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711th Friday Blog Roundup

I tried an Impossible Burger.  Our friends tried it years ago and told us about it.  It looks like beef and you cook it like beef, but it’s made from plants.  He told us that it was so realistic that he couldn’t tell the difference between real meat and the Impossible Burger.  That thought freaked me out so completely that I put the thought of it out of my mind.

But then a restaurant nearby started serving it, and I finally worked up my courage to try it.  At least, I felt courageous in the morning.  Then I silently obsessed about it for about an hour before we left the house for dinner.  Then I mentioned in the car that I was nervous.  Then I decided at the table that I didn’t think I could go through with it.  I ordered something else with the thought that I would try Josh’s burger.  If I liked it, we would split both of our meals, and if I hated it, I would eat my meal.

The twins took the first bites and reassured me that while it looked and smelled like beef, they could definitely tell the difference.  So I tried a bite and it was… fine.  I felt such internal pressure to eat it and enjoy it like everyone else.  So Josh and I split our meals.

I immediately started regretting it upon finishing, and I felt squeamish about the rest of my meal.  I get that it’s not meat, but it feels… too close.  Like I was eating something out of a Margaret Atwood novel.  It tasted fine, but the whole thing filled me with dread.

If you eat meat, you probably don’t recognize this dread.  But I’m assuming the vegetarians know exactly what I’m talking about.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

Okay, now my choices this week.

RisaKerslake writes about parenting after infertility.  “I believed them because back then, I had the illusion that if I could beat infertility, I could move on. That I was living sort of on pause and once I was holding my child, we could really start life as a family.”  This is such a great post about how the experience of infertility becomes part of your story; of course it has to inform your parenting, just like everything else you go through in life.  The post continues on another site, and the whole thing is a great read.

There were two posts that I read this week about unexpected pregnancies:

No Good Eggs writes about discovering she’s pregnant without assistance after three children through donor egg IVF.  Understandably, pregnancy wasn’t a possibility her brain was entertaining when she realized her uterus felt strange.  She writes, “How am I feeling emotionally. I feel everything. But really just scared. Scared this baby will have major issues and we will have to terminate. Scared this baby will have medium issues and we will be faced with a huge and confusing decision. Scared of giving birth again … And scared of raising a mix of donor and own egg kids, a combo I decided a long time ago I didn’t want.”  It’s a raw and wonderful post.

Much Ado About Nothing also has a surprise pregnancy post.  After a very stressful summer, she discovers that she’s pregnant.  She writes, “I didn’t want to tell anyone at first. After a few days of feeling turned upside down, my husband started to tell people. I only told my sister. I felt undeserving, I still do. I was still living in disbelief and utter panic.”  She is left in a limbo state after a scan, so I’m just holding her in my heart until she gets definitive news.

The roundup to the Roundup: I freaked out from the Impossible Burger.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 14th and September 21st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

4 comments

1 Charlotte { 09.21.18 at 11:57 am }

Thanks for the mention, Mel. My mind is still spinning.

I am curious if Josh and the twins are total vegetarians, or if they eat meat on occasion? A friend of mine has a family like this, and while she is strict and can not even think of it, her husband and kids will eat meat when it presents itself (like a restaurant or event where someone else is cooking). Wondering if that is why you had such a strong reaction to it and the rest of them were more ok with it?
I have not tried the impossible burger, and although I eat meat, I feel like I would not like something that was trying so hard to be something it wasn’t. Like, with a veggie burger, it’s obvious what you are eating.
Idk. I may eat meat, but I definitely am weird about it…like I can’t think too hard about what I am eating and it definitely better not actually taste like meat. I went a long time as a teen not eating meat but that has never felt practical in my adult life. I probably could go back if I tried hard enough.

2 Cristy { 09.21.18 at 1:50 pm }

Holy moley, you ate that burger?!?!? When I first learned about it, I immediately thought about you thinking “nope, no way for Mel,” because you don’t like meat on a visceral level (and I see this product being marketed to avid carnivores who cannot imagine giving up meat). The only equivalent I can think of is giving someone who hates mushrooms a meat-based portabella mushroom that looks the same as a mushroom, but is made out of meat instead of fungus.

Now my mind is blown. Sending my second helpings soon.

3 Working mom of 2 { 09.21.18 at 3:04 pm }

We’re vegan. We eat a lot of faux meats. I’ve never tried that burger, mainly bc we already have burgers we like and that one’s fairly expensive. I don’t think it would bother me that much though. I will say that other than burgers, I don’t buy any faux beef. Well, we eat field roast but that’s not really intended to be a beef analogue. And I no faux pig either other than the rare bacon for DH (I did not eat pig before going veg so I have no desire now).

4 Sharon { 09.21.18 at 5:42 pm }

I eat meat but I kind-of understand. A friend of mine who has been a vegetarian since her teens told me years ago that there are certain “meat substitutes” (that are totally vegan) that she can’t eat because they taste too much like meat.

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