My month of pescatarianism

(Disclaimer. I didn’t technically last a month, it was 28 days. Towards the end I got sick and my mum made me chicken soup so sue me.)

I’m not sure if this is my family, Jamaican families or just typical families but we base a lot of our dinners around meat. Meat, carbs and veg that is the formula that we stick to, but I find that cooking this way gets a little bit samey and unadventurous so for me the challenge was to think outside of the box and create meals that I probably wouldn’t have made before. I also thought by doing this, while it won’t be forever, in the long run it’d cut down the amount of meat I eat which could only be a good thing for my bowels. I did eat fish and seafood but I tried to make meals without them as much as possible. I learnt a lot about my eating habits throughout the month so I thought I’d share my observations with you.

It makes you a lot less lazy in the kitchen

Unless you’re content with just eating a mixed salad out of the bag, then you have to be a little bit more creative in the kitchen if you’re steering clear of meat. It’s so easy to just sling a bit of chicken in the oven and boil pasta and there’s your meal but I actually had to think about dinner without meat. I did a lot of pinteresting and flipping through recipe books to find interesting meals to cook.

You don’t eat a sh*tload of tofu

I’ve realised that I’m not a fan of tofu. I mean sure if it’s there I’ll eat it but I’m not, like, gonna crave it or anything. I had this preconceived notion that all veggies ate tofu in the same way non-veggies ate chicken but seriously it’s not true. It’s not an accompaniment to every meal, in fact I only ate it once the whole month and there’s still a packet in my fridge that I haven’t opened.

However, veggie sausages are so bomb

*angels sing* I think I could actually give up pork sausages for good. Veggie sausages gave me so much life this month, I got through packet after packet. I used them for all sorts, from Sunday roast to faux meatballs and spaghetti and will absolutely continue to use them all the time. Converted.

A lot of restaurants need to up their veggie options

For real, most places seriously lack nice veggie options that aren’t just salads, which isn’t fair at all – including McDonald’s! One lunchtime when I was working from home I was not in the mood to cook anything so I hopped in the car and went to the drive-thru to find that the only non-meat offering was filet-o-fish. So vom. I ended up with fries and an apple pie (which was delicious but that’s not the point).

Mildred’s is amazing.

A saviour for vegetarians and vegans alike this restaurant is bananas. Like, crazy good food. If someone told me that a vegetarian restaurant would be one of my favourite places to eat this year I would have been like “mmmkay mate! Sure.” But it was divine. I went to the King’s Cross branch and got the black bean burrito with sweet potatoes fries and I’m currently drooling onto the keyboard just thinking about it.