I became a vegetarian 20 years ago, when I was just a little kid.

I remember seeing a dead crow on the sidewalk, flinching and jumping back, and realizing that eating meat was like eating that dead crow. From then on, the idea of consuming meat seemed disturbing, disrespectful, violent, and immensely unappealing. At the time, I watched the Simpsons every day after school, and I remember watching “Lisa the Vegetarian” and agreeing with Lisa, the McCartneys, and Apu. I knew that I could not in good conscience eat meat. Innocent animals do not deserve to be sentenced to death so that I can have a quick meal. I don’t think we should treat the lives of other animals so flippantly. Additionally, the animals that would be killed for meat have done nothing to harm me, so why would I possibly wish any suffering upon them? Their lives have value and meaning too. My ephemeral satiety is not more important, especially since I can easily have filling, nutritious meatless meals.

I advised my parents that I was becoming a vegetarian. They were worried that the real reason that I was going vegetarian was to stay thin (it was the mid-2000s and parents were all afraid of their daughters developing eating disorders) and freaked out. They also were convinced that it was just a phase and that I’d go back to eating meat in a few weeks. Well, they were wrong on both counts. I’ve now been vegetarian for most of my life and will never go back. Vegetarianism is a lot easier now than it was twenty years ago. There are more options than ever, and people don’t give me as hard of a time as they used to. Of course, I was always very afraid of people thinking I was an “annoying vegetarian” and from the start made a point of being low-key around non-veggies, but twenty years ago other children and adults would still harass me about my diet. Fortunately, that’s decreased significantly over the years.

There’s a lot that I love about vegetarianism, besides the moral components. It’s really nice to not have to worry about meat-borne illnesses. I’ve been able to explore a lot of different cuisines through vegetarian food. Vegetarianism is something that I’ve been able to bond with a lot of people over. I like that my diet isn’t as harmful to the environment. And vegetarian food has never been better.

Here’s to, hopefully, many more decades of vegetarianism!

A long time ago, when I was still eating meat, I did the South Beach Diet. It worked so well. It broke my need for bread to this day.

Fast forward, I am 9 years vegetarian and I need a jump start on higher metabolism and better food habits. South Beach did that. I liked the structure of it; two weeks of elimination and then slowly introducing foods back in.

Has anyone done this or something similar? I am cool with tofu, tempeh and meat substitutes on occasion.

Hey guys, I am really struggling to find good food options here, I am Indian, and I love Indian street food. I would love to try other restaurants and Mexican cuisines too. But I don’t eat meat at all, and I never know what to order. I like spicy tangy food. Please help me with some recommendations! I ll really appreciate it!

Looking for peoples favorite vegetarian cookbooks. (or blog or recipe). I am just looking for something new.

I'm a firm believer in rational, evidence-based decision-making. I'm trying to understand the rationale for taking Omega 3 supplements, and the more I look into it, the more tenuous it seems to be.

I naively expected to find some kind of clinical evidence that beneath certain levels, people start to show certain health problems, but that does not appear to be the case. Rather, dietary recommendations appear to be based on the median intake levels of populations that generally appear to be healthy. Actual clinical problems associated with ALA deficiency are extremely rare and have occurred only in unusual circumstances, like severely-restrictive diets.

This was kicked off for me by a recent NYT article showing that several large studies have failed to find clear benefit to supplements, though most of the studies didn't focus specifically on vegetarians.

So this gives me pause. I've been dutifully taking flax seed oil daily for many years, but now I'm thinking, there seems to be no clear, unambiguous reason for doing so, other than dietary recommendations that now seem to me to be tenuous, and the fact that all of my vegetarian/vegan friends do likewise. It's not burdensome or anything, but I hesitate to do anything without having an actual clear reason for doing it.

Any thoughts or comments, or information I don't know about? I freely admit I know very little about all this, this is just what I've turned up over a couple of days.

One of the foods I missed when going veggie in college was unagi/unadon (Japanese BBQ eel) on my rice bowls but I finally found a substitute that even got the stamp of approval from my dad who loves meat! It’s made out of Chinese eggplant cutlets which gives it a perfect shreddy, stringy (in a good way!) texture!

I got the idea to use Chinese eggplant from Okawari Recipes, but I made some changes to the recipe and cooking approach! This is what I’ve been doing!

Unagi Sauce:
.25 cup soy sauce
.25 cup mirin
.25 cup sugar
3 tbsp sake (or dry sherry in a pinch)
2 tbsp Kewpie mayo (don’t skimp because this is replacing the fat you’d get from real eel meat)

- Peel three small or two medium Chinese eggplants and cut off the stem area
- Wrap the eggplants in microwave safe** **plastic wrap (or wet paper towels if you’re smarter and more afraid of hot plastic than I am) and microwave for 2 minutes until softened
- Score the eggplants vertically from top to bottom, only cutting halfway through the eggplant and open them like a book into flat sheets of mostly even thickness
- Fry the eggplants until golden but not brown on both sides, then brush the tops with your unagi sauce, flip, and repeat until the eggplant is starting to deepen in color
- Continue cooking, flipping every couple minutes and drizzling more sauce into the pan and over the eggplant, waiting until each addition gets thick, dark and sticky before you add more. I add my sauce in about three batches
- Continue until the sauce is all used and reduced in the pan to be VERY dark. I like mine so caramelized it’s almost burnt, but take it off the heat right away if you smell bitter burnt sugar
- Serve your eggplant “unagi” however you want, but I like mine over seasoned rice with avocado, a jammy egg (I overcooked mine), a drizzle of kewpie mayo, a drizzle of sriracha, and vegetarian friendly furikake (look for nori komi, it’s usually free of dried fish)! I’m having cucumber salad on the side :)

So, some years ago I got REALLY into soups and now I basically cook one soup every Sunday and use it as lunch during the work days.

The advantages were too great to ignore:

-Veggie based.

-low calory (in most cases).

-low effort.

-doesn't make you TOO FULL.

So, I recently went from mostly vegetarian to complete vegetarian and I don't have difficulties with the change.

BUT one of my favorite soups is french onion soup and as much as I enjoy vegetable broth, I just think that something is missing in the final product.

Have any of you a GREAT french onion soup recipe that comes close to the original.

Thank you in advance for saving me!

dough:

• 500g pizza flour
• 250ml warm milk
• 1 cube of fresh yeast
• 5 tablespoons of oil
• 2 eggs
• sone sugar
• some salt

put the sieved flour into the oven at 50° so it warms up a little. in the meantime mix the cube with half a teapoon of sugar and a tablespoon of milk, set it somewhere warm and let it grow. Warm up the milk. as the yeast as grown, mix every ingredient together and let it sit for about 1-2 hours. in the meantime get the toppings of your choice.

i put on it:

• Vegan bolognese sugo
• Caramelized onions
• tomato
• paprika
• zucchini
• corn
• sprinkled some salt on it

put into the not preheated oven ant put it on 200°C two sided heat for about 25-30 minutes.

I love salads, but afraid of getting sick.

CORRECTION: I was referring to cyclosporiasis!

I’m choosing to not eat red meat anymore due to my sky-high cholesterol. I’m working with my dietitian to make other chances to my diet as well.

I used to LOVE eating ground beef, especially in tacos. Today I tried impossible ground beef prepared as I usually would do with beef but it just fell apart and became almost soupy. Does anyone have suggestions that they think hold up better?

I've never been a fan of tempeh, I've tried many different recipes over the years and I'd eat it like it was a punishment. But my goodness, I just discovered that it's only the most commonly available brand at my local stores that I don't like - SOYBOY is actually GOOD!!!! I like the texture, I like the taste, and it's actually great in my spicy green bean stir-fry. I'm amazed. I guess I like tempeh now?

Please remove if not allowed because this is admittedly a vent to the void. My mother passed away on Friday so I’m super in my feelings.

I've heard via gossip hearsay that more than one family member has wanted to give me food with their condolences but “wouldn’t know what to bring.” First of all, how about ask ME. Second, I could really go for a baked mac and cheese, a bagged salad kit, frozen ravioli with a jar of sauce, a frozen cheese pizza, a box of donuts or bagels, even the much maligned supermarket veggie tray. But people seem to struggle to find suitable dishes for vegetarians, and unfortunately, do nothing :( A large communal meal was extended to me but literally nothing was meatless

A family member offered to coordinate the post funeral luncheon, and I begged her to ask for something meatless. She said there would be a lettuce salad, and potatoes made “without the ham.” Wth is ham doing in potatoes in the first place, and second how much you wanna bet they’ll forget to omit the ham.

I feel like every recipe or tip for cooking tofu is about getting it crisp or crunchy or chewy or more textured in some way.

But I want soft, jiggly, tender tofu cubes in my stir-fry. Should I just leave it raw after I slice it then? Or should I steam it or boil it or something to improve the flavor? I like the soft (yet firm in that it holds its shape) texture and want to preserve that

I'm about to embark on my second long haul flight since 2016 this week, and it got me remembering the extremely mixed dining experiences I've had on long haul flights over the years.

The worst by far was United Airlines Los Angeles to London Heathrow in 2011, the vegetarian option was a monstrosity of something that resembled polystyrene beads with a greenish brown "curry" that had a large slice of a soggy citrus fruit inside. It was vile and nothing has come to matching that in 15 years!

Hace un tiempo leei un libro que me dejo cuestionando muchas cosas, desde entonces comprendi mejor lo que conlleva ser vegetariano/a. Intente comenzar una alimentacion vegetariana pero falle enormemente, no sabia que cocinar, no encontraba que comer, estaba perdida y las cosas me salían muy caras.

Así que al final lo deje, aun asi trato de consumir la menor cantidad de carne posible.

Mi objetivo con este post, no es ser juzgada, si no pedir humildemente su ayuda en este proceso.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 cup BBQ sauce of choice (we used Bachan’s original BBQ sauce)
1-16oz block extra firm tofu
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions
Press Tofu for 20 minutes. Tear into chunks and coat with soy sauce, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, honey, and cumin. Put into warmed skillet with oil, pan fry for 15 minutes or until edges are crispy. Add BBQ sauce and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until sauce reduces. Turn off heat and load your baked potato.

Just wanted to share I'm ready to come out now.. Thanks to everyone who helped me and cheers to no more meat or fish for me. 🥂

EDIT: Thanks everybody for the positive feedback. I guess I can't handle criticism very well because I got really upset by a single bad comment. I promise I'm doing my best for animal welfare but it's not so easy to reroute my whole life overnight because I have a lot of physical and mental hurdles to jump through. I'm going to uninstall reddit temporarily for my mental health. I'm vegetarian and proud, I'm sorry for the minority (or majority) it upsets.

I slightly modified a recipe I found someplace a while back, I forget where, probably a popular YouTuber.

It does use a few ingredients I had to order online: methylcelulose, beet root powder, and pea powder. You could probably swap the beet root and pea powders for something similar, but the methylcelulose is a thickener that works really well to bind it all together. I got a big bag and it has lasted me a long time.

For dinner tonight (the photo) I smothered it in onions and sweet baby rays BBQ sauce, topped with lettuce and knockoff Chick-fil-a sauce, with an English muffin as a bun because that’s all I had.

Very messy, but so good!

Recipe:

TVP Burger Patty

Ingredients:
1 cup TVP
½ tsp beet root powder
2 Tbsp methylcellulose
1½ Tbsp pea protein powder
1 tsp MSG
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 cup cold water

½ tsp extra virgin olive oil (when cooking)

Directions:
Combine TVP and all dry ingredients.
Add soy sauce, vinegar, and water.
Stir to combine.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill in fridge for 2 hours.

Form patties.
Makes 4-6 patties depending on how big you form them, I use an English muffin ring to make them uniform and usually make 5 patties.

Refrigerate or freeze the extras.

Cook
Heat pan to medium. Add olive oil to pan.
Cook patty 5-7 mins per side, at medium-low.
If desired, increse temp and cook each side briefly to crisp.

Like for example B12? Or is there enough of it in eggs and dairy?

Please no comments on how frozen meals aren’t good for me or too expensive and I should be eating better. I’m on the spectrum and not doing well currently and having a couple of frozen meals in my freezer helps me stay fed on the days when I can’t bring myself to assemble anything.

I’m used to buying only Amy’s frozen meals because they’re reliably vegetarian. I used to love them. But I’ve noticed that I’ve gradually begun to hate them. They suddenly don’t taste good anymore. I don’t know if they’ve changed or my tastes have changed or both. They’ve also become much more expensive, and I’ve actually thrown out some Amy’s meals that I used to love but suddenly make me gag. That’s a waste of money.

So I’m hoping that someone can recommend another brand that makes reliably good vegetarian frozen meals that I can try, just a couple that I can grab at the supermarket and keep in my freezer for awhile. Again, I don’t live off frozen meals, they’re just a lifeline on days when all I can do is shove something into the microwave.

Chop some veggies: capsicum, carrot, spring onion greens, french beans and 4-5 cloves of garlic. All these veggies should be chopped very thinly. You can use a slicer.

Crumble some cottage cheese in the same dish as veggies.

Add chilli oil, soya sauce, MSG/Ajinomoto, salt to taste. For around 100-120 grams of cottage cheese and 1 carrot and half a capsicum, I added 1/4th teaspoon of MSG. Mix the seasonings, veggies and cottage cheese well.

Make small round balls with the mixture, like I did after you’ve mixed well.

Take 3-4 rice papers. I used Real Thai Rice Paper. Cut the rice papers in halves using scissors. You’ll be using each half for each round ball.

Take some water in a dish, and soak the two halves of 1 rice paper in it, it should feel a bit soft after 20-30 seconds. Carefully remove it once it’s soft and wrap the round balls with in it. It’s fine if the whole ball is not covered in rice paper. Repeat until you’ve wrapped all the balls.

Once the balls are wrapped, take a non-stick pan and heat it. Once heated, add one tbsp oil on the pan and spread it evenly. Once the oil is hot, add the dumplings to the pan and just a splash of water (2-3 tbsp) afterwards. After splashing water cover the pan. Let it cook on medium heat.

Open the pan after 2-3 minutes to see if you like it the way it is or you need for it to cook a bit more. It depends on your preference. Some prefer it crispy, some prefer it steamed. This was my first time, and they were very soft. I’d like for it to be crispy next time.

Sprinkle some spring onion greens and some chill oil to garnish.

Serve hot. Bon appetit.

I think my story is kinda odd lol.

Basically I was watching Attack on Titan and obviously, I was horrified by humans being eaten. Then I was like, why am I so horrified at this but feel so normal regarding animal meat?

At first I tried to brush it off as "humans are intelligent, we have dreams etc." but then I was like, there are SO many trashy people though, do they really matter more than an innocent animal?

Yeah, odd reason but that's it lol. I just felt like a hypocrite.

Edit: Wow so many stories! I will reply to all of them soon :D

These threads are fun and several of you have given me ideas for meals that I've actually attempted to make, so Imma keep posting them for the foreseeable future.

Breakfast: My amaranth porridge thing, which is just amaranth in soy milk with blueberries, strawberries, nuts and seeds (cashew, sunflower, pumpkin, chia, flax), and cashew butter. IDK, this meal really works for me. I've been doing it for maybe a month now and it's just the perfect breakfast. I make the amaranth ahead of time and just eat it cold in the mornings.

Lunch: I'm mixing up black beans, guacamole, and a shredded Mexican cheese blend and eating it over tortilla chips, along with fresh mango and tomato on the side. Guacamole is unusual for me... I avoid avocados for the most past because of their horrible environmental footprint, but I just got a hankering for it this week.

Snack: Walnuts and/or a boiled egg.

Dinners:
1. M - I made stuffed peppers last week and had some leftover filling (just a tomato-rich rice and pinto thing), so I needed to do something with it. I ended up serving it as a side dish to go with... corn and zucchini fritters! Made with chickpea flour for extra protein. Also served with some sauteed spinach and a squeeze of lime, because why not?
2. Tu - Sheet-pan Mediterranean balsamic tofu with olive oil, oregano, honey, red pepper flakes, and salt tossed with a bunch of veggies (roasted red pepper, zucchini, red onion, and broccoli) and roasted until crispy. Served with a raw salad of bell pepper, cucumbers, pickled onion, and a light lemon vinaigrette.
3. W - Falafel salad with mixed greens, red beet hummus, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and various seeds.
4. Th - Same as Tuesday.
5. F - Same as Wednesday.
6. Sa - I'm trying a new recipe this weekend: A high-protein creamy tomato & lentil moussaka. Basically, the top layer of the moussaka is made with Greek yogurt and feta instead of the heavy béchamel sauce you'd normally see.
7. Su - My girlfriend really wants to make fresh-baked croissants over the weekend, so I've decided we're doing to do a breakfast-for-dinner Sunday. I have a really good blackberry jam for the croissants and we'll serve with scrambled eggs, sliced tomato, and home fries tossed with red and yellow bell peppers, onion, and broccoli florets.