Want to Become a Vegetarian... Seeking Doper Wisdom

Cafe Society
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Times are changing in the Olives household, indeed. I dunno what’s gotten into me, but the life I’m living today looks very different than any life I’ve ever lived before. Over the last few months, I’ve completely overhauled my diet by vastly increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables I eat and significantly decreasing the amount of meat I eat. I’m also running 3+ times a week, and will be running my first 5K on the 4th of July. I’ve never had healthier lifestyle habits, and I’ve never had better reasons to stick to them.

To be frank, I don’t want to die young if I can control that at all. The medical and emotional expense of remaining overweight and sedentary and consuming vast quantities of barely edible food just isn’t worth it. You can get away with abusing yourself when you’re young, but I’m 25 and the older I get, the more I’m going to feel it when I mistreat myself.

As my husband and I have planned these drastic long-term lifestyle changes, I’ve come to realize where the consumption of meat fits into our relationship with the environment and my community. Don’t misunderstand me – I’m passionate about beef, I think eating a cow or pig is the most natural thing on the planet, which is evident if you observe, um, nature. I’m not starting this thread to moralize, and I promise never to be one of those self-righteous VeggieNazis. Let’s just say a compelling combination of concern for my own health, worker’s rights, the environment, animal cruelty and my own development as a spiritual being have led me to the decision to attempt, once again, a lifestyle of vegetarianism.

(Caveat: I will NEVER be a vegan. Cheese is a precious gift to my life that I will never squander, though I agree to eat it in moderation.)

I have tried to become a vegetarian 3 times before, for not-very-well-thought-out reasons, and I have tried to go cold turkey, and after the first month or so I gave up every time. This is because I love meat, and also because I didn’t even know how to cook for myself much less prepare a healthy meal, so my ability to create a balanced diet was restricted by my own confusion and ignorance about nutrition.

All of that has changed–I can cook and eat healthy now, and I probably eat 40% of the amount of meat I used to. Furthermore, I am spiritually motivated to do this. As a Buddhist the one moral guideline I like to adhere to is not to harm other sentient beings. ‘‘Someone else is killing the cow FOR me’’ is becoming less and less a viable excuse, especially because it is blatantly obvious that I don’t need meat to survive. I think this could be an excellent opportunity to work with my attachments. I see a possibility for spiritual growth.

Anyways, one thing I know for certain is I cannot do this cold turkey. And also, I hate soy. Does anyone have any resources that focus on reducing the amount of meat consumed and gradually focusing on eliminating it all together? Should I start with eliminating one meat, and working my way from there? Should I eat meat only when it’s offered by a host? And what meat should I eliminate? The meat that is the worst for you (beef) is what I love the most, and therefore will be the hardest to go.

Jeez, I’m just at a loss. I’ve never really attempted to do this responsible or gradually before, and I just want to succeed this time. It seems like a daunting endeavor because it feels like a significant sacrifice. It’s one I’m willing to make but I am just looking for some guidance on how to get started and stick to it.

Thanks,
Christy

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If you want to eliminate something I would start with beef. Replace your beef intake with chicken and fish.

Start making dishes that include meat, but not as the main item. I would try things like stir-frys. That will let you put more vegetable and less meat without feeling like you’re leaving out the entree. You can gradually reduce the amount of meat until you have pure veggie dishes.

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Completely off topic, but I just noticed something…did you slightly modify your username, olives, or have I just been reading it wrong ever since you joined up? :confused:

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Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.

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Bacon Salt.
I had a couple veggie room mates awhile back, believe it or not, tofu works pretty well as a meat substitute if used in the right way, as in stir fry or a dish kinda like that.

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Nope, it’s the same as it’s always been… though I am now dying to know what you thought it was!

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You may want to consider starting out with meat substitutes. You can buy everything from fake bacon, to fake ground beef, to fake cold cuts. I don’t care for them because I don’t like the taste of meat, I know others who do, and they can be straight substitutes in existing meals.

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I thought it was olives4March. :smack:

I feel like I did when they said Pluto wasn’t a planet. How did I get it backwards? My reading comprehension is normally very good. :confused:

Now, as I am an omnivore, I will quietly close the door behind me and go eat your share of hamburgers. :smiley:

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Here’s a visual for you… olives… marching forth…

Rub it in, why don’t ya! :stuck_out_tongue:

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poking head back in

I’m only eating them because you said you didn’t want them. If you do, by all means…

But, if I may throw in my meat-eating two cents, I would go slow. Don’t do an all or nothing change…you won’t be able to stick with it. But, if you find that you’ve been slowly phasing meat out anyway, just keep going. And if you slip and must have a hamburger, don’t beat yourself up about it. Tomorrow is a new day.

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I’ve been a vegetarian since October. I *avoid *eggs & dairy products also.
I’d suggest buying a vegetarian cookbook or two. That’s been a big help since I grew up in a “meat and two sides” household.
A lot of Asian and Indian dishes are awesome without meat. Veggie sushi is easy, fun and really good. It is good to have a few vegetarian convenience foods around - for quick easy stir fry dishes or veggie burgers. Tofu can be good if cooked right - It took me quite a few tries to get it right. There are other meat substitutes. Seitan is interesting - it has kind of a chicken texture.

The only thing I dislike about being a vegetarian is going out to eat. Most restaurants have 1 or two vegetarian options, if any at all. Eating at home is MUCH cheaper anyway.

VeggieBoards has a lot of great Q&A, info and recipes.
www.vegcooking.com is pretty good too.

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I agree with this also. It’s easier if you eliminate one thing at a time.

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I know some folks who call themselves flexatarians. It seems like they are vegetarians when on their own but eat meat when it would be a special request for a host to provide a vegetarian option. That’s nice because it means they don’t need to get into discussions about their moral choices with relative strangers. Obviously wouldn’t work for everyone but it is one intermediate option other than going, err, cold turkey, err, whole hog, err the whole enchilada.

Check out the Moosewood cookbooks for great vegetarian recipes, especially their low-fat one and Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, which is a great education on various ethnic cuisines.

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As far as cookbooks, I’m a big fan of Veganomicon and Vegan with a vengeance

While I know you said you weren’t intending to go vegan, heck, I eat meat and I love these. New ways to cook all kinds of veggie stuff.
But I can’t help you with tips for switching to being vegetarian, though I’ll watch this thread, as it’s something I’ve been flipping over in my head lately.

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Read “In Defence of Food”. He comes up with 2 simple rules- “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables.” Much of the highly processed junk we eat isn’t “food” by his definition.

But Pollan does think you should eat some small amount of meat. There is absolutely no health reason to delete meat from your diet totally*. Nor are the worker’s rights or the environmental reasons very compelling.

  • there is a good reason to cut back. Us Americans eat too much meat.
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What exactly do you mean by this, out of curiosity? Does it mean “I tried bland, unmarinated soft tofu in a stir-fry and nearly gagged” or something like “I hate the taste of all soy, from Silk soymilk to processed ‘burgers’ to soy sauce”? Just wondering, because there are a lot of interesting soy products out there that can be a great addition to your diet.

I agree with the posters who said to do it gradually, since the transition has been causing you so much difficulty. I stopped eating pork and seafood when I went to college, because I disliked the exposure I’d had to those meats. Then I gave up beef after too many college cafeteria cheeseburgers. Finally, I was living in a house in college and only eating chicken, and that got boring, and I had a course in the moral/environmental/ethical/economic issues related to our interactions with animals - after that point it was easy to make the last step and give up chicken. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1992 or so. I still cook meat as my husband is an omnivore, but he’s given up beef 99% of the time for a couple of years now, and mostly eats lean meats.

Finding ethnic cookbooks that focus on vegetarian foods is a very good suggestion - go for a cuisine that you enjoy. I like Yamuna Devi’s book Lord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking is a thick and excellent cookbook on that subject. Also try Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian or World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking - she is most known for Indian recipes but those are highly-praised international collections.

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I gave up meat in one day and didn’t look back. It’s not impossible. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 22 years now. My biggest suggestion is to look for food you already like that is vegetarian, or that has vegetarian versions, rather than trying to change to strange "vegetarian food… for example, if you like lasagna, eat vegetable lasagna. If you like burritos, get a bean burrito. I get bean taco supremes at Taco Bell all the time, for example–they just replace the beef with beans. It won’t seem so hard if the food doesn’t seem weird to you, if it’s familiar food that you already know you like.

I also recommend trying various meat substitute products. They’re all so different from each other that not liking one really doesn’t make you any more likely to not like another. For example, I like Morningstar Farms “breakfast patties” (sausage) but dislike their links. Some of my favorites are Gardenburger “BBQ Riblets”, Morningstar Farms “chik’n patties” and either Morningstar Farms or Boca’s “crumbles” which can replace ground beef in things like spaghetti sauce and chili.

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I’m not too hard to spot over there. :smiley:

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One thing you’re going to have to watch out for, since this is a dietary change at least partly motivated by health concerns, is that you don’t end up eating a lot more fat and carbohydrates than before - many substitutes (in the broader sense of the word) for meat are heavy on these - cheese, for example, has lots of fat and pasta (I know it’s not a meat substitute as such, but it is true that some people use it to bulk out a dish in the absence of meat) is high in carbohydrates.
Nuts are fatty, some of the manufactured meat substitutes are just processed wheat dough or other starches.

Not that I’m trying to put you off - it’s just that you’re going to have to watch out for hidden fats and carbohydrates, is all.

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Grrrrr, whippersnapper!

I was a vegetarian for a couple of years but eventually gave it up. I don’t know if it will help you, but these were my pitfalls:

  • I tried to take my kids and husband with me, and they didn’t want to go. I didn’t know any other vegetarians, and pretty soon I felt like I was trying to save the animals all by myself and what difference does one person make anyway?

  • I also never felt that I was being true to my ideals. If I gave up meat, animals would still suffer if I ate cheese or eggs or butter etc. And being a vegan just seemed impossible!

  • I used to joke that I replaced the meat in my diet with cookies, but it was fairly true. I was eating terrible stuff and I lost a lot of weight and started looking real scary.

Lots of luck! I hope to become a vegetarian again someday and do a much better job of it.