Recovering veggie needs help

CatherineHillin

Hi all,

I was a vegetarian for several years but I gave it up since I was becoming anemic, but ever since then I can barely eat meat. I have a couple of bites and I just feel sick. This is every kind of meat, fish or chicken or steak or whatever, simply because my system isn't used to it. The problem is I need protein and iron. Does anyone have any tips on how to get my system accustomed to white meat again and/or any healthy easy recipes with high protein content but only a little meat? Thanks!

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oh_happy_day

I started with small portions of chicken, turkey and tuna mixed in with lots of vegies. Everything tastes incredibly strong and rich, I gagged on tuna initially and now I eat it 4 times a week! I mostly cooked things like curries where the flavour of the meat was somewhat disguised. It took a number of months for my system to adapt and I still eat a lot of vegetarian meals. My meals which do include meat are probably 80% vegetables and 20% meat. You really don't need much meat at all to get a solid hit of iron and protein, I rarely eat more than 100g at a time. Try things like a Thai beef salad or a ramen soup, you'll only need about 80g of beef. Mix a small tin of tuna into a salad, shred a little chicken breast into a frittata. You don't need to eat a whole steak!

mangrothian

What about soups or stews with a small amount of minced chicken mixed through? start with a very small amount of meat, then slowly up the portion of meat in the dish. I suggest chicken since it's one of the milder flavoured meats to start on.

CatherineHillin

Thanks guys! That's really helpful! Does anyone know of any specific beans or non-meat foods that are high in protein? Just any beans at all?

cerise_noir

Start very slowly with the meat, as everyone suggested. When I went off veg, I mostly ate veg for a couple of months after with very small amounts of meat and gradually built up the meat amount. Look for a good supplements, or eats lot of leafy greens rich in iron, and lentils for protien. If I remember correctly, i was eating a full omnivore diet in 2 months.

KETOGENICGURL

white meat?

tashatashae

soybeans lentils edamame

Zinka61

It seems like just eating a more balanced vegetarian diet would give you plenty of iron, If you dislike eating meat, read up on vegetarian diets. I have no trouble hitting my goal for iron on here by eating beans, dark leafy green vegetables, even tofu.

I like to make a smoothie with 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed, 2 small bananas, 2 T. cinnamon, 3 T. unsweetened cocoa powder, 3 c. Silk Original soy milk. 2/3 of this smoothie gives me more than half the iron I need in a day.

What you can do is plug in different kinds of foods in your food diary and see how they measure up. If one thing isn't very high in protein, try eating more or something different. You should also be reading up on vegetarian nutrition if you are eating vegetarian. You can just google "iron rich vegan foods", for example.

My family has been vegetarian for 25 years, and my two kids were raised veggie, and the only time anybody got anemic was me, when I tried giving blood on a very frequent schedule. Vegetarianism isn't really something a person needs to recover from.

fi_b

This website has lots of vegetarian dishes and most of the meat ones have lots of veg in them too! Have a look at the bolognaise recipe, you could just use less mince as you're getting used to meat again

Zinka61

http://bembu.com/iron-rich-foods-for-vegetarians-and-vegans