Right now I do eat meat, but Im a huge animal lover and I want to go vegetarian, and someday vegan. I've tried before but I always fail. I know zero recipes for vegetarian/vegan food, and it seems like every time I try, I gain weight (I know its weird but I cant eat alot of carbs, I pack on the pounds when I do). I know I should think of the poor animals, and I do, but in the environment im in, its really hard to NOT eat anything with meat in it. Also, I was vegetarian for about 2 years and I gained a lot of weight, and lost a lot of hair. Did anyone else have this problem?
So how can I go from eating meat, to being a vegetarian, but remain healthy (and not bald)? What are some things I can do.....and also, where can I find great recipes for vegetarians /vegans?|||you're talking about a major life change, you cant expect it to take place in one night. If you're really having a hard time with it then take a different approach, like one at a time. example- first cut out all beef. When you've gotten to the point where you're no longer craving beef, and have substituted other foods for it, then move on to a different meat, such as pork...so you're no longer eating beef or pork .....when that becomes habit.....cut out chicken. ....etc etc. It may take a few months but its the best way to ensure that you dont "Fall off the bandwagon", if you will.
Im guessing you gained the weight maybe because you went from eating alot of meat to eating a LOT of carbs , as a filler for the meat you used to eat. You need to find a healthy balance. carbs, fruits, veggies, etc.
Also for the hair thing, you need to find a good vitamin/supplement you can take, and also make sure that you're getting other sources of protein. (consult a doctor about your new eating plan if you can, he'll help you fill in the gaps).
Some foods you can eat as a vegetarian
cheese pizza, mac %26amp; cheese, toast, grilled cheese, any kind of pasta, any fruit or vegetable, cereal, a ton of different kinds of soup, veggie burgers, green bean casserole (green beans + cream of mushroom soup in a baking pan, topped with a can of those crispy onion things, baked for 30 minutes), peanut butter, jelly, rice, pancakes, waffles, potatoes,salads ...etc etc. Meat actually makes up a very small portion of the food groups..so theres really no limit to what you can eat that doesnt have meat in it|||you can eat everything you used to eat but without meat.
spaghetti with a yummy sauce
lasagna without meat
pizza with extra cheese and vegetable toppings (tastes sooo much better without dead animals on top)
oatmeal
peanut butter sandwiches
macaroni and cheese
salad
rice
veggie dogs
yogurt (make sure it's gelatin free)
smoothies
chocolate soy milk (silk is the best brand. it has the creamiest soy milk)
if you want some frozen foods, lean cuisine has some delicious pizzas without meat that you can put in the microwave, and theres a brand called amy's that makes delicious seitan. If it's found in my town's supermarket, then it's found in yours. Probably in the organic section.
If theres any more questions, email me at neuroticxchemical@hotmail.com
Make sure you're getting everything you need. Take a multi vitamin daily.
And at first if you feel like eating meat, think of dead rotten, bloody animals in your food. Knock off your craving fast.|||http://www.vegan.com/|||stay away from the processed crap! most foods can be vegetarian but that doesnt make them healthy. most pre-packaged foods are loaded with salt, sugar, and preservatives that arent healthy. you cant use not eating meat as an excuse to eat other junk... just because you dont eat meat doesnt mean you can eat french fries and candy and be healthy! i've actually lost weight like crazy since going veggie. i eat mostly fresh fruit and veggies, rice/pasta, canned/cooked fruits and veggies. my "junk" food is popcorn, sherbert/sorbets (ice cream is filled with fat and sugar), tortilla chips with salsa, crackers, and peanut butter. try to get brown rice because white rice has no real nutritional value. right now i still use some animal products like milk occasionally, cheese, and yogurt but i'm making the transition to vegan slowly. the key with staying healthy is variety!! you have to eat many different foods to get all the nutrients your body needs. to make the transition easier you can try meat alternatives. i find that most of them are pretty tasty! here are some links to recipe sites
www.goveg.com
www.vrg.org
www.vegkitchen.com
www.vegweb.com
www.vegcooking.com|||Vegans are vegetarians, but vegetarians are not vegans.
Being a vegan is not more healthier then vegetarian, dont buy into that argument. There are pros and cons both to being a vegan and not as far as nutrition goes.
Its really a personal choice more then anything to be a vegan and most who choose to be vegan do it for ethical reasons.
If you choose to be vegan you will need to watch your diet very carefully because it will be hard to get your rda of all your vitamins and minerals being vegan if you do not.
Be sure you are are getting plenty of b vitamins, calcium, iodine, and iron. Make sure you are getting the rda and not to little or to much; the rda is what you need.
How do you transition? Here's a guide, its a three step guide to transitioning to vegetarian eating.
http://www.tryveg.com/cfi/toc/?v=06makin鈥?/a>|||my advice is to eat real food
like fresh fruits and veggs, you don't have to cook your vegetables or fruits, just eat them
and if you have to cook, steam it
keep it simple, you would have to learn to be a not picky eater, or you can be a very picky eater and a great chef, it's up to you
tips?
soy milk, tofu is your friend
and rice
rice is very filling and low fat, low carb, all the carb in rice is good carbs, so no worries there, good luck dude|||First things first,
Go slow... gradually let go of meat in your diet and eat healthy and the trick is to have a variety of vegetarian food. Take a good mix of vegetables, grains and fruits. Dont pack on the carbo.
Probably you had stuck to one type of food which had caused the weight gain and lost out on proteins and vital vitamins causing your hair lose. Have a balanced diet ensuring that you have all your protein, carbo and veggie.
The following sites contain great vegan recipies:
One more tip, be adventurous and try out your own recipies and experiments on the dishes.. you'll never konw what you'll discover...
http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Everyday-C鈥?/a>
http://www.vrg.org/recipes/
http://www.recipesource.com/special-diet鈥?/a>
www.vegkitchen.com
www.vegweb.com
www.recipezaar.com/recipes/vegetarian|||eat lot of veggie and little rice as they contain carbs.this website is a food searching website|||I'm a vegetarian and so is my son, who's 2 (we're both very healthy). I usually eat whole-grain cereal with soy-milk and a piece of fruit for breakfast. For lunch, sometimes I'll make a veggie sandwich on whole wheat bread (any veggies you have on hand - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, carrots) plus some hummus for protein. For snacks throughout the day, I eat soy yogurt or fruit. For dinner, I eat something different every night. Some ideas - a veggie and tofu stir fry, a vegetable lasgna, veggie burgers, quesadillas, burritos. Once you get used to it, it's not hard to not eat meat. I don't even think twice about it anymore (I've been a veg for 5 years). Also, get some cookbooks to help - I love "Veggie Planet" by Didi Emmons, also, "The Idiots Guide to Becoming Vegetarian" is great.
Hope this helps and good luck!|||You know, your body just might not be set up to be on a vegetarian diet. Maybe you could try limiting meat, and only getting it from humanely raised sources (and fish, of course).
You might also have wheat problems. Try limiting that, sticking with high-protein items like tofu and edamame and shiitake, and lots of veggies and fruit.
I love the Moosewood cookbook for vegetarian food, but it is rather time-consuming for most items.
Try not to beat yourself up, and keep experiementing and trying to learn new ways to cook vegetarian -- you'll get there eventually, and every piece of meat you don't eat is one more good thing for the animals.|||You need to be aware of how many calories you are taking in. The only way to maintain weight or lose it is to consume the same or less calories than you burn. Carbs have less calories than fat, so if you eat the right carbs and the right fats, you won't overload and start gaining. The more fresh and raw fruits and veggies that you eat, the lower your average calorie intake will be. You need to make sure that you are eating a balanced diet that is rich in whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables.
There have been vegan Olympic gold medalists and a vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis
http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada鈥?/a>
Here are some more veg people:
http://www.mikemahler.com/index.html
http://www.vegetarianbodybuilder.com/ind鈥?/a>
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=b鈥?/a>
http://www.andreascahling.com/andreas-ab鈥?/a>
http://www.billpearl.com/career.asp
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-23鈥?/a>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Danzig
http://www.scottjurek.com/career.php
http://www.nfl.com/players/rickywilliams鈥?/a>
http://www.brendanbrazier.com/raceresult鈥?/a>
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I'm vegan and these are some of my favorite things to eat:
Breakfast: bananas, cream of wheat with brown sugar and soy butter, cereal, pancakes or french toast with real maple syrup, vegan "sausage" patties, smoothies.
Snack: BRUSSEL SPROUTS =) no joke
Lunch: vegan "sausage" sandwiches, sandwiches with vegan deli slices(Tofurkey is the only one that's kinda funky), fruit, dinner leftovers, couscous salad, vegan sushi, potato or pasta salad.
Dinner: sloppy joes, "sausage" and gravy with homemade biscuits, Spaghetti and Trader Joe's "meatballs" or TVP, lasagna, Thai pad see ew, pad khi mao(drunkard's noodles), pad prig king, tofu+eggplant with basil sauce, yellow thai curry with tofu or vegan chikn and veggies and jasmine rice, Indian dal with homemade roti or dosai, channa masala, aloo gobi, vegetable or minestrone soup, pizza, STEAMED "PORK" BUNS with potstickers or spring rolls, sweet%26amp;sour/orange/lemon chikn, vegan pho or wonton soup, baked tofu, BBQ homemade seitan (tastes like BBQ'd ribs), kabobs
I use these sites to find recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com
http://vegweb.com
http://www.recipezaar.com
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If you want to become a lacto-ovo vegetarian, the transition should be quite simple. Almost all meats have widely available commercial replacements. All that you have to do is replace any flesh in your diet (beef, pork, poultry, seafood) with meat analogs or just leave it out altogether.
You should keep in mind that a journey such as this can be quite short but should just be the beginning of a longer one to a plant-based diet with no animal products. This is because of the reality of factory farming in which animals that are kept alive to produce milk, eggs, etc suffer much more and longer than animals that are raised to a certain weight and then slaughtered.http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/
http://meat.org
Some people use the word "vegan" in reference to this idea, but be aware that applying that label to yourself should always come with the inclusion of wise activism and advocacy.http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/in鈥?/a>
Two extremely important examples of this are that you should never speak to someone about vegetarianism/veganism without their consent and genuine interest or as a comment on what they are eating AND your dietary beliefs should never be used as an introduction or explanation of who you are as a person. Veg*ism should be something that comes up AFTER people get to know you and they offer you a situation that makes it confusing to withhold the information/discussion. Also, if you are presented something that you choose not to eat or you are
ordering food/eating together somewhere/picking the best place to eat.
When you you hold off on the subject until it's necessary and then act like it isn't a big deal at all, people are usually surprised and WAY more interested and curious than if you were to bring it up when someone's eating or just using it as a conversation starter.
A responsible vegan ALWAYS studies the subject of their own health and how to keep their body completely provided for in every sense. http://www.veganhealth.org/sh
To neglect their body is to define a plant-based diet as unhealthy and is the opposite of helping the animals.
Just to clear things up, the vegetarian/vegan diet is not composed of salads, vegetables, fruit and fake meat. Fruits and vegetables are always important but they DO NOT make up the largest portion of any healthy diet.
A balanced plant-based diet includes grains(breads, pasta, rice,cereal), legumes(soy, beans, peas, lentils), fruit and vegetables.
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/f鈥?/a>
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/ea鈥?/a>
Being vegan can be an art, one whose challenge is to take things that involve the suffering of the innocent and change them into something free of cruelty.
A vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.
Technically the term "vegetarian" does imply that you don't consume anything that comes from the body of an animal that requires killing it. Many ingredients such as gelatin and glycerin are found in many candies, Fig-Newtons, and many of other foods as well as rennet found in many cheeses.
http://www.happycow.net/health-animal-in鈥?/a>
The best thing to remember is to take your time so that for example: when you are comfortable not eating beef and pork you can then give up chicken when you are sure you can make the commitment permanently.
Depending on your age or reliance on parents or regional options, it may not be best to give yourself a label. The important thing is to do your best to make progress and be committed to your compassion towards animals. Never put your focus onto what you or other people use to describe yourself.
If you meet someone that talks down to people for eating meat, dairy, etc or to you because they think they are "more veg" than you, laugh in their face and tell them they are a disgrace to the entire philosophy. People like this only hurt the idea of veg*ism AND the animals. The point of all of this is to live compassionately and and as free from cruelty as you can, all the while maintaining your health and a positive attitude. People who don't maintain either, need not open their mouths and represent our beliefs.
If you actually choose to read all of this, I hope it helps. If not, feel free to e-mail me if you have questions.
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There is a Japanese analogy/proverb that goes like this, "The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down". People are like this everywhere. When you tell your family that it is your personal belief that animals should not be eaten, they take a look at themselves and it can be subconsciously translated into, "What you do is wrong and I choose to be right."
Your parents have probably been taught a huge amount of misinformation by their parents and their teachers while growing up. You really need to research vegetarian diets and health before you even think about saying the "V-word" in front of your parents or anyone else.
When you have gathered enough information and feel confident in a vegetarian diet's ability to maintain or even improve health, you may mention to them that you have made the decision. They may be shocked, angry, worried, curious or many other things, but you must NEVER react to their behavior and always stay calm. If they are able to speak to you and respect your choice, please tell them everything and answer all questions. If they are rude, inconsiderate, judgmental, violent, or verbally abusive, refuse to continue any conversation until they can speak to you with respect.
The best advice is to study everything that you can about a healthy vegetarian diet and keep yourself in good shape (better than most people your age or than your friends/family if possible). If nobody that you know shows a genuine, positive interest in your choice, don't give them the privilege of the knowledge that you have gathered. Work your way around any attempts they make to trivialize your beliefs and if possible, go shopping with your parents and buy things that aren't obvious veggie fare. Instead of trying to sneak fake meat into the cart, toss in lentil soup, peanut butter, pasta, fruits %26amp; veggies or anything else that you have learned is needed to fill any gaps in your diet.|||Prob not the most scientific medical way approach... but I quit meat cos I didn't like it and haven't gone back to it for 8yrs (mammal meat) 6yrs (sea foods)
In the initial stages, I simply avoided meat dishes and found myself picking meat bits out of foods if eating out. I didn't make a big thing out of it (like change the way I cooked or ordered) so it was an easy change.
Within a few weeks, I could literally SMELL the meat in sauces, stocks etc and it really put me off. That was when I started cooking differently. Again it was easy, I simply substituted meat based sauces %26amp; stocks with vegetarian sauces. It didn't change the way I cooked nor ate.
By omitting the meat dish in my meals, I would have to substitute it with something cos I would still be hungry.
I started craving specific foods, I still believe the body tells you what you're missing. I actually wanted beans, tofu, spinach etc. (I still eat eggs %26amp; dairy, these I very occassionally things I craved too.) I have never craved meat, which is why I have no desire to eat it.
If you need recipe ideas, do a search, you'll find tons and simply omit the meat, you can make anything vegetarian. My diet is supper varried, I eat much bigger variety of foods and dishes then my meat-eating husband.
I snack on sweet tomatoes %26amp; fruit. I really like tofu, beans %26amp; cabbage so it's easy for me to snack on that too. I don't do carrot sticks etc... yuk boring!
I make lot of vegetarian soups %26amp; stews, pumkin, brocolli etc which are so easy to make, throw everything + garlic %26amp; onions in a pot and stir fry, add veggie stock, season, boil till veggies are soft and blitz with a hand held blender.
I make a variety of breads, rice, pasta, chinese noodles. Stir fried %26amp; steamed veggies, veggie pies %26amp; quiches. I cook with seitan (wheat gluten). I make asian dishes like curries %26amp; herbal soups %26amp; also simple italian style pastas with white wine, tomato or just olive oil sauces.
I've been very healthy, have never had a cavity in my life, all my hair! etc...
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