Dietary Restrictions

I am not talking about the kind where someone has a peanut allergy, I'm talking about the kind where someone refuses to eat something because it'll make them fat, or it'll make the animals sad. I'm not going to say that all dietary restrictions are ridiculous. I am going to leave religious dietary restrictions alone. If your God told you not to eat pig, who am I do say your God is wrong? I mean, I follow a strict diet twice a month as a Buddhist myself. What I do not get are people who start dropping various things from their diet because it's not kind to animals, or it's a little too fatty, or it causes you to gain weight. Oh, and just to put it out there - I think people who are vegans are ridiculous.

Let's just get to the core of this. Once again I am annoyed by my friend who is a boy whom we will call my boyfriend. When I met him he was vegetarian, for some sort of Buddhist reasons. I was OK with that, and I adjusted by making dinners Buddhist vegetarian. It's better to eat more vegetables anyway. Eventually, he caved in and added seafood to the diet. After watching some show about how most chickens in America are raised, he started to buy cage free eggs, and contemplating only eating cage free eggs. That was until I told him about how cage free did not necessarily mean humane, and that cage free has its own sins.

After watching Food Inc., my boyfriend has been trying to buy more and more organic products. I can almost justify people who buy only from farmer's markets and organic foods, except that many of these people are living beyond their means to get such food. I cannot stand people who tell me they don't have enough money to pay for their rent and electricity and heating, but have the money to buy gourmet organic foods. So I am sorry, since my boyfriend is living off the negative money of educational loans, I cannot condone him buying highly priced organics.

Of course, I think what has ticked me off enough to make me write this, is my boyfriend's new dietary restriction - carbohydrates. He has insisted on 'laying off the carbs' which is now frustrating me to no end. I am freakin Chinese American - which means I'm cheap, I eat pork, and I eat rice and noodles. So while I humor him with the occasional organic apple from the farmer's market, I'm really starting to feel pained at eating mostly pricey seafood. Anyone who eats pork and chicken knows those are the cheapest ways to get your protein in, not seafood, beans or tofu (oddly, you'd think tofu would be cheaper, but it's not!). So now that he has asked me to cut down on the carbs part of the meals I make, I am at a loss of what to do.

People should just be glad to have their meal and thank the land that gave it to them. Stop being so picky!!!