My Weekday Pescetarianism

There's this new thing I started this week. I call it, "weekday pescetarianism." And it was inspired by this TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian.html

I'd encourage you to click the link above and watch that if you have 4 minutes and 4 seconds to spare. It's good.

Anywho, so what is weekday pescetarianism? Basically, the premise is that during the work week, I abide by a pescetarian diet, and then on weekends I eat whatever I want. So I reap the health benefits of pescetarianism while still getting to enjoy a juicy turkey burger or chicken burrito on the weekend. The prospect of eating my LAST hamburger was just not an appealing thought.

If by this point you've made it this far into the blog post and still don't know what "pescetarian" means, I'm guessing you aren't planning on looking it up... and since knowing what it means is pretty integral to making any sense out of this post, I'll just tell you. A pescetarian diet is basically vegetarian, but you can eat seafood. It's a portmanteau of the words "pesce" (Italian for "fish") and "vegetarian." Hence, "pescetarian."

So on Monday I started my weekday pescetarianism. There have been two or three times throughout the week so far when I've had to consciously choose NOT to eat meat. Monday I ate at Thai One On in Towson, and instead of getting my usual Chicken Pad Thai, Chicken Panang Curry, or Chicken Mussaman Curry, I took a risk and ordered what turned out the be the most delicious TOFU Drunken Noodle dish ever. Simply fantastic. Then today I ate at Boulder (a dining area on Loyola's campus) and ordered a veggie burger which turned out to be just downright amazing. Who knew? Both tofu and veggie burgers have been hit or miss for me in the past but my thoroughly positive experiences with them this week are leading me to rethink my opinion of them.

I figure there are probably lots of benefits to a pescetarian diet over a meat diet, but honestly, I haven't done enough research to spout facts to you. A quick Google of "pescetarian diet benefits" yields this as the top result though:

http://www.pescetarianlife.com

I'm sure they have lots of great information on there, and I will put it in my "Reading List" folder in my bookmarks to be read at a future time. Feel free to read that though, if you feel so inclined and happen to be more curious than I am at the moment about the health benefits of a pescetarian diet.

Why am I not particularly interested in the health benefits? Don't get me wrong, I AM interested in the health benefits... I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel it would be beneficial. But really, for me the appeal of trying weekday pescetarianism isn't so much the health benefits, but the NEWNESS of the experience. This blog is about "exploring life," and that's what weekday pescetarianism is all about for me. It's new. And I'm trying it on. I'm exploring that experience, in a way. And I anticipate exploring many more things in the future. That's how I learn about life.

So weekday pescetarianism for me is a new thing, and we'll see how long it lasts. At the very least, it will last until I've tried it on long enough to decide it's not the thing for me. So far so good, and I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, give some thought to one of my favorite icebreaker questions:

When's the last time you did something for the first time?