I don’t consider myself an uncaring person. Lazy, forgetful, a little self-centered- sure. But "uncaring" is a billing to which I am reluctant to submit. As my friend’s birthday edged closer and closer, I was faced with a crisis. With twenty-four hours left and without the possibility of physical interaction (and thus no back-up plan of flowers and chocolate) I knew that my solution would have to be a little more "creative." So what do you give a kind, mild-mannered, environmentally conscious vegetarian Jewish girl turning twenty? Well, I gave her the easiest and hardest gift there is: self-sacrifice (wow, that’s cliché). I sent her a Yahoo e-card with a drunk, dancing pig, and promised her that I would be vegetarian for twenty meals.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I began to sense a cold fear setting in upon me (and more specifically, my stomach). To be "caring," I was really going to have to follow through with my promise. A whole week without meat?

It absolutely flew in the face of everything I had stood for in high school. Back then, my friends and I had been the self-appointed protectors of the family farmer, eating beef by the pound and chicken by the chicken. While a crazy world spoke of green revolutions and pushed vegetarian propaganda, we chewed on our pork as an act of social rebellion. Our five by fives were political statements of the utmost importance, and when Boca burgers became the new vogue, we countered by spiking vegetarian soup with chicken broth. Upon spotting a bumper sticker that read, "Be nice to animals. Don’t kill them," we logically and intelligently offered the counterproposal: "Shut up." We refused to believe that canines were meant for chewy vegetables and insisted that eating meat was the natural way of things. As eloquently stated by my best friend at the peak of his philosophical musings, "Have you ever heard of a vegetarian tiger?"

Coming from this sort of activist background, it is easy to imagine the uphill battle that I faced. But with my hippie friend’s grin in mind, I pushed forward to fulfill my ill-considered promise. My first breakfast was easy enough. Some bread and water held me over just fine, and I felt surprisingly invigorated despite passing on Frary bacon, ham, and sausage. Then came lunch and with it, higher stakes. After dolefully passing on Collins chili in favor of lentil soup, I found myself at the vegetarian/vegan bar. In front of me was a spattering of spreads and vegetables drowning miserably in balsamic vinegar. I realized that my available food options consisted solely of the things that I had left on my plate when I was a child. After taking a survivably small portion of everything, I retreated back to a corner booth where I could eat my gruel in privacy. Noticing that I had only grabbed a spoon for my soup, I began to get up but paused when I was struck with a horrifying realization: my entire meal could be eaten with a spoon.

The days and meals that followed are a blur. Texture replaced taste as the benchmark of an endurable meal, and I soon found that anything that was hot enough to burn the tongue was pleasing. When I finished meals, I felt a peculiar, food-related form of existential angst: full, and yet empty. I realized that as a friend had once warned me, I had reverted to a hunter-gatherer existence, spending the majority of my time foraging for edible roots and berries.

That you are reading this tale means that I have survived the harrowing experience of being a vegetarian. My twenty-first meal, a T-bone steak, was consumed with passion and fervor.