I found it really hard to find a picture of a chicken that wasn't anthropomorphized or cooked. Goes to show how we prefer to see (or not see) our meat.

Thus far the recipes I post and the ethics I espouse have entailed a vegan diet. I went vegetarian in 2003 for environmental and ethical reasons, and then later vegan more as a result of my food intolerances. Although I have definitely missed cheese over the past few years, eating meat, in my books, was something I never thought I’d go back to.

When I first developed food intolerances, wheat and soy were not among them. Perhaps they were just hard on an already suffering digestive system, or maybe I began to rely too heavily on these foods given my limitations; but either way, wheat and soy were added to my allergy list just over a year ago. No small deal given that those items are found in so many prepared foods on the market, never mind in restaurants. What was harder, still, was trying to feed myself – a women in my mid-twenties, time-crunched, working full-time with a social life and preferably sanity – a healthy diet, particularly one with enough protein. Like many vegans, soy was a staple protein for me. But I found that after a summer on a farm eating very little of it, I returned to city living with a new un-friendly food for my list.

It took me about 6 months of no-soy to realize that I was struggling to get enough protein. I ate lentils, beans and high protein grains as much as I could, but given my lifestyle I was having troubling getting the 30-ish grams I needed daily. And I could feel it. I started to crave meat but would allow nuts to sub in, much to my waistline’s chagrin. Eating meat wasn’t something I wanted to do – after all, 4 years as a vegan in diet kind of made me a vegan in spirit as well. But I eventually decided that I would try integrating a bit of meat back into my diet and see how my body reacted.

That was last April. I distinctly remember being on the phone with a friend and trying to bake chicken for the first time. Phone in my left hand, cold wet chicken thigh in my right…realizing I had no idea if I needed to cook it for 10 minutes or an hour. My friend didn’t know either but Google did, and in something closer to 45 minutes (at 350F) I had cooked my first meat meal in over 6 years.

Although it took about a month for my body to accept this new food with open arms, the concentrated protein was immediately appreciated. I found that I didn’t need to graze all the time, and could actually go several hours without getting hungry as a result. (Especially weird since I had developed a reputation in my office for my constant snacking habit.) As long as I stuck to fish and small amounts of chicken, I was doing better…and actually elated to have been able to add a few more things to the “Emily-friendly” list which had been sadly on the shrink.

That said, I am still very conscious of the ethics related to meat consumption. And have been making a solid effort to only purchase local, organic and GMO-free. I’ll cover this more in a future post, but for now, I thought I’d let readers know of this change. Although I may start to post some meat-recipes, baking is still a big passion so no need to worry about seeing recipes for meaty desserts. Unless it’s chicken pot pie or fish cakes :)

So if I don’t eat dairy or eggs, but do eat meat…does that make me a carnivegan? (Folks, I think this one will trump locavore as the word of the year…just wait)