So, what *do* you eat?

It has become apparent to many of my friends and acquaintances lately that I'm vegetarian. Oh, they say. You don't eat meat? What about dairy? So you aren't a, um, vegan...is that what they call it?

So....what do you eat?

Argh. That question, while well intentioned, aggravates me. What do I eat? Food, silly. Asking the question implies that there is nothing else to eat except meat, and nothing else counts.

From a volume perspective, I bet most people eat more non-meat items than meat items. So there.

Even though I'm tired of the question, I am polite about it, and I regard it as an opportunity to educate and maybe even change a few minds.

Here is a little information about how a main stream American achieves vegetarianism. I am not the most zealous vegetarian, and I don't do fancy calculations about how to balance proteins. I like to eat and I like to eat well, therefore I have an interesting and varied diet. Like most people, I am lazy at times and make convenience foods.

For breakfast, I like a bread/grain (toast, bagel, oatmeal, or a bowl of grits sometimes), a fruit, and some coffee. Sometimes I'll add a piece of cheese or some fake bacon for some added fat/protein, if I think I'm going to have a long morning. I am stubborn about the fruit in the morning. Such is my habit.

A little sidetrack for a minute. When I was a new vegetarian, I did a fair bit of reading on vegetarianism, trying to find the optimal diet and to make sure I wasn't harming myself by avoiding meat. One book I read was "Fit for Life" by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. It's an awful, fanatical book on specific ways of eating, and I wouldn't recommend the book at all. However, one thing they advocated was eating only fruits before noon. I tried it for a while, and while I didn't reap any major benefits, I acquired the habit of fruit for breakfast. It sure beats froot loops, anyway!

For lunch I usually eat leftovers from dinner. When I pack my lunch for work, my little formula is:

• Main dish


• Side dish


• Fruit


• Dessert

Main dish may be something like: a serving of baked ziti, left over tofu dish from a local Chinese restaurant, a sandwich, a veggie burger, a bowl of soup or chili, Thai Kitchen noodle soup, left over pizza, a frozen entree, etc.

The side dish is something complementary to the main dish. Sometimes the main dish includes the side, like left over Chinese with rice. Other examples are: crackers with cheese, chips, a portion of frozen veggies, "finger salad" (baby carrots, grape tomatoes and cucumber sticks), a small serving of soup, etc.

The fruit is obvious.

Funny story: this week, a colleague at work, who happens to be from Ukraine, saw me eating a persimmon at lunch. He said that I was the first American he has ever seen eating a persimmon. Americans don't know what they are! This is true. I have been bringing them to work lately because I started eating them in Japan last month and I decided they're pretty good. People have asked me if it's a tomato.

Ooh, I feel so worldly.

Anyway.... Dessert. I "need" my dessert. It has psychological benefits more than nutritional benefits. My dessert makes me feel loved (uh, by me, but hey, whatever). I have cut it down to just a little portion, but when I tried eliminating it I felt deprived. My petite dessert is something like: one or two cookies (homemade, whenever possible), four Hershey's kisses, one biscotti, etc.

Dinner can be very interesting at our house, again because I like to eat and I like to cook. My latest "thing" is learning some Asian cooking from a vegan cookbook I bought while in Japan last month. About once a week, I make traditional Japanese vegan cuisine. I have made Okonomiyaki, Udon noodle soup with fried vegetable fritters, scattered sushi rice, and miso soup. When I'm not doing something so fancy, I make more traditional American item, like macaroni fake-beef and tomatoes, veggie lasagna, other pastas with sauce, fake-chicken cacciatore, stir-fries, calzones, homemade pizza, fritattas, roasted vegetables,...oh the list goes on and on.

I get a lot of my recipes from the newspaper, incidentally. Our food section publishes a weekly menu and they always have one day as meatless. Occasionally, they print some really good recipes.

One of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks for new or experimenting vegetarians is Vegetarian Pleasures by Jean Lemlin. This book is set up as menus for entire meals. There are many dishes that aren't so different from mainstream American cooking, therefore I think it's less threatening. It's an old book, so you might have to find it used. It looks like she's written some other cookbooks since then - I bet they're good too.

See? A vegetarian eats all kinds of things. You just have to approach your meal a little differently, as a vegetarian.