All,  Fitness/Health,  Food,  Health,  Lifestyle

What, No Meat?!

My husband and I are definitely what you would call meat eaters. We love our steaks, bulgogi (Korean BBQ), chicken wings, and typically have some sort of meat at every evening meal. Shoot, our family even hosts a rib cooking contest every 4th of July to put our meat eating into perspective. So why am I talking about our indulgence of meat and the glory of us being proud carnivores? Because the hubby and I have decided to forgo meat for the month of May. Yes, I said it. NO MEAT.

What? WHY?! Are you CRAZY?!

I had no idea that sharing our decision with some friends and family would be faced with so many different reactions. Some people were excited for us to make a change, some quite honestly freaked out and questioned our motives, and others were simply curious. Now to be clear, we will be allowing fish and seafood in our diets, in addition to eggs, dairy, and of course fruits and veggies. The technical term for this type of diet is called pescetarianism and if you would like to read up on more information about that and decreasing meat consumption I included some links down below. We have wanted to incorporate more fish and vegetables into our diets for quite some time and I believe this will help us accomplish this.

Minneapolis Farmers Market

So why are we excluding meat from our diets for the month of May? I have found numerous resources that discuss the benefits of cutting out or at least decreasing the amount of meat consumed, especially red meat. These benefits include lower blood pressure, some weight loss, increase in overall energy, and even clearer skin. The question of course is could these improvements in health be simply due to decreasing meat consumption or because of the increase of vegetable intake? The answer I am not sure of. However, if cutting meat out of our diet, even for a short period of time, helps us as a family increase the amount of vegetables we eat on a daily basis then I am willing to make that sacrifice! We will see how it goes, hopefully find some great recipes along the way, and moving forward perhaps decrease our overall meat consumption in the future.

Watermelon, Cucumber, and Feta Salad

One of the number one questions I have been asked concerning our no-meat May is where we will get our protein. I do know that protein is important for health and this is a challenge that I believe we will learn to overcome. There are many sources available outside of meat for protein such as seafood, legumes, greens, as well as various supplements and additions to foods such as chia seeds, hemp seeds, and protein powders.

Summer Black Bean Salad

So, follow along as we delve into the world of no meat! I am excited and truly believe this will be a positive experience for our entire family. I will be updating the blog, as well as social media with recipes and our journey. By the way, if you are a meat eater and look forward to recipes that include meat fear not as I will continue to post food and recipes that also include meat, such as an upcoming post with my Korean chicken wings!

Please comment below any vegetarian or seafood recipes you enjoy or your experiences in decreasing or cutting out meat in your diet.

Chocolate Strawberry Protein Smoothie (recipe coming soon)

What changes have you recently made to your diet to improve  your health?

Here are a few links and resources about the benefits of not eating meat/pescetarianism. Please keep in mind that these are some of the resources I looked at when researching the health benefits of decreasing meat consumption and by no means completely endorse or agree with 100% of what they all say. But there is some good information in them and I encourage you to do your own research.

Thank you!

4 Comments

  • Mary

    Congratulations! In an effort to cut back on carbs, I’ve substituted “riced” cauliflower for rice and noodles! I made cauliflower fried rice and was pleasantly surprised! Not only was the meal delicious, it was quick and easy to make! Good luck!

    • Crystal D Archer

      Thank you, that’s awesome! Those are the kinds of changes we’d like to try as well. Glad you found something that really worked for you!

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