How do I become a vegetarian as a teen without spending all my time cooking?!
Answers: I am a teenager who wants to become a vegetarian. My family is fine with it, but they eat chicken frequently, as well as red meat sometimes. Stupid question perhaps, but is there anyway to do this without cooking an entire meal for myself every night? I have one friend who is a veggie, but she eats pre-packaged microwavable meals every night, which I don't want to do. I understand the basic nutritional stuff, but I don't have a lot of time in my evenings to spend an hour slicing and dicing veggies. Is there any way of becoming a vegetarian without spending a lot of time cooking?
I'm 14 and my family all eats meat too. I'm not sure what your family does but my mom always makes a meat, vegetable and a carb like mashed potatos or a noodle thing. I make a can or beans or some kind of protein ( i do not eat tofu or fake meat) and I keep it in a container in the fridge and it lasts about a week. Sometimes if they make chilly or something that i cant eat i put a vegetable or spinach lasagna (which ever we have) in the oven (usually they eat chilly for a few days) and the lasagna will last for about 3 days. Or I eat macaroni & cheese once in a while. I also make a veggie wraps sometimes with peppers and shredded lettuce and tomatos and if u eat dairt some shredded cheese, shredded carrots sliced onion and i wrap it in a tortilla you can put what ever you think would be good on it. You can heat up a can of cambells Vegetarian Vegetable Soup. Or on a sunday you can make a vegetabel stirfry with green peppers red peppers tomatos you can basically add what ever you like. and put it over rice and heat it up and have that for a few days and you could put some soy sause on it
I'm a vegetarian and I'm 15...so do u think I cook? no wayy! look my family is a verrry anti veggie familyy they eat a lott meat..but since im vegetarian they buy and cook 4 me ;D ask ur mom 2 cook for u ;)
There are several great meat subsitutes! Morning Star Farms makes "fake" or vegetarian sausage, chicken patties, chicken wings, burgers, hot dogs, etc etc! Most of those are in the frozen aisle. You can just snag up one of those and microwave or pan-heat them and eat the same sides as your family. Its not so much pre-package as you'd think.
Another option is to just grab a package of tofu, cook it with some veggie broth and herbs and then portion it off for the week. One package of tofu probably holds 4 portions - so cook one night, have a main-protien dish for 4 nights.
Another good option for protien-based main dishes are beans. Beans are a great source of nutrients and protien and they are easy to heat up from a can with some herbs for taste.
Becoming a vegetarian is just as easy as eating meat. You have to cook no matter what! But, just as with meat, you can make meals in advance so you spend fewer nights cooking, but each night can still be healthy.
Yes, there is. You can buy meat substitutes from Boca and Morning star farms and they don't take long to make at all...like 15 min. Also you can buy steaming bags in the freezer section that have veggies already in the bag! I hope this helps! If you have any other questions go to my website:
http://web.sitecube.com/veggiequeen/
I hope this helps!
Happy 2008!
Who says you have to cook anything? The great part about fruits, vegetables, dairy products (that's vegetarian, not vegen, right?), and some grains, is that you don't have to cook them. Bell peppers have become a favorite snack of mine recently. Just take a few big bites out of them, it's very refreshing.
Really the only things I can think of that you actually NEED to cook are noodles and rice.
By the way, tofu is not a meat substitute (at least, for flavor). It tastes nothing like meat and nothing you could ever do would make it taste like meat. It make a great pudding though, from what I hear.
Out of nosiness, what's your reason for going veggie?
that's one thing about being a vegetarian, you have to be able to cook up a meal and not depend on others. to make it easier, you can eat some of the sides (if available) that your family prepared, and then make something else to go with it that you might like, instead of making a full meal by yourself. stir fry is another option. its really easy and quick and you can make it to suit you. you can eat the left overs also if you really dont want to make it every night. but thats part of the deal, not everyone is going to want to go out of their way to make a vegetarian meal (unfortunately). but the microwavable meals are another source you can use too.
Good for you for thinking carefully about your choices, and realising that just because you wont be eating meat, doesn't automatically mean you'll be following a healthy diet!
It should be easy enough for you to eat extra of what your family is eating, and, if need be, add some egg (101 ways to cook an egg!), or a little pasta dish, which you could whip up every two or three days and keep in the fridge. I stopped eating meat at 11, and never found it hard to eat with my family, who all eat meat. My mum wouldn't stand and cook separate meals for me, which was fair enough, but she supported me, and always made enough for me to have extra non-meat things.
If you are old enough to decide to become a vegetarian then you need to be prepared to feed yourself. Your family is already buying the ingredients and you should be thankful that they are supporting you to that extent.
You must learn to cook. If you start relying on prepared foods, you have lost the battle of staying healtny. I suggest that you work with your mom to try to help her cook some meals that you can eat and make some other meals in advance on the weekend.
A few nights a week you should eat something simple like a salad, or Can of chickpeas sauteed in olive oil, garlic and chili powder. Peanut Butter will become your best friend too.