Veggie Project Update--week 1

It's been a bit hairy over here for the last week or so with having a new round of puppy fosters (7 of them) AND a bonus recurring stomach flu! but I've got some free time in between child horfs, so let me update you on how the Veggie Project is going.. (as I typed that last sentence, my child just came up to me and said that he "FarPooped". I'll let you figure out what that means on your own. Let's talk about food--hooray!).
So, seven days in and I've had a pretty successful week of veggie eating. I did have meat 1 1/2 times. Both of these were on purpose and I'll explain here in just a sec.  But so far, it's really been not all that hard. I'm lucky enough to live about 2 miles from Central Market and work about a mile and a half away from Whole Foods, so I'm not finding it too hard to find lunch things on the go. Plus, with the new puppy fosters, I'm having to go home at lunch for their midday feeding anyway, so I've just been making sure I've got some vegetarian options at home.
Finding a good balance of protein and fiber and other essential things is what I'm starting to work on. I mean, I can eat cheese and bread every day for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy, but obviously, you can't just do that. Well, ok, you CAN. But your digestive system isn't going to like you very much. I've also learned that not all veggie burgers are created equal. A couple of them ended up going to the dogs after one bite and you pretty much know you have an inferior fake burger when a dog that will feast on cat shit turns it down flat.
So, I did have meat 1 1/2 times. The whole number refers to  last Saturday when I went to a shindig at my friend Laura's house and we ate burgers that came from a cow named Darryl.  Darryl had belonged to Laura's sister and was raised on a ranch in West Texas. Apparently, Darryl was also a bit of a jerk who failed as a 4-H project.   Since Darryl fell under my locally sourced meat umbrella, I was OK with it. Darryl may not have been nice, but he was delicious.  The 1/2 refers to earlier this week when Sam made tuna fish sandwiches for us.  I know tuna is meat, I just don't think of it as the same, I guess. We can call it a 1/2 right?
So 1 1/2 times out of the last 21 meals, I figure I'm doing pretty ok.  I'm not gonna lie, cleaning up a massive amount of puppy poo and the after effects of ill children actually sort of helps.  I'm going to warn you about this next bit, seriously, if you're easily icked, don't read past THIS NEXT WORD. But if you ever need a little inspiration for staying on the vegetarian path, I have one visual for you that I guarantee will have you eschewing meat for the forseeable future. Want to know what it is?  (REMEMBER, I warned you):  hotdog vomit.  See? See what I mean? Hummus and crackers for everyone!
Man, I'm SO sorry about that! Up next: puppy pictures, I promise.