byChrisWhite – 2017

I reckon the world will never run short of things that confound me. Take this, for instance: the mystery of how many vegetarians it takes to screw in a lightbulb. I don’t know, and I don’t much care to know. The real puzzle is why, upon hearing someone’s a vegetarian, the only question half the room can think to ask is: “Where do you get your protein?”

It’s a curious thing. My blog followers may have noticed a distinct absence of late, and I offer my apologies. I was busy with the kind of spirited experimentations only a stubborn middle-aged man can muster, ignoring my diabetes, indulging in ignorance, and thereby discovering a whole bouquet of neuropathic complications. My body decided to give me a very stern reminder that biology does not take holidays. The next thing I knew, I was tossing back insulin in doses that could have staggered an ox, and all that insulin teamed up with my questionable dietary decisions to introduce me to the sleepy joys of sleep apnea. As it turns out, I can’t write when I’m snoring.

But here I am, making amends, with tales fresh from the table, quite literally, as my latest source of contemplation came from none other than a fortune cookie. There’s something uniquely absurd about getting life advice from a cookie. Still, as I cracked that humble crescent open at the local Japanese steakhouse, out slipped a sliver of paper that was surprisingly resonant. It nudged me to think about something that’s been a pet topic of mine for years: advice. The fortune read, “Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender who you are for what you could become.” Profound words for a dessert that usually gets shrugged off as an afterthought.

Now, the thing about advice is, people seem to think I’m good at it. I’ve never charged a soul for my advice, which is a good thing since it might come with a refund policy. Still, I’ve always had a knack for telling others what they ought to do, which is fine, as long as you ignore the hint of irony in me giving any form of guidance. I’ve lived most of my life by trial and error, emphasis on error, which I suppose makes me as good a source of cautionary tales as any.

Which brings me to lunch the other week. I’m sitting with my regular crew, each of us dissecting our usual entrees, except Phil, who’d just announced his plan to undergo a 28-day colon cleanse. He spoke of it with such enthusiasm that it nearly ruined my “Phat Si-Lo.” Nothing diminishes a meal like hearing your buddy talk about “all the junk that comes out.” My appetite has limits, and Phil was testing every single one of them. I swear, I’ll never look at cashews in quite the same way again.

That’s when a woman named Carol strode into my office. She wanted to discuss a zoning request for a vegetarian retreat, and I’ll admit, I wasn’t all that focused on zoning regulations when she mentioned it. Carol challenged me to give up meat for thirty days, telling me it would help with my diabetes and might even knock a few pounds off my waistline. She had facts and figures to back it up, talk of gut bacteria and intestinal barriers, but I was already lost in a fog of nitrates and bad decisions. Apparently, processed meats were my enemy. Who knew my beloved bacon had been conspiring against me this whole time?

I decided to take Carol’s challenge. Thirty days. No meat. Beans and vegetables would become my bread and butter, so to speak. I’d always figured “vegan” was a word reserved for aliens. It sounded exotic, otherworldly, like a group of space travelers in some obscure science fiction novel, maybe something involving chemtrails and cosmic vibes. And as I embarked on my plant-based journey, I quickly found myself immersed in a world of secret handshakes and blogs with dubious health claims, penned by people whose hobbies seemed to include staring at crystals and deciphering planetary alignments.

Take Laura Eisenhower, for instance, yes, that Eisenhower, great-granddaughter of the president. She’s got credentials that would make your head spin: medical astrologist, cosmic mythologist, something involving Gaia. She claimed that chemtrails, those streaks in the sky that conspiracy theorists go on about, were full of nanoparticles designed to link us to artificial intelligence. Honestly, I’ve read fewer improbable things in old episodes of “The Twilight Zone.” She had a whole breakfast routine for “raising vibrations,” eggs, kombucha, alkaline water. I’m not even sure what that last one is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t “water” in the conventional sense.

So there I was, knee-deep in this strange new world of veganism. No meat, no cheese, and apparently, if I was following Laura, an open invitation to extraterrestrial visitations. Every restaurant visit became an exercise in optimism. The waiter would hand me a menu, and I’d go on a quest to find something, anything, that didn’t contain the remnants of an animal. Black bean burgers, bean burritos, beans over rice, let’s just say, beans became my main companion. My thirty-day anniversary as a vegan was marked by a triumphant weekend of steak and meatloaf, just to remind my system that yes, I still cared for the creatures of this planet, especially when served medium rare.

And I’ll tell you this: the results were promising. Twenty pounds lighter, less insulin, almost half the amount, in fact. Maybe Carol was onto something. I’ve come to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle now, with meat on special occasions. It’s a truce, of sorts, between my health and my taste buds. I figure that if I’m going to dance with diabetes, I’d rather lead than follow, and maybe only step on a toe or two along the way.

Of course, I’m reminded of the missionary who once found himself in the company of a lion. He prayed that it might be a Christian lion, that the beast might let him live. In the silence, he heard the lion murmur its own prayer: “Dear Lord, thank you for the meal I’m about to receive.” That’s about how I felt at the end of thirty days, staring at a plate of meatloaf. Whether it was Gaia-approved or not, it was my answer to a month-long yearning. And while I may not know what the universe has in store, I do know this, sometimes you have to eat a bean, sometimes a steak, and sometimes you just have to pray the lion isn’t in the mood for vegetarians.