mercoledì 28 maggio 2014

Vegan/vegetarian/fish-etarian: how I see food and nutrition after 30 years of eating

Shame on me, I am not cooking anything worth writing, but my fingers are hitching, so let me write down some recent thoughts of mine about food and everyday nutrition :)

I always liked meat, while my relationship with cheese is problematic. I could not eat it as a child, so I basically started tasting cheese from my late 20ies onwards (and funnily enough, still I can hardly pronounce the word, it makes me think about something dirty and wrong :D)

Anyway, I have always been very critical with vegetarians, first because meat is yummy, second because if we just go back a couple of generations, eating meat was a privilege so still nowadays the choice of not eating it seems really posh to me. In addition to that, the fake meaty thingies for vegans looks soooooo sad in the shelf of the supermarket, sadder than going for a 5-minutes civil wedding and still wear a princess white dress :)

But more recently I got more and more involved in reading opinions and facts about healthy life style on one side, and about the impact of the massive meat consumption on the planet, hence I started changing my mind.

I still think eating meat is ok for kids, but we eat WAY too much meat and this is not only unnecessary and bad for the planet, it is also not healthy for ourselves on the long run (even though as a scientist I still need to see a peer-reviewed unbiased longitudinal study about the effect of meat on health)

I do not approve myself radical choices, as I think that balancing nutrition is enough to lower significantly the impact on the earth without giving up the pleasure of enjoying jamon along with aceitunas manzanillas and perhaps a mini of mahou :)

So here we go: I try to be fish-eterian during the week and perhaps even vegan mot of the times, so that I allow myself some meat and diary products only when truly there is a good reason. So you'll see a lot of bean soups in my place mon-thurs. Also I try to eat very light meals and avoid too many carbohydrates in the evening. The reason is basically the same: when I am in a nice social environment, I want to enjoy food without limitations. So, to keep a reasonable weight I try and stay light when it is just me, my hello kitty pyjama and a new girl episode :)