Vegetarians: What's Your Diet?

[Asha]

Namaste

I'm currently planning to give up consuming meat (but not dairy, at least not yet) products.

So, for the vegetarians here: What diet(s) do you currently follow? And what are some of the most used ingredients in it?

I follow the hindu pure vegetarian diet which consists of all grains, pulses, nuts, fruit all vegetables except onions, garlic and mushrooms, we also avoid very hot red chilies and excessive use of very heavy spices.
We have milk products but because of cruelty to the cow in modern dairy faming methods I tend to leave milk out unless I know that it is ahimsa milk. so I have soya yogort sometimes. but we never eat eggs !

As Gaudia Vaisnava all foods that we take are usualy offered first which means we can only offer pure foods which have been freshly prepaired, this can be a very good dicipline as it is impossible to be lazy about our eating habits and because of course our deities love indian food we cook mostly two or three vegetable dishes with rice and some form of chapatti, or flat bread. We allmost only use unrefined flours and brown basmati , which is so much better for you than the polished white rice.
We also love sweets which is something I have to be very carefull about it is too, too easy to over indulge when it comes to home made jalebi and gulab jamun!


The Indian vegetarian diet is so varied that you never get tired of trying new dishes or finding other ways to cook the same basic ingredients. On the whole it is a very healthy diet providing that one dosent overindulge in the sweets and fried foods these are only supposed to be for special occasions.

I think if people are trying to go vegetarian the indian diet is amazing there is just so much choice apart from my dad I have never met anyone who dosent like indian food, and even he enjoys it when you give it to him, he just thinks he wont like it because it is foreign.

most used ingredients?

Rice, lentils, dhall, chickpeas, mixed grain flours, as many and as varied vegetable as I can get, lots of potatoes, I love okra then almonds, peanuts, cahews, are often cooked in with rice. And I couldnt survive without ginger and a good selection of spices, in the summer we grow a lot of our own coriander, dill, fenugreek, parsley, mints and fruits.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Thanks for the responses, all.

I still want to know more about certain things, so I'll go over some of the posts here individually in a bit and then start to harass people with questions.

 

[Sunstone]

I myself am staunchly opposed to including vegetarians in one's diet. I firmly believe that eating vegetarians is an alarming practice and should be wholly discouraged. In fact, I am appalled that it is even being considered. Shame on the OP! Shame!

 

[Vinayaka]

I myself am staunchly opposed to including vegetarians in one's diet. I firmly believe that eating vegetarians is an alarming practice and should be wholly discouraged. In fact, I am appalled that it is even being considered. Shame on the OP! Shame!

Chemical free meat, in some cases.

 

[Jainarayan]

I myself am staunchly opposed to including vegetarians in one's diet. I firmly believe that eating vegetarians is an alarming practice and should be wholly discouraged. In fact, I am appalled that it is even being considered. Shame on the OP! Shame!

Does eating animals that are herbivores make one a vegetarian-by-proxy? How about vegetarian-once-removed?

 

[fantome profane]

I myself am staunchly opposed to including vegetarians in one's diet. I firmly believe that eating vegetarians is an alarming practice and should be wholly discouraged. In fact, I am appalled that it is even being considered. Shame on the OP! Shame!

You do realize that most cows, chickens, and pigs are vegetarians.

I suppose you only eat lions.

 

[Debater Slayer]

The classic Indian diet is high in whole grains and pulses, not to mention fruit and vegetables. Chick peas, all the dals (various lentils) are where we get most of our essential goodies. As some others have noted, it's a pretty easy transition if you have a brain.

How long did it take you to fully transition from eating meat to vegetarianism (assuming you used to eat meat)? Did you need to adjust your diet a lot after transitioning?

 

[Vinayaka]

How long did it take you to fully transition from eating meat to vegetarianism (assuming you used to eat meat)? Did you need to adjust your diet a lot after transitioning?

Maybe a couple of years. My wife and I changed about the same time. (40 years ago) The first thing we did was a scientific analysis of nutrients. We recorded every single morsel for an entire month, and then analysed it using 'Diet for a Small Planet' or some other text that gave a complete breakdown. Right away we discovered that protein wasn't the problem, but iron and B12 might be. We are lacto-vegetarians so milk and cheese help with that, although we're not huge dairy eaters. Our transition into Hinduism took 5 years as well, but I do remember going to McDonalds and eating filet of fish when we traveled. So initially it was more to western vegetarian, then gradually more to Indian vegetarian. Now it's about 60-40 Indian to western, mostly because there are some nutritional problems with the Indian diet, namely white rice, too much sugar, and too much salt.

Doing the scientific analysis really helped our confidence. On many things like vitamins and minerals , we were getting like 300% of the daily requirements. I eat 5 + pieces of fruit a day. So doing that reassured us that there was no real need to be incredibly diligent, and we could relax some. I'll have comfort food like French fries some days, and not think twice about it.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Maybe a couple of years. My wife and I changed about the same time. (40 years ago) The first thing we did was a scientific analysis of nutrients. We recorded every single morsel for an entire month, and then analysed it using 'Diet for a Small Planet' or some other text that gave a complete breakdown. Right away we discovered that protein wasn't the problem, but iron and B12 might be. We are lacto-vegetarians so milk and cheese help with that, although we're not huge dairy eaters. Our transition into Hinduism took 5 years as well, but I do remember going to McDonalds and eating filet of fish when we traveled. So initially it was more to western vegetarian, then gradually more to Indian vegetarian. Now it's about 60-40 Indian to western, mostly because there are some nutritional problems with the Indian diet, namely white rice, too much sugar, and too much salt.

Doing the scientific analysis really helped our confidence. On many things like vitamins and minerals , we were getting like 300% of the daily requirements. I eat 5 + pieces of fruit a day. So doing that reassured us that there was no real need to be incredibly diligent, and we could relax some. I'll have comfort food like French fries some days, and not think twice about it.

Thanks for elaborating.

Do you occasionally crave meat anymore, or is it repellent to you now? I admit I love chicken, so that's probably going to pose a challenge to me when I change to a vegetarian diet.

 

[Vinayaka]

Thanks for elaborating.

Do you occasionally crave meat anymore, or is it repellent to you now? I admit I love chicken, so that's probably going to pose a challenge to me when I change to a vegetarian diet.

Maybe for 5 years I had the occasional 'craving' although that word is relative. When you've smoked and quit nicotine, you have a better idea of the true meaning of 'craving'. But now it is repulsive (to me). The last time I had a Tofu hot dog I puked it. I have no problem watching others unless they're real pigs about it, but watching pigs eat any food in a gobble gobble way is sort of gross.

I didn't miss any particular meat, but I know people who did. But I was a big meat eater until 19, having been raised in rural Alberta on meat and potatoes.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Maybe for 5 years I had the occasional 'craving' although that word is relative. When you've smoked and quit nicotine, you have a better idea of the true meaning of 'craving'. But now it is repulsive (to me). The last time I had a Tofu hot dog I puked it. I have no problem watching others unless they're real pigs about it, but watching pigs eat any food in a gobble gobble way is sort of gross.

I didn't miss any particular meat, but I know people who did. But I was a big meat eater until 19, having been raised in rural Alberta on meat and potatoes.

That's encouraging. I guess time will tell how much I really like chicken or meat in general after a few months of going vegetarian.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I was vegetarian for a number of years and then transitioned to being pescatarian after further research.

What specifically led you to adopt pescatarianism over a strict vegetarian diet?

The diet I follow focuses on natural foods and aims for being anti-inflammatory. I usually buy all organic stuff.

My main ingredients are:

Vegetables:
-Broccoli, Kale, Spinach, other green leaves, green beans, romaine lettuce, red pepper, chili pepper, onions, scallions,

Fruits:
-Apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, tangerines, dried apricots

Carbs:
-Brown rice commonly, potatoes sometimes, whole wheat pasta rarely. If you like sweet potatoes, they're awesomely healthy, but I don't like them.
-I have some cereals with like corn, amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, and a bit of honey. They don't have gluten or added sugar.

Fats:
-Lots of olive oil for toppings, medium use of coconut oil for cooking, nuts like walnuts and almonds

Beans:
-Sprouted lentils, mung beans, and a few others

Herbs and Spices:
-Lots of everything. Cinnamon, garlic, basil, oregano, black pepper, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, etc.

Fish:
-Wild caught fish that are sustainably caught, low in mercury, and high in omega 3 fatty acids. This includes especially Alaskan sockeye salmon, but also occasionally Alaskan halibut, Alaskan sablefish, and Alaskan flounder. Mercury generally accumulates in fish that live long and high up on the food chain, but salmon has a short lifetime due to its breeding habits, so its mercury is generally very low. Also, wild-caught fish are extremely nutritionally different compared to farmed-caught fish. When it comes to the intersection of sustainability, mercury, and nutrition, it all depends on the species, location, and capture method.
-Mussels, a non-fish seafood.
-Rarely other seafood.

Dairy:
-I drink probably 3 ounces of whole milk per day (in cereal), and use butter a couple of times per week on potatoes and green beans.

Desserts:
-Dark chocolate (80-85% for me), and sometimes a bit of vanilla ice cream

Drinks:
-Water, green tea, white tea, sometimes herbal "teas", once in a while red wine.

Things I specifically exclude:
-Land animals. I had a phase of including some Amish-raised chicken so I was no longer pescetarian, but went back to fish-only.
-Highly processed oils ("vegetable" oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, etc)
-Highly processed foods (high fructose corn syrup, most things that come in a box)
-Added sugar, except rarely.
-Empty carbs (white bread, white rice, etc)
-Eggs.

I have a few questions about the above, but I think they would be too many for one post. So for now, something I'm interested to know is why you exclude eggs. Is that for ethical reasons or nutritional ones, or both?

 

[Penumbra]

What specifically led you to adopt pescatarianism over a strict vegetarian diet?

It was a number of factors.

-One was that I scanned through dozens of scientific studies on the benefits of fish oil for the human body. The current developed-world diet is generally very high in omega 6 fatty acids, and many of them promote relatively unnoticed chronic inflammation throughout the body which has evidenced negative affects for cancer, mood, digestion, arthritis, etc. There is strong evidence that increasing omega 3 fatty acid intake and decreasing omega 6 fatty acid intake is highly effective at reducing or eliminating chronic inflammation. Omega 3 fatty acids can be found in some plant foods like flax seeds, but there are actually three significant types of omega 3's: EPA, DHA, and ALA. ALA is the type that's available in flax seed. The body has a minor and variable ability to convert ALA to EPA and DHA, which are the more powerful varieties. The oil in fish, however, is very high in EPA and DHA omega 3 fatty acids. In addition to preemptively reducing inflammation in the body before it causes noticeable problems, fish oil (especially EPA omega 3 fatty acids) has dozens of studies showing its beneficial effects on inflammation-caused arthritis, as well as on improving depression and other mood disorders.

-The majority of carbohydrate-based plant foods are inflammatory on the body. The vegetables themselves are often anti-inflammatory due to their huge vitamin and mineral content, but are a tiny portion of dietary calories even with 5-8 servings a day, and so in a vegetarian diet, the bulk of calories generally come from grains, potatoes, beans, etc. Most seeds (including grains and beans) use minor toxins to avoid being digested or predated, and these can contribute to systemic inflammation in the body, especially when eaten in large quantities. Fish is strongly anti-inflammatory, so eating fish not only replaces some of these inflammatory calories with anti-inflammatory calories, but also is anti-inflammatory enough to counteract the combined inflammation from the rest of the diet and pushes the whole diet onto the anti-inflammatory side. For example, one portion of sockeye salmon is anti-inflammatory enough to balance out the inflammation caused by an entire day's worth of plant-based carbohydrate intake (rice, potatoes, wheat, corn, beans, fruit, etc). So, I eat anti-inflammatory plant foods like olive oil, kale, and other things, and then also eat fish for its immensely anti-inflammatory properties and for the EPA and DHA varieties which are very difficult to find in decent quantities in plant foods.

-On an environmental sustainability issue, I determined that pescetarianism was more sustainable than vegetarianism. With vegetarianism, 100% of the calories must come from land (plus a tiny bit of seaweed/algae in some cultures), which means intensive monoculture farming, pesticides, reduction in soil quality and arable land, toxins in the environment and water, etc. But, if a portion of human calories come from ocean animals that are caught in sustainable ways, and the oceans cover two thirds of the world, that relieves a portion of the environmental burden on the land while having minimal impact on the ocean. In practice, many areas are overfished or fished in damaging ways and therefore to be avoided, but there are areas of the world such as Alaska that are very strictly regulated to keep the fish population stable and to avoid other types of damage. Spreading that highly regulated model would be effective. Some seafood, like mussels, can also be sustainably farmed on coasts.

-It's a very hard number to calculate, but a lot of animals die in the production of plant-based foods. One study estimated 100-200 mice per hectare per year for wheat, for example. Much of the death comes from poison to keep pests away, but there's also death caused by mechanized gathering systems to gather the tons and tons of wheat, corn, rice, etc. There are also snakes and other animals that die, plus of course the bugs. In addition, fertilizers and other things run off into rivers and eventually drain into oceans, causing large dead zones of low-oxygen water, killing countless fish. In comparison, if a salmon is sustainably caught, it'll provide about 20 meals of fillets, equaling thousands of calories. That one death has to be compared to the hard-to-calculate number of dead mice, snakes, and fish from producing thousands of calories of wheat, corn, potatoes, rice, etc. For Alaskan salmon, they are generally caught on their way to breeding grounds where they will die anyway, and for other fish, their life-cycle often ends with predation anyway. Plus, I compare killing mussels (for healthy and sustainable consumption) to the deaths of insects from pesticides and other farming techniques (which are an uneaten side effect).

So the evidence regarding the beneficial effects of sustainably-caught fish and other seafood on nutrition, environmental sustainability, and animal death and suffering, was convincing to me to switch from vegetarianism to pescetarianism.

I have a few questions about the above, but I think they would be too many for one post.

Okay, feel free to ask when you want.

So for now, something I'm interested to know is why you exclude eggs. Is that for ethical reasons or nutritional ones, or both?

One reason is that in all but the ethically strictest methods, the factory farming of eggs is roughly on par ethically with the factory farming of animal meat, in terms of how the animals are treated throughout their lives.

The other reason is that, personally, I might have a slight allergy to eggs. I'm not sure what it is, but I notice that if I eat an egg, I get a stomach ache.

 

[Nooj]

Hello fellow slayer, I eat vegan and generally just replace meat with mushrooms and/or beans. It's a much easier transition than people imagine.

^
yep. i almost didn't notice tbh. but i'm a veggo not a vegan.

 

[ScottySatan]

I think the best vegetarian foods are those things that never called for meat in the first place. Don't rely so much on fake meat, because they take on the flavor of what they're cooking in, not the other way around, so the taste is inferior to the real thing. The list of things classically vegetarian or with a classically vegetarian option is a lot bigger than western veg-o-phobes think.

The list is too long, but some things I like that meat eaters don't think of are:
risotto (veggie broth)
pesto
margherita pizza
cheese fondue
east asian fried rice or noodles
sushi
ratatouille
tomato soup
huevos rancheros
eggplant parmesean
indian curries, especially dal
pierogies

edited to add: that being said, tofu can be amazing, you just have to learn how to work it. It's a bit unforgiving. A lot of chinese dishes with tofu or seitan are fantastic. Also, look in your area to see if there's a restaurant run by the african jewish movement, I forget what they call themselves. They make vegan soul food out of fake meat that will knock your socks off.

 

[metis]

My wife is from Sicily, and there are a great many vegetarian meals within that cuisine since it was a very poor area whereas eating meat was mostly reserved for special occasions. When we were visiting her family there in 2001, they had no trouble cooking for us, and I didn't eat any meat for 5 weeks.

 

[ScottySatan]

My wife is from Sicily, and there are a great many vegetarian meals within that cuisine since it was a very poor area whereas eating meat was mostly reserved for special occasions. When we were visiting her family there in 2001, they had no trouble cooking for us, and I didn't eat any meat for 5 weeks.

examples please? what do they put on the couscous?

 

[metis]

examples please? what do they put on the couscous?

Most of the time vegetables that are roasted or sauteed with olive oil, often with some grated cheese added at the end. BTW, you can't believe how much olive oil my wife and I go through in a year.

 

[Jainarayan]

Query: does using animal products such as leather, while eschewing consuming animals make one a hypocrite? I've fidoodled over attempting a proper vegetarian diet (preferably lower carb due to insulin resistance) several times. I am not concerned about getting enough vitamins, minerals or protein, and I think I could make it work with planning. But I have too much invested in leather... jackets, boots, gloves. I won't make any excuses for it, leather is far more utilitarian for outerwear than anything made of cloth or wool, and will most likely always use leather.

 

[Secret Chief]

Vegetarian is just a useful label. Use another one...flexitarian.
Your body, your diet, your choice.

I call myself a vegetarian. I have leather shoes, belts, wallets and probably unwittingly consume animal byproducts regularly. It's probably unavoidable. Recently found out waxed lemons are 'waxed' with bug **** and plastic...

It's not hypocrisy. It's trying your best in a complex world, as per your own personal circumstances.