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The reason I became a vegetarian in the first place is because I wanted to shock my system. I grew up eating junk food, fast food, and just plain bad food. I still struggle with making sure I'm eating enough healthy foods and not indulging too much. Josh has seen me around kettlecorn and Swedish fish to be able to vouch for my serious sweet tooth. A lot of bloggers blog about how they've struggled with disorders of not eating enough or having a negative relationship with food. My relationship with food has been overwhelming positive, I love it! But I realized as I've gotten older that what I put into my body has a huge impact on my health. And after growing up without giving my health a second thought I figured it was time to start prioritizing it. All the research I could find said a plant based diet was incredibly beneficial to your health. And it is. Most nutrition experts recommend no more than two servings of red meat a week due to an increased risk of heart disease. I read a lot about how the food industry is pumping our meat and poultry with antibiotics. (The food industry is responsible for buying 80% of the antibiotics on the market to use for preventing diseases spreading between animals as a result of the unhygienic conditions involved with factory farming and to help make the animals grow faster.) With this knowledge I felt confident that I was headed on the right nutritional path. I always said that I went vegetarian to try and be healthier, but that I was a healthy person when I started and I didn't make a lifestyle change to give myself a problem. If a doctor ever told me I needed to change my eating habits I would in a heartbeat.
I love not eating meat. I truly don't miss it. Despite becoming vegetarian purely for health reasons a lot of the ethical reasons started to really resonate with me along the way. (This post really struck a cord.) But the research I kept on reading about fish in my quest to understand more about health made me realize that maybe my body is missing something that my taste buds aren't. When I tell people that I'm a vegetarian one of the first questions I'm usually asked (after the automatic question about if I get enough protein- YES!) is if I still eat fish. And my answer was always no, but that I sure wish I did. Fish is packed with protein, is low in fat, and is a huge source of Omega-3s. The American Heart Association recommends eating fish twice a week because of its ability to lower heart disease risk (by 30% or more!). This is the same organization that cautions Americans to limit their red meat consumption to no more than twice a week.
If I had liked fish I would have started eating it a long time ago. It is widely considered the healthiest meat source because of its heart and brain nutrients. I'm not concerned about protein or really even about iron or B12. These are nutrients that are easy to acquire in a plant based diet through healthy choices and a daily multivitamin. My concern was more about Omega 3s. Omega 3s are essential for our hearts and brains. Our bodies don't naturally produce Omega 3s so we need to get them through our diet. The three types of Omega 3s are ALA, EPA, and DHA. We can get ALAs through eating green vegetables, nuts, and oils. The problem is the ones our bodies really need are EPAs and DHAs, which are only found in animals and animal byproducts. Our bodies do convert ALAs into EPAs and DHAs, but in extremely small quantities. At first I toyed with the idea of taking fish oil supplements. But then all the research about fish oil supplements not having the same health benefits as actually eating the fish came out. After much contemplation I finally decided about two weeks ago that it was time to add fish to my life.
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Before I started eating fish I wanted to make sure I did my research. Because while fish is incredibly healthy there are a lot of fish that carry risks due to Mercury and exposure to other contaminants. Thankfully there are a lot of lists online that rank fish in terms of Mercury safety. The general rule of thumb I was taught by Omar is that bottom feeding, smaller fish tend to have less Mercury than the bigger fish that eat other fish. This is due to the fact that bigger fish digest the smaller fish they eat and therefor ingest the Mercury of those smaller fish into themselves. For fish that are not high on the Mercury list, Doctor's usually agree that unless you are pregnant or breastfeeding or under 12 the Mercury that is in the fish is not going to cause you any harm. I did read a note about making sure that salmon is wild and not factory farmed as those can contain a host of chemicals. All states are also required to post a list with fish consumption advisories for all waterways in the state. Here's the one I found for Nebraska.
I decided I would ease into eating fish slowly. The smell is still repulsive to me, but I thought of all the things I had to make myself acquire a taste for (dark chocolate, skim milk, fruit!) and knew it would be well worth it. For the past three weeks I've been having flounder once a week with my family. My Stepmom fries it in coconut oil on the stove and then I top it with tartar sauce. I know frying is really frowned upon and that the healthiest ways to cook fish are by grilling or steaming or baking and then skipping the mayo but I have to take baby steps. I went from being so-so about it the first week I had it to absolutely loving the flounder yesterday. Even the smell didn't bother me as much! My goal is to eventually move on to baked flounder and then finally conquer salmon. The day I love salmon fish taste and all will be a very happy day for me. Because I hate touching raw meats I plan on eating my Stepmom's fish once a week and then trying to grab some prepared fish or sushi from Wegmans another day of the week. I'll make sure to keep you guys updated on how that goes.
I also wanted to address the name of this blog. It occurred to me that because I'm now eating fish some people might wonder if Girl Gone Veggie still applies to me. What I love about my blog name is that it's really about me veggie-fying my life. I added fruits and vegetables where there were none and changed so many things about my eating habits. While I will be having fish once to twice a week the bulk of my diet is still plant based.
My goal with this blog is to show people that change is achievable. You can be the overweight 4th grader that scoops strawberries off of strawberry cheesecake and thinks a balanced meal is chicken nuggets and french fries. That doesn't have to be how you are for the rest of your life. Little changes add up to big results. I'm not the healthiest eater, or the fittest, and I don't have anywhere near as much muscle definition as I would like, but I'm healthy. (As much as I worry all the time that I'm not.) I was healthy when I ate meat, I was healthy when I was a full on vegetarian (all my blood work was normal and my energy felt the same), and I'm going to be healthy now. There's no one right way to lead a healthy life, everyone is different. You have to do what's right for you. Thanks for letting me open up about the next stage of my personal journey. :)
Questions of the Day: What label of eating do tend to find yourself fitting into? What are some of your favorite fish recipes?
** I hope it goes without saying that I do not have a medical degree and am not trying to replace your Doctor. All the research above was conducted by me for my body and no one else.
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