I Give Up, It's TRUE: I'm a Vegan Leaning Vegetarian!

I've been fooling around with this quasi-vegan vegetarian eating for several months now, and tonight I had to face reality. I just don't like the foods I used to love anymore. I'd rather eat a good vegan/vegetarian meal than the meaty stuff I ate for my first half century on this planet. Oh, I'll eat a little dairy here and there (there are some things that just won't work with a veggie based substitute, and really need the real thing - sorry, true vegans), but in the last month I've eaten meat maybe 3-5 times, and each time I was struck by how lousy I felt afterward.

Tonight I really made a bad dinner choice - pepperoni pizza from a really, really good pizza place. Their thin crust veggie pizza is awesome, but I always order that, so I decided to order my "old favorite" and went for the pepperoni. Ugh. It was swimming in grease, and my palate really has changed - the saltiness was just overwhelming. I used to love pepperoni pizza sooo much, it was my favorite, and I can't blame the restaurant, their veggie pizza is great. Now, salt and grease and meat just don't taste good.

OTOH, the other day I made a kale and chickpeas recipe from Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast and Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes and while I think I used too much ginger and will cut that back next time, I finished the last of it for lunch today and will make it again soon.

I'll give my leftover pizza to my daughter tomorrow. Her husband is a major carnivore and I'm sure it'll be appreciated.