Any vegetarians/vegans out there? I need your help, please?!
What to eat instead of rice and peas and chicken on a Sunday?(!)
What to have at Christmas instead of turkey.
What if I get hungry on the road, and there is nothing for me to buy, ready made, that is not of animal content?
And how to feed kids that are already meat lovers, and are very fussy eaters as it is?
Also, during pregnancy, how would you keep iron levels up, without living on beans and iron tablets?
I'm almost ready to make the change, and have been eating organic and free range lately. But now I want to stop altogether, but don't want to have to go back to eating meat/products because the veggie stuff is hard to get hold of, or too expensive. And soy milk tastes awful, I won't drink it, so how can I expect my kids to? Thanks in advance, Taliya.
Answers: I am considering becoming a veggie, but have so many questions, like,
What to eat instead of rice and peas and chicken on a Sunday?(!)
What to have at Christmas instead of turkey.
What if I get hungry on the road, and there is nothing for me to buy, ready made, that is not of animal content?
And how to feed kids that are already meat lovers, and are very fussy eaters as it is?
Also, during pregnancy, how would you keep iron levels up, without living on beans and iron tablets?
I'm almost ready to make the change, and have been eating organic and free range lately. But now I want to stop altogether, but don't want to have to go back to eating meat/products because the veggie stuff is hard to get hold of, or too expensive. And soy milk tastes awful, I won't drink it, so how can I expect my kids to? Thanks in advance, Taliya.
Well, the only problem on a Sunday for you would be the chicken, right? Try a side of beans or curried tempeh, or something else that could stand in it's place. If you want to have something chicken-like there are also store-bought chicken-like (but completely vegetarian) chicken nuggets, chicken strips and the like from a company called Morningstar. I wouldn't rely too heavily on the processed store-bought stuff once you learn to cook with tofu, tempeh and seitan.
On the road? I've been able to find plenty on the road. Taco Bell is one place where you can not only get vegetarian but vegan options. Just ask them to substitute beans for meat in the taco/burrito/CrunchWrap, and tell them to skip the sour cream and cheese if you want to cut out dairy as well. Plus there's always french fries, veggie burgers (you can order veggie burgers at Burger King), salads... Plus you can take along plenty of snacks with you. Tortilla chips and guacamole, hummus and pita bread, trail mix.
When it comes to the holidays, there's lots of options. You can try to make your own meatless substitute or you can rely on store-bought stand-ins. There's some fantastic stand-ins for the turkey at the table, there's a brand called Tofurky that is available at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's that makes a turkey-like roast, complete with stuffing and gravy that is 100% vegan. It's really wonderful, especially if you're just transitioning and aren't so sure about making your own meat stand-ins for a major holiday. Tofurky is very forgiving and extremely tasty.
I won't dispense pregnancy advice, you should talk with a nutritionist and an ob/gyn how to nourish your pregnant body and your unborn child. Find out what you need to be focusing on and just find vegetarian sources for those things. Sometimes it's hard to conceptualize a healthy diet when you are just transitioning to vegetarian, so you need to do some reading about how to plan meals and how to get everything from the vegetarian food pyramid. I can tell you that I made it through a very healthy and happy pregnancy with my daughter as a strict vegetarian and my daughter is 1 now and remains happy and healthy.
I haven't had much experience with transitioning kids to a vegetarian diet but there are plenty of kid-friendly, delicious vegetarian and vegan recipes online. Here are some sites:
http://www.veganmania.com/index.php
http://www.vegetarianlunchbox.com/index....
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetaria...
Have rice and peas and some other kind of protein. You can make lentil loaf or buy the pre-packaged veggie "meats" which are an easy transition for people just starting out I guess. There's even a Tofurkey available.
Tofu gets a bad rap, but having no flavor of it's own it is very versatile. It will suck up whatever sauce you want it to. It can be eaten cold, warm, fried, baked. The options are limitless. If you freeze it before you use it it even becomes sort of spongey and chewy instead of mushy. We find frying it to be the biggest kid pleaser. Although our son likes it raw.
There are almost always veggie options available where ever you are. It is just a matter of informing yourself. Lots and lots of products just happen to be vegan even though they are not marketed as such.
I did take iron supplements while I was pregnant. But there are lots of veggies that have plenty of iron in them, too. I just couldn't keep any of them down!
There are many brands of soy milk and some are infinitely better than others!
Good luck with your new healthy, humane lifestyle!
There's no easy way out, but vegetarianism really isn't that hard. Learn to do interesting things with tofu, buy some vegetarian and vegan cookbooks and you will be amazed at how much good stuff you can get out of things that aren't dead animal carcasses.
As for the Sunday and Christmas traditions... drop them, they're Christian anyway, caring about your fellow beings (including animals) isn't.
Google search and you will find tons of stuff on ways around leading a perfectly healthy life without meat or animal products. (You may also be shocked at how bad it is for you anyway.)
Oh... and as for the price. I'm really quite sure none of the stuff is more expensive than meat. Just look around more, you will be amazed.
Good luck :)
For recipes for Sunday dinners and holidays: www.vegweb.com. It also has numerous resources for vegetarians and vegans. I'm not a fan of Tofurkey, so I don't recommend it. You can always do stuffed squash or tofu roast recipes with "stuffing." Robin Robertson's "The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes" cookbook has a great seitan pot roast recipe.
For dining options all over the world www.happycow.net and www.vegdining.com. Almost every place should have something you can eat. If there's a Chipotle near you, the black beans, tortillas, taco shells, veggies, and guacamole are all vegan. The pinto beans have meat in them. I believe the dairy ingredients are suitable for vegetarians (obviously not vegans).
But it's never a bad idea to have dried fruit, energy bars, and dry soup cups with you when you travel.
I'm childfree (well, my child is of the feline persuasion), so I can't give you much insight into the feeding fussy kids issue, but I know that Dreena Burton's cookbooks have information on how to feed kids, and you can also check out the Vegan Lunchbox blog by Jennifer McCann. There's also a website called Veg Family.
Keep trying different soy milks--Silk products are probably the best for drinking. Use the tetra pack and store-brand stuff for cooking and baking. Find a brand you like before giving it to the kids. One trick I've read is that you give them mostly cows' milk with a bit of soy milk and gradually increase the proportion of soy milk until they're off the cows' stuff.
My best advice to anybody about being vegetarian is do your research. Sit in fronmt of the computer and explore. Google vegetarian recipes, vegetarian lifestyle, vegetarian cooking, vegetarian african recipes, vegetarian irish recipes, vegetarian german recipes, vefetarian italian recipes. Get on to a website called cooking with Kurma and check out his cookbooks and really explore. Find recipes that are made using normal everyday meat recipes and changed to vegetarian. Get on to the Vegetarian website uk - just type it in and read up on their recipes. Purchase some equiptment like a crockpot, a mini griller/oven, a rice steamer - you will use them all the time.Go and check out all the vegetables and fruits available and dont be frightened to experiment. However dont force your kids to eat vegetarian if they dont want to this would be the surest way of making them convicted meat eaters and they wil hate you. Compromise. Good luck. On sundays I cook a vegetarian roast and I do have a 400 gram roasting meat or a small chicken for those that want to eat meat but my roast has roasted potatoes or jacket potatoes, pumpkin, corn, roasted beat root, yorkshire pudding with onion gravey, peas, beans, broccali, braised celery, cauli flower cheese, and any other vegies taht I might find and every body loves it and after a while no one wants meat.Good luck.
SoyaLife soy milk tastes exactly like cows milk and it's only 1% fat.
It's the only one I use.