Do people really eat meat for every meal?

[CurlewKate]

There seems to be a post every day about the difficulties of catering for a vegetarian guest. I'm an omnivore and I do love meat, but probably only eat it 3-sometimes 4 times a week. And if a guest was a vegetarian I would have no trouble cooking a nice meal without meat-either a family staple or something posher. So do people really eat meat for every meal? And if so-why? Apart from anything else, meat costs a fortune!

I use to.
I had a very nasty chicken/turkey addiction going on (I bloody loved it!)
These days i'm veggie.
Cant say i feel better for it or any different, i just don't fancy or crave meat anymore.

The vast majority of farming is not regenerative, unfortunately.

It's OK i make up for any environmental impact of my meat diet by not having kids or pets.

I don't eat meat for every meal, but I probably eat meat most days.

Breakfast is always Porridge and fruit, weetabix, toast, eggs etc so no meat

Lunch is usually different kinds of soups, tuna sandwich or chicken/ham/egg salad - so sometimes do eat meat or fish for lunch.

Dinner is usually a meat or fish based meal 4-5 nights a week - usually chicken but probably red meat once weekly. On the other 2/3 nights I do cook veggie main meals regularly, lots of chickpea lentil dahls, tofu fried rice etc

We eat meat most days, not deliberately but just as part of a mixed range of meals.

My challenge when I've got someone coming for food who is veggie or has food allergies or food dislikes is that then I can only think of meals using those ingredients I can't use - I think it's a bit of a "don't think of a pink elephant" experience.

I don't know anyone who does eat meat every day! Not one

There will be someone.

I eat meat a couple of times a week, my parents were the same when I was growing up.

Please let's not turn this thread into a vegan v meat eater battle!

@Flev "I can only think of meals using those ingredients I can't use - I think it's a bit of a "don't think of a pink elephant" experience."
Yep! My son can't/won't eat fruit. He's 22 and I still have to remind myself that apple crumble is not a good choice if he's round for Sunday lunch!

@BansheeofInisherin "And the opposite for me, so if I host meat eaters, I buy in some meat"

Now that's something I really really don't understand! Why on earth would you feel you had to do that??

We have meat with every tea time meal, sometimes with lunch meals as well. I didn’t realise this was unusual and wouldn’t consider it a meal without meat or fish.

If I’m going out for a meal I’ll quite often have fish but don’t tend to have fish at home as DH doesn’t eat it.

I eat meat, fish or shellfish for almost every meal, unless I'm eating eggs (or dal). I don't eat cheese as I'm lactose intolerant which means that a significant proportion of vegetarian meals are out, I eat tofu under (extreme) sufferance and I'm not keen on how processed so many vegan substitutes are.

Like a PP said - it's often not a LOT of meat and I'm a strong proponent of nose-to-tail eating and high welfare production (and we eat a lot of fish as we're all fans) but it is almost every meal.

We eat meat as part of our main meal probably 3 or 4 days a week. Rarely have meat for breakfast or lunch.

The only time we don't have meat for dinner is to have salmon once a week. I often batch cook, so stew, spag bol, etc a couple of times, chicken, sometimes a steak. We don't eat huge portions though.

I eat meat or fish every day. Usually twice a day.

Yes, meat or fish every day but maybe not every meal. A full English breakfast is my favourite except that I don't eat the bacon because nowadays I choke on it for some reason.
Actually, I don't know if I could do a vegetarian day, unless I'd decided not to have any tea. Porridge with fruit for breakfast then a baked potato with beans or cheese but then what? I need to experiment with my cooking, don't think I've ever made a curry!

We have attempted to be vegetarian on several occasions and I think I personally would be fine with it. Most recently we watched a documentary about Linda McCartney’s ethical veggie mission, cried, and decided we’d become vegetarian. Unfortunately it just did not work for DH, who has thalassaemia. He became even more anaemic than usual so we had to give up the grand ideas. We still do meat free 3 or so days a week though, and on the other days, only meat for the evening meal.

Not for every meal but we certainly eat meat everyday, for the most part.

Breakfast is normally cereal/toast with fruit.
Lunch would be soup and bread, or pasta, or a rice dish.
Dinner would be something like jacket potato with beans/tuna/prawns, or chicken curry, or stew, or pizza.

We also have things like fridge raiders, salami and pate in the fridge all the time so we have those for snacks, as well as things like cheese, fruit, veggies.

No part of any animals, ever, for me.

When I was omnivore, it was almost certain someone would ask if I was veggie when I ordered a veggie meal. Even then, I found it weird. An omnivore diet, at the absolute max "needs" less than a 100g. Account for all the plant protein a person realistically eats and it'll be a lot less. Obviously training regimes and such need more, but not necessarily meat. Soya is the densest protein source, hence vast majority harvested being fed to animals

Best bit, for those eating too much, any excess protein along with the vitamins & minerals goes down the loo. The body can't store it. Visual inspection provides clues for some elements. Carbs and fat on the other hand are retained and used as needed, so a healthy diet includes some under-eating periodically to use that excess. Ideally little and often for a fairly constant weight and minimum body stress

We work around that by having the same meal and popping a hunk of fish/chicken etc on top of the veggie dish for those that want. Modify the serving sizes as appropriate. Works great, but we do tend towards the Rukmini Iyer style of baked/one-pot veggie things which suits this well.

We eat meat every evening meal, we don't have huge portions necessarily. TNB lunch will mostly contain meat also.

I only know a couple of vegetarians and 1 vegan, most people I know eat meat at least every evening meal.

I love vegetables and would eat veggie meals more often as long as it wasn't meat replacements as they are gross but the rest of my family wouldn't want to not have meat.

Yup, habits play a huge role for a lot of things. I struggled initially with vegan cooking. Easy now, and going beyond that to learn things that would've made me more competent as an omnivore. Making a meat and veggie variant curry in parallel is the same skill you could use for two omnivores wanting a different meat or even none. Omnivores vary in their dedication to how much and how often. If its thought of as a generic skill, it'll probably spice up many people's dinner times at home. Agreeing on what to eat is a common struggle for all

Yes, every day with every meal. I don't eat breakfast and never did, even as a child, and I don't snack. I usually eat once a day (dinner), sometimes + lunch if I'm hungry. And both of those will be with meat or fish (meat most of the time). No exceptions.

Why? Because a meal without meat is not a meal for me, because I love it, because I can afford it and don't have any ethical qualms about it.

I think there's also a question about how much meat is in a meal as well. If I was having sausages and mash I'd have two sausages with loads of mash and veg. Other people might have four sausages...so double the meat I have that one day.

I also sometimes do bolognese two days running (i.e. leftovers) but the size of the pack of mince is probably something that other families get through in one meal. And if I'm doing salmon or chicken in pasta I wouldn't use a fillet per person, whereas I reckon some would.

I'd say I eat meat for dinners 4 or 5 times a week. I reckon I know loads of people who have meat for nearly every dinner.

I just reread your posts op, you seem to take real issue with how folks chose to eat. Really why are you so very bothered we have meat every day is it because uou can’t afford it?