I don’t know what’s considered a lot of meat. Our dinners (or what we call supper) usually includes meat of some kind. Usually hamburger or chicken in hot dish, stew, spaghetti or soup. On the weekends we’ll do hot dogs, burgers or steaks on the grill. It’s usually just one meal a day that includes meat and not vast quantities then. We don’t eat any meat at breakfast, we might have a lunch meat sandwich at lunch but I don’t buy it very often. I throw out more than we eat.
So I think our consumption has stayed about the same.
I eat less because I can’t stay very active these days, so my meat consumption has decreased that way. But it’s also decreased proportionally because I wanted a healthier diet. Also, I’m trying not to waste food and decrease the amount of shopping these days so I don’t make much extra that I’d end up eating.
Good point, that’s definitely a good reason to cut back on meat as well (especially red meat).
Learning to enjoy eating lentils was really a turning point for me - I’ve really come to love north Indian and Ethiopian style lentils, as previously I found that the vegetarian meals that I had tried never really satisfied my protein cravings. I still don’t like eating that many types of beans (other than refried beans and certain white bean dishes).
It is funny how different people’s bodies react differently. For both my wife and me, nothing is as filling as a big bowl of lentil soup, or rice and beans. The sense of satiety is very important to us, as if we do not feel full, we will continue to snack - often on less healthy options.
With certain other veggie options - especially leaves - we kinda feel like cows shoveling in massive amounts of material trying to feel full.
For those who say how much you love meat, you might be surprised at how quickly your tastebuds change if you give them a chance. For example, when eating out at fast casual (something I do infrequently), my go to option often was a greasy burger w/ all manner of toppings. And I used to love the burgers I grilled at home. After a couple of months of increasing the veggies and reducing the meat, the next couple of times I tried burgers at restaurants or home, they really did nothing for me.
Very true. I’m sure part of my problem is there is very little I hate to eat more than lentils or beans. Even when I’ve had excellent dishes the most I can make myself eat is one small bowl. MY wife laughs at me that I can honestly say that it tasted good and I can’t make myself eat more.
I also agree about the snacking either that or I eat way more than I should. I had two large bowls of pasta for dinner on our vegetarian night and I found myself making a sandwich before bed. and then when I had leftover pasta for lunch the next day I also had a mid afternoon snack which I normally don’t do.
I’ve gone away from the greasy food multiple times for up to two years and I can honestly say that the greasy food tasted just as amazing as I remembered it. The biggest change I’ve noticed is that I don’t like all meat any more I really want some veggies. My wife loves bacon cheese burgers but I get unhappy if my burger doesn’t have lettuce, onion, tomato, and pickles or I want a salad with my steak instead of the baked potato.
I’m far from a picky eater. I love lentils. Enjoy most beans. Love vegetables of all stripes. Love grains from humble rices, to polenta, to quinoa, to buckwheat… you name the grain, I love it. Not a huge fan of pasta unless it’s my wife’s cacio e pepe, aglio e olio (sp?), etc. So I don’t think I’m missing out on any of the non-meat categories. Still, 3 weeks into a vegan or vegetarian diet and I’m still not over the need for meat. To the point where I feel like my body just isn’t working right. So how long did it take you to adjust to an all non-meat diet?
I consume a lot less red meat–partly to be healthier, but mostly because RM gives me slight stomach trouble. I’ll still suck it up and have a hamburger occasionally, but ground turkey is a decent substitute.
I’m FAR from an expert, but I think pasta is pretty lousy food.
Some years ago we persuaded ourselves to reduce our animal protein, in part due to The China Study and Pollan’s books. However, we instead went to pasta as “filler” Just all kinds of pasta w/ red or cream sauce and various veggies. But it didn’t really fill us up and my wife (who studies nutrition more than I) concluded that pasta was lousy carbohydrates.
One thing we’ve tried is the lentil and bean pasta, tho I’m not sure how much the processing messes w/ the nutritional content.
Yeah, I’m fortunate that I have a pretty simple palate, and that beans/lentils agree w/ me. In fact, on Father’s Day, my wife asked what I wanted for dinner, and I asked for a big bowl of soup. Easy to make, dirt cheap, and nutritious.
Ah, lentils… I miss them. Unfortunately I developed a severe allergy to them (and peas). Fortunately, I can still eat soybeans, chickpeas, and black beans My food allergies definitely complicate my diet, and make it unlikely I’ll ever go full vegan.
Even though I don’t think I can give up entirely on meat my study of diet (forced by my allergies, among other things) make it clear that you don’t need meat every day, or every other day. Someone once told me to consider meat a condiment more than an entree. Or at the very least something you eat occasionally rather than daily.
I also think that different people do well on different diets. As just one example - a certain portion of humanity can digest milk proteins past weaning, which gives them an option not open (or at least not convenient) to those who lose the ability to digest it. I likewise suspect that some people have an easier time digesting beans than others. Then there are the people who don’t tolerate gluten, which is too bad because that, too, is a source of protein. However, as a species we are omnivores, which means that even if an individual does not do well with a particular type of food there are options, many options, for getting the nutrients elsewhere.
I’m not entirely sure “greasy fast food burger” is really the show-piece for meat. The effect of eating less meat on me was not to lose my taste for meat but to lose my desire to eat large amounts of it. One reason I make burgers at home these days is because I really don’t want a fast-food size portion, it’s too much (if I do eat fast-food I buy the kid size burgers). These days, four ounces of meat (which is what an actual dietary portion of meat is) is plenty, and six is a feast.
You can definitely retrain yourself as to portion size and what you habitually eat.
Unlike some folks, though, I’m not giving up red meat, just eating it less often. Because I’m eating less meat I spend money on higher quality so the cost works out about the same, but it probably is better. Red meat is not inherently bad, what’s bad is how much many folks tend to eat. Nor is something like chicken or fish inherently good - poor quality chicken can be just as bad as poor quality red meat, and some fish you really should be careful about due to pollution.
(By red meat I mean just about any mammal - although I don’t really care for pork. I eat not just beef and lamb but buffalo and venison when I can get them. On the poultry side, not just chicken and turkey but duck and ostrich, too, when I can get them.)
It can be. Certainly, it’s one of those foods it’s easy to eat too much of. Again, people don’t know what a portion size really is for pasta - it’s one cup of cooked pasta. That’s it. And that’s not very much. You to need to combine it with other foods, but a lot of folks learned that “eating pasta” meant heaping a plate with it and drowning it in sauce. That’s “healthy eating” in the same way as eating two pounds of steak or a pint of Hagen-Daas is … meaning it’s not. Once in awhile, sure, it’s OK to indulge but that’s not the way you want to eat every day.
I’m in remission from ulcerative colitis. Red meat consumption is associated with relapse - so no beef, pork, lamb, (red meat derived) sausages etc. Chicken and fish gets old really quick, so we started eating more vegetarian dishes. (I guess I’m now a non-elective flexitarian - as it turns out, Mrs T has been leaning this way for years - electively - so she wins.)
I’m eating less, period. (Another missing option, BTW.) Lost 50+ pounds over the last five years or so.
So my consumption of food has reduced, as well as the proportion of meat in it.
There’s an environmental and ethical plus as well, but if I’m honest those are just a nice side-effect. I shouldn’t really be congratulating myself too much over those.
I’d be happy eating vegan Mediterranean, but developed anemia last time I tried it, so I have meat or fish twice a week, and cheese, yogurt, and eggs a few times as well. Curse you, non-heme iron!
My diet changes based on what I can manage to actually consume and hopefully keep down. Since 2010 I started having digestive issues. One of my medications was making me lose the ability to eat various meats without extreme nausea, when I changed that med, I slowly regained the ability to mostly eat the various meats [at one point I was down to tofu, fish like cod or sole, eggs and chicken, and the chicken was starting to give me nausea]
What I have always done is portion control - while a bacon binge sounds good, the fat level causes me issues. I am happy with vegetarian and vegan foods, really - I like tofu, used to make my own =) I also just happen to like the taste of meat.
I try to maintain a schedule, let is say sunday - beef, monday - chicken, tuesday - tofu, wednesday - pork, thursday - seafood, friday - fish and saturday game/other. I use foodgawker to make a menu plan that pretty much isn’t the same 20 recipes in rotation. I portion control, I watch how I source [I do have a preference for grass fed beef, tastes better than grain fed] I try to get the best nutrient profile I can - I made it through the first round of chemo and radiation without appreciable anemia just with dietary tweaking.
If and a really big if they manage cloned or printed beef and chicken that tastes and has the mouthfeel , I would be more than willing to convert. I have an idea how to make cloned shrimp/crab/lobster meat product that would at least be like the old school sea leg fake crab product, if the cloned meat tastes real [using the ability of the cloned meat currently being a sheet several cells thick] that I would happily use.
We’ve mostly cut meat from our diet, without committing to strict vegetarianism. The reason is mainly that it’s easier (to me, at least) to abstain if you know that you could, and because there’s just no combination of pizza toppings that I like that doesn’t include ham or other meat. And I’m not going to go without pizza once, maybe twice, a month. Also, if we’re somewhere else and there’s no vegetarian alternative, we’re not going to raise a stink. But we don’t buy any meat for ourselves at home anymore.
The reason for that is essentially environmental, plus it’s hard to find non-factory farmed meat, and while I don’t have a problem ethically with eating animals, as such, I think current practices cause too much needless suffering.
I’m potentially eating more meat. Mainly because I’ve cut a lot of carbs out of my diet and so probably put more meat and greens on my plate. I haven’t measured it but it makes sense that if I pick chicken one night instead of spaghetti, the end result is more meat consumption overall.
