Vegetarian Diets for the Non-Vegan

During the last Ice Age, plants were hard to find. And people adapted by eating meat, especially the intestines where any digested plant matter that animals dug up would go. Today as a culture we have evolved to eat very differently: a well-rounded meal is meat and a few vegetables with a side of bread and...water. (Or wine -- the studies are still disagreeing on that.) Yet, scientists still believe that a vegetarian diet is the healthiest, particularly in our more sedentary lifestyle.

When I first considered vegetarianism, my reaction was vehemently against it. I don't just enjoy meat on a regular basis, but every holiday is planned around it: St. Patrick's Day (corned beef and cabbage) and New Year's Day (collards, black eyed peas and a slab of ham) to say nothing of Thanksgiving. Giving up meat wasn't just about adjusting on a daily basis, it would require completely restructuring my family life. And then there's the daily basis. It's hard enough to get meals on the table, without having to be creative (which inevitably thinking about a meal that wasn't two sides and a meat was).

I started paying attention, though, to what I ate and what I noticed shocked me: I could not think of a meal that didn't consist of meat. Sure, cereal but that's not really a meal. (It's a I-don't-have-time-to-cook-a-decent-breakfast kind of a meal.) That decent breakfast? Eggs, grits, bacon. Lunch and dinner were no better. I did have one or two favorites that didn't involve meat: spinach lasagna and baked macaroni and cheese.

Becoming aware of how much meat I eat is what encouraged me to take a hard look at our virtually carnivorous society and consider, not vegetarianism, but a mix. But what bothered me most wasn't just that we eat a lot of meat, but the way we do it: factory farming and worst, all the waste that goes into making meals that are only meat, but don't get consumed. Think about restaurants, school cafeterias and so on. So I decided to change my lifestyle: every week I'd start making a single vegetarian meal and see where it went.

I looked at the Vegetarian Times Cookbook for starters because their magazines always look good, though I frequently change out ingredients since they sometimes want expensive stuff. Other cookbooks I've found really useful include: The Soy Alternative, The New Moosewood Cookbook, or any of the Moosewood Cookbooks and many others. And soon I found that I was eager to try these new recipes -- I was finding new combinations, new vegetables and new twists on old favorites.

Some of my favorite meals now include: Wild Mushrooms over Mashed White Beans, Tempeh Lasagna, Tofu Caciatorre over Spaghetti Squash, etc -- all from recipes I've collected from various cookbooks and blog sites. (There are a number of blogs devoted to vegan cooking. Fat Free Vegan Cooking is my favorite lately.) Many of these recipes are 30 minuters, though on weekends it's nice to plan and prepare a more involved meal. I discovered that meals (yummy meals in fact) can be made (easily) without relying on meat and still be entirely balanced -- so they don't run me down into the ground. And realizing the strain that constantly eating meat places on our bodies, our environment and our budgets only reinforced my desire to think more deeply about this daily food ritual.

Now that I buy more fresh vegetables, I've also started paying attention to labels. Today at the grocery store I put back potato chips, soup (3 different brands) and macaroni and cheese because they all contain MSG. (MSG? Isn't this what we pressured Chinese restaurants to stop using?)

So what I've really found is that vegetarians eat better than omnivores. They consume a wider variety of foods, the food is fresher, the vitamins and minerals are more diverse and the people who write recipes are creative and love to eat! While I still eat meat and celebrate holidays with (and without) meat, I feel healthier because I've substantially reduced my meat consumption. And my trips to the grocery store are somewhat cheaper as well!

Most of us will never become full-fledged vegetarians, but even reducing your meat consumption by a few meals a week will get you started living more environmentally friendly and healthy. And this is what I think the vegetarian/vegan community can offer all of us: the knowledge that we can supplement and enrich our diet with plant-only meals; the comprehension that it's not just that we eat meat, but that we eat a lot of meat that causes many problems and, finally, the encouragement to demand that animals be treated ethically even if we choose to eat them at the end of the day.