Want to be vegetarian

savingforoz

Ladyshopper wrote: »

Drives me mad when people describe themselves as vegetarian but then they say they eat fish. Grrrrrr. Even worse is restaurants who think a veggie option is something like tuna bake. :mad: You'd really think they know better.

Couldn't agree more, Ladyshopper! It's a particular bugbear of mine!

Pauper1

sarahsarah wrote: »

I'm veggie and my DH and DD aren't, but I find it quite easy to cook 2 different curries, 2 stews, 2 shepherds pies etc at the same time.

Lol I'm obviously not trying hard enough!! I suppose with children etc it would be slightly easier to make more than one meal, but for me & the OH, I just can't be bothered!

As for the fish thing.. I agree with all of you. I've never eaten fish. The funniest thing for me is when I went to France, and was looking for a veggie meal; a waiter approached me and told me the spag bol was veggie, so I asked him what the bolognese was made out of instead then, and he replied 'spaghetti'... :rotfl:

penguine

Don't worry about vitamins and minerals, if you consider the number of cultures which eat little or no meat you will realise that it's a myth that we need meat (or that we need to carefully balance what we're eating if we don't eat meat) in order to be healthy.

This is a good website from the US which advocates a vegetarian diet for health and compassionate reasons:

Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine

foxybabe

Thanks for all the replies, really helpful. I am feeling realy positive at the mo about it. I was talking at work today about it and everyone there all thought that it was acceptable to still eat fish, so it is a common misconception.

Do you take any vitamin supplements at all. I do take vitamins with iron anyway as i do have a tendancy to become aneamic.

Pauper1

foxybabe wrote: »

Do you take any vitamin supplements at all. I do take vitamins with iron anyway as i do have a tendancy to become aneamic.

Oh dear, I'd continue taking those as you will probably be eating less iron through not eating meat. You need to eat food like beans and pulses etc as others have already said, but broccoli and spinach are great sources of iron as well, and quite easy to add into meals like curries and stews.

VeganClaire

Some other good veggie sorces of iron:
lentils
Pupkin seeds (also full of zinc) make a good snack or can be added to salads, on top of cereal...
Dried apricots
Try to have some vitamin C with each meal (carrots, tomatoes, orange juice, grapefruit ...) this will help the iron absorbtion.
If you want a cook book I would recomend anything by Rose Elliot for inspiration. There are also quite a few threads on veggie food which might have some good ideas for you. Also loads more online.
If you are missing meat all the supermarkets and health food shops have a good range of meat alternatives.
If you are worrying about your diet I can recomend Plant Based Nutrition and Health by Stephen Walsh PhD (I got mine from Amazon after someone on this site I think recomended it to me)
Good luck with changing your diet.

Sunnyday

There is a lovely tomato dahl recipe on here posted by weezl i believe and it is lovely, DH likes it as it is but you could easily add cooked chicken to you OH`s portion after taking yours out.

I did find a lovely spinach and chick pea curry too but can`t remember where it was, i`m not at home so can`t look in my favourites sorry. DH prefers this with cooked lamb added to his portion and left to simmer a while longer.

I now make chilli with mixed beans and we both prefer it to chilli with meat.

Good luck with finding recipes that you like.

HTH
SD

foxybabe

Hi guys, Just another quick question. I have been looking at other sources of onega 3 oils as I really want to make sure I get enough of this in my diet.

Do you take a supplement or just use the various oils (rapeseed, flax etc) for cooking.

So far so good with the diet by the way but there is so much I need to learn about nutrition. I will probably have a much heallthier diet than before once I get my head around everything.

Many thanks.

Pauper1

I mostly just rely on eggs for my omega 3. There are supplements (you have to look for the veggie ones, as obvs normal ones use fish oil), but I didn't like the taste.
In fact, I have said that the only reason I'd give up being veggie would be to eat fish, as it's just so good for you, but as I've never eaten it, the smell of it alone just puts me right off!!

taplady

kianicky wrote: »

People who eat fish only are refered to as pescetarians
QUOTE]

ah - thats what I am then!:T I gave meat up 18 months ago but still have the odd bit of fish.Glad I've got a name for it now!;)