I chaperoned a youth trip to DC and came back a Vegetarian - Part 1
Hello my Lovelies and Gents,
Last week was one that I had been looking forward two and dreading forever. I was excited because I knew I would be chaperoning a youth trip to Washington D.C. for a long time. I also knew that it would probably be a food disaster for me. There would be a lot of eating out.
We started the week last Sunday taking the train up. We packed snacks, but it was a 10 hour train ride and there was a cafe car. We would be going to dinner when we arrived, but we needed lunch. I had seen that there was a Quinoa Kale Chicken Caesar Salad on the menu, but I was skeptical. I'm not a fan of prepackaged salads. One of the young men ordered one and I saw that it looked decent. And it was. I really enjoyed it. The next person who ordered it ordered the last one. So that made me a little nervous about counting on that salad on the way home. I needn't worry though. Something big was about to happen.
After we arrived and got settled in on Sunday night, we walked to the grocery store. One of my jobs was to adjust the shopping list. For most of the meals we would be eating out. But, we would need breakfast for 17 people for 5 days, plus a packed lunch, and snacks. We had a list to base it on, but that was for half as many people. It would be easy to just double it and be done, but I wanted to add some things and lose some things. There are no pop tarts for breakfast or snack when Ms. Jennie is around. I cut out the pure sugar cereals. The cereals I picked still had some sugar, but they also had bran. And considering the vegetables these kids didn't eat, it was necessary. I made sure to include wheat bread with our white bread. I added cheese sticks and carrots to the shopping list and dropped bagged snacks since they brought so many extra for the train. My favorite part was when they all lost their minds over the 45 bananas that we bought. I made sure they were all shades of green and yellow. They thought I was insane. And don't you know that we were out by day 3 and had to buy more.
Sadly the cheese sticks were bad, but you wouldn't know until you opened them up. We ran out of bagels. That was big. The cereal went, but not as fast. I'm pretty proud that we got lemonade and iced tea mix and we didn't open either. It was water all week long.
So Monday morning rolls around and I get up early. And let's face it, I didn't sleep much anyway. Monday we needed to dress in long pants because we were going to be working at D.C. Central Kitchen. They prepare 5000 meals a day from donated food. Did I mention that it was close to 100 degrees? It was a hot day to be walking around in jeans. I'm proud though, we got there 15 minutes early and were assigned our hair nets and aprons. They showed us a video about kitchen safety and asked about food allergies and aversions to working with meat. And then we were given our assignments.
Since the kitchen runs on donations it is a lot of seasonal food that is about to expire. There were hundreds of cases of corn for them to shuck. They weren't super excited about that. There was a request for adults to cut the chicken. So myself, Pastor Ward, and Mr. John got to do that along with a college sophomore Ethan. Please note that I missed the instructions and pretty much only ever work with chicken that's already been cut up.
So here I am ready to help. I will do the gross job, but I am seriously jealous of the corn shucking. I don't know how many chickens we had in total, but there were many trays with around 12-15 raw formerly frozen chickens on each one. That means they are thawing. That means their juices are escaping. Fun stuff.
I have mentioned before that I wanted to try being a vegetarian. I knew it would be hard and I knew that in order for me to make this a permanent thing something was going to need to happen. I have avoided the documentaries because I didn't know if I really wanted to make this a for real thing. I had already mostly given up red meat, I couldn't really think that I would be able to give up chicken too. Although if you've ever driven through a chicken farm regularly, it's not that hard to imagine. I might have been able to make it through this morning unaffected, but I'm still beyond grossed out by my half cooked cheeseburger from a couple of months ago.
Okay so back to the chickens. I was given my very large knife and went to bring chicken number one over and get started. Everyone else seemed to be done their first one before I was able to cut through my first appendage. Bone ain't easy. So visually here is short little me with the lip of the counter digging into my rib cage. I have said many times that it's harder for me to cut things because sometimes my arms are a little more elevated than the usual person. Trying to cut through bones like that is even harder. I probably needed a step stool to make it easier. Add to that the gigantic container that we were putting the cut parts in. I had to reach far to put the chicken in. I was in the middle and pretty close to it. Some chickens were harder to cut then others.
I butchered my first chicken pretty bad (pun intended). But, I was proud of myself when I got a good chicken I felt invincible. Then the next chicken would be tough and all I could do was focus on the naked wings. Those naked wings were my downfall. The guys said to pull on the wings and legs and you could dislocate the bones to make it easier. For me that wasn't a good feeling. It helped, but ugh.
Chef Eric came by and I asked him to show me how to cut it right. It looked so easy when he did it. But, it was like it was my first time when he left and I forgot everything he showed me. After about an hour I made the declaration that I was never eating chicken again. I wasn't kidding. I know they thought I was joking, but something changed in me that morning. I knew something traumatic would need to happen to get me to make the change. Some people may laugh at my use of the word traumatic, but that's what it was to me.
About halfway through our time Chef Jonathan came over and asked for 2 of us to stop cutting. I volunteered immediately. But, be careful what you wish for. He wanted us to start pulling the cut pieces out of the container and prep them with seasoning then put them on the trays. We had a giant bowl to put them in and then douse them with oil and toss in seasoning and stir it up. Remember when I said that the chicken was in a big container. There was lots of ice put in it that was melting. So here I was reaching into this container and pulling out chicken parts and putting them into the bowl. Pinkish/Reddish liquid was coming out with it and splashing on me. *Shudder*. Mr. Ethan and I took turns doing that. I was getting an irritation on my arm from leaning into the container. Did I mention that the floor now had some of that juice all over it? ugh. I felt like I was covered in chicken juice.
Three hours could not end soon enough. Eventually it did. We were scheduled to eat there before we left. The menu: Chicken, corn, spinach, collard greens, and mashed potatoes. I got everything but the chicken.
Thankfully I had a protein bar in my bag since my plate was seriously lacking in it. This was about to become my biggest challenge.
That was 10 days ago. I have not had meat since. Stay tuned for Part 2 when I talk about the trials and surprises that awaited me as I began this journey during a week away from home.
Before I go let me just add one thing. When we went back two days later I was on Onion chopping duty. The gentleman next to me was a regular volunteer. He asked what I did on Monday. When I told him that it was whole chickens he said he wished he had been there. I asked why and he said that they rarely get whole chickens. We were there on a special day. I'm happy that we were able to be a part of that. Protein is so important. I don't begrudge anyone from eating meat. It's just not my thing anymore.
Have a Blessed Evening,
Jennie
xoxo
If you feel like you are alone on your journey and you just need some encouragement I am here for you! Shoot me an email and I will do my best to check in on you or give you the words of support you need several times a week. The journey is so much easier if you have support.
jhendersonfit@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/ConfessionsOfAFormerFatGir
yeah, sorry, I messed up and the "l" is missing....I need an assistant :-)
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: hugsnsmile
Instagram: Jennie5973
Last week was one that I had been looking forward two and dreading forever. I was excited because I knew I would be chaperoning a youth trip to Washington D.C. for a long time. I also knew that it would probably be a food disaster for me. There would be a lot of eating out.
We started the week last Sunday taking the train up. We packed snacks, but it was a 10 hour train ride and there was a cafe car. We would be going to dinner when we arrived, but we needed lunch. I had seen that there was a Quinoa Kale Chicken Caesar Salad on the menu, but I was skeptical. I'm not a fan of prepackaged salads. One of the young men ordered one and I saw that it looked decent. And it was. I really enjoyed it. The next person who ordered it ordered the last one. So that made me a little nervous about counting on that salad on the way home. I needn't worry though. Something big was about to happen.
After we arrived and got settled in on Sunday night, we walked to the grocery store. One of my jobs was to adjust the shopping list. For most of the meals we would be eating out. But, we would need breakfast for 17 people for 5 days, plus a packed lunch, and snacks. We had a list to base it on, but that was for half as many people. It would be easy to just double it and be done, but I wanted to add some things and lose some things. There are no pop tarts for breakfast or snack when Ms. Jennie is around. I cut out the pure sugar cereals. The cereals I picked still had some sugar, but they also had bran. And considering the vegetables these kids didn't eat, it was necessary. I made sure to include wheat bread with our white bread. I added cheese sticks and carrots to the shopping list and dropped bagged snacks since they brought so many extra for the train. My favorite part was when they all lost their minds over the 45 bananas that we bought. I made sure they were all shades of green and yellow. They thought I was insane. And don't you know that we were out by day 3 and had to buy more.
Sadly the cheese sticks were bad, but you wouldn't know until you opened them up. We ran out of bagels. That was big. The cereal went, but not as fast. I'm pretty proud that we got lemonade and iced tea mix and we didn't open either. It was water all week long.
So Monday morning rolls around and I get up early. And let's face it, I didn't sleep much anyway. Monday we needed to dress in long pants because we were going to be working at D.C. Central Kitchen. They prepare 5000 meals a day from donated food. Did I mention that it was close to 100 degrees? It was a hot day to be walking around in jeans. I'm proud though, we got there 15 minutes early and were assigned our hair nets and aprons. They showed us a video about kitchen safety and asked about food allergies and aversions to working with meat. And then we were given our assignments.
Since the kitchen runs on donations it is a lot of seasonal food that is about to expire. There were hundreds of cases of corn for them to shuck. They weren't super excited about that. There was a request for adults to cut the chicken. So myself, Pastor Ward, and Mr. John got to do that along with a college sophomore Ethan. Please note that I missed the instructions and pretty much only ever work with chicken that's already been cut up.
So here I am ready to help. I will do the gross job, but I am seriously jealous of the corn shucking. I don't know how many chickens we had in total, but there were many trays with around 12-15 raw formerly frozen chickens on each one. That means they are thawing. That means their juices are escaping. Fun stuff.
I have mentioned before that I wanted to try being a vegetarian. I knew it would be hard and I knew that in order for me to make this a permanent thing something was going to need to happen. I have avoided the documentaries because I didn't know if I really wanted to make this a for real thing. I had already mostly given up red meat, I couldn't really think that I would be able to give up chicken too. Although if you've ever driven through a chicken farm regularly, it's not that hard to imagine. I might have been able to make it through this morning unaffected, but I'm still beyond grossed out by my half cooked cheeseburger from a couple of months ago.
Okay so back to the chickens. I was given my very large knife and went to bring chicken number one over and get started. Everyone else seemed to be done their first one before I was able to cut through my first appendage. Bone ain't easy. So visually here is short little me with the lip of the counter digging into my rib cage. I have said many times that it's harder for me to cut things because sometimes my arms are a little more elevated than the usual person. Trying to cut through bones like that is even harder. I probably needed a step stool to make it easier. Add to that the gigantic container that we were putting the cut parts in. I had to reach far to put the chicken in. I was in the middle and pretty close to it. Some chickens were harder to cut then others.
I butchered my first chicken pretty bad (pun intended). But, I was proud of myself when I got a good chicken I felt invincible. Then the next chicken would be tough and all I could do was focus on the naked wings. Those naked wings were my downfall. The guys said to pull on the wings and legs and you could dislocate the bones to make it easier. For me that wasn't a good feeling. It helped, but ugh.
Chef Eric came by and I asked him to show me how to cut it right. It looked so easy when he did it. But, it was like it was my first time when he left and I forgot everything he showed me. After about an hour I made the declaration that I was never eating chicken again. I wasn't kidding. I know they thought I was joking, but something changed in me that morning. I knew something traumatic would need to happen to get me to make the change. Some people may laugh at my use of the word traumatic, but that's what it was to me.
About halfway through our time Chef Jonathan came over and asked for 2 of us to stop cutting. I volunteered immediately. But, be careful what you wish for. He wanted us to start pulling the cut pieces out of the container and prep them with seasoning then put them on the trays. We had a giant bowl to put them in and then douse them with oil and toss in seasoning and stir it up. Remember when I said that the chicken was in a big container. There was lots of ice put in it that was melting. So here I was reaching into this container and pulling out chicken parts and putting them into the bowl. Pinkish/Reddish liquid was coming out with it and splashing on me. *Shudder*. Mr. Ethan and I took turns doing that. I was getting an irritation on my arm from leaning into the container. Did I mention that the floor now had some of that juice all over it? ugh. I felt like I was covered in chicken juice.
Three hours could not end soon enough. Eventually it did. We were scheduled to eat there before we left. The menu: Chicken, corn, spinach, collard greens, and mashed potatoes. I got everything but the chicken.
Thankfully I had a protein bar in my bag since my plate was seriously lacking in it. This was about to become my biggest challenge.
That was 10 days ago. I have not had meat since. Stay tuned for Part 2 when I talk about the trials and surprises that awaited me as I began this journey during a week away from home.
Before I go let me just add one thing. When we went back two days later I was on Onion chopping duty. The gentleman next to me was a regular volunteer. He asked what I did on Monday. When I told him that it was whole chickens he said he wished he had been there. I asked why and he said that they rarely get whole chickens. We were there on a special day. I'm happy that we were able to be a part of that. Protein is so important. I don't begrudge anyone from eating meat. It's just not my thing anymore.
Have a Blessed Evening,
Jennie
xoxo
****Please note****
If you feel like you are alone on your journey and you just need some encouragement I am here for you! Shoot me an email and I will do my best to check in on you or give you the words of support you need several times a week. The journey is so much easier if you have support.
jhendersonfit@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/ConfessionsOfAFormerFatGir
yeah, sorry, I messed up and the "l" is missing....I need an assistant :-)
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: hugsnsmile
Instagram: Jennie5973
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