The older I get, the more a vegetarian lifestyle appeals to me. It is not an easy change to make, especially when you are responsible for feeding a family who doesn't in any way, shape or form want to join you. So I was curious to find out how prevalent and how hardcore no-meat noshers are among TORn's members.
"I tried to become ... but I've lapsed ... will try again" means to me
[In reply to]
Can't Post
that I got a strange bout of constipation during a stressful period and the way I managed it was to avoid all dairy and meat products.
If it happens again, I will do the same thing.
I also have tried the vegetarian lifestyle. I don't mind what they eat and could easily do it. I have a few reasons for not going veg. though:
Animals eat each other. I have too many family members that aren't vegetarian and it's not worth the fuss to me during the numerous times that I visit them. I really like bacon, eggs, sausage, and fried chicken and I just don't find the vegetarian substitutes to be nearly as tasty or satisfying. Many vegetarian substitutes are so over-processed that I don't really think they are that healthy as alternatives. Food related illnesses are a risk for any food.
I do have some concerns with eating meat, though: That temporary allergy concerns me and I wouldn't eat meat or take drugs to allow me to eat meat when I can just not eat meat and not have symptoms. I don't like some of the down sides to the way animals get treated in certain meat industries. That needs to be watched.
in terms of lifestyle, there is kind of a mid point between full vegetarian (and where I'm from, vegan) and a fully committed carnivore.
That is, many people think vegetarians only eat vegetables and they (the fully committed carnivores) would have meat every day and perhaps at every meal.
Our family does eat meat. For one thing, we like how it tastes. But I went through a number of years (decades even) where I was significantly anemic. When first diagnosed, I was not 100% vegetarian but perhaps 85-90% vegetarian and ate very, very little red meat. No matter how much I increased my consumption of iron rich nuts and vegetables, I could not raise my iron count. I was trying supplements but even they didn't work and they are hard on the stomach. Finally, I increased my red meat intake and got my iron levels back up.
Now, about 65% of our dinners are meat free. More are meat free except for meat broth for flavoring (and with the increase availability of vegetable broth in the markets, they could easily go completely meat free). And eating meat for breakfast is rare.
Just this moment, I was contemplating the meals we have that are meat free (and could be vegan) to serve my sister and brother in law who will be coming to visit for a week. They are Seventh Day Adventist and eat no meat but that seems to manifest itself into a lot of meat like products (faux-hamburgers, faux-hot-dogs, faux-bacon, etc). And they seem to think that all we eat is meat. When they were shopping for us, they picked up a packet of pre cooked 'chicken flavored rice' that one would reheat in the microwave, I guess... because that's the kind of stuff meat eaters like. No, not us. I wouldn't touch that level of processing with a ten foot pole.
All of our non-meat meals are grain, legume, and pasta based. (We do eat cheese and eggs)
Bean burritos (with pintos cooked at home, we used canned only for emergency back up) Bean enchiladas Black beans and rice Black bean, lentil, or split pea soup lentil burgers toasted barley pilaf pasta tossed with steamed or roasted veggies and some good cheese (parm or feta, most often) Hummus, tabbouleh, and bean salads (some mayo based, some vinegar based) some tofu although the brand/flavor of tofu we all loved seems to be impossible to find now and none of us like what is available (note: I consider vegetables a necessity for any diet, vegetarian or carnivore. They are usually side dishes for us - or worked into stir fries - because otherwise, one tends to combine them with cheese to make a main dish and increasing cheese in an effort to decrease meat does not seem like a good idea to me)
For years, our dinners drew heavily on the Moosewood cookbooks (Mollie Katzen) and the Vegetarian Epicure cookbooks (Anna Thomas) and I still make many of those recipes.
But cooking those took a lot of time and when my kids were younger, taking an hour or more of chopping, stirring, etc in the kitchen was not very doable. My kids loved tofu and mashed pinto beans so that wasn't an issue. I just didn't have the heart for the amount of shopping, prep, cooking attention, and clean up that many of the recipes took. Now that the kids are gone/grown, I am reverting back to more of those recipes.
I don't think anyone should go vegetarian without understanding nutrition and nutrition components. I also used Adele Davis quite a bit in the 1970s to guide me but that may be outdated now. But one must combine grains and legumes to get full protein complements. I think one should monitor ones own health, especially in terms of women and anemia, and I would be hesitant to put kids on a vegetarian/vegan diet without feeling confident that I knew how to provide proper nutrition and monitoring their health.
If you are going to eat different meals from your family, you'll burn yourself out. If you're going to try to convince your family to eat what you think they should eat (when that means eating *new* things and quitting old favorites), good luck.
But I think that one can make compromises.
One can eat less meat - use it as a flavor instead of a portion.
One can try a variety of non-meat meals... try different cultures and flavors. They might hate tofu stirfry. They might love split pea soup. My son would be happy to eat our version of 'refrieds' (simply cooked from scratch pintos mashed) every day, even for breakfast. My husband is the same with split pea soup.
If your kids or old enough, you can have a few meals that are non-meat and let them substitute an approved alternate dinner that they get for themselves if they can't bear to eat it. I never made my kids eat anything. If they didn't like dinner, they could grab a peanut butter sandwich. But they had to get it. I didn't ever make them a separate dinner because I didn't think they'd like was I was cooking. I did, usually, have some leftovers in the fridge that they could grab, however.
I agree with you on the treatment of animals
[In reply to]
Can't Post
not only in terms of whether it's humane for them but in terms of how healthy it is for us. I've read some articles on the condition of animals sent to slaughter for human condition that concern me greatly.
At the moment, I don't let it keep me from buying meat but I have no excuse that absolves me from the consequences of my decision. And I don't have the funds to buy free range or whatever similar kind of designation.
I don't have a moral issue with eat in general, however.
In the wild, yes that's true. And it is absolutely essential if they are an obligate carnivore, like the feline family. But are humans? That's the crux of the debate and more than a few vegetarians would probably argue "no."
Getting proper nutrition can be a challenge in a meatless diet. I do try to integrate substitutions and reduced portions for many things and typically offer at least 1 - 2 veg meals for dinner every week. The black bean soup I made last night is a big family favorite, even with my cheeseburger-loving teenager. However, I have to wonder if it would continue to be if I no longer offered sour cream and grated cheddar as two of the toppings. As you mentioned, it is dubious whether replacing meat with an equal amount of dairy protein is all that healthy. As with most things in life, moderation is key, I guess. :-)
I've been fortunate in not suffering from iron deficiency given how much I've reduced (but not eliminated) the red meat that I consume. I love beans, though have never attempted fixing tofu. I also eat a lot of spinach and try to get a handful of raw nuts in my diet every day.
The bottom line may be that no one can safely make blanket statements about the advantages of a meatless diet. But this lifestyle has been around for far too long for anyone to claim it's all bunk. Yet for some individuals, as you discovered, it just may not be feasible. Perhaps when my youngest has left the nest, I'll finally be able to put myself to the test and see if it works for me.
Oh, and if you have any mashed bean recipes you care to share, send 'em along!
from wikipedia: The More-with-Less Cookbook is a cookbook commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee in 1976 with the goal of "helping Christians respond in a caring-sharing way in a world with limited food resources" and "to challenge North Americans to consume less so others could eat enough". The book advocates the consumption of more whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, the moderation of meat and dairy products and the avoidance of processed and convenience foods. The recipes, collected from Mennonite and other Christian families around the world, are intended to be affordable, nutritious and socially and ecologically responsible.
In general, the 'taste' of the recipes runs fairly plain. Nothing very spicy or overly seasoned. But there are some good recipes in there and one can always spice things up on their own. Many are vegetarian.
But more important, it shares a philosophy that appeals to me about how one views food. Low waste, for example. Also, they'll say... well, if you want to eat ice cream, why not make a big meal of ice cream with lots of toppings of fruit and nuts available... and then cut back on the savory part of the meal. I am not Mennonite but the philosophy of this cookbook really appeals to me (and it's really more than a cookbook).
You might be able to find it in the library to check it out. I have the spiral bound version which is easy to use and it's well stained. Always a good thing with cookbooks, imo.
anemia: I was not anemic due to diet. I had a medical condition - perhaps common to a good number of women - that caused the anemia. I'll leave it at that and just say that I didn't dread menopause. :-/
We have an old fashioned pressure cooker that I inherited from my mother. I use it to cook our beans from dry and it takes about an hour or hour and a half to cook them. (an hour to cook and half hour prep and come to pressure time).
When the beans are done, we ladle off the excess water and either mash the pintos (with an old fashioned potato masher) or just serve the black beans over rice. They are seasoned with salt but, other than toppings, there is nothing else. (Traditional refrieds would have one actually refrying the beans in fat to heat them up and enhance their flavor. We reheat as needed in the microwave although I tend to just put my beans in a no stick skillet and put a little water around them and reheat them on the stove)
Sour cream is a luxury we get once in while and it's always low fat which isn't that much higher in fat than full milk yogurt. But we also use just non-fat yogurt on our beans, burritos, etc.
Toppings on the burritos might be cheese, yogurt, salsa (watch the salt, though), taco sauce, and either pepperoncini or green olives. I suppose canned green chilis might be more authentic but I think they're too pricey and have to be eaten up quickly.
Instead of lettuce (the mainstay of many 'Mexican' restaurants, we used to finely chop cabbage and top the burritos or enchiladas with that.
If I'm making black bean soup, I retain all the liquid that the beans cooked in (yummy stuff) and either go with a Cuban-ish version of the soup or this sweet/spicy version that I realized makes me think of baked beans.
I've also done navy beans or great northern bean soup (and used to eat these ALL the time as a kid in Michigan) but, imo, the pork flavor (from a pork or ham shank bone) makes that soup. There's not much meat in it but there is meat broth.
I used to eat kidney bean salad obsessively as a kid (my grandmother's recipe) but we used canned beans for that and the canned kidney beans here in Minnesota give me terrible gas. I've tried cooking my own and researching the different types of kidney beans but I can't solve this problem.
I also like a multi-bean salad that I cobbled up from the Mennonite cookbook. It's actually a sugar/vinegar dressing for cole slaw. You heat the mixture (with some water) to boiling and pour it over the slaw. But I pour it over a big mess of beans (mostly canned for this) - pintos, black, kidney, garbanzo, limas ... whatever suits you - green beans, yellow string beans, onions and celery. I am the only person in my family that will eat this but I love sweet sour tastes.
I have made lentil burgers in the past - I think the recipe is from the Mennonite cookbook I mentioned elsewhere. This is just a legume version of tuna or salmon patties: lentils, egg, crackers. I love them. I've also seen and tried versions of homemade bean burgers but they tend to fall apart too easily and most of us would rather just eat the beans in an easier to manage form. If I wanted a meatless burger, I'd go with a commercial veggie burger.
It also occurred to me that the Mediterranean diet might be a mid point approach for your family. One of the leading proponents of this diet happens to be my brother-in-law (when I mentioned my relationship to him to a friend of mine who is an epidemiologist, she had a definite fan geek moment like we might with dear Richard.)
This diet does not eliminate meat but it pushes other things ahead of it, esp fish and it favors olive oil over other fats. Making some switches away from the kind of midwest US meat heavy sort of diet toward the Mediterranean diet might be a good compromise with or midpoint toward more vegetarian meals.
I guess, for me, I find value in non-meat meals. I find value in low-waste, eat in season and local eating. I find value in the Mediterranean diet. But I don't have the will power, the wish, and - to some extent - the income to fully embrace any of these as my 100% diet.
Beans are so good for you and with the right spices are very tasty - vegetarian or otherwise. They are also quite affordable!
I wonder if it is worth getting one of those pressure cookers - It takes hours to soak and if not soaked - hours to boil - and they splatter all over the stovetop!
Lentil soup is awesome - which reminds me that in general, beans are great in soup.
is, as I jokingly call it, "sliced dead cow". So the chance of me ever being vegetarian is pretty slim.
In all honestly, there are a whole lot of arguments for vegetarianism and the only one that truly convinces me is "I just don't like the taste of meat". Ok, I get that, there are quite a few things I don't like myself. But most other issues with eating meat can be fixed with buying responsibly (and locally), as far as I'm concerned. Save for the "you have to kill it to eat it"-argument which basically beats me. Because... well, I'm quite aware they don't come in handy pieces wrapped in plastic, so what's the big deal?
(This post was edited by Misto on Mar 1 2014, 9:40pm)
not having had to pay for mine... I would say it's not only worth it, but essential
[In reply to]
Can't Post
I also use mine for beef stew which, once everything is cut up, put in the pot, and the pot brought to pressure, takes 20 minutes to cook. If you swap out garbanzo beans for the potatoes and add a cinnamon stick (using a canned tomato base), you have a Moroccan style stew.
They sell some today that are way fancier than what I have which is a smallish (I would have liked a larger one when both sons were with me) basic model: http://www.gopresto.com/...ucts.php?stock=01241
There was a woman who competed on the recent season of "The Taste" that owned 7 pressure cookers.
The "you have to kill it to eat it" argument
[In reply to]
Can't Post
...registers with me. Animals have intelligence and character. If you eat meat, you assume responsibility for killing the animal, as much as folks prefer not to look beyond the neat, wrapped packages. And those animals have often (in the US, usually) been raised and kept in appallingly cruel and unnatural surroundings.
My husband and I became vegetarians in 2004, so it's been almost 10 years. A friend gave us the book, Becoming Vegetarian, which was very helpful, and we subscribe to Vegetarian Times, a bimonthly magazine with lots of wonderful recipes.
Since becoming vegetarian I have run several marathons and shorter races, participated in several stair climbing events (run to the top of a tall building!), and hiked many miles, so maintaining your health isn't so hard! In addition to beans, which several people mentioned, there are other vegetables and grains like quinoa that are good sources of protein. After all, consider: where does the protein in beef come from? Vegetables! Tofu is much scorned for being flabby and tasteless, but there are many ways to prepare it that are neither, and quite delicious (the secret is in the sauce & preparation).
I don't see a reason to be one. I like vegetables a heck of a lot, but I also like meat. Why would I get rid of something I like? What would the reason be for it? If I diet I usually go extreme and only eat low carb/cal vegetables and the same with or something. I don't really understand why people who like meat would become vegetarian unless it is for a diet plan, but even then there is plenty of non fatty meats. If it for the save the animal thing, then I'd happily vote for us to start eating human beings and donate my body after I die. Everything eats everything..it is just the way of the world. Plants are a form of life too, but people seem to think it is alright to kill and eat them all day and night as long as they aren't animals.
I eat meat/fish/eggs at one meal each day
[In reply to]
Can't Post
I don't need meat at every meal, but I find I feel better if I have that kind of protein at least once a day. I was vegetarian for five years but didn't feel as good eating no meat at all. When I went back to eating meat, I didn't eat red meat at all for many years, just fish & fowl. Then I was diagnosed with a condition that is related to lack of L-carnitine - an amino acid you can really only get enough of by eating red meat. So now I treat myself to beef at least once a week.
I only eat meat that is organic and free-range; I eat local as much as I can, which is quite possible here where there are lots of small family-owned farms.
I don't feel guilt about being an omnivore, any more than I feel quilt about living in a house instead of out in the wild.
See, but that's consumer responsibility
[In reply to]
Can't Post
In Reply To
And those animals have often (in the US, usually) been raised and kept in appallingly cruel and unnatural surroundings.
But here we're back in "buy responsibly"-territory. I don't buy meat in the supermarket where I haven't got a clue about its origins. Because, of course you are right with your statement, for the larger part of meat production. Maybe I'm just lucky to have a farmer at hand, but I have literally eaten the very animals I petted the year before, when they were turned in from the pasture for the winter.
From all I've read, eating organic free-range meat (which, as I said, is readily available to me where I live) is far better for my health than eating soy products.
back in 2007, the silly reason for me was that it was to support my best friend who also was becoming a vegetarian, as well as that the school I lived at at that point had very horrible meat-meals. So I ended up just picking of the saladbar in the year I lived there.
1 year ago my iron levels seemed to have gotten way too low, so my doctor convinved me to try and eat fish along with iron-pills, as it seemed the iron-pills I already took didnt do much really for me. Havent had a checkup since then becuse I had half a year of being homeless. But I do have an appointment at my new doctor next week to get taken a test to see how my ironlevel is now. I hope for the better.
Even though I eat fish, my food mostly consist of eggs, veggies and cheese [ only milk products I let myself eat, as I am lactose-intolerant.. But I have a huge love for cheese. ] and veggies/fruit, pasta and such. Reddest meat being salmon. The thought of eating other meat kinda irks me, took me quite a while to get used to fish again.
] and veggies/fruit, pasta and such. Reddest meat being salmon. The thought of eating other meat kinda irks me, took me quite a while to get used to fish again. 
1
