To ask how to reduce our meat consumption

[Mulhollandmagoo]

Inspired by a thread on here about eating less, better quality meat, I reflected on our eating habits and our household consumes a lot of meat - most evening meals are meat based, as are a lot of lunches, which is very very poor environmentally.

Both myself and my husband very overweight and desperately wish to change our lifestyle, we also have a 2yo, who isn't too much of a picky eater and we really don't want to pass on our poor eating habits to her.

So, I'm hoping for you to share your quick, easy and healthy veggie meals, we love (particularly red) meat, so this will be a huge adjustment for us, but after some self reflection over the past couple of days we have to make some changes.

We are big fans of curries, but not to keen on pasta really so anything along those lines but open to any and all suggestions

A simple and delicious switch for us was to things like veggie mousakka/ lasagna. Using a selection of vegetables that we didn’t often use before meant the veggie alternative was more interesting than the meat alternative.

For any meal that involves mince, you can go to soya or quorn mince. Or swap half the mince for lentils.

Veggie curries!!we make a load of the base tarka sauce and freeze it in ice cubes

Really easy then to make a Dahl with lentils or a paneer and spinach curry

A real easy one we do is a bag of frozen veg, block of paneer cubed curry

Chickpea curry

Veggie bean chili - (black beans/kidneys)

Veggie burgers - I Do a lovely carrot, kidney bean and cumin burger with sweet potato

Focus less on what new meals you'll have to learn to make and just make your current meals with veg or meat substitutes.

I'm a carnivore, but most of my meals are vegetarian or vegan. A few times a week I have fish, a few times a month I have chicken. All of my meals are ones that could have meat in it, they just don't.

Get gallstones

Seriously though having an ineffective gallbladder has forced me to hugely reduce my red meat and dairy intake. I try to stick to very low fat all day so lots of healthy grilled fish and chicken recipes and tons of veg. Nothing fried no chocolate, no ice cream... Sigh.
Knock on effect of that is me losing a stone without really trying to.

I know it's not the in trend thing to recommend a low fat diet, but gallstone pain is one I would never wish on anyone.

I'm now a bit wary of any diets pushing high fat (especially saturated unhealthy fat).

make a mixed bean chilli instead of chilli con carne using different beans and peppers and leaving out the meat.
Lots of recipes on line - but this tastes just as good and you won't miss the meat.

I bought Jamie Oliver book "veg"
I'm a good cook and don't usually use cookbooks but this did help inspire me.
With curries I replaced meat with chickpeas or sweet potato
Quorn mince is vile imo but the cubed bits are great

Lots of soups. Lentils,chick peas, cous cous meat substitutes like quorn.

Make your usual dinners just with lots of veg,pulses and/or quorn

Stir fries with chicken or plain veggie versions are my favourite as they nice and quick to make. With a decent pan you don't even need oil too. Lentil curries are also lovely.

I forgot to put any recipe ideas in my first post sorry
I also recommend an air fryer they are fab.

I would swap all lunches to start with. It's easy to have veggie lunch, sandwich, soup, pasty, salad. Then pick 2 easy veggie teas a week, nothing fancy, so one could be a curry, one could be jacket potatoes. You could just stick with that but have a different veggie curry and a different jacket potato topping/side every week. Make yourself a list of ideas for each, just go through bbc food app. This would be an amazing change.

This is great thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/vegetable-and-lentil-cottage-pie/

If you’re looking for a decent veggie sausage the cauldron Lincolnshire ones are good, we don’t use many meat substitutes but have those sometimes and occasionally quorn mince for a chilli.

For lunches try things like falafel, hummus, Spanish omelette or frittata with lots of veggies.

Spinach and chickpea curry is a good one.
Kidney beans also go really well in a curry.

If you think about it you don't need a huge repertoire, just 8 recipes that you rotate would be great.

Veggie curries can be a really easy way as there is so much flavour in the spices. When it comes to other things it is often the texture that meat adds that we found we can miss, I use vegetable based mince sometimes. Scrambled egg makes a great breakfast. Also just eating less meat when you do eat it, working out what a proper portion is is quite informative.

We tend to find that anything spicy is easier without meat, dairy can also help I sauces etc. but that is almost as bad as meat in environmental terms. Sustainable fish once or twice a week.

Maybe try gousto for a while. They have some fantastic vegetarian options and you get to learn some great new recipes.

A really easy start is to buy the smallest pack of mince for eg Spag Bol and make up the shortfall with tinned lentils. You'll still get the meaty texture and flavour you're used to, but have halved your meal's meat consumption whilst adding another of your 5-a-day.

A quick favourite in our house is veggie and tofu fajitas. I fry slices of smoked tofu and set aside to keep warm, then use a fajita kit but add onion, sliced peppers, and a tin of mixed beans/pulses (and sometimes mushrooms if any are left lurking in the fridge) rather than meat. We fill the fajitas with the pepper/bean mix, a couple of slices of the tofu, salsa, sour cream, and a bit of cheddar. If you use the small grater side, the cheese looks more in volume so you don't feel hard done by but is actually a smaller portion.

I'm vegetarian and the book I always recommend to anybody looking to reduce their meat consumption - particularly if they're time-poor - is 'The Green Roasting Tin' by Rukmini Iyer. Loads of really delicious dishes with minimal prep/cooking. You can also, if you don't want to stop eating meat or fish entirely, add to many of her recipes.

I must respectfully disagree with a PP who recommended 'veggieising' your existing meals - this is often expensive and can lead to an over-reliance on processed meat substitutions.

If you like cooking, I'd recommend looking into cuisines and cultures which are often veggie/vegan by default, especially Middle Eastern and South/East/South East Asian food.

Forgot the link to The Green Roasting Tin!

Daal, I am not convinced chickpeas replace the taste and mouth feel of meat.

Daal is supposed to be vegetarian and isn’t trying to mimic meat. I am currently looking at a lot of south Asian (Indian) recipes to try and reduce meat consumption, I don’t mind no meat as long as there is tonnes of flavour.

We have goan fish or prawn curry a lot, delish, I use frozen salmon/king prawns. Or we quite often just do a daal and have it with rice/pickes/yoghurt. Cauldron seasoned tofu is really nice as a meat substitute, better than Quorn imo. Linda McCartney frozen range is good too, we have the burgers as an easy weekend treat. The sausages & sausage rolls are yum. Veggie sausages generally are a good swap, again try the fresh ones by Cauldron.

Definitely chill with a couple of different types of bean (kidney/cannellini/chickpea). Spag Bol with quorn,
pasta with pesto and green beans,
fajitas with veg and halloumi,
big portobello mushrooms baked and used as burgers,
veggie sausage casserole
Risotto - mushroom or butternut squash
Dhal and naan bread/chapati
Pasta with chickpeas and dark greens, chilli and garlic (also vegan)

Ah, thank you all! These are brilliant, I draw a blank when trying to think of anything! I also have a very reluctant husband, so I really appreciate how 'everyday' these ideas are, we don't eat particularly fancy food!

@yogawankonobi I'd never thought of gusto or anything like that, that's a really good idea to get started

I made red lentil Bolognese the other day. I got the recipe from the Vegetarian Society web page. It omitted how much tomato puree to use and I put roasted cherry tomatoes in at the end instead. Would recommend.

Vegetarian tray bakes. Loads of recipes online. Easy and quick. Healthy and tasty.

@ladyjaye I will check that book out, thank you

At risk of sounding really daft, where do we stand on fish in terms of impact to the environment? my daughter loves fish/seafood. I know from a health perspective that its much better for you.

In fact I am very interested in the south Asian vegetarian diet, rice, veg and tonnes of spices, really simple yet complex way of cooking