Is being a vegetarian difficult? I want to cut back my family's meat consumption because we eat meat twice a day...

Is being a vegetarian difficult? I want to cut back my family's meat consumption because we eat meat twice a day. I'm starting to think it's wasteful economically, and that we can do better health wise and ethically. We'll still eat meat when going out or on special occasions, but otherwise I'd like to start making more vegetarian meals. The thing is I have no fucking idea where to start with this though and all the recipes seem so labor intensive, or require almost daily trips to the store with 3x the ingredients of a regular meal. Any tips Veeky Forums?

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Make minestrone soup for dinner. No meat, a big pot lasts a while, and it's starting to get cold out.

just make fucking pasta

>just eat sugar
OP is trying to eat healthier, you mong

There are a lot of vegi Currys that are healthy, only require few veg and spices. You can make batches and freeze too

Going full vegan is hilariously expensive but as long as you're just supplementing a regular diet then it's alright. My favorite is the cheap $2 bags of 10+ kinds of vegetables. Don't even cook it, that just robs you of nutrients. Just warm that shit up and eat.

If you buy the vegan alternatives like burgers, sausages and milk it can be for sure and even for the top tier health items like matcha tea ect. But generally for me where I am from vegetables and fruit are cheap if you go to the right stores, also beans, chickpeas, lentils are very cheap

Semi vegetarian for cultural reasons here.
My family and I eat meat and fish, as do the rest of my countrymen, but we do so sparingly in comparison to other western cultures.
Personally, I eat 300-400g or so of meat in a week. For Amerifriend measures, that averages to just under 2oz of meat daily, so not much at all.

Generally, I eat meat at one meal in a given day and at most only 100g or so (precooked weight). I also alternate meat days and vegetarian days so if I have a piece of chicken Monday, I'll have beans Tuesday and, perhaps, steak or something Wednesday. I seldom to never eat meat two days in a row.
I have 5-10 100ish g servings of fruit and veg per day, every day, reason being that meat is much more calorie dense than veg and, as such, I need to eat a lot more veg to get the food energy I miss by limiting meat.
For example, yesterday, I had a huge fruit and yogurt parfait with granola at breakfast. About 350kcal despite having 400g of fruit in it (strawberry, cantaloupe, pineapple, kiwifruit and blueberry, each with only about 40kcal per serving). Went to a barbecue that afternoon. Had two ribs, some potato salad, some succotash salad and grilled eggplant and zucchini. Had a handful of olives and some pickles as a snack when I got home and for dinner, pasta with spinach. Lotsa veg. Moderate amount of carbs. Little meat.
Easy to do and very cheap because most veg is so low-cost where I live that stores are practically giving them away at the prices they ask.

>le sugar bogeyman
Sugar ain't healthy, no, but considering Italians, Japs and Swiss all eat very high carb diets (relative the caloric values of the rest of the diet) and have among the longest lifespans on the planet, I'm gonna say that eating carbs is okay so long as you actually get off your arse every now and again and eat moderate portions to begin with EG I don't generally eat more than 700kcal in a meal with starchy foods making up no more than half that quantity (usually less).

Vegetarian, not vegan. I'll still be eating dairy and eggs, I don't have the willpower to cut those. But I think mostly meatless is doable. That's a good idea with the substitutes too. Does it matter if most of them are made of gluten? Price isn't much of an issue, it's more that I don't want to dedicate too much prep time or shopping time.

Thanks for the ideas, foreignbro. Sounds like you lead a comfy life.

Welcome.

A note on vegetarian recipes needing a lot of time/ingredients: lolno.
It takes 60 minutes to cook a roast with veg sides. It takes only 30 or so to make a pilaf or risotto or pasta with a quick condiment or something. Or, in the case it does take a while to make something vegetarian, the beauty of most veg recipes I grew up eating is that they're stews. And stews taste great for days after cooking. Roasts, barbecue and steaks on the other hand, taste like poopshits as little as an hour after they've cooked and reheat terribly. If you've ever had a reheated steak, you know what I'm talking about. And so, do as suggests and make a big pot or two o'sumfin' and reheat them for days. I suggest two or three so that you don't get strained with the monotony of eating the same meal for weeks at a time. I also recycle leftovers into new dishes. Leftover risotto, for example, becomes rice croquettes. Leftover pasta sauce becomes pizza sauce (different cheese and toppings creates a different flavour profile that keeps food boredom at bay).
And I also cook beans plain from dry. This way, I can whip up beans on toast with cheese Tuesday then, say, a bean curry with rice Thursday and a bean dip with flatbreads and veg Saturday and so on. Each of those, when using plain, already cooked beans, takes only about 15ish minutes to whip up (assuming you keep leftover rice on hand, like I do).

>takes only 30 or so to make a pilaf
look,I eat pretty much lile that foreignerbro, but half an hour for a pilaf? You're doing it wrong. And by wrong I mean it should take at least half an hour to make the ziwrak( whatever you call that in english), then at leat another half hour for the rice.

Okay here's the plan: have a big breakfast of loaded oatmeal most days, snack during the day, then have a big dinner. So next month I'm going to stock up on naan bread, bean dips, get some yogurt, fresh fruits, rice noodles, pickled veg, crackers, and a shit ton of cucumbers. I used to really like carrot quesadillas, so I can start making those again, and mushroom enchiladas which freeze really well. Between stews, rice dishes, and pasta there shouldn't be much monotony. Salads every day might be the most troublesome with keeping fresh produce around, but this is sounding easier. Thanks for sharing, you gave me a lot of good ideas to start.

Different sorts of pilaf, amigo. I make carrot and parsnip pilaf spiced with caraway, cumin, dill and bitter parsley. Takes me 30ish (to be fair) minutes.

Set water to boil; meanwhile, take 5 minutes to grate the root veg, another 2 to slice the onions.
Add rice to water and boil until just under tender, about 10 minutes; meanwhile, saute veg in butter until cooked and soft.
Drain rice and rinse under cold running water until water is clear then shake off excess liquid, about 3 minutes.
Powder spices and add them and the rice to the pan with veg and stir to combine, about 2 minutes.
Top off with just a little hot veg stock (use the microwave to reheat it) and stir through.
Lid the pan and let the rice finish in the steam then stir in parsley and dill, fluff and serve, about 10 minutes.
So off by 2 minutes. Sue me.
Also, I have no idea what ziwrak is.

Nice rice dish, any central asian (mongol, kasach, and especially afghani and uzbeks) would grab their hair if they'd hear you call it pilaf, tho.
Allright, lets leave out the fact we're not doing meat here. Ziwrak is the "soup" you cook out of (mutton,) carrots, onions and the base for pilaf. (like a curry base for curry).The rice is supposed to cook in the same pot, not seperately; while the water evaporates and water level decreases, the oil and fat swimming on top envelopes every single rice corn and they become all fluffy...
minus the presentation, this what it looks like, ferghana valley style pilaf.
Chili, garlic, cumin and barberry, salt and pepper are all the spices you need.

Reminder to eat everything if you are an underage, because anemia isn't a joke, it's a life sentence and it's also really easy to get. Literally minus 1 to all stats upon very creation.

those baked right in the pot with the rice and sick amount of carrots garlic gloves are the absolute best part of that

I wouldn't be worried about eating gluten if it contains it unless you are intolerant or whatever , however i do try not overeat the same thing a day .For example having toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and pizza for dinner , to me that would seem like too much wheat for one day (especially if it's white bread)
Soups are also easy batch food and maybe check out the vegan stoner cookbook, I know you mentioned it's too much being vegan for you but take a look at the recipes , they are designed to be quick recipes with few ingredients,I don't know of a vegitarian versions bit might be something out there. Just replace the vegan alternative ingredients with the real version eg soya milk with regular milk, or if you want it with egg or cheese go ahead, use it as a recipe idea?

>those baked right in the pot
agree[...]
I was looking for a picture of the pot and found one of people cooking pilaf in it.
This is *the* way to make pilaf right.
Sadly cooking it on a stovetop doesn't bake the rice right into it...

Kys. You will efficiently cut back 100% of your pollution to the Earth

Oh, oh, btw. This is ziwrak cooking. The rice is added later, tuen you close the lid and wait until all the water evaporates.
Also, as a rule of thumb: use the same amount (weight) of meat, carrots and onions

Yeah, it's really hard. All the vegans I know are either fatties or skellies.

Again, I'm a westerner so none of that is really pertinent to me. Pilaf has left the steppes and entered the culinary repertoir of several other countries, including western ones. In mine, we do it the way I said and we're not alone, either. Iranians, Armenians, Georgians, Turks, Iraqis and other west Asians do it this way, too, and I guess we got our method from them. As for central Asians, it's funny you mention Afghanis because they do it this way, too. And Ozbeks do it my way (and call it plov) and your way (and call it aish or osh something like that).
2bh, osh/aish/whatever is way tastier, but it also always has meat and is very heavy while pilaf as I know it is lighter as well as often (though not exclusively) vegetarian. I gave our method for making one type of pilaf because this is a vegetarian thread. Coming into a vegetarian thread and saying that a vegetarian recipe is wrong then mentioning the use of meat just misses the whole point of the thread to begin with.
If you want to REALLY make central Asians heads spin, let me tell them about the pork and peas pilaf we make. Them muzzies would shit a brick to learn we use piggy meat. That one we cook a lot like you say: a pork shoulder is slow cooked in a strong vegetable stock until it pulls. Then we saute veg in the rendered pork fat, add some spices and the rice and pork to it and, finally, stir in lots of peas as well as lovage.
Fucking wonderful. This is a summertime dish, akin to American barbecue, cooked in two huge kettles over open, wood-burning fires.

>eating meat is bad
your grandpa needs to beat the retarded ideas you got from cowspiracy out of you with a belt

vegetarians/vegans all look 10 years older than they really are after a while

A life sentence? Can't you just eat more iron and be fine again if you get it?

>Is being a vegetarian difficult?
I barely eat meat right now.
veggie bean chili, bread, oatmeal, non fat dairy... that's all I eat.

youtu.be/Ov9a5kQUGRc
Checkmate atheists

Thanks. That's a good rule of thumb about gluten. I'm in no way intolerant. I eat bread a lot but figured it might be different for pure gluten. Not sure, but it's something to look into. I'll definitely check out that book too.

No but being a fatso is.
You probably have an atrocious diet and if you just ate less crap and more veggies you'll be fine fatty fatty two by four couldn't fit through the bathroom door.

You couldn't be further from the truth. It's my other habits taking their toll on me. I actually maintain a well balanced diet and make everything from scratch, it just all gets centered around meat.

You shouldnt be having health issues if you are having a well balanced diet and exercise. So either your lying or trolling.

Only for spineless people. Also
>eating animal products
>eating "healthy"
Nice joke, learn how to research, dear anons.

It's not health issues I'm worried about exactly although I'm curious if I might feel better as some people claim. My hdls are good and my blood pressure is good, but it could all be better. It has occurred to me a few times how many animals I must have eaten in my life and how badly they were probably treated. Also apparently raising food animals takes a pretty big cut of natural resources. Not trolling, not lying, just trying to cut back and see what happens.

Then if your health is fine dont use being "healthier" to cut meat out. Just admit you want to cut meat due to your beliefs and be honest about it.

>beliefs
That's certainly a major factor and had me changing my buying practices greatly the last few years. Having raised meat birds and egg layers, I'm no stranger to animal slaughter but can't stand by the cruelty from industrial meat processing. I've been buying meat mostly from the butcher who gets from a local small farm. It wasn't until becoming aware of the environmental impact that it all came together. Even for my local pasture raised free range meat. It's definitely a trifecta. I'm still going to eat meat, just not as much as before. Not going to turn it down if offered or make a scene at restaurants either. And maybe you're right and nothing will change and in three years I'll go back to two animals a day. But I won't know unless I try.

Vegetarianism is for people who are too pussy to go vegan
Why don't you step up senpai

Im not saying dont go vegitarian. Im saying just be honest about your reasons and youll be more successful. I cut down on meat intake( i still eat meat just on a lower quantity a lot.)

Depends on if you only cut out meat, if you also cut out eggs and dairy it can become tricky to stay healthy trying to find a correct variety of food to replace all those micronutrients

She looks amazing! But I've seen more people of color looking younger than they are than white people. They tend to age better I think. With that being said it can't be only genetics, surely her diet did wonders to keep her like that

That's a good rule of thumb to have. Thanks. At least now I know I'm sure.

Black women age good because they express their emotions while white people always hold everything in

I buy that. Dis-ease causes disease.

Better yet, just kill them and then kill yourself. Then you won't be causing any more global warming or animal suffering. Bonus points for doing it deep in the wilderness so that your corpses can go to feed the bears and wolves. This is the optimal solution all around.

This, plus lentil soup is fantastic.

Lol... plenty of crazy white people publicly emoting their feelings

Ugh! This sounds good for a day or 2 but otherwise boring and disgusting. Add some seafood, occasional poultry and beef or something.

>Carnivore family switches to vegetarian diet and 3 days later oddly become cannibals.

If u like meat then eat it. Cut back to 1x a day. Then more during the week, etc. It's not gonna work. Daily Meat eater then nothing but vegetables for days sucks!

That's misdirected anger. Whole different animal.

Did you read the op? Special occasions and dining out probably affords them an opportunity to eat meat at -least- twice a month. That actually doesn't seem unreasonable.