Over the course of the past week, I have been mildly vegetarian. In this post I will be talking about MY experience, MY view points and MY opinion. In no way do I wish to insult or criticize those who do chose to be vegetarian or vegan. For a few days during my spring break I spent time at my aunts house in the beautiful, sunny, *warm* West Palm Beach. She has been vegetarian, nearly vegan for as long as I can remember, and now so are her kids. I am a firm believer that nutrition in the early years of life is very important, and while I DO UNDERSTAND that there are other ways to get protein, calcium, iron and other important micronutrients, I also know how picky kids can be. I am such an advocate of the benefits that eating meat has on a YOUNG PERSON, it has the necessary macronutrients and micronutrients for cerebral development and development in general. I think that children are especially vulnerable and should be getting their share of nutrients, regardless of where it comes from. If a child is a fantastic eater and loves beans, lentils, nuts, soy, tofu, then by all means go for it. But if they are solely eating rice, bread and fruits, I think an alternate source of protein should be considered for the sake of their health and strength. (Obviously I am not a nutritionist, I have never taken a nutrition class, I am basing this off of what I have seen in my life, read in articles and how I have felt over the past week) Now please take that with a grain of salt, because I do know that animal cruelty does exist, but my opinion remains the same.

Over the 5 days that I was taking care of my little cousins (with the help of my mom, thank God), I was limited to eating meat once a day, which for me was a drastic change. The first day, I remember that I was sooooo hungry all day long. I felt tired, lethargic and weak. While I was sleeping in a new place, the only other thing that I changed was my diet. (If you would like to see what I eat on the regular, I posted a “what I eat in a day” a while back). For me, considering my dietary restrictions and just simple pickiness, being vegetarian (even if I wasn’t completely vegetarian) completely cut my protein intake in at least more than half. I lost at least 3 pounds over those 5 days, which I am sad to think that my hard earned muscle did not have the nutrients necessary to be sustained. All in all, I praise anyone who has the discipline to effectively be vegetarian/vegan while maintaining a sufficient amount of protein in their diet. I envy the people with the strength and lack of pickiness that it takes to avoid eating meat as their main source of protein. Vegetarianism just isn’t for me, right now. Maybe in the future, but not at this point in my life.