Thinking of going vegetarian
So...I know many of the mamas here are vegetarian or vegan. Due to my recent development of kidney stones I know that cutting out meat would be beneficial for this specific problem, and not to mention a gazillion other problems that might pop up along the way. But, once you experience something personally, THEN you realize the error of your ways. Ah, well, better late than never.
Anyway, I'm a bit nervous about it. I'm probably still going to include the occasional fish dish, but I'm concerned about the best way to "break myself in". I've never "deprived" myself of any certain food group, and I live in Texas where meat is served morning, noon, and night and in very large quantities. My fiance has talked about going vegetarian once we move to New York, as food will be more accessible, so that support will be helpful. I'm thinking of slowly bringing Li'l Bug into the fold as well, but I don't know how good it is for 2-year-olds? I'm totally clueless to the whole thing. And I'm also worried about the finances. A good variety of health food is pretty pricey around here, and I am really not into tofu...so, the only other substitute meats I know of is Gimme Lean and tofu dogs (which are okay...but how many hotdogs can one eat in a lifetime?) My roommates back in Minnesota are vegetarians, but that was over four years ago and they had much easier access to organics and what-not being in Minneapolis. Sorry I'm so clueless and ignorant to the whole thing, but I'm ready for a change, ladies, and I have no idea how to go about it.
I had a friend who managed to stay vegetarian during the 3 years he lived in Texas. (That was Austin, though.)
I've been vegetarian for about 15 years. I stepped into it gradually, cutting out certain foods in small steps. Beans, eggs, cheese, nuts, and soy are my main sources of protein. (Although you might want to consider cutting dairy if you have issues with kidney stones.) I also take a vegetarian iron supplement.
I wasn't crazy about tofu at first either, but it can be good with the right recipe. Try stir-frying it to get it really firm and use the same sauces you'd use for a meat dish. I also like it stir-fried with hot peanut sauce and served with brown rice.
My 2-year-old son eats a small amount of animal proteins -- wild salmon and/or local free-range chicken once a week at the most. (My non-veggie husband cooks and serves it.) Other than that, he eats what I eat and he's strong as a tiger. There are some mamas here who are raising their kids totally veggie and are doing fine, too. I'm sure they'll have good tips for you.
Thai and Indian restaurants should have a good selection of vegetarian meals.
We keep the expenses down by shopping at local farmer's markets for produce. Many of the products we used to buy at Whole Paycheck are available at the regular grocery store, too.
Good luck to you!
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- Carson Kressley
tofu sour cream, whipped cream, rice ice cream (we just made "rice shakes" this afternoon and they were awesome), soy ice cream (the chocolaty ones with all the cookie~yummy type stuff in it is so good)
I don't do the dishes, I throw them in the crib.
-Courtney Love
It's my experience that a veggie diet is actually a lot cheaper than a meat based one--you don't need all the pre-packaged stuff. I've been veggie for...12 yrs, and just in the last year started eating some pampered chickens, ds 9 was raised veggie and is very very healthy. to learn about it I'd recommend getting a really simple book or two--there's one marketed to teenagers that I really like for spelling it out simply and clearly, and the title is something self evident like, vegetarianism for teens or something. the biggest thing to watch for is iron and b vitamins...I'd recommend supplements there..flax seed or fish oil, and there's a good liquid iron/b supplement at vitamin stores. Other than that, look at what you like to eat and have it sans meat and start incorporating all that healthy beans/tofu stuff a little at a time as you learn to cook it. enjoy!
If I can do it so can you! I've been a veggie since I was 16 (I'm now-gulp-33). I grew up in a rural American household where meat and potatoes were the only two food groups, and since going veggie I have lived all over the world - rural and urban. Eating veggie and well is not hard once you get your mind around it. And it can be done cheap too (fresh veggies, dried beans, and dried grains are all inexpensive if bought in season/bulk and unprocessed - its ready made/packaged foods that are pricey). One of the biggest things to get over is thinking that you need to eat tofu/meat substitute at every meal. I rarely eat these things anymore. vegetariantimes.com has some easy/user friendly info and their mag/cookbook have good recipes. Feel free to pm me if you want more info. Good luck!!
I'm not vegetarian myself but both my girls have such severe allergies, I've been forced to buy some Tofu and Quorn products myself and have found them to be pretty tasty. Quorn is a mixture of mushrooms and Quorn but really does taste like chicken. If you're in New York, Whole Foods carries it pretty reasonably priced. Also, as long as you provide enough protein (lentils, beans, etc.) for your toddler, they will be fine. Annabel Karmel is a chef that specializes in kids food and some of her books have great vegetarian recipes. Good luck!
Get yourself a couple good books. "raising vegetarian children" is a good one if this change will affect your dd (and yes, mine is veg, veg pregnancy, veg breastfeeding...and she's big, healthy and beautiful. And we won't have to have that horrible conversation where she finds out I've been feeding her the dead bodies of the beloved characters in her books.....
But, you do need to be educated, or you probably will not come up with a very healthy diet on your own. Meat subsitutes are NOT a daily option for health. Tofu can be really good...don't discount it. You have *no idea* how many things you can do with it where you don't even notice the texture...whatever (and I have fed tofu to some SERIOUS meat and potato people)
Beans, lentils, WHOLE GRAINS, veggies...these should make up the bulk of your diet. Try making chili without meat. Serve with cornbread. (very important: incorporate whole grains whereever you can. Whole wheat pastry flour is great for baking. They make whole grain pastas. Use brown rice. You will be getting a lot more nutrition this way)
Tofu fajitas are a favorite for me, especially if I am introducing a skeptic to tofu. Get the firm, refrigerated tofu (that non-refrigerated stuff in the box is generally for pureeing, I think.) Fry it up like you would chicken (I like to add a smidge of liquid smoke, maybe some white wine) add your fajita seasoning and veggies like onions and peppers, even zuccini and brocolli! Served with beans and all the other fixings (cheese, avacado...) you are going to find tofu is really versatile good stuff. This is an awesome way to serve it.
By the way, most 2 year olds (or at least most one year olds) will like tofu straight out of the container. It is good to them. So don't assume the little one shares your bias.
what part are you in? Do you have an HEB? they are actually pretty good (but not great) for vegan stuff. Seriously, if you're going to be a vegetarian and not vegan it is pretty easy. Morning star farms makes really good mock chicken patties that we can't eat because of the egg 
My absolute favorite cookbook is La Dolce Vegan
you should also check out peta, and vegan outreach for good info about raising you kid(
veggie/vegan and transitioning into a veggie or vegan lifestyle. If I need food stuffs that I can't get around here I do mailorder from food fight
I have found that if you can cook it's not that hard. Some people can just dive in face first and do great and some people do better f they ease into it. It is an adjustment but I am so happy we did it. Both DH and I are healthier and I am trying (and liking)
foods that I never thought I would.
I don't do the dishes, I throw them in the crib.
-Courtney Love
buy that is where I get my "meat" mixes (way tastier then it sounds), faux parma, mac and "cheese", worcestershire sauce, nutritional yeast, basically anything I can't find at the grocery store. I can't wait until winter so I can mail order chocolates
I don't do the dishes, I throw them in the crib.
-Courtney Love
I have a pretty weird routine. I eat vegetarian for 2 months consecutively, 3 times a year (dh and I just finished our summer meat fast 2 weeks ago)...so I end up being veggie for about 1/2 the year. I was a strict vegetarian for four years and I got a really bad B12 deficiency that is common for people with O blood type. I believe that it is healthier to try and do everything in moderation, so I try to stick to that as much as I can. I am a big believer in Chinese medicine and philosophy, which recommends eating a variety of different meats moderately. I am also a big believer that the meat industry is completely disgusting and fucked up, and so when I do buy meat, I try to buy locally, from small farms, and from hunters.
I recommend staying away from unfermented soy for many reasons, as it is being linked to thyroid cancer, and possibly linked to a myriad of other health problems. Unfortunately, that's what most of the fake meats are made out of, so if you do attempt it, you have to be more creative. (Fermented soy products that are supposedly okay are soy sauce, natto, miso and tofu is partially fermented and it's recommended use is as a condiment).
http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtsoy.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/onewoman.html
As far as cookbooks, I recommend:
Vegetarian Nights: Fresh From Hawaii by Bonnie Mandoe
Millenium Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine by Eric Tucker, John Westerdahl, and Sascha Weiss (this is vegan)
and just for all around food and nutrition knowledge, with recipes, I think that everyone should own Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. That is my most used book, whether I'm fasting from meat or not.
My child is 14 months old. He's still getting breastmilk and I take a daily supplement, so I don't worry that much, but it's really hard to get B6 and B12 from vegetarian sources (I know this is arguable, so you'll just have to do the reading and trials for yourself), and it's hard to get really good fats. Our bodies work best first with animal fats and secondly with tropical fats that are solid at room temperature. I think it's really important for children to be getting useable protein and healthy fats when they're still growing. Lots of things in the grocery store claim to have protein in them, but often times it's not useable, and often times it has anti-nutrients in it, etc...
I just try to look at my periods of meat fasting as just that...a FAST. That way I don't try to replace or substitute meat with something else. I just try to enjoy veggies and fruits and grains in new ways and learn how to really discover them and be creative about putting them together. There are a lot of really disgusting processed vegan foods that are not healthy at all, but they are meat free, and many of them are meat substitutes. I guess my main idea with my diet is that it's most important to be healthy. Excesses in any area are dangerous, whether that means you eat too much meat, or you steer completely clear of it.
If you're interested, there is a really good site by an amazing nutritional researcher (was a dentist to begin with) named Weston A Price. Here it is:
"I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever." Keri Hulme
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
that people with O blood type were prone to B12 deficiency. I'm going to have to watch out for that, DS is O+
I don't do the dishes, I throw them in the crib.
-Courtney Love
If you're interested in the symptoms I had:
When I started to run low, the first symptom was that I was getting really tired. It wasn't that I needed to sleep all the time, but I just didn't have the energy to participate in what my friends were doing, and I was also too tired to express as much enthusiasm as I used to. If that makes any sense...it was just an overall kind of tired.
That went on for about 8 months and then I started to get kind of weak. I've always been in pretty good shape, but I would start to get a little bit out of breath while I was doing regular activites. I started having dizzy spells that would (on rare occasions) result in blackouts. I started craving really greasy foods.
My memory always seemed to work really well during that time, and I was able to remember what I was reading and whatnot, but my ability to concentrate declined, and I needed a lot more stimulus than usual.
"I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever." Keri Hulme
Hmmm...I didn't know that O blood types were more likely to get deficiencies. I am O- and had a SERIOUS B and iron deficiency in the past. I still have to take liquid B complex and iron pills daily. If I don't, I get sick fast. It's just like you described; tiredness, dizyness, weakness, and I was having panic attacks when it was at it's worst.
Part of this is that I don't absorb vitamins from food like most people do because of all my stomach problems. But I'd like to research more about the blood type thing, do you have any books or resources?
Eating Right For Your Type, by Peter D'Adamo, ND, but it's a pretty interesting book. That's the only thing that I personally know of that's been written. The cool thing is that the research center at my school is going to start doing research on his ideas this year (because he was an ND). I was going to try and get involved with some of it, so I will keep you informed about how it goes...though they may not start it up until late in the year. The author is going to make visits to the school to help direct some of the research himself. If you're interested in keeping up with it, here's the link to our research institute:
The only other things I know are what my doctor told me...that he sees this deficiency happening all the time, and it seems to happen much more frequently in O-type people (who D'Adamo calls the 'hunter-gatherer' type. O is the oldest blood type, and according to him, we supposedly do best with a diet comprised of fruit, veggies and meat, with limited grains and devoid of dairy.) I was eating a lot of soy at the time, and drinking protein shakes in the morning and taking vegetarian supplements. I told him that I was getting enough, but he said that we can't really use the protein that's in soy (once again, this is very debatable, I've found info both ways, depends on what you believe), and that there aren't very many veggies sources with B12 except for spirulina, chlorella and fresh, young comfrey leaves.
I've tried looking this stuff up and it's just such a barage of different conflicting studies and information that I really don't know what to believe. I will have 2 years of nutrition classes starting in a week, and so hopefully it will open my eyes, and I'll be presented with some good studies. So many researchers have agendas and expectations for their studies that they are tainted, if just because they throw out the anomalies that they are supposed to be recording. Sometimes the complexity of all of this information really gets to me.
Anyway, I just personally notice that I need to get a little meat on a pretty infrequent basis and I will feel okay. During my meat fasts, I have to take a lot of iron, esp. when I am having my period. That's when I get the weakest. So, I just try to listen to my body and what feels best for me. That's all any of us can really do, though listening to your body can sometimes be harder than all of the conflicting infomation you can find!!
"I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever." Keri Hulme
But thanks STM. The Vegetarian Nights cookbook is super easy to use, though it doesn't have pictures. It's got a lot of stuff in it that you could eat every day, and it's pretty much made for families.
As for the Millenium book, it's got tons of pretty pictures, and each recipe has about 3 components, so it looks a little daunting. However, we just pick through components, and try to find good ideas. We don't strictly use that cookbook for recipes, but rather to strike up our creativity when we feel like we can't think of anything else to make. I recommend it for that, because the chefs of that restaurant have gone so far into food art land that they will eventually take you with them if you read a little bit of it.
"I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever." Keri Hulme
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I freaked when I read that high calcium could result in kidney stones as I love me some dairy products, but according to recent studies, dietary calcium actually helps prevent kidney stones, as supplemental calcium can cause stones. That was an enormous relief.
Thanks for the input, by the way, and congratulations for staying with it for so long.
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