Vegetarianism/veganism

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Are there any of you on WP.net vegetarians/vegans? While I am not one myself, I am interested to hear from you guys.

I'm shifting my diet away from meat for health reasons, so I would appreciate seeing any good advice posted here, too!

I've been thinking of going vegetarian off and on for a while now.

I'm a vegetarian. I quit eating meat for health reasons. I have to say that I certainly feel healthier than I did when I was eating meat. And I've gone so long without it that I don't crave it and watching people eat meat on television makes me feel grossed out.

There are tons of vegetarian food items that are made to taste like meat - burgers, bacon and even corndogs, which are three of my favorite vegetarian foods to eat. Campbell's also makes vegetarian soup and it's pretty decent. I also drink fruit and vegetable smoothies, eat salad and make BLTs with vegetarian bacon.

Oh, and I have a couple of vegetarian-friendly recipes I made up that I would like to share with you guys:

(be warned though that I don't have any measurements to provide since when I create in the kitchen I tend to just throw together what looks like the right amount to me ^^")

Vegetarian Goulash

Ingredients:

Three color spiral noodles

Black beans

Brown Rice

Vegetarian bacon

Ketchup

Barbecue Sauce

Instructions:

Make the noodles and brown rice.
Combine both in a large container with the black beans. Stir.
Apply ketchup and barbecue sauce liberally.
Make the vegetarian bacon (nuke it in the microwave until it's firm)
Crumple vegetarian bacon into mixture. Stir.

Nuke in microwave when ready to eat and enjoy!

Vegetarian BLT

Ingredients:

Vegetarian bacon

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Onions

Vegetarian mayonnaise

Bread

Instructions:

Cook vegetarian bacon.
Slice onions and tomatoes, enough to cover one slice of bread.
Take 2 slices of bread and toast them.
Spread vegetarian mayonnaise on both slices of toast.
Make a sandwich with all ingredients and enjoy!

Vegetarian Breakfast Surprise

Ingredients:

2 whole-grain waffles

Vegetarian bacon

Vegetarian corndogs

All-natural maple syrup.

Instructions:

Toast waffles.
Cook corndogs and bacon.
Put a layer of corndogs on a waffle
Top corndogs with a layer of bacon
Apply syrup
Top with other waffle and enjoy!



I'd really appreciate it if any of you tried my recipes and let me know how they taste!

How to cook black beans without them turning to mush or being crunchy?

Oh! I don't cook black beans from scratch; I always buy them canned and nuke them in the microwave. I probably should have specified that in my recipe. Oops. ^-^"

I'm mostly vegetarian. I've always had an aversion to most meats -- it's primarily a taste and texture issue, but when I was about 8 I happened to realize that I was eating a dead cow.... Now I find that I can eat certain types of fish on occasion.

Try lowering the heat and don't stir them too much.

Last edited by animalcrackers on 20 Jul 2013, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh...if you meant cooking dried black beans then I'm not sure (although I'd still advise not stirring them too much). How long do you soak them before you cook them?

If there is an easy way to be a vegetarian and get all the nutrition that I need, then I certainly would like to do that. But it seems that you need to make quite a lot of effort to do that at least until you know exactly what to do. I don't have any health issues that make me have to avoid eating meat. Besides, I'm already a fruit and veggie lover.

I just find the idea of eating dead animals gross, too. I'm somehow thinking more about that recently.

In terms of nutritional concerns, vegans (no eggs, no dairy) need to do some fiddling to make sure they get adequate calcium and B12 -- if you eat fortified-food it's not very hard (cereals sometimes have B-12, somet nutritional yeast has B12 added, and most non-dairy milks have both calcium and B12). A person could also take a calcium supplement and a B12 supplement instead of eating fortified foods. If a vegetarian eat eggs and dairy they probably don't need to worry about calcium and B12.

All types of vegetarians need to make sure they get adequate protein and iron, but that's not that hard to do if you eat nuts/seed and beans/legumes, and dark leafy greens.

Thanks, animalcrackers, for the information. I might start trying. I don't think I could give up eggs and dairy because I love cakes, cookies etc, which probably wouldn't be as nice without eggs, butter, cream etc.

I'm what I call 'fake vegetarian'.
I range between vegan/raw food vegan to eating fish/sea food.
Generally I don't eat fish or eggs or anything that used to be an animal, though dairy is OK by me. And I do stubbornly refuse to read the boxes of stuff, as far as I am aware there are no eggs is ice cream, pancakes etc. *ignores*.
As you might be able to tell, I'm not very adamant about my dietary lifestyle.

My main tip for anyone who are looking to go into vegetarianism is to maybe go slow.
Drop one thing (like cow meat then pig meat then pultry thenwhatever...) at the time, until you feel happy with your level of vegetarianism. It can be argued that just cutting down on your meat intake will improve health and lessen the strain on the worlds resources.

Another 'cheat' is to not go full vegan, but stay with dairy and maybe eggs. As long as you eat some of those every day, you will have a pretty good nutritional intake without having to think too much. (And I will make the presumption that you maintain a varied vegetarian diet, and don't eat cucumber only.)