Vegetarian Beginners

britishswenglish

Forgot to mention, a good blog with recipes is inspiralized.com. The recipes are not strictly vegetarian, but they are mostly veggie-based and there are even recipes for how to make burger buns out of vegetables: http://inspiralized.com/?s=burger You could probably just use them to replace the burger itself. Plus most of the recipes with meat have a pretty low amount so it's easy to replace with tofu or fake meat.

marykate_1203

I've been a vegetarian for about 4 months now. Baby steps and focus on the reasons you want to be a vegetarian. I chose to become one due to the cruelty of animals. I just focus on the why and I become focused. I also show at natural food stores and make sure to get enough protein.

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everybodysfav

Athijade wrote: »

You can ignore my advice if you want as I do eat meat, but only about 20% of the time. I also can not have soy die to a medical condition so I don't eat fake meat or tofu. When I could eat soy I did often have tofu, but I HATED the fake meat stuff. It was disgusting! The reasons I cut down on meat are cost and being able to get a local source of what I do eat.

Being vegetarian means creativity. It's not as easy in general (for me) when it comes to coming up with meal ideas. My two favorite cookbooks are:

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
Cook Without, a Book Meatless Meals by Pam Anderson

Both of these are amazing.

Also, I have quite a few recipes saved on my Pinterest board. If you want a link to that, send me a message.

Honestly, I could never be 100% vegetarian, but I do enjoy the way I do it now.

thanks very helpful

MakePeasNotWar

Becoming vegetarian was easy for me, but going fully vegan was much more difficult. I made it somewhat easier by going slowly, and trying out and getting used to new things before giving up the old, so I never had that "crap, what am I going to eat now?" feeling.

I'm going to break with some of the other posters and recommend trying some "faux" meats if you are having trouble coming up with recipes and meal ideas. You can make the same dishes you've always made, but with an analogue in place of the meat. Over time, you'll develop a repertoire of tasty whole food meals, but having some old standards to fall back on can make the transition a lot smoother, IMO.

And in terms of weight management, just remember that cheese, seeds and nuts have a lot more fat than protein, so if you are adding them in quantity to every meal "for the protein", expect to see your calories in the red. Obviously eat them if you like them, just watch your portions.

hekla90

Check out happy herbivore. She does meal plans and cook books that are vegan but easy to make vegetarian, also she does a weight-loss calories version and then ways to add more calories too. I've been vegetarian for 4 years now and never looked back; no motivation needed.

Additionally she also is oil free. But you can add obviously.

hekla90

ashypashy7 wrote: »

Make sure to remember a complete vegetarian protein are things like beans and whole wheat rice. Try lots of recipes out and try not to get roped into pasta everyday all day lol. I too gained a lot of weight the first time I went vegetarian. I can easily never eat meat again, but I could never go vegan and give up cheese.

Needing to eat complete proteins at the same time is a myth.