Preggo riding the chuck wagon

For the past year I've been playing first fiddle in the vegetarian bandwagon, and honestly, I can't remember ever feeling better!  My diet consisted of whole grains, complex carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables...processed food was out, and whole foods were in.  I laid in bed with Kittie and cried during PETA films.  Dinners were usually colorful vegetable kebabs served over whole grain couscous or brown rice, accompanied by a nice salad.

These days, when it comes to vegetable kebabs, I'm reminded of a phrase my two year-old Wonder Nephew is deeply fond of:

I can't want it.

I suppose I should just come right out and say it: I've fallen off the vegetarian wagon and landed face first in a vat of ground beef.

It began innocently enough.  My gateway drug was chicken broth.  One afternoon in late May rendered me quite down for the count, and there I was: lying slug-like on my bed with a set of rosary beads across my forehead, in the hopes for divine intervention (flair for the dramatic is sort of my specialty, and this was certainly no exception.)  Hubby was desperate to bring me anything that would be of some comfort.  The only thing I could even think about eating?  Chicken broth.  Sigh.

From there I moved on to the harder stuff, like chicken salad sandwich lunches with my friend Gregg, until I was a full blown user again.  The day I ate the steak and cheese sub from Alfredo's I knew it was all over.  (Peppers, onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo, please!)

I didn't enjoy it.  (Well, yes, actually I did, but not that much.)  It's true I spent the first thirty years of my life being a carnivore, but I'd really dived into this meatless lifestyle; I'd funneled the Kool Aid, so to speak.  My brain had retrained itself to be repulsed by animal flesh, afraid of it, even. 

Like a good Catholic, I chastised myself after every beefy bite, unable to stop visualizing those two big, gorgeous cow eyes I stared into during my company's volunteer day at the farm.  I was eating the animal's pain, and I knew it.  In a last ditch effort to spoil my appetite, I forced my mind to replay the horrific PETA images I'd seen, and still I chewed.  In between ravenous bites, I conveyed all this to Hubby, who began giving me one of those looks he gets when he feels his life partner is channeling her inner lunatic. 

The midwife assured me it's not uncommon for a pregnant vegetarian to crave meat.  She encouraged me to eat whatever I wanted, but also said there are other ways to get the iron my body is probably wanting, by choosing spinach, kale, lentils, beans...

"If you can get those things down, by all means, you'll be fine.  But it could be your body will want the meat."

Beans...kale...lentils...spinach...

I can't want it.

Triple decker chicken sandwiches, cheeseburgers, steak tips (sniff)...I can want those things.  I really, really can.  Sweet Baby Jesus and Ingrid Newkirk forgive me.   

Revisiting the meals I've denied myself for over a year is like coming home again.  Today, despite the soaring temperatures and smoldering humidity, I stood over a hot stove and prepared two individual chicken pot pies, and ate them both in rapid succession.  (Well?  A friend had given me fresh thyme from her garden.  I owed it to her to take those herbs and combine them with bacon, chicken, garlic and mushrooms!)

I'm sorry, Dear Reader!  I hope I haven't let you down.  I was loving my veggie lifestyle!  I'm certainly hoping to return to it, once my body becomes my own again.  In the meantime...I'm just another bastard carnivore. 

Comments

[Weinerdog]

Midwife?

[the odd broad]

Yeah, my doc's office spreads out the appointments between Nurse/Midwives and Ob/Gyn's...

It looks like I have such a beer gut right now!

[Keely]

It only looks like a beer gut because the rest of you is so skinny! Plus, you have a preggo glow, so people will figure it out!

[the odd broad]

I hope so, Bubs! Maybe I have to start sticking my belly out more. I was sitting outside on my lunch break today and this woman sits down right next to me and lights up a cigarette. I got up and stuck my gut out to try and shame her. She was probably thinking, why is that girl with the muffin top giving me the stink eye?

[Ma]

I'm still laughing thinking of you and your club sandwich at Victoria's Diner - I turned away to talk with our baby and when I looked up again the sandwich was gone along with the fries and pickle!

[the odd broad]

Mommy, I'm still thinking about that chicken sandwich...it was delicious! xoxo

[TR]

Please, do you have a recipe for those chicken pot pies? That pie looks really good!

[the odd broad]

TR, it's a delicious Nigella Lawson recipe. I'll be sure and post it soon. I'd been dreaming about those pies for nearly a year!

[the odd broad]

Actually, I just realized I've already posted this recipe on the blog, in June 2009! I'm losing my mind. Below is the link, or look under the category "noshing."

http://www.theoddbroad.com/the_odd_broad/2009/06/my-entry.html

[TR]

Cool!
Thank You for sharing that recipe!
I'll see if I have the ingredients to try it out.

Have a Good Day, TR