Veggie wanna be help please

**Robwen** · 09-10-2006, 04:22 PM

For many reasons including improving my health, how does one go from totally loving meat....all meat to veggie only eating? Baby steps or cold turkey???? Advice please

**Neeley** · 09-10-2006, 06:00 PM

When I quit smoking and quit eating meat I just went cold turkey. Going vegetarian does not mean you live off of salads and green beans. There are many soy based meatless products. Boca and Morningstar Farms are two of my favorites. The flavor and texture of them is a little different, but I like them and my family eats them as well. My son oves the soy burgers and my daughter loves the soy chicken nuggets.
It was not the easiest thing I have ever done. As a matter of fact, giving up a two pack a day, 15 year smoking habbit was easier than giving up steaks and fried chicken. I was told by my doctor that once I gave it up, if I ever decided to eat meat again the odds were my body would be unhappy. He said I would have a couple of weeks of a very sick stomach.
I cannot stand the smell of meat now.

**Robwen** · 09-10-2006, 07:38 PM

Ima give it my best!!! Where i live there arent a whole lot of veggie type foods that ive seen for sale. Walmart does offer a few as far as soy or tofo hotdogs and such...one health food store, but hey who wants to spend 6.00 of vegan mayo ahhhhh....anyway thanks a bunch!!!

**betharoo0** · 09-11-2006, 11:35 AM

I would say go little by little. Too because you really like meat. What helped me when I was veggi was to visit PETA website. they have a broc. on going veg totally free. I have to admit even though Iam not veg. anymore, meat sometimes REALLY grosses me out.
http://www.peta.org/
http://www.goveg.com/order.asp

**betharoo0** · 09-11-2006, 11:46 AM

OHHHH the site at go veg dot com is good!! I might add more meatless meals now to our diet! they have vegan menus and the meatless meatloaf sounds good with mashies and "brown gravy" these are good recipes!

**Dhatri Goddess** · 09-12-2006, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by Robwen

For many reasons including improving my health, how does one go from totally loving meat....all meat to veggie only eating? Baby steps or cold turkey???? Advice please

Hi there

Its really different for everyone. DH and I gave up meat overnight, but going vegan took about 6 months only because I was learning how to cook the same foods we loved using substitutes. All while doing that I was busy learning all I could about veganism/vegetarian, information is so powerful, the more I learned, the more I knew I had to give up these food items which after learning and seeing what I had, I no longer viewed them as food!

Some books that proved to be very informative and so very valuable to me are "THE FOOD REVOLUTION" by John Robbins "THE MAD COWBOY" by Howard Lyman and "MEAT MARKET" by Erik Marcus.

Two books I have not read but heard about after I went veg/vegan are "THE NEW BECOMING VEGETARIAN: The Essential Guide To A Healthy Vegetarian Diet" by Brenda Davis and "BECOMING VEGAN: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet". The author of those two books is a registered dietitian and nutritionist and she really knows her stuff

Also the internet was so helpful, I joined VEGGIEBOARDS and learned so much from everyone there!

VEGWEB has always been helpful for me when looking for meal ideas. I have a hugh folder of yummi recipes that I printed off their site.

Hope that helps and congrats on wanting to improve your health!!!

If you need any help or advice what-so-ever I'm here

oh, and feel free to PM me

**Maisiedotes** · 09-14-2006, 09:28 AM

I went cold turkey too- but I was never a big meat eater. I started off switching to veggie burgers, soy chicken, etc. Morningstar farms has some yummy stuff- the secret, I think, is to not expect a veggie burger to taste like a regular beef burger. I prefer the grainy ones- the MSF black bean burger is yummy and it is not supposed to taste like meat.

If you are like me, you will find that after a few days or weeks, you won't even WANT meat anymore. Good luck!

**redmaples** · 09-15-2006, 08:02 PM

Years ago I bought a cool little book called : For the Vegetarian In You (author 's last name I believe was Boyd). One of his suggestions was to contact a Seventh Day Adventist Church & ask about cooking classes. So I did & met some very lovely people. They didn't have cooking classes at the time, but said they could get some material together & we could start something if I could get a few people together. So I did & we did have cooking classes at a local church. I also joined their food coop for a while.
The neat thing is that now my kids are older & still sometimes we go to the vegetarian cooking class that is now held(not regularly) at the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They have taken friends before, also my parents go & they invite friends too. They love it because at the end of the demos & talks we get to eat a huge feast of awesome food. This is a great way for everyone to sample & find something that they like. Seeing the cooking demo shows that it isn't that hard to prepare vegetarian food. We have gotten some very good ideas for meals this way.
And, frugally speaking, this has been very good as they have not charged, but ask for a donation.
So, maybe contact a Seventh Day Adventist Church. Some places have vegetarian groups who hold potlucks, these are also very fun & good way to sample food. And meet great people!

Someone suggested a John Robbins book & I second that . My fav here is May All Be Fed: Diet For A New World, this has many good recipes
like sesame tahini noodles & curried potatoes.
Two recipes well liked by ALL her & that is not an easy task.

Good luck on moving to a vegetarian lifestyle, you will feel so good !!!

**pqb57** · 09-15-2006, 08:39 PM

We went cold turkey. We don't use the soyburgers or hot dogs, we mostly make stew and casserole type meals using legumes, pasta and rice. I went to the PETA site that betharoo mentioned and they have a free vegetarian starter that you can sign up for.

**Maisiedotes** · 09-26-2006, 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by pqb57

We went cold turkey. We don't use the soyburgers or hot dogs, we mostly make stew and casserole type meals using legumes, pasta and rice. I went to the PETA site that betharoo mentioned and they have a free vegetarian starter that you can sign up for.

That is definately the more frugal way to go- if you buy in bulk (dry beans, rice, etc) you could do your own veggie burgers... I make alot of stuff out of things in the cupboard- usually a protein source like beans, tofu, or seitan, a whole grain (quinoa, wild rice, etc) and whatever veggies we need to use up. Then I season it with whatever goes with it... for example:

black beans
brown rice
zucchini and summer squash
salsa, cumin

It is a great way to use stuff up!