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.

That's the thing for me, it's go hard or go home are you a veggie or not lol
I did chuckle though reading her end of year 6 year book, favourite food, beef stew 😂

OP, I'm just gonna say, your comments about overweight people are fucking disgusting.

And speaking from personal experience - when I went back to eating meat after being vegan for 4 years I put a stone on in about 6 weeks. It took me well over a year to shift it. My vegetarianism made me lose weight.
Even if your daughter embarked on a diet now, safe weight loss is about 1-2lb a week, so you'd easily be looking at a couple of months for her to lose the weight. You're really going to happily watch her wear clothes that are too tight for several months? Well fucking done you.

Also, the vast majority of foods are processed, unless you're living solely on fruit/veg/meat. Get over yourself. Quorn shouldn't be the only thing you eat but it's lower in calories than most meat.

As the thread has progressed you've grown more wilfully ignorant, disrespectful and unsupportive towards your daughter. Your attitude towards your daughters weight gain is pretty dreadful and from the sounds of it I think you're being slightly hypocritical by calling her lazy.
As others have pointed out your attitude towards vegetarianism and quorn is lazy, as is secretly feeding her meat. Besides that rotating the same 5 meals could be called lazy and no, it's not a varied or healthy diet.

That's the thing for me, it's go hard or go home are you a veggie or not lol I did chuckle though reading her end of year 6 year book, favourite food, beef stew 😂
What's your point? I used to love the taste of bacon and I'm positive I still would if I ate it now but how meat tastes isn't why I stopped eating meat, if she's gone veggie for ethical reasons then I'm sure it's the same story for her. Do you undermine her like this all the time?

I rotate 5 meals because I have other children and it is all they will all eat, I have other stuff to do as a working single mum than pander to this shit. I did pander a lot when I had time, my own fault but now I don't ... Equally I don't let them go to bed hungry either so I hope that clears that up for you.

My partner and I decided to reduce our meat intake - we won't eat meat at home but if someone cooks it for us we won't be fussy.

We have just gone with Quorn alternatives. We often make tasty stir frys with quorn mince thrown in - really tasty!

IKEA do lovely veg meatballs too - can recommend those.

Dr Kargs cheese crispbreads are really tasty too, nutritious and filling.

There are lots of tasty veggie alternatives out there - Google is ripe with recipes :-)

You haven't said anything to indicate that your daughter is unserious about being vegetarian, except that she doesn't like vegetables (not relevant to her convictions) and that she ate meat when you fed it to her and allowed her to believe it was vegetarian (awful behaviour on your part).

You need to ask her to tell you straight out what her dietary requirements are, i.e whether she will eat meat/fish/dairy/eggs. Then you can decide how supportive you want to be, whether you're willing to change what you cook for her/everyone (plenty of good suggestions for meals on this thread), or not change what you cook and give her the responsibility of feeding herself. If you do that, you need to actually make her responsible, which means getting off her back about her diet and her weight.

You haven't said anything to indicate that your daughter is unserious about being vegetarian, except that she doesn't like vegetables (not relevant to her convictions)

I think it is relevant. being a vegetarian that eats poorly is really going to be bad for her. It's not worth being a vegetarian if it costs you your health.

it also won't be sustainable. if every meal is either unhealthy or a chore to eat, she'll fall off the wagon pretty quickly. I also get that children and teenagers make rash decisions and are young enough to be resilient to them, but it's just not a great decision to be vegetarian if you hate vegetables, unless there is some vision that she will start liking vegetables by trying. it's possible that this decision will help her learn to like vegetables, or she'll resent the whole exercise.

by the way, it's fine to "fall off the wagon". But I think it does comment on how well thought out the decision was if she hates veggies.

Honestly do not get me wrong I try not to think about meat, I can't bear to think of it so I do understand the ethics I really really do. It's the practicalities

This week:
leek and courgette risotto
Pasta with potato, beans and home made pesto ( Hugh FW recipe)
Vegetable and lentil hash with rose harissa + broccoli and green beans
Quorn escalope ( don't cook from scratch on Wednesdays)
Nasi Goreng - recipe off marinated tofu packet.
Vegetable chilli
I make one real pudding a week, usually on Sunday, and we have yoghurt and fruit on the other days.

Fab, thank you, I'm making notes

I think if you only ever feed DC the same 5 meals on rotation because it is all they will eat then you have a bit of a food problem in your house OP. I think you need to broaden their diets and having vegan nights 2-3 times a week where you make something new could be perfect for this.

Regarding your newly vegan daughter, at minimum either feed her vegan versions of all the meals you usually cook (I think you mentioned roast dinner, pizza, lasagne, shepherds pie, all of which can be made vegan, and have vegan nights where the entire family eats vegan so you only have to cook one meal) and supplement on other nights with some of the healthy vegan ready meals available (although I will admit these can be quite pricey, however if you look on Ocado there are probably around 20 or so complete vegan meals or light meals you can buy - if you want details please PM me)....

Or

Buy a vegan cookbook and batch cook a few healthy meals at the weekend and freeze.

Northern European cuisine is about the worst for vegetarians, IMO, as it's so based around the notion of meat and two veg. If I'm fitting into that situation (like if everyone else wants steak) my core replacements are omelette, halloumi or veg pie/quiche.

If everyone is eating burgers/sausages, I'll eat veggie burgers/sausages. I wouldn't normally eat them of my own accord. The only other quorn product I'm really into is the mince, which I'll make in spaghetti bolognese (my secret to flavour is porcini paste but I'd bet marmite is also delicious). If someone else is cooking I'll eat any quorn/other substitute product they've provided for me.

The thing that works better is to look at cuisines which are less focused on the meat and two veg model:

Italian - pasta with all and any vegetables, pizza (preferably home made and thin crust), risotto, gorgeous fresh salads, gnocchi (tossed in oil in the summer, baked with tomatoes in the winter), lots of cannellini and other beans, in salads or as a meat "replacement" in e.g. lasagne or stews, etc.

Indian - anything revolving around chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, spinach, kale and other dark green leaves, cauliflower etc.

Thai - lots of varieties of stir fry (tofu is yummiest in stir fry IMO), pad thai, steamed vegetables etc.

Middle eastern - cous cous with basically anything, fresh bread with lots of yoghurty herby dips, baked aubergines, again lots of delicious salads.

I eat all of the above regularly and am a terrible cook so guarantee they can all be done easily! I'm more of a Jamie/Hugh cook than an Ottolenghi but you can be as adventurous as time/money allows with vegetarian food.

Just a few more thoughts:

Please don't feed her meat again. If you don't want to/can't provide her with a meal that fits her requirements then whether or not she's being reasonable you need to be honest with her.

Portion size is all. I don't think (from observation) that meat eaters are always great at judging how carbs map onto proteins and sometimes feed enormous carb/vegetable portions because it feels different to eating protein. It takes a bit of time to realise what full feels like when you're not eating lots of meat.

My diet is carb-heavy compared to meat eaters I know. It's also fat heavy because cheese is my indulgence (very little love for puddings). The carbs influence what type of exercise I focus on (lots of cardio) and the fat influences the amount (more than if I were vegan, for example). To my mind the whole thing comes as a package and no one should make big dietary changes without considering what impact this will have on their exercise if they want to maintain the same body (and I'm not making ANY judgements about her body, just saying that it all needs to be considered).

We're perfectly happy with our food Nobody, but thank you.
Lady, she wouldn't eat the omelette - vegan, she wouldn't eat the quiche, again eggs and have you seen the price of halloymi, seriously. As I say making notes and I want to acknowledge helpful posters with thanks but it's not easy lol

Two or three vegan nights where I make something new would result in £40 of good in the bin. Not even going there. End of.

I'm surprised you think it would cost you £40 for three nights of cooking. Our food bills went down hugely by not eating as much meat. What were you planning on cooking?

What are your five meals? Maybe we could suggest meals with similar ingredients that your family might like.

When we were stuck in a rut we did one new meal a week for a while. The bbcgood food website is excellent for ideas.

We're all good thanks, don't have the time or inclination.

How about Quorn chilli (in tacos if she doesn't like rice). You can sneak loads of veg into the chilli - fry then puree onions, courgettes, tomatoes and two or three different types of peppers with garlic and herbs. Salad on the side.

Lentil based curry with peas, carrots and onions in it, served with wholemeal chapatis and mango chutney with cucumber raita on the side?

We're all good thanks, don't have the time or inclination.

So you don't have the time or the inclination to change what your family eats but you've started a thread about what vegetarians and vegans eat. Okay...

OP, so you want suggestions for new things to cook but say you don't have the time or inclination to cook new things? Well, if you don't have the time or inclination to provide DC with healthy diets then you can hardly complain about DD eating unhealthily!

There's no easy option OP - either you put in the time and effort, or you spend exorbitant amounts of money on healthy vegan ready meals!

Also, could DD help out by cooking a meal once a week? Ditto any others older kids? Or could they earn their pocket money by doing the washing up or whatever to reduce your workload, if you don't do that already?

(And btw, home made vegan food is usually cheaper if you replace the meat with pulses, so unless you're buying Finest Organic ranges I don't see how you can arrive at £40 extra!)

even if OP cant be arsed to read the posts, I like these ideas.

I have to say I LOVE Heathers McCartney's blouse in her bean burger video on the home page, I wonder if her sister made it? Its a good look

We've already concluded a while back DD needs to be self sufficient and part of the solution. The others kids and I are perfectly happy with our steaks. Thanks for your input

One of my fave quick and easy meals (and cheap!)for easy lunches.

I just take a vegetable two minute noodle packet. Add the noodles and the flavour sachet to water as normal. To this I add freshly sliced spring onions, some ginger, chilli and diced silken tofu. I also add a big bunch of fresh coriander. mmm.....

If not vegan you can add egg or prawns. Can also a little light coconut milk.

So easy. SO delicious. Damned cheap too.