Turns out, going green doesn’t just mean staying comfortable in your hemp socks. Sure, you can dip your toes in the green pool and see how it feels for awhile but eventually you wind up getting sucked into the whirlpool of changes. The craziest part is that you know that’s where you belong.

In my first year of consciously living greener I made quite a few changes, some more challenging than others but nothing quite as dramatic as say, giving up something I really, really love. Like Red Robin’s Whiskey River Burgers. Or bacon.

But, it’s a new year and I find myself committed to the cause, for better or worse. So when EcoMetro readers Diane and Bonnie suggested I examine how my eating habits impact the environment, I had to take a closer look.

But first, a little confession. I have a novel I’m working on where the main character, a vegan, moves to a small, small town and hooks up with the local butcher/knocker at the slaughterhouse. When I started doing my research for character development, I got so grossed out I had to stop. The little bit of research I did made it hard to deny I needed to do something different with my diet. So I stopped researching. How’s that for burying my head in the sand? Hey, I’m just being honest here. I knew that if I kept learning more about it, I couldn’t-- in good conscience-- stomach another burger. Have I mentioned how much I love Red Robin’s Whiskey River burger?

You know how life seems to put things in front of you until you pick them up? Well, after I willfully ignored the whisper in my ear to consider changing diet, I was writing an article about green writing habits where most of the writers I interviewed talked about the environmental choices they make beyond their workday that matter to them. Guess what came up most frequently? Uh-huh. More beans, less burgers.

So when Diana and Bonnie suggested going vegan, I had no choice but to consider it. To be honest, the mere thought of making such a radical change accelerated my heart rate and made my hands all sweaty. I would die, I thought. But then I looked into it a little more and decided that while I would certainly not die, it’s too much to change right away. So here’s my compromise: I will ease into a vegetarian diet following the advice of author Janice Erlbaum: “I should be convincing more people to go vegetarian, even if it’s only part time, even if it’s only one day a week.”

That I can do. Matt was a little nervous about all the vegetarian talk, too, even though he introduced me to tofu. We both agreed Meatless Mondays is a reasonable place for us to start. We also set a goal to serve meat as a quarter of our meals to cut back on our consumption and increase our intake of veggies.

Even though I’m not enamored of their whole “sea kittens" campaign to save fish, I ordered my free vegetarian starter kit from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) because I figure those folks know a thing or two about vegetarian life.

According to PETA’s Go Veg web site, “Global warming. Over exploited natural resources. Deforestation. Wasted land. Water and air pollution. The most serious environmental problems of our time are all directly linked to eating meat.”

If you’re moved even a little bit by that statement, join me for Meatless Mondays. I’ll post the recipes I try, and our reviews of course, on my personal blog, starting with “Hippy Haystacks.”