that's right. you read it here first. i have taken meat off my menu. beef? nope. pork, the most delicious meat from the smartest of barnyard animals? nope. chicken? nope. fish? sure, why not.

at the beginning of this year i found out that my cholesterol levels were off the charts. i don't remember the numbers, but the doctor said something about the lab detecting salted butter in my blood. my first reaction was to just be afraid to eat anything. my doctor told me to watch my diet, exercise and come back in three months. that sounded pretty extreme to me. i'm not an extremist so i opted for diet and the three month thing.

i stopped eating meat completely. that day. i reduced my cheese intake to the equivalent of a slice a day at most. before the cholesterol discovery, my vegetable intake was limited to salsa. lots of salsa. i wondered how long it would take me to get sick of a salsa-only diet. i thought it would be really hard to stop eating meat, i mean, there are only like eight vegetables in the animal kingdom, right? as it turns out, it's been really, really easy.

in the last six months i have eaten more spinach than the previous 34 years combined. salad isn't just the punchline for jokes about masculinity anymore. mushrooms aren't just for filling with sausage. what scientists are doing with soy is amazing, and maybe a little terrifying. soyrizo is amazing and fantastic. boca bratwurst is frighteningly good. chili made with Morningstar Farms™ Grillers® Burger Style Recipe Crumbles is the best chili i've ever had in my life, seriously.

i first thought about vegetarianism after reading "fast food nation". i already had the philosophical/ethical leanings and not being an extremist, i just stopped eating cute and cuddly animals.

after the first three months i went back to the doctor. i had lost a lot of weight and was looking forward to a good blood test. my cholesterol had dropped 12 points. 12 points. i think that's equivalent of a single slice of bacon. i adopted a diet that would make gandhi look like friggin' john candy by comparison and my blood had barely registered a change. instinctively i blamed my mother. as it turns out it was my mother's fault. she cursed me genetically.

i'm starting a statin drug in july, but i'm keeping the diet change. if my cholesterol doesn't drop in six months you may hear me talking about exercise. i'm not sure what that means exactly, but i think it requires some sort of specialized footwear.