going vegetarian

[jenk1]

ive been thinking about this for a while but am a bit scard,apprehensive dont know where to start also will i cope without bacon butties at the weekend,roast dinners etc,can someone tell me how they went about it
thanks

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I read all about the suffering of the animals and have never looked back. Little lambs...thats someones baby to me, not someones dinner.

I turned veggie when I was 16, not that much different, other than cutting out meat and fish, substitute with beans/pulses or veg.

Most food is marked veggie, so you know it is.

If we have a roast, I have everything but, and veggie gravy.

There are millions of good cookbooks, though I can't think of any!

i became a vegetarian 11 years ago. at first my mum made me these burgers which was little fake mince that you had to add a little water to and then shape them. but after a while i discovered quorn and other replacements. 6 months later my mum became a vegetarian too and then my dad a year on. my DP has also been a vegetarian for 10 years and we are raising our DD as one. quorn roast is what we have with our sunday lunch. you get fake bacon (or facon as DP calls it) and that's quite nice. plus there are hundreds of recipes that do not involve replacements like quorn.

It soon became second nature to me. I've been veggie for 20 years. Now I couldn't touch meat if you paid me.

Just make sure you use pulses, seeds and nuts, partly to get B'Vitamins, iron and protein, but also because they're delicious.

Also, if you're saving money by not buying meat, you can afford lovely organic veg which has more flavour, posh cheeses and generally better ingredients.

Leith's Vegetarian Bible is a great book. So, too, is The Gate Vegetarian cookbook. There's also Rose Elliott's bean book and I love the River Cafe Book. It's not veggie but I adapt the recipes.

Good luck.

we make a lot of one pot things like chilli (with mixed beans), curry (lentils, veg), or tomato pasta with veg (always chuck in a handful of red lentils and sometimes a couple of blocks of frozen spinach - good for iron).

for sausages and stuff quorn is good if you like it (also for chicken type burgers), and there is another company called cauldron who do nice veggie sausages and pates.

i dont miss meat at all. have been veggie for 10 years and cant see myself ever changing back. one huge benefit of going veggie is i lost a huge amount of weight!

Try the Vegetarian Society:

\llink{www.vegsoc.org\info}

I've been veggie for 18 years now and can highly recommend it. You need to get your hed round the concept of cooking without meat though - it's not just doing a roast dinner with a nut roast instead of chicken or whatever, it's a different type of cuisine. If you like Indian or Italian food you should be fine!

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My mum finally allowed me to stop eating meat when I was 14 (I'd spent the previous 5 years swallowing lumps of Sunday roast whole!). She thought it was "a phase I'd grow out of" ... and here we are, 33 years on ... and she's still waiting!!

To start with, I just stopped eating pieces of meat, as I wasn't aware of things like gelatine, animal rennet etc. I would suggest you take things slowly, and swap things like veggie sausages for dead animal ones, and a nut roast for your Sunday joint etc. Bit by bit, you'll be able to start experimenting yourself, be more confident to try new things, and learning to stand up for yourself with family and friends!!

It's much easier to buy stuff now because supermarkets are pretty good at labelling.

hello jenk1 I stopped eating meat at the age of 10, I just did not like it, and the as I got older I realised there were other foods that contained things that were not suitable for vegetarians. E120 - cochineal, which is a red food colouring comes from crushed beetles - no Im not making that up. I also gave up fish, even though I do like fish.
There are so many foods in this world, and meat is really only a small part, if you think about how much meat you put on a plate its actually a small part of the meal.
You need to find things that you really enjoy eating, otherwise you wont last long. Maybe some of the meals you eat now could be addapted, lasagne, pasta bake, curries, thai curry - Sainsbury do a red thai curry paste that is suitable for vegetarians (most of them have shrimp paste in them) couscous with vegetables and grilled halloumi cheese and greek yoghurt, rissoto with asparagus and pine nuts or rissoto with mushrooms and a couple of teaspoons of scala sundried tomato paste, M&S do some delicious tarts with onion and goats cheese and the onion is really sweet, Cauldron do some lovely leek and cheese organic sausages (avail. Tesco), my dh likes these with a cooked breakfast or in a sandwich with lots of brown sauce and he is not vegetarian. Although I cant stand the woman, but Delia Smiths Vegetarian Collection is actually a good book, any book by Rose Elliot is also good.
I do occaisionly get stick from people but it really doesnt bother me, my brother teases me and says that carrots have feelings so I just tell him he can lecture me when he gives up eating vegetables.
I dont eat alternatives to meat as I do not like the taste, smell or texture of meat (I dont even cook it for dh) but I have cooked quorn mince in a bolegnase for dh and he enjoyed it.
Dont know where you live but there is a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in Primrose Hill, London called Manna, they have their menu on the web and that might give you a few ideas if you do not leave near London.
www.manna-veg.co.uk
www.vintagerootsorganics.co.uk are a great company for organic and vegetarian wine and beer.
Anyway I could go on and on and on as I love my food, if you can cook then you will have no problem with tasty eats.

Good luck

thanks littlelion thats really helpful, i am starting slowly have just started having organic veg delivered-its on food page my thread about it, and am going to stop eating red meat first and see how i go on

jenk1 just thought you might also be interested in an organic delivery company, they do the usual fruit and veg and also things like laundry powder, washing up liquid, plus chilled and dairy products. As far as I am aware they deliver all over the UK.
www.onefood.co.uk