the sustainable diet

I ran into a coworker while making my lunch in the kitchen one day this week. Admiring my own culinary prowess and adventure-seeking, I stacked gold-fringed Muenster cheese atop toasted, organic, whole-wheat English muffins and topped the tiny towers with thin slices of Golden Delicious apples.

"What are you eating?" asked my coworker, opening a deluge of explanation about my appetite for interesting combinations (she'd never heard of apples and cheese together before, what a shame!). Somewhere in between "This is Muenster cheese" and "Whole-wheat English muffins," I let something slip about trying to go vegetarian.

"Oh, really? Wow! Vegetarian. I bet that is so hard." She reached for her own lunch, two pigs-in-a-blanket (OH, how I coveted those flaky crescent-wrapped sausages!), and continued her praise of me trying to go vegetarian. "Why are you doing that?"

This was the first time I had been given the glorious opportunity to answer this question. I had only been a self-proclaimed almost vegetarian for maybe a week, so imagine the mental salivation going on when asked, WHY? I took a deep breath.

"Mainly for environmental and ethical reasons. And just knowing what I put into my body should be good, clean, and healthy."

Internally, I patted myself on the shoulder for this succinct answer. I could have gone on about avoiding high fructose corn syrup; about the disgrace that commercial farming has become; about the average distance traveled from farm to table (close to 1500 MILES); about the fuel needed to produce just one pound of meat; about how most people in commercial agriculture are not paid living wages... Oh, my battalion was full of reasons for my newfound almost vegetarianism.

"Wow," my coworker went on, "Have you lost a lot of weight yet?"

Now, if you're the one person reading this, you know me. You know that I am tall and thin and would love to think that I don't have any weight to lose. I jog--ahem, walk--every day with my sweet Fin, and eat right. But maybe, just maybe, I look like I would not be suffering if I shed maybe five...or ten...or just six...pounds.

"Well, um, no..." I stuttered.

"Well, I'm sure that as you get into it, the pounds will just melt away."

I smiled and made some obligatorily self-conscious comment like, "I hope so," and walked out feeling only slightly offended, and thinking...this could be a hilarious story to tell and tell again.

Which brings me to my conclusion. I know, you've been waiting for it all these years.

It's not that I am going vegetarian (seriously, how could I give up barbecue and steaks and real, honest-to-goodness cheeseburgers!?!). It's not that I am eating only locally-produced foods (I can't let go of my coffee and wine and chocolate. Could you?).

It's that I want to make sustainable choices from here on out. This means eating organic when possible, local when possible, vegetarian most of the time, seeking out all-natural/grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and farm-raised fish from hopefully close-by. It's about making decisions that benefit my body, my soul, and my community. These types of choices are not just to "shed a few pounds," though I would like to firm up my thighs a bit; they are meant to sustain and enhance life.

I'd tell you my new slogan but I don't want anyone to take it. I'm saving it for my book (TK by age 30, 5 years, one month, and one day to go!).