Carnivore Versus Vegetarian Challenges

I must say that if I don’t get my blog post written on the weekend, it doesn’t happen and my post will be late. Perhaps this lack of being able to keep a schedule is part of taking care of myself.

Taking care of ourselves is probably one of the most important things we can do. It is also easy to overlook this need for self-care. A few weeks ago I spoke about the five areas of our lives that need attention in this post. This week I am looking at the physical part of self-care.

One of the areas of self-care that I have been working on is eating better.

Not just me, but my carnivore husband who has some issues with high cholesterol.

Cooking food and eating is often a challenge in our house but is very important when looking at self-care. The challenge comes when I am a vegetarian with exceptions and he is a carnivore.

Being a vegetarian with exceptions means that while I prefer to eat a plant-based diet, my current living area and some personal preferences means that I will, at times eat fish. While not being a pure vegetarian, I believe this is the healthiest for me.

I’ve also discovered that my choices lead to some interesting situations.

Since my husband was diagnosed with high cholesterol, we’ve been making some changes. Some of those include salads with each meal, less red meat and more all veg meals, which I am okay with.

However, recently I attempted to make a meal that wasn’t completely veg based that we both could eat. Since I also eat fish, and therefore seafood, when hubby asked for shrimp “made the way they do when they add it to the steak option”, I thought we could both eat this.

I was wrong.

Since I live in an area where getting fresh shrimp is a challenge, I ended up purchasing some frozen raw pink shrimp.

Confession time: I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to purchasing shrimp.

I brought the shrimp home and read the instructions for thawing, which included running under cold water until thawed and then placing in the refrigerator for approximately 30 minutes.

Up until this point I was fine. I placed the frozen shrimp in a colander and began to run the water over them.

As they began to thaw, since I purchased the shrimp that still had their shells on them, their little legs began to move under the water.

I know, somewhere in my brain, that this is part of the circle of life but I struggle with my place in that circle. When I saw the legs moving, even knowing they were dead, I just couldn’t do it.

I had to wait until my hubby came home so he could help with the cleaning and cooking of the shrimp. He reported that they tasted good with the simple preparation of olive oil and garlic.

Shrimp has to be better than the steak he would prefer, right?

When I told one of my friends about this, her response was, “just by the already cleaned ones, silly.”

As I said, self-care can be a challenge. I’m not giving up on it. I’m just not eating the shrimp.

How are you taking care of yourself these days?