Going Vegetarian (Again)?

I usually make Parker a bento to take to work.  It’s a fun little thing to do, saves money, and keeps him from gorging himself on Burger King.  Besides, I like the boxes and tiny accessories.

Generally his bentos are some play on rice, chicken, and broccoli.  He’s a picky eater who usually forgoes all vegetables so the fact that I’ve gotten him to eat at least one on a regular basis is kind of a big deal.  The fact that I’ve gotten him to eat white rice is amazing (still working on other versions).  I’m very proud of what I’ve gotten so far, especially since when I started he would barely touch anything that wasn’t pizza (pepperoni), spaghetti, mac and cheese (Kraft only), or chicken strips.  College kid food doesn’t begin to cover it.  He had the palette of a five year old.

I like to encourage any amount of improvement so I try very hard not to complain about making yet another bento of white rice, steamed broccoli, and terriyaki chicken.  If I’m going to introduce a new food I do it on the weekends so he can have something else home cooked instead of defaulting to some form of chicken nugget.  This has worked pretty well, he’s at least gotten better about *trying* things even if he insists he doesn’t like them.

There’s just one tiny problem.  I’ve recently developed a complete aversion to all meat products.  I was semi-ok with preparing them, but today when I started to chop up the chicken for Parker’s bento I started feeling physically ill.  This isn’t particularly new, I’ve always been somewhat uncomfortable with meat, it just seems to have gotten worse.  Normally if I switch to a vegetarian diet for a week or two the feeling passes, this time it’s progressing.  I’m not fully sure how I am with *eating* meat because I haven’t tried, but the idea of cooking it isn’t so good right now.

Again, this has happened before.  I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian in my early teens, switched to strict vegetarian for about six months when I was 16, and switched back to predominantly lacto-ovo when I found out the vegan diet was quite literally killing me (genetic defects, gotta love ‘em).  I averaged one meat product a month for the next four years and only switched to a fully omnivorous diet when my health started tanking.  There’s no real ethical reason for my vegetarianism (though I could come up with a few if pressed), I’m simply not a huge fan of most meats.

The only real difference this time is that I can’t handle the thought of being around meat very well.  I’ve always disliked the rabid vegetarians who insist that they’re so sensitive as to not be able to even be in the presence of meat so I’m a little disturbed by the thought that I might become one of them.  Not only will Parker never become a vegetarian (see that whole hatred of vegetables thing), I absolutely refuse to force my own personal beliefs on other people.  Particularly since this one isn’t even a belief!

I’m not fully sure what to do about this.  Switching to a vegetarian diet for myself isn’t that big of a deal.  I average four or so vegetarian months a year so I’m rather used to it.  The inability to be in the same room as meat is what concerns me.  At the moment I have no objection to simply sucking it up, but if it gets any worse there are going to be a few problems.

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