My vegetarianism (#2167)

I am coming up on 7 years of being a vegetarian in February. I have been thinking about it lately because of what happened not too long ago. I was shopping for food and in the vegetarian section of the cold storage at the store and noticed a new item that offered what I thought was a variation of a breaded chicken option. Now many products are out there that are fake chicken or fake meat products so that we have something that looks like what we had previously grown accustomed to eating. Which is great by the way since I have a lot of years behind me eating meat products and faking out my eyes and taste buds helps a lot. Yet, I failed to notice that this product was misplaced in the vegetarian section since my eyesight is not what it used to be even with glasses. So I bought the product and brought it home only to discover that it was real chicken meat. It did say on the package that the chickens were free range and fed a vegetarian diet but still, not a vegetarian product. This has happened to me once before when going through a drive through I ordered bean tacos and was instead given meat tacos. Both times I seriously considered throwing them away and buying something else. I also have to consider my low economic status however. Given that I had purchased the products I decided to eat them and live with it. It hurts my conscious somewhat but then I know for a fact that I did not intentionally purchase them. It was an accidental purchase and therefore not some act of cheating on myself and lying to others. I still consider myself a vegetarian despite these two failings to be a perfect vegetarian. I choose to eat the purchased products and move on because of factors outside my own desire to not eat meat. If ever I get to a more secure financial footing, I know that I will seek out to give any mistaken meat product purchase away to someone who would be grateful for the gift of food and doesn't self restrict their eating diet. I will be more careful in the future as well with my purchases.