Vegetarian :)
 

After Thanksgiving and seeing the whole "cooking the bird" situation, I've decided to become a vegetarian again! I was one when I was 11-15 or so, but my mom knew nothing about it so I ate pasta every night lol.

I know there was a thread on this, but any books, or sites I can go to, to get information on what to be included in my diet is appreciated!

I've been "meat-less" all week and it hasn't been too hard -- yet. I've never been a big meat eater but I know for sure I'll miss pepperoni :)

Congratulations! I feel so much better emotionally and physically as a vegetarian/vegan than I did as a "meat head." Sorry, I don't have any books or websites...I became vegetarian when I was 12 ish, and vegan when I was 16, so I kind of just did it on my own. I'll be really excited to see what other people have to suggest. :D

Thank you! I feel great about it! It weighed so heavy on my mind that I claim I'm all for the animals, but because I would just put that thought of what happens to those animals that are my dinner out of my mind -- I still ate meat.

So now I have a clear conscious and can't wait to see the health benefits too :)

Congratulations!:) You might have read on the other threads that I became a vegetarian after reading Skinny Bitch. It goes into some detail about nutrition. Here are some sites that have been helpful for me.

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/index.php
http://www.vegcooking.com/index.asp
http://www.vegdining.com/Home.cfm
http://vegweb.com/

I am eating way healthier as a vegetarian than I ever did as a meat eater. It's really not difficult at all. The only thing to watch is you vit.B12. You can get it through fortified foods (cereals, breads, etc) or just take a good multi vitamin- most people benifit from that anyway.

When I was veg I liked -
www.rawfoodtalk.com They focus on raw eating, but I found a lot of good recipes on there.

Congrats! That's great of you:thumbup: :) I was also a vegetarian when i was about 15 for a year. I became one because my older brother was one and i always followed in his footsteps. But i was always a huge animal lover and felt bad for the animals. I was thinking of becoming one again but im not sure. All i really eat is chicken, i don't like pork, beef that much.

I read the book Skinny Bitch tonight and it seriously changed my life. I'm going straight vegan after that, there is just no way I can go back!

I'm bookmarking all of those links! :)

I've been a pescatarian (I eat fish) for 15 years - and I've never really missed meat. You can still get what you need elsewhere. Have you tried Quorn products yet? YUM!!

Yay for Skinny Bitch!:cheer: The one caveat of that book is you can't be a sensitive person about swear words. The authors have a serious foul mouth but I thought it was really funny and made a very serious topic easier to read.

Please let me know what you think of the cookbook. I don't have it but maybe I need it.:p

What are Quorn products?

i was just cruising myspace yorkie links and found a link to a vegan webpage.. you know it is awful the way meat is processed but reading the info on this page made me rather ill.. oohh the poor animals!! my best friend is a vegetarian so that could help at social gatherings..

i am considering going veget or vegan...

i am going to go buy skinny bitch today

and of course do lots of research.

all i know is i never thought about how cruel the process is for laying the eggs !!!:(

this was the link i found myself at..
http://www.factoryfarming.com/

oh now at second glance.. nikki it was your yorkies webpage that i came across...

thanks.. i think i've eaten my last turkey burger..

Ive been vegetarian for about a year now - and im getting a little frsutrated. I feel like my choices are so limited....I wouldnt go back to eating meat - I cant even stand to look at it lol

Are there any products out there that you guys would recommend?

Sorry not trying to steal the thread here.... :)

I wish much luck to you!!

I did vegetarian for about 2 months. I decided last week not to do it anymore. I didn't feel healthy, I think because I was eating more crap than vegetables lol.

SO I've gone back to meat, kind of. I used to eat meat constantly but now I don't really crave it/desire it like I did. Its nice once in a while (I think I've had it once since I came off vegetarian), but I'm over the every day-ness.

I actually have gone Vegan so I definitely understand about feeling like choices are limited. I cant even really eat anything out because usually it's at least cooked in butter :thumbdown.

I've been experimenting with all the different meat substitutes to help get me through for now. Fake hot dogs, chick patties, boca crumbles, bacon, and vegan "cheese" for me :p

I also keep trying to mix up the veggies to try new things. I got this great magazine last night, Vegetarian Times because they also have a mix of Vegan recipes and it had some wonderful recipes!

I tried so hard to go vegan but so far I haven't succeeded. It's still a goal and I have cut back on dairy but ugh, it's hard! I would love any recommendations on veggie cheese. That's the one thing I haven't ventured into. I've given up butter and cow's milk but the cheese- so hard!:p Yay for you!:cheer:

I'm always trying to find good meat substitutes because my hubby is a meat eater and it just makes it easier for me cooking dinner. Here are the best one's I've found:

Boca crumbles- I make tacos with this and my hubby has no problem eating it. My daughter had a friend stay over and I made them and her friend said she couldn't tell the difference.

Garden Burger breakfast sausage patties- Yummy! I used this in our traditional Christmas casserole and no one knew the difference.

Garden Burger bacon- You wont fool anyone with this and it wont replace real bacon for a meat eater but I think it's really good. I crumble it in potato soup and it works great.

Boca meatballs- I haven't had these but my daughter says they're great.

The very WORSE fake meat I've had was the chicken tenders. I can't remember which brand but it's called meal starters and it looks like lttle white meat chicken strips. I had high hopes because it looks good. The texture and the taste is something like rancid chicken fat. Really gross!

We should all exchange recipes, that would be fun! I have a good 3 bean chili and a baked potato soup that I love. I've also been playing with different grains and have a good greek quinoa that I like.

I slipped for the week between Christmas and New Years with all the baked goodies and cheese trays, but then got sick so that was the end of my cheat :p even though I still miss those foods SO MUCH, lol.

The only one I've found that I can tolerate (and it's not amazing by any means, lol) is the Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheese in the nacho flavor. It melts decently, and I think all the spices give it a more cheesy flavor. I've tried the tofutti cream cheese and sour cream and I can't tolerate either unless they are incorporated into a meal like a soup or stew or something.

I absolutely love the Earth Balance whipped "spread", lol. It totally replaces butter for me. But, if you ever decide to get vegan mayo stay FAR AWAY from Nayonaise, it is the single most disgusting thing I have ever eaten (personally). The vegenaise w/grape seed oil is a lot better :thumbup:

I've been some kind of vegetarian for almost 15 years now...I did the vegan, the pescatarian, and ovo-lacto vegetarian diets. I started out ovo-lacto, at the age of 10 or 11, and then decided to go vegan. I kept vegan for a few years, but wasn't eating right-I got very anemic and protein deficient, and it wasn't healthy at all! In order to boost my iron and protein, I began eating milk, eggs, and fish. It helped a lot, because it made it easier to go out to eat or eat things that other people cooked,, easier to shop for groceries, cook meals, and above all it made me a much healthier person. In the last couple of years, I have started eating chicken (Tiny tiny pieces to start) again. It grosses me out sometimes, but I find it's hard to cook meals for myself and DH when he eats all kinds of meat, because I'm already limited as it is, and without some fish and poultry, it was boring and a hassle to eat foods that others have made or eat at restaurants.

I still won't eat turkey, pork, beef, lamb, or other kinds of meet. I don't like the way it makes my body feel, I don't like the way it tastes, and I don't like looking at it before it's cooked knowing that I'm going to eat it. I still have that problem a bit with chicken, but once it's cut up in a recipe it doesn't bother me as much.

One thing that I have found over the years is that my body has developed an allergy to beef, pork, and turkey. After so many years of never eating so much as a bite of one of these things, just a bit can make me seriously ill. (The doctors have told me that my body has stopped producing the enzymes needed to digest certain proteins. When I eat those proteins, my body can't process them, and it rejects them as a defense, which is what makes me sick.) Because of this, I can't pick the pepperoni off pizza and eat the cheese part, or flip my boca burger with the same spatula my DH has just flipped his hamburger with-just that much beef or pork juice can send me into the worst attack of vomiting, cramping, headaches, and diarrhea you can even imagine. The handful of times I've accidentally eaten meat, the reaction lasts 12-24 hours, and it's absolutely miserable.

I wanted to tell you all about my experiences, because the veggie road had more bumps for me than I knew about! As long as you take your overall nutrition into account, and make sure you're getting the correct vitamins, minerals, and adequate protein, you'll do great! You may want to consult a professional nutritionist and create a meal plan that will give you the nutrients you need, yet still be interesting and satisfying.

I'll look around for some recipes and come back later on and post for you!

I do still eat seafood so I guess I am actually a pescatarian but I say vegetarian since most people understand that better. I actually hope to give up dairy before seafood. I'm not sure if I'll ever give seafood up:p . I haven't had any problems with nutrition but I imagine once you give up dairy you have to watch it closer. I get a lot of my protein and iron that way. Other than those two things, what did you find difficult to get as a vegan? I've been shocked at how great I feel since giving up meat and I've lost weight without even trying.

I've been a vegetarian for about 7 years now and feel much better than when I ate meat. I noticed that I get less colds, etc too and feel healthier overall. I don't miss meat one bit. My daughter has now become a vegetarian as well. Her pediatrician recommends her eating an egg a day in addition to vegetarian soy products to get her protein requirements.

My husband and son are both big meat eaters and always will be. Dinner is usually prepared with potate/vegetables/pasta and a side of meat for them and an alternate side for us like vegetarian chicken.

We are still experimenting with brands but have Morningstar products to be decent as well as Dr. Praegers burgers (Italian, Bombay,California - all very good). The Morningstar chicken strips look like grilled chickn strips but we found you have to make them crispy for them to taste good, otherwise they are mushy. My daughter loves the buffalo chickn tenders by Morningstar too. Boca also puts out a spicy breaded chickn patty that she likes as well. The veggie hotdogs have been awful though. The veggie meatballs are very good and the veggie beef crumbles are great in tacos and recipes. We've even made veggie stuffed cabbage & stuffed peppers with it.

Good Luck!

You can certainly have a healthy diet that includes meat. Most people who choose to not eat meat do so for personal reasons. Feeling healthier is just a perk.;)

i heard that book is really good, i wanna read it.

I just saw you are 21. Trust me, you wont always think cheesesburgers and fries twice a week is moderation, lol. It sure is fun while it lasts though.:)

I would check out www.caloriecount.com. It's a website dedicated to eating a healthier lifestyle. There are a lot of vegetarian people on there and there is an entire section dedicated to recipes. Good luck!

It was really good! After reading about it on here from Nikki, I seriously had to get it. Then I read it and it was a hard read just because of the things it talks about in certain parts, but I'm so happy I got through it.

I just got two amazing Vegan cookbooks tonight -- Vegan Cupcakes To Take Over The World (they look amazing), and by the same author Veganomicon, which has tons of interesting different recipes. What's SO awesome about these books is they literally tell you how to do everything from how to cook veggies, grains, what you need, so many things that a clueless beginner like me needs to know :p :thumbup:

Those sound awesome, I'll have to check them out! I need my hand held with recipes like that too.

I wanted to bring this thread back because I decided to go vegetarian (pescatarian technically..but nobody knows what that means!) about 3 weeks ago. So far, so good! I was vegetarian for about a year when I was 17 and then my mom tricked me and fed me chicken, so I kind of let it go after that.

I went to Chillis the other night and tried they black bean burger and it was SO good! Even though the entire meal has like 650 calories (OMG!) it's incredible! So I decided to go and get the Morning Star Spicy Black Bean Burger (only 140 cal.) and it is SOOOO good!

I always feel like crap..every day I have no energy and I am always tired. I could stay in bed all day long if I didn't have to work! So I am hoping that this will help..only time will tell!