I’ve technically been a vegetarian for almost a year and a half, which shows you how late I am on this post. However, I’ve learned so much since becoming a vegetarian that I really wanted to share some of it with you guys. This post got extremely long-winded, so I’m breaking it down into a few parts.
When someone finds out I’m a vegetarian, they ask a lot of questions. Some of the most commonly asked questions are highlighted below:
Where do you get your protein?
It’s a silly question to me, because so many of the foods I eat have high protein and are healthier for me than meat ever was, but I love to educate people about my lifestyle so I kindly answer their questions. My top sources for protein are: beans, tofu, cottage cheese, nuts, veggie burgers, eggs, and protein shakes. I drink the protein shakes only because they taste amazing and help me recover after my workout.
We eat veggie burgers probably once a week or more, I eat eggs almost every morning for breakfast, and I put cottage cheese on everything! I also recently discovered how to choke down Greek yogurt, which is high protein, so that is nice.
Read more about protein over at Lindsay Loves Veggies.
Wait, your kids are vegetarians, too? WHY?
I made the decision to become a vegetarian for health reasons. I loved (LOVED!) meat, I had meat every day. I didn’t discriminate – whether it was pork chops, chicken breasts, or juicy hamburgers, I ate it all. When I had my first colon hydrotherapy session (Google it, I will spare you the details), I realized just how long the meat had been staying in my system. I spoke with the hydrotherapist at length and discovered that I should really not be eating as much meat as I was.
At that point, I decided to stop eating pork and I also cut back on beef. I ended up eating a lot of turkey bacon, turkey burgers, and chicken. I still wasn’t eating a lot of veggies, and hadn’t even considered becoming a vegetarian. The idea was ridiculous to me. I simply loved meat too much.
Second colon hydrotherapy session rolled around, and I realized that my stomach was still just as unhappy with me as it had been before. At that moment, I decided to become a vegetarian. It was only natural to include my children in that decision. I had always made their food choices before, so why not now? My kids were never big veggie lovers, and neither was I. I remember sitting at the table many nights with at least one of them crying over having to eat some (canned.. ugh) green beans. Now, you should see what they eat! My pickiest child had (fresh!) green beans with her lunch today and asked for seconds. My oldest, who hated broccoli, asks me to add it to macaroni and cheese now! It’s crazy! I was also the type that didn’t like veggies, and now I love them! I’ve tried so many new foods since becoming a vegetarian. I love it.
On a side note, my oldest did decide that she still wanted to eat shrimp, so I let her. She’s nearly 11 and I think she’s old enough to help make decisions with her diet.
What DO you eat?
For one, we were eating too many breads and pastas. Oh and cheese! It’s easy to replace meat with those things, but it’s not healthy. So lately, we’ve been more mindful of what we put in our bodies. Some of our favorite meals include:
Tofu Nuggets
Cajun Shrimp and Pasta
Veggies with Red Garlic Hummus
.jpg "vegetarian pizza")
Most of the food I make, I don’t post recipes for because it’s just so simple! For breakfast I will have something like an omelet – egg, tomatoes, mushrooms, cajun seasoning, and fat free cottage cheese. If I’m really hungry I will make some green beans or something for a side (that’s usually only after a workout). Since choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, we’ve really kicked it up a notch as far as food and flavor go.
You can also check out my Delicious Recipes board on Pinterest. 99.9% of those recipes are vegetarian or vegan.
How do you afford it?
When we first became vegetarians, we were still serving canned green beans, canned peas, etc and never thought twice about it. A few months in, though, that got really boring. And I still refuse to even touch canned vegetables. Yuck. The kids honestly weren’t very impressed, either. So, we started shopping at the Farmer’s Market and getting fresh ingredients. Fresh green beans are 100000 times better than canned! So are fresh peas, tomatoes, and anything else you can think of.
Our grocery bill went up for several reasons, but we agreed that for our health, we were willing to make sacrifices elsewhere (we still don’t have cable!). I was BIG into couponing when we first switched, so our weekly bill had been maybe $60 for our family of 5. That’s really cheap! However, we were eating disgusting food. Hot dogs, lots of noodles, frozen pizzas, etc. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables is more expensive, but we feel that it is worth it. It doesn’t have to be SO expensive that you can’t afford it, but yes you are going to pay a price especially when the foods are not in season. We had to pay $2 a pound for green beans a month ago because they weren’t as readily available, whereas we paid $.95 a pound for them today.
If you want to be a vegetarian, you will make it work.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
by SlapDashMom
Lindsay Loves Veggies - Thanks for the tag! Great post! I really agree with you about delicious, healthy food being worth the slightly larger grocery bill. We don’t have cable either. Netflix on demand works great for me, and probably makes up the difference in the food bill!
Lindsay Loves Veggies recently posted..How To Make Miso Soup
Monique - I get the “How do you afford it?” question way too often. It really irritates me.
Monique recently posted..Miami Vice Inspired Nail Art
Brandy Nelson - I have been toying with this idea for awhile now for health reasons..But I, much like you did, love meat way too much. I always worry that going vegetarian would mean food would taste like cardboard or that it wouldn’t have much textural variety or flavor. You make it look so appealing and easy, though! I am half-temped to try it for a week or so and see how it goes…But I don’t eat eggs or onions at all. Can I still make anything that doesn’t taste like ass? Also, my hubby hates veggies, so it may be a difficult thing to suggest. Any ideas on how I can “trick” him into eating his veggies and liking them? Anyway, going to check out your pinterest board now!
Brandy Nelson recently posted..Blogorama Bonanza Back 2 School GIVEAWAY! 8/28
SlapDashMom - Brandy, it wouldn’t hurt to try it for a week or even a month! :) We always have VERY flavorful dinners. You don’t have to eat eggs, and I wouldn’t touch an onion (or bell pepper) if my life depended on it! lol
I think the key to flavorful meals is spices. Garlic, or even garlic powder, plus cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, etc… we always have TONS of flavor in our food!
I think as far as your husband goes, he will either jump on board or won’t. Just like with kids, I tell them eat it or don’t.. I don’t care, it’s your rumbly tummy lol. It may not always be that simple but if your husband does it for health reasons he may enjoy it more.
Rebecca Harmon - I certainly enjoy eggs any way I can get them and I’m a big veggie and fruits eater anyway. I still have meat in my diet, but I think I could easily survive eating Vegetarian style if I wanted to. So many delicious recipes out there for Vegan foods. Yum! Give me a huge salad buffet any day!
What I've Learned After Being a Vegetarian For a Year {Part 1} | Why Go Vegetarian - [...] here: What I've Learned After Being a Vegetarian For a Year {Part 1} ← I Want to Become Vegetarian? | Original Vegetarian Salud (Uber [...]
Julia - Something you didn’t mention is that reading food labels becomes a habit when you’re a vegetarian. I didn’t know it, but my favorite yoghurt was nowhere near vegetarian (look up carmine). My mother-in-law has bought corn bread mix and pie crust with lard in it (trust, but verify). Many prepackaged rice mixes and soup mixes are out of the question. I looked at a bag of mints recently and one of the ingredients appeared to be sunscreen (it was titanium something, not sure that it was sunscreen…).
SlapDashMom - Julia, that’s so true! I was very uneducated on it all and didn’t even know marshmallows weren’t vegetarian! Crazy.
Laurie C - I’ve been considering severely cutting back on the meat that my children eat and I eat. The problem is that both of my girls have soy intolerances. What’s a good way for them to get protein without sticking to just beans and eggs?
SlapDashMom - Beans are really versatile, thankfully, so you can create a LOT of dishes with them. Peanuts, lentils, cottage cheese, and quinoa all have protein.
Also, many vegetarians eat fish, shrimp, etc and it has protein. :)
Laurie C - Thank you. I know that my kids love fish. So, switching to eating fish more often wouldn’t be that hard. I probably should have googled foods rich in protein. I didn’t think about it until after I took my kids out to play…of course.
Stop Wishing, Start Doing! - [...] have any credit cards, and we don’t go out to eat multiple times a week. One of the reasons we became vegetarians was because of the insane cost of [...]
Mary @ Fit and Fed - I liked hearing about how you started using so many more fresh fruits and vegetables. It is true that it’s too easy to replace meat with bad carbs like breads and pastas, it’s great that you figured that out before long and amped up the produce. I raised my kids vegetarian and to this day they all still eat a lot of produce.
Mary @ Fit and Fed recently posted..What we eat- from vegetarian to pescetarian