Advice on Meatless diets! w00t!

[Rachel]

Hello dear Nerdfighters,

Recently, my bio class received a challenge to go "raw" for a week, that is, go without cooked or processed foods and drinks. (correct me if i'm wrong). I thought this was a very intriguing and worthwhile idea, and I plan to give it a go very soon. It made me think of what a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle would be like, so I'm thinking i will try one of those for a period of time as well.

My purpose with this thread is to get some ideas as to how to go about it. I'm not really sure what counts for what, so any tips on what works would be nice. For those Nerdfighters familiar with vegan/vegetarian lifestyles, please tell me what are your favorite things and what enovironmentally friendly foods/drinks i should be sure to try that differ from a diet of everything (and holy heck i mean everything).

Also, (& i do realize this is getting long) any kinds/brands of food that anyone has found to be particularly made of awesome and fits into the raw/veg./vege. diet, please share. i really want to do this the right way. thanks for being awesome, DFTBA

[Rachel]

it would work great for a small apartment too, especially since i don't have to cook at all (or very little...depends on which food regimen i'm following...) Do you know of a company/store that makes decent blenders? the ones around here are as you described..."expensive and not as good." most of them are plastic also. what brand would you recommend? i would really like to avoid buying a crap blender... :S

[sabelmouse]

ours is a bellini 700 watt with icecrushing abillity, 2 speed pulse, 1'3 l glassjugg and a heavy body on rubber feet so it does not wobble or slidee.
we got really lucky there.

i don't know what you have over there.

[sabelmouse]

just now we are having because i don't want to waste things

plums that are not really ripe but going bad

overripe banana

ginger/rhubarb icecream that was on sale at the farmshop, really good stuff with real cream and fruit .

she has a cold and i am tinking ginger is a good thing and she won't even taste it.

it's just a little icecream, this morning i used yoghurt and honey. [ we have a lot of those plums ]


delicious.

[Rachel]

O.o that blender sounds impressive! i shall proceed to google it...after i oohh and aaah about how good that smoothie sounds...

[sabelmouse]

usually i don't add icecream or even yoghurt. just saying.

[Casey is like Crazy]

Morning star meat subsitutes are pretty good. Just don't compare them to meat beacause they will seem weird if you do. Also protein from nuts are good. If you are going Vegan/raw for a while make sure you take b12 pills.

[sabelmouse]

raw fruits and nuts and vegetables actually taste really good once you develope a taste for them and your tastebuds have got over their addiction to lots of salt and flavourings.

[Rachel]

this is so true! although my mind is not averse to the thought of a well-prepared chicken alfredo, i'm finding that i looove foods that i've always ignored. blueberries and apples are my new best friends :D

[feathers]

When you aren't on the raw diet try African Peanut Stew, i like the recipe that Relishmag.com has, but there are a lot of different versions out there.

[Nephtys80]

Hi Rachel,

I'm a sloppy mostly-vegetarian - in that I do occasionally eat fish, and if I can't find a vegetarian version of cheeses that use animal rennet I will buy and eat the non-vegetarian kind.

My advice to you would be this:
If you just want to try each lifestyle for a short period, then just go right ahead. However, if you want to make a permanent lifestyle change, I would go in more slowly: your body needs time to adjust to a new diet, and I think it's easier for your body to adapt and for you to make the change (by not having to give up a huge number of foods you like all at the same time) if you transition in slowly.

I did that naturally because I didn't start out planning to cut meat completely out of my diet, I was just against factory farming so I switched to organic meat. That was more expensive so I ate less of it, which meant that I learned to cook more and more vegetarian, and I realised that the less meat I ate, the healthier I felt, so it gradually disappeared from my diet altogether.

Moving on to what to eat! Personally, I'm not terribly fond of most "meat replacements" - veggie burgers etc., so I rely mainly on dairy (obviously not an option if you go vegan), nuts, pulses (lentils, chickpeas/garbanzos etc.), fungi, grains and certain vegetables to get the nutrients I'm not getting from meat (in addition of course to the fruit and veg I would eat anyway regardless of whether I eat meat). I have a general idea of the nutrients I need and where to find them, but I don't really measure, weigh and obsess over getting enough of everything, I just go by basic knowledge, common sense, and trusting my body to tell me if things are going wrong - as long as I feel good, I assume I am good.
This is a really good resource: http://www.vegsoc.org/newveg/fft/healthy.html (click through to following pages in the bottom right-hand corner). If you go fully vegan or raw though, you should probably pay more detailed attention to nutrition than I do.

Try to make as much as possible yourself, it gives you far greater control of your diet and helps you eliminate many unhealthy and unnecessary additives (they put sugar in pretty much EVERYTHING, often too much salt, and animal fats are used in many products where you wouldn't expect them). So for instance, in stead of buying pasta sauce, make your own with nice ripe tomatoes, onions, garlic, fresh basil, seasoning, and maybe a little honey if the tomatoes aren't sweet enough - or cut out the basil and use dried or fresh chili peppers if you want something spicier. It's more time consuming (not a problem for me because I LOVE cooking), but you can always make a large quantity when you have the time and freeze it in portions for when you're in more of a hurry.

As for environmentally friendly, try to buy local and seasonal: things that were not grown in greenhouses or flown thousands of miles to make it onto your plate. I'm not sure if this is available where you are, but here you can get a fruit and veg "subscription" at most health food stores, where you pick up a package of locally grown organic fruit and veg every week, usually with some cooking tips: you could look for something like that, or maybe there's a local (maybe even organic) farmers' market you could visit. The less processed the food you buy, the better.

For vegan and raw food ideas, I absolutely love this website: What the hell does a vegan eat anyway?

Nnnnnnnywayz, I think those are the basics... but I'll stick around in case you have questions, and I can post a few of my own veggie and vegan recipes if you'd like?

[Rachel]

wow, that's awesome! 'tis incredibly helpful, i'll be sure to try several of your suggestions...thanks!! and i would LOVE some of your recipes!

[Nephtys80]

Sorry, coming back to this a bit late! I'll repost them here when I have some more time, but all the recipes I posted in this thread are vegetarian, and most can easily be made vegan, e.g. by replacing butter with vegetable oil and other dairy with vegan 'dairy' products.