If you are vegetarian or vegan - what do you eat ?

[Pisssssedofff]

DD 1 has gone veggie and gone up a dress size, basically because she's having pasta at every meal, cereal for breakfast and nothing for lunch, far too much fruit juice and scoffing 6 apples a day too.
She won't eat eggs - any suggestions it's driving me insane, I don't think she really likes vegetables if we are honest.

Why couldn't you have just made the spaghetti boll with quorn
Because it tasted like shit

Vegemite is your friend here. A big spoonful makes it taste meaty without any meat.

That's brilliant, I love vegemite

Another easy and fast (though maybe not that healthy) meal... We do stir fry fairly often and use those sachet sauces and straight to pan noodles, and I use the cauldron pre chopped and flavoured tofu. So the only prep is the veg. Fry the veg off, add the tofu until cooked through, then the noodles and sauce, and cook until hot and the noodles feel done. I add cashews a few minutes before the end as well which would be added nutrition. She could do this herself and the variations are endless, plus if you aren't as lazy as me you can make it healthier by not using packet food!

From a malnourished point of view I wouldn't worry too much. I had an atrocious diet growing up, but I grew out of it. My exam grades didn't suffer for it.

If she's not eating eggs, are you buying vegan pasta? Or are eggs as ingredients ok?

I like to make vegetarian nachoes and use kidney beans as the protein. They're delicious and everyone who's tried them has loved them, even those who say they don't like beans. The same filling could also be used on baked potatoes or pita pockets etc.

Am I heck, I make my own pasta, spelt flour and eggs !
She has no problem with brownies either 😜

Can I be honest ? I worried about the wind with all these beans ?? The child farts like a sailor at the best of times

Haha! I wouldn't worry too much OP. I went vegetarian at the same age (I'm 51 now) and more or less fended for myself as my mum had no clue! I ate (for years with no ill effects) a lot of Marmite sandwiches and toast. I want keen on veg til I was a little bit older and was quite fussy at that age. I stayed vegetarian til I was about 38 and survived.

I'm a rubbish cook and find catering hard work (I'm now sahm so it all falls to me atm). I also hate cooking meat (squeamish) so I thought some of my meal ideas would help (low effort and no meat!).
To be clear, she's not vegan? Just doesn't like egg and is veggie? (If she IS vegan, I recommend the Pure website as they have great and easy recipes. Thai curries are your friend too. Plus CoYo yoghurts, soya choc puds, Free From range at Tesco, and those delicious raw fruit bars (Nakd) which I scoffed when I went dairy free and lost lots of weight, the choc orange one is like eating brownie yum!).
So my low effort veggie meals are:
Gnocchi. One meal is gnocchi (ready made natch) with roast butternut squash, ricotta and spinach (just add to gnocchi pan at the end). The other is roast asparagus with gnocchi and sundries toms (mozzarella or Parmesan too if you want).
Nigella's roast cauliflower salad with hummus and flat bread
Pancakes (no sugar) with cheese or cream cheese and veg (broccoli as my dc will eat it, but you could grate courgettes and carrots and then lightly sauté before mixing in cream cheese)
Massive mushrooms or slices of butternut squash with halloumi on top, roasted (mushroom or squash first then more cooking with halloumi on top), stick em in pita with slices of tomato
Couscous with lemon juice, chopped black olives and red onion, and a grilled courgette and either halloumi or feta on top

No eating rice is a pita. But she could try noodles that aren't wheat (just for a pasta break!) eg rice or buckwheat?

Tesco also do frozen stir fry veg which I'm gonna do for ds who loves Chinese food but I always end up wasting fresh ingredients when I do this normally.

Veggie burgers, nut roasts, veggie fingers are all good esp with chips!

If iron is a concern try and sneak spinach into everything. My dad makes me lush spinach pies with spinach, feta or cheddar, sultanas mushrooms and pine nuts. If she is not morally opposed to egg you can pop some in here to bind up the ingredients and it won't taste eggy, iyswim.

If she has as you have said had a hard time recently it might be a lovely thing to do together, to try out new recipes and cook together. At 16 it's the perfect time to learn and nice to have a thing you can do with her?

Please don't punish her weight gain by not getting her clothes that fit :-( weight gain IMO is often caused by low self esteem and I have never managed to lose weight by trying to fit into tight clothes. Tesco do really nice things and are not expensive, maybe at least get her some jeans and a couple of tops - again it would be a lovely thing to do together.

Obviously I don't know the full story but it sounds like money is tight and you have a lot on your own plate (scuse the pun!), OP? if so, please remember your dd isn't really old enough to understand all of that yet. I hope you find some tasty things that you all like to eat and that this brings you closer to your daughter.

And things on toast!! My personal favourite. Again no eggs is a pain in the butt, but how about avocado, mushrooms, or beans? All good meals in themselves IMO!

You seem very worried about farting OP! We all do it you know :-)
Actually I think it's a myth about beams making you fart. Generally we fart because the digestive tract is working slowly, ie waste is staying too long in the gut and releasing gases :-) So eating more fibre (like beans etc) will make you less likely to fart (whereas meat, which takes literally days to digest, will make you fartier).

Beams? Beans!
Beams don't make you fart.

This thread inspired me to make a lentil and veg curry last night. I'm not a veggie, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

wow
I made lentil and swiss chard dahl last night. I probably had this thread in the back of my mind.

We are going to go food shopping tomorrow and acertain exactly what she will eat, which is great whilst I have time, she's going to have to help herself though so we'll have a good talk about that, health and weight. I have 4 kids, have just Shelled out £700 for coats, shoes, casual stuff for her to wear on summer camps, school trips etc, there is no way I am wasting that because she can't be bothered it's criminal

Please don't give her body-image issues on top of your dishonesty about what you're feeding her!

You know what there's a lot of fat people about and it's bad for their health, nothing to do with body issues and everything to do with laziness and lack of discipline and self care, no need for it and it won't be happening with my family

You mention laziness, OP, but your attitude to the Quorn is slightly lazy...

I don't eat Quorn Cao, so I'm not lazy when I've produced a perfectly balanced and nutrious tasty meal and someone turns their nose up at it.
Now I may be old fashioned but not old fashioned enough to say eat it or starve, I appreciate she needs guidance and help but nobody I know who puts on a stone just thinks ah fuck it I'll keep eating shit and get somebody else to fund a new wardrobe so I don't get body issues. They listen and learn about how to get rid of it and make sure it doesn't happen again. So that's what she'll be doing with a bit of luck, if not those jeans are going up pinch

Have you tried buying a veggie cookbook or getting her to look online? That way she can choose the meals she likes the sound of and maybe you could batch cook them together?

I grew up in a family that for the past ten years has had 4 vegetarians and 2 meat eaters. Out of those 4, 2 of us (me included) will eat anything veggie whilst the other 2 are very fussy. So mum and I would batch cook for those two and cook for ourselves and the meat eaters. This is what I now do at home as DH and DD are both ravenous carnivores. In fact I now rarely cook for myself without making at least three meals worth. It saves a lot of time if you're struggling to balance cooking for different needs.

Your DD needs to try different protein alternatives to figure out what it is she likes. Quorn and tofu are the obvious and allow easy double cooking of whatever is on the menu. There's falafel, which you could do alongside meatballs for the rest of you. Chickpeas and lentils can be chucked in to anything. There are some great blogs devoted to the practicalities of going vegetarian.

I don't know how you feel about not eating meat, but could you prepare a solely veggie meal a couple of nights a week? Many of the meaties in my family now choose to only have quorn mince and prefer veggie sausages etc and it will take the pressure of you a bit.

I was a vegetarian as a teenager, my dad used to just make a veggie version of what they were having for me, so if we were having fajitas he'd just get a small frying pan and make me some Quorndon instead of chicken, or if it was spag bol he'd make me a lentil or Quorn one at the same time. It's pretty easy really.
They had quick stuff in the freezer for me if they were making something that wasn't really easy to do a veggie version, so bean burgers, veggie sausages and things like that.
Or we'd have jacket potatoes and beans, I'm letter etc a lot.

It's all processed though isn't it all these burgers and sausages, I feel bad because we "the meat eaters" just wouldn't eat that shit and that's what I feel is contributing to the weight gain, could be wrong but it seems to coincide

Although processed yes, I can't see quorn products (sausages/burgers/mince) etc causing weight gain as they are very low fat and low cal. Obviously if you put a burger in a bun, smother with cheese and ketchup and serve with chips then the calorie count rockets.

That's what I mean and if you have to do that to make it platitable then it's a problem

I don't think the right approach only to replace meat with suitable veg substitute. I am veg and can't stand quorn.

I haven't read the thread, but I'd suggest looking into cuisines that have a substantial amount of veg (or are mainly vegetarian, I guess that takes you to india). I think the meal philosophy is different in those places. There is less of a central focus (as a big piece of meat is lacking) and more little dishes. I think that might stem from nothing packs quite the nutritional wallop meat does (I am not in the know though. I am just thinking aloud).

dhals, bean salads, channa, hummous, falafel, tofu, eggs, grains are all parts of a good meal.

Oh goodness no don't only rely on quorn. There are even plenty of veg that can provide enough iron etc. I limit quorn to the 2 days a week I only cook a veggie meal as then my other two don't feel like I've not given them something substantial. I would also advise avoiding the nut cutlet / risotto burger / grilled cheese bake route. These are so processed, incredibly calorific and play absolute havoc with my insides. Most of my meals are based around the veg that I do like, maybe that could be a starting point. I also don't think it would be unreasonable of you to say that if she is making this choice that she needs to try everything more than once until she finds the things that will be happily eaten. Being vegetarian certainly shouldn't be restrictive and to my mind only eating pasta / carbs etc isn't embracing that decision, rather it's simply becoming a very fussy eater. I have another vegetarian friend who spent a lot of her late teens and early twenties very ill because she lived off French toast, macaroni cheese, and salt and vinegar crisps.
Your DD also needs to be aware that when other people cook for her they are likely to make a huge hoo haa about cooking vegetarian food and that she won't get a say in it. It's much better to be prepared to be open to all food and widen her tastebuds considerably. Also, if people think that all she will eat is pasta, that will be what she gets every time. Even now my MIL, who is quite happy to cook for me, only creates a variation of the same 2 dishes every time we eat there.
It isn't a complicated dietary way of life but it does require imagination and I really think that encouraging her to prepare meals for herself will help if this is going to be a lifelong choice.