Living With Carnivores

Ted and Kyle have adapted to my Flexitarian lifestyle with a minimum of complaining. But since I don’t seek out meat to eat, that means I also don’t cook it much. After enough mournful sighs over this fact I finally broke down and purchased a roast on Saturday and then on Sunday I slow cooked it all day in broth and garlic for dinner that evening.

It smelled wonderful, but I still debated on whether to actually eat any of it. However come Sunday night I just didn’t feel like making a separate entrée for myself, so I had a small serving along with my potato and vegetable.

Apparently when you don’t eat red meat for awhile, your system adapts to this little change so that when you do indulgently consume a hunk of it which has been slow cooking in it’s own fat all day it can throw your system into a bit of an uproar.

In short, by late Sunday evening I had indigestion fairly bad. So bad that when my husband gave me a playful look and invited me upstairs I think I whimpered in response, which is absolutely not my norm.

After I’d managed to fall asleep I was awakened at nearly 5AM by spitting up sour in my sleep. As a person with various and sundry sleep disorders I’ve woken up a myriad of bad ways over the years. I guarantee you, this one made the top five.

I staggered into the bathroom and my cat, as usual, followed me. I do not think I’ve used the facilities in my home without feline escort for a few years now. I brushed my teeth and then decided to read a page or two while waiting for my stomach to settle. Upon sitting a bookmark I was using on the sink, my cat promptly snatched it to the floor and began jumping up and down on it as though he believed it to be possessed by Nazis. It’s just a bookmark, but my husband had gotten it for me as a stocking stuffer this past Christmas and I rather like it, so I reached down to push the cat away and rescue it. Now Wish is playful, but not malicious, so when he took a parting shot at the offending bookmark and accidentally tore a patch of skin off of one of my fingers I know it wasn’t his intention.

Still… OUCH.

Since neither Ted nor Kyle experienced any ill effects of meat consumption whatsoever (to the contrary they were just about ecstatic over the prospect of cooked cow in the house) I can’t blame the roast. It was just me, reacting to the roast.

This morning I still don’t feel great, and I’m still tasting meat despite having brushed my teeth three times since then.

I may be living with carnivores, but I think it’s clear that I’m no longer one of them.