The photo above was taken at The Cupboard in Denton, Texas. The Cupboard is a natural foods store/a health food store/a hippie food store…whatever you want to call it.

I call it a nice 20 minute drive north through the country to a store I’ve loved for years…

My First Time

I grew up like so many people, going with family to huge grocery stores. Okay, so they may not have been huge by today’s standards, but they were the big grocery stores most of the town I lived in went to when they bought food.

I was maybe 9 or 10 the first time I went to a health food store. A good friend’s mother took us to a store that was nowhere near as bright and big as the store where we usually shopped. It smelled different when the doors opened…not like cleaning supplies but…fresh! Seriously, it smelled like the tops of carrots and other good things.

This friend’s father studied, I believe, at the Culinary Institute of America…back when being a chef evoked a sideways glance and asked which branch of the military you served in. For my friend’s family, there were occasional runs to the “health food store” for ingredients you couldn’t find in normal grocery stores. It’s weird that I remember that trip so well. It was the first time I tried karob and some other things I never heard of.

I wasn’t a fan of karob, but something about that trip stuck with me.

The Dare

In my early 20s, while drinking beer with some friends in their apartment, one of the friends dared me to go vegetarian.

“Why not?” I thought. “I can do this…”

And I did it for almost three years before one evening, when drinking beer with the same friends, I said, “So…the vegetarian bet. Did I win?”

It took a moment for it to sink in with the friend who dared me to stop eating meat. When it clicked, he said, “Oh, yeah…I considered that a win a few weeks in…”

Round Two

After that, I went back to eating meat
. First thing back after almost three years? Italian sausage. My digestive system protested for days, but I went back to eating the way I ate before the bet. And I got really big! So big that it actually got in the way of things I wanted to do.

Winded on a walk one evening, I remembered how I biked 20 miles a day when I was a vegetarian — how I hiked and juggled for hours. I mentioned to my wife that I wanted to get back to that, and she was game.

1999 was the last time I ate meat. A year later, we went vegan for over a decade before allowing the occasional vegetarian meal back into the mix. (Mainly when traveling or going out with friends.)

The Cupboard

I’m still a big guy in need of losing some weight, but when I go to the doctor for a checkup, gone are the days of high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes that were there before “The Dare.” Twenty years after that, I’m healthier than I was through my most of my 20s.

I don’t care what or how others eat — I truly believe that like religion, politics, whatever…as long as you don’t push your plate my way, I won’t pick it up and dump it and my plate back in your lap. This has just worked for me, and I like it. Know what I like even more…?

I like that when the doors to The Cupboard (or any similar store) open, I always think of the day my friend’s mom introduced me to the health food store. I’m still not a fan of karob, but I consider myself lucky for still being in touch with these friends — and being in good health — so many years later…