How To Deal With Your Loss Of Meatless Monday Resolve

Few people are allowed to be scared that a vegetarian lunch isn't going to fill them up. You're not going to perish before your bacon, egg and cheese tomorrow by eating three vegetarian meals in a row. I am allowed. In my line of work, I'm likely going straight to some sort of thing where there's free drinking for HOURS after work (a.k.a. before dinner with no intentions of celebrating dinner anytime soon). So when I look at my calendar for the week and see "thing after work, thing after work, thing after work, gym, and thing after work," and realize I need drink-padding in the form of animal protein but it's Monday, I get a little nervous.

It's not always easy to find good-tasting vegetarian protein unless that's what you're used to doing. My suggestion is flexing to allow what I'm going to call "fair-game protein" in the form of sustainable fish: shellfish like shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid, sardines, anchovies and especially pouched tuna, the only form of "canned" tuna worth eating. Check out these justifiable cheats:

It's not meat-LESS, it's just not meat-FULL. It's not meatfull at all. Fish isn't meat, especially not the sustainable kind. Your stomach will have something meat-esque to grip and form the magical padding that allows one to make it through happy hour all the way to 10:30 or so when someone finally says "okay, we should get dinner somewhere...with good wine."

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