We’re borrowing the words of the late, great Douglas Adams in our farewell from the Meaty Matters blog. We are planning to open up the blog again at a later date, but for now, the is the last entry about the great Meat Pledge Project and the blogging experiment that we’ve been covering for the last few weeks.
Our participants have finished their 4-week period of eating no meat or less meat than usual (but unlimited fish), and they have some follow-up feedback for us:
‘During the entire period I only really missed bacon, and even the day I ‘fell off’ by eating a dish with pork from free range pigs, it wasn’t that I thought; ‘Wow, this tastes great!’ Healthwise I haven’t really felt any difference. I didn’t lose any weight either, so my energy level is more or less the same as before. This has gotten me to decide that when my dogma period is finished and I begin to eat meat again, then I will prioritize good taste and good quality much more than just have a piece of meat.‘ (Andrew)
‘Doing this has made me much more aware of what I eat. It has also led to my becoming more critical of my protein indtake, which will from now on consist of more beans and less meat.‘ (Anne)
‘The dogma period has influenced me to eat less meat and more vegetables, by making more varied vegetable dishes.‘ (Betty)
‘I’ll take two main lessons home from these four weeks: first, it is no problem to cut down on meat and eat as a demitarian – the choices both in supermarkets and at restaurants are wide. Secondly, I will try to be a bit more conscious about my meat intake. I realized that I am not missing anything if I eat a meal without a piece of meat and making vegetarian dishes needs definitely more creativity, which is nice.’ (Jake)
‘I guess I’m becoming a kind of animal-welfare-vegetarian – in the sense that we will be eating much less meat and the meat we do eat will come from sources that are organic or have high animal welfare. I didn’t really run into problems by being a vegetarian, but although it’s easy enough to eliminate meat when you’re out somewhere, what you can get to eat can be pretty uninteresting.‘ (Malene)
‘During the course of the month, I experienced certain internal reactions. Early on, I was tempted by meaty smells, and once or twice I felt a pang of having to forego a pleasant meat-eating habit at a restaurant that I frequent. Although my friends were very supportive of my new dogma, it felt slightly awkward to be insisting that any meat I eat must be organic. I imagine that if I continue with this dogma, I will most likely end up eating very little meat at all’. (Linda)
‘It has been a pleasure for me to pay more attention to my food during the pledge period. And it feel really good that I decided to take my food more seriously.’ (Nicholas)
‘Something I didn’t think about before, which might have an effect on my eating habits is that I rarely eat alone. I think that means that my meals are more structured than many other people. I don’t know what that means for my meat-eating habits, but I think it does something!’ (Sofie)
‘The pledge period as been more of a personal journey for me. I haven’t said much to other people, only to family and close friends. When I made a meal together with a couple of good friends, I told them about the pledge and they were understanding’. (Jacob)
As we wrote in our last blog entry, you might be able to guess which two of these participants were the authors of the project. If so, write to us with the two names to sandyandersen@gmail.com, and we’ll tell you if you’re right!
Thanks for your interest, and ‘bye for now!