Week 1 Tim

Tim 

            This Monday, 3/4/14, was the first week of Meatless Mondays.  I am someone who eats meat, basically every type, many times per week.  I would even say that I consume meat at least once every day of the week.  For my first meatless Monday, I really had to think and plan out what I was going to do.  I do not normally eat meat for breakfast so my first meal of the day was not difficult to go meatless.  However, I eat pasta often and my favorite sauce it meat-flavored sauce.  This forced me to think of alternative types of sauce for my pasta and decided to use Italian dressing on my pasta.  Normally, I like to eat chicken with my pasta but I made a protein shake with milk and whey protein powder instead. 

            The meal that was affected most was my lunch.  When I make pasta I always like to make grilled chicken to go with it along with meat sauce.  This seemed like a challenge at first but then I realized that there are alternatives for meat that I had in my apartment.  I don't believe that going meatless on Monday impacted other days of the week; I just substituted meat for protein shakes on Monday. 

            My main observation was that going meatless causes me to become hungry faster than when I consume meat.  This is related to the protein content of meat and how long/how much energy it requires for digestion.  Since I didn't use any meat or products containing meat I believe that it saved me money.  Going meatless on Monday didn't affect others either.  Some times I make group meals with my roommates but since I had to go meatless, I didn't make a group meal with my roommates.  The resources that I used for this meatless Monday were: my kitchen, the Internet, my roommates, my friends and myself.  As a result of the experience, one major thought I had was that I could have substituted meat with fish because fish is high in protein content like meat and also generally healthier.