I appreciate this post so much. As an environmentally conscious person myself, the impact of factory farming hurts my heart. I don't much like the impact of our entire food production system (including but not limited to meat) on the environment, and our health. I don't think removing meat entirely from my diet would be good for me, but as my income increases and I'm able to spend more on quality food, I've started eating primarily from local farms. There's a guy that sells lamb at the farmer's market near my house that is actually a lot less expensive than almost any meat at the grocery store, and is 100% grass fed pasture raised. It feels good to support local farmers while also supporting the rest of my values. I found some brands of pasture raised eggs at the grocery store that aren't too much more expensive than their conventional counterparts which is nice.
I resonate with what you said about enjoying learning to cook different meals through your veggie adventure. A couple of years ago I went on a bunch of different diets to try them out, and one of the things I really liked about it was learning so many new recipes that I never would have tried otherwise. I think "diets" get a bad rap for being tasteless and boring, but I think the people saying that just don't like to cook. I found a keto lasagna recipe I still eat to this day because it's more delicious in my opinion than regular lasagna, and a grain free zucchini bread recipe that is ah-may-zing. I found a love for cauliflower that I never had before while being gluten free, which I put under my childhood favorite shrimp bechamel sauce instead of pasta. It may be more delicious than with pasta, I just love how the flavors meld and the texture just falls apart if the cauliflower is cooked right. I learned how to roast veggies in the oven from trying out paleo (not that that's the only diet that roasts veggies, but I'm not sure I'd have learned it otherwise), and some really good edamame and seafood recipes trying out different Asian cuisines. Through all of the trial and error I think I've landed on a diet that makes me feel good physically, fits with my values, and is flexible enough to not be a huge deal when going out.
Oh my gosh yes!! Buying from local farmers is SO GREAT. Everything tastes better and is better for people, planet, and community. I'm so glad you found local lamb near you! I'm actually super jealous haha. There's a few meat sellers at our farmer's market but the only thing I've had from them so far was cranberry and wild rice brats and they were delicious. I'll have to try more though before farmer's market season ends!
I love that you tried out all those diets!! What an adventure! Cauliflower is an amazing little vegetable. That shrimp "pasta" with it sounds so good! What's in a grain-free zucchini bread to make up for the lack of it? Is it just different flour? (I literally know nothing about baking so if that question made zero sense that's why hahaha. Everything I bake turns out terrible, even box mixes of things lol)
Edamame is one of my favorite ingredients in a recipe - tasty and healthy! I'm so happy to hear you've found a diet that makes you feel good in all ways! That's so amazing and I hope to get there for myself soon!
Late reply here... getting through a backlog of emails burying me alive lol
The grain free zucchini bread used Cassava flour. It's similar to a potato, I think it's also called Yuca. Very starchy root veggie. It makes the best grain free pasta as well.
I just got back from vacation hanging out with a vegetarian friend for a week and followed his diet most of the time while I was there. Such tasty options! He's very concerned with getting enough protein, so we ate a ton of eggs. It's interesting thinking about how those with different diets have different deficiencies; for him it was protein and B12 and Omega 3. I have a new appreciation for sure!
I hope you had a great vacation!! Always fun to see what everyone else eats and try their recipes - I always come back from seeing friends armed with a ton more! Yeah it's so interesting on the deficiencies and honestly so hard to know for sure if you're getting enough. I think protein had always been surprisingly easy for me, but iron was a definite concern for me.
Thanks for sharing your experience Amy. I've been debating on a vegetarian or pescatarian diet for some time now. The main thing that holds me back is food waste. For a two person household it's really difficult to prep separate meals while also limiting food waste. We compost but it still feels wrong to throw out food and it feels like wasting money too and things are rather tight at the moment. Whenever we go out to eat, I try to find a plant based option but we also enjoy eating family style meals with friends and I don't want to hold people back because of my personal preferences. I definitely feel guilty about not being vegan, especially since I care about reducing my environmental impact and work with many others who do as well. You've got to do what's best for you and we can't always let our decisions impact our mental health either. Cheering for you regardless of your current diet!
PS. I totally agree with your point about certain diets are more accessible depending on your financial situation too.
I feel you on all of those struggles on the decision to go vegetarian/pescatarian or not. For my husband and I, we got creative with meals and found lots of ways to do separate but not quite so separate meals. Like if we were making tacos, he'd have meat and I'd have beans but everything else was the same. So it was mostly having to learn what portions we'd each need of those two items but everything else we already knew. He did eat A LOT of vegetarian meals with me though! He'd only have meat one dinner a week and we do separate lunches so that made things really easy for us.
Family style dinners is the part I struggled with most! Especially when it came to actual family rather than friends our age - generational gap and not everyone understood as much. But for family style friend meals, it was rather easy! Even if there was meat served, I'd just avoid that and eat everything else. I'd usually make a meat alternative for myself - with enough to share! Everyone really enjoyed and appreciated it, too, with being able to try new things. I've turned so many of my friends onto tofu lol.
Not that you have to change your diet, I just wanted to give some examples in case you feel really strongly about trying it out! And maybe they could help 😅 Whatever you decide is completely fine and totally up to you! And sometimes it is easier to just eat meat every once in awhile to not have to feel like you're burdening others - I 100% dealt with those fears and anxieties all the time.
Anyway I've rambled on quite enough now lol. But overall, we'll see more success I think if everyone just reduced the amount of meat/animal products they ate rather than convincing another few percent of people to go vegan or vegetarian. And that's what I'm holding onto myself for some optimism!
A very interesting read - thanks for sharing! I feel like a person’s diet doesn’t need to conform to labels. And you certainly don’t owe anyone to stick to a label indefinitely. It’s not black and white either: Just because someone eats meat doesn’t mean they have to eat meat every meal or every day or even the majority of days. Or that there has to be any regular pattern at all.
Yes! I agree with that so much! I feel like our culture loves black and white thinking and being able to label everyone with something. But it doesn't mean we have to live by those rules.
"Pop culture has made the community look like barefoot hippies who can’t get a job. Or over-the-top aggressive people who shout “meat is murder!” at restaurant chefs. Or that they’re malnourished and annoying and should just stop shoving their lifestyles down people’s throats." - ACCURATE
"If someone refuses food because they’re on a diet to lose weight or it’s a new fad (looking at you, keto), no one questions them or gets offended. " - I feel this way with alcohol in the US. It's the default to drink in social situation and if you DON'T (without the reason/excuse of being pregnant), people judge you. It's weird to me...
"just can’t make the switch because of their lifestyle, where they live, their finances, or health issues" - Thank you for shouting this out. Being vegan by choice is a privilege.
"But I’m keeping with it and making progress! " - YAYYYYYYYY!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!
I love that you are easing your way back into it, in a way that feels good to you physically. Maybe you'll just become pescatarian after exploring. Maybe you'll be all in on all meat. Maybe you'll go back, but no matter what, you're trying things and being intentional. I love that for you :)
Oh my gosh yes! It's so true with alcohol! Especially here in Wisconsin where it's normal to binge drink all the time. I've gone month stretches without alcohol just as a trial thing or I didn't like how it felt anymore and some of the pushback was so weird.
Yeah being vegan is SO HARD for so many reasons. I tried veganuary two times and failed within a week both times lol. Vegetarianism is a lot less difficult and oftentimes cheaper but even that is still a privilege. People really need to calm down about it cause if everyone cut meat out just a little bit, we'd be in a much better space than trying to make people give things up completely.
I appreciate this post so much. As an environmentally conscious person myself, the impact of factory farming hurts my heart. I don't much like the impact of our entire food production system (including but not limited to meat) on the environment, and our health. I don't think removing meat entirely from my diet would be good for me, but as my income increases and I'm able to spend more on quality food, I've started eating primarily from local farms. There's a guy that sells lamb at the farmer's market near my house that is actually a lot less expensive than almost any meat at the grocery store, and is 100% grass fed pasture raised. It feels good to support local farmers while also supporting the rest of my values. I found some brands of pasture raised eggs at the grocery store that aren't too much more expensive than their conventional counterparts which is nice.
I resonate with what you said about enjoying learning to cook different meals through your veggie adventure. A couple of years ago I went on a bunch of different diets to try them out, and one of the things I really liked about it was learning so many new recipes that I never would have tried otherwise. I think "diets" get a bad rap for being tasteless and boring, but I think the people saying that just don't like to cook. I found a keto lasagna recipe I still eat to this day because it's more delicious in my opinion than regular lasagna, and a grain free zucchini bread recipe that is ah-may-zing. I found a love for cauliflower that I never had before while being gluten free, which I put under my childhood favorite shrimp bechamel sauce instead of pasta. It may be more delicious than with pasta, I just love how the flavors meld and the texture just falls apart if the cauliflower is cooked right. I learned how to roast veggies in the oven from trying out paleo (not that that's the only diet that roasts veggies, but I'm not sure I'd have learned it otherwise), and some really good edamame and seafood recipes trying out different Asian cuisines. Through all of the trial and error I think I've landed on a diet that makes me feel good physically, fits with my values, and is flexible enough to not be a huge deal when going out.
Oh my gosh yes!! Buying from local farmers is SO GREAT. Everything tastes better and is better for people, planet, and community. I'm so glad you found local lamb near you! I'm actually super jealous haha. There's a few meat sellers at our farmer's market but the only thing I've had from them so far was cranberry and wild rice brats and they were delicious. I'll have to try more though before farmer's market season ends!
I love that you tried out all those diets!! What an adventure! Cauliflower is an amazing little vegetable. That shrimp "pasta" with it sounds so good! What's in a grain-free zucchini bread to make up for the lack of it? Is it just different flour? (I literally know nothing about baking so if that question made zero sense that's why hahaha. Everything I bake turns out terrible, even box mixes of things lol)
Edamame is one of my favorite ingredients in a recipe - tasty and healthy! I'm so happy to hear you've found a diet that makes you feel good in all ways! That's so amazing and I hope to get there for myself soon!
Late reply here... getting through a backlog of emails burying me alive lol
The grain free zucchini bread used Cassava flour. It's similar to a potato, I think it's also called Yuca. Very starchy root veggie. It makes the best grain free pasta as well.
I just got back from vacation hanging out with a vegetarian friend for a week and followed his diet most of the time while I was there. Such tasty options! He's very concerned with getting enough protein, so we ate a ton of eggs. It's interesting thinking about how those with different diets have different deficiencies; for him it was protein and B12 and Omega 3. I have a new appreciation for sure!
Ohhh gotcha! I'll have to check it out!
I hope you had a great vacation!! Always fun to see what everyone else eats and try their recipes - I always come back from seeing friends armed with a ton more! Yeah it's so interesting on the deficiencies and honestly so hard to know for sure if you're getting enough. I think protein had always been surprisingly easy for me, but iron was a definite concern for me.
Thanks for sharing your experience Amy. I've been debating on a vegetarian or pescatarian diet for some time now. The main thing that holds me back is food waste. For a two person household it's really difficult to prep separate meals while also limiting food waste. We compost but it still feels wrong to throw out food and it feels like wasting money too and things are rather tight at the moment. Whenever we go out to eat, I try to find a plant based option but we also enjoy eating family style meals with friends and I don't want to hold people back because of my personal preferences. I definitely feel guilty about not being vegan, especially since I care about reducing my environmental impact and work with many others who do as well. You've got to do what's best for you and we can't always let our decisions impact our mental health either. Cheering for you regardless of your current diet!
PS. I totally agree with your point about certain diets are more accessible depending on your financial situation too.
I feel you on all of those struggles on the decision to go vegetarian/pescatarian or not. For my husband and I, we got creative with meals and found lots of ways to do separate but not quite so separate meals. Like if we were making tacos, he'd have meat and I'd have beans but everything else was the same. So it was mostly having to learn what portions we'd each need of those two items but everything else we already knew. He did eat A LOT of vegetarian meals with me though! He'd only have meat one dinner a week and we do separate lunches so that made things really easy for us.
Family style dinners is the part I struggled with most! Especially when it came to actual family rather than friends our age - generational gap and not everyone understood as much. But for family style friend meals, it was rather easy! Even if there was meat served, I'd just avoid that and eat everything else. I'd usually make a meat alternative for myself - with enough to share! Everyone really enjoyed and appreciated it, too, with being able to try new things. I've turned so many of my friends onto tofu lol.
Not that you have to change your diet, I just wanted to give some examples in case you feel really strongly about trying it out! And maybe they could help 😅 Whatever you decide is completely fine and totally up to you! And sometimes it is easier to just eat meat every once in awhile to not have to feel like you're burdening others - I 100% dealt with those fears and anxieties all the time.
Anyway I've rambled on quite enough now lol. But overall, we'll see more success I think if everyone just reduced the amount of meat/animal products they ate rather than convincing another few percent of people to go vegan or vegetarian. And that's what I'm holding onto myself for some optimism!
A very interesting read - thanks for sharing! I feel like a person’s diet doesn’t need to conform to labels. And you certainly don’t owe anyone to stick to a label indefinitely. It’s not black and white either: Just because someone eats meat doesn’t mean they have to eat meat every meal or every day or even the majority of days. Or that there has to be any regular pattern at all.
Yes! I agree with that so much! I feel like our culture loves black and white thinking and being able to label everyone with something. But it doesn't mean we have to live by those rules.
"Pop culture has made the community look like barefoot hippies who can’t get a job. Or over-the-top aggressive people who shout “meat is murder!” at restaurant chefs. Or that they’re malnourished and annoying and should just stop shoving their lifestyles down people’s throats." - ACCURATE
"If someone refuses food because they’re on a diet to lose weight or it’s a new fad (looking at you, keto), no one questions them or gets offended. " - I feel this way with alcohol in the US. It's the default to drink in social situation and if you DON'T (without the reason/excuse of being pregnant), people judge you. It's weird to me...
"just can’t make the switch because of their lifestyle, where they live, their finances, or health issues" - Thank you for shouting this out. Being vegan by choice is a privilege.
"But I’m keeping with it and making progress! " - YAYYYYYYYY!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!
I love that you are easing your way back into it, in a way that feels good to you physically. Maybe you'll just become pescatarian after exploring. Maybe you'll be all in on all meat. Maybe you'll go back, but no matter what, you're trying things and being intentional. I love that for you :)
Oh my gosh yes! It's so true with alcohol! Especially here in Wisconsin where it's normal to binge drink all the time. I've gone month stretches without alcohol just as a trial thing or I didn't like how it felt anymore and some of the pushback was so weird.
Yeah being vegan is SO HARD for so many reasons. I tried veganuary two times and failed within a week both times lol. Vegetarianism is a lot less difficult and oftentimes cheaper but even that is still a privilege. People really need to calm down about it cause if everyone cut meat out just a little bit, we'd be in a much better space than trying to make people give things up completely.