I know I'm helping these organizations. I go back and forth on this, so if anyone has some advice, let me know.
Overall, I am pleased with my progress so far. It has been difficult, and I have some reliable meals I usually fall back on, such as Cheba Hut's Majic Mushroom sub, cheese or spinach pizza or breadsticks, egg and cheese breakfast biscuit from McDonald's, lemon poppy seed or blueberry muffin, black bean burger and fries, spinach and mushroom enchilada from El Banditos, and macaroni and cheese with bread and veggies.
The most difficult item to give up has been Quiznos' toasted subs, partly because it's located near my work. Unfortunately, they are actually doing a really good job with their compostable cups and wrappers, but I'm not a big fan of just eating a veggie sub, so I've been avoiding them quite a bit. If they would make a portabella mushroom sub, I'd be there almost every day!
Look for my end of year update next January, along with my new plan for 2012!
