I found a website today off of Babble that made me wonder if I could last more than a few weeks as a vegetarian: Alt|Meat. I can think of a bunch of reasons I don’t think I’d make it. They primarily revolve around around how much food I need to eat in order to feel satiated. I have a really high metabolism. Insanely high.
I eat a lot of protein. I’m not sure how many calories are in tofu and vegetarian products, however I’m quite doubtful of them just like I’d be doubtful that eating a rice cake before going to the climbing gym would be effective.
Although, I must say, the tofurkey slices don’t look half bad. Then again, I’m super picky about my lunch meat. Anything that tastes even the slightest bit processed is a complete turnoff.
This kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with Emily where I asked how she thought I would fare stranded on a deserted island with no food. Since I need so much more food than a normal person, would my metabolism ever die down and go into survival mode? Or would I just simply die before her? Would my survival mode be more functional than the average person yet cause me to die sooner? It’s an interesting thought — one that I’m just not sure anyone has ever really answered before.
It would be a fun challenge to try and live as a vegetarian for 30 days. Perhaps when I’m living in my new place and have some more free time to research things and spend time cooking I’d try it. All in all though, I love meat. I don’t think I could ever give it up permanently.
This topic reminds me of a nutrition science course I took by podcast from iTunesU. It was a multi-lecture course given by someone at UCBerkeley. I think you could be a vegetarian for thirty days. You would have to determine your daily caloric intake and ensure that you get the right proportions of carbs, proteins and fats. The next stage would be to substitute animal sourced foods with the non-animal sourced foods. In the protein department you would want to ensure that you get as much complete proteins (has all the essential amino acids) as possible. As well you would want to make sure that your vitamin and minerals needs were met. I would say you could go vegetarian for a month as long as you had a diet that that was designed for your energy levels.
The latest David Morrell book mentions you can survive without food for three weeks but would need water by the third day. The average body has enough fat to survive for a while but you need carbs in your diet to metabolize the fats. The way it was explained to me is that “fats burn in a carbohydrate flame.” I think your metabolism would decrease as your energy expenditure fall.
I think you could last more than a few weeks. Just because you can’t eat meat doesn’t mean you can’t have a peanut butter ‘n’ banana sandwich, a cheese omelette and a bag of cheetos to satiate yourself.