Veg*n A few question to help out a possibley new vegetarian

1) Mayo is fine, unless you are going vegan.

2) You don't have to eat tofu. Look in the vegitarian/health food section of your grocery store. (Major stores always have it) They have BBQ Ribs, lassange, pasta with meat sauce, chicken nuggets, and other meaty things made of soy. I eat them and the difference is miniscule.

3) If you want to cook for your family and still include meat just enough for the other four, you can do that. Buy less meat since you are only feeding four, discreatly provide more veggie options (such as pasta).

Also, take a multi-vitamin, preferably one for vegitarians. I don't take one, but they should help.

1) Vegan Mayonnaise. You'll be suprised how much it tastes like egg mayonnaise! You'll for sure love it. Pick it up at the Health Food Center

2) Hm..I dont eat Tofu. It's not a rule if your going to become a vegetarian. But if you want to TRY it, I heard scrambling is good tasting. Tofu's purpose it to add texture to food and soak up the flavor. Not to eat plain.

3) I have a family of five also, and they all eat meat. Your husband should accept you being vegan, even if he thinks eating meat is fine, he should definitely support you! Vegan eating is an exciting adventure in eating, a creative way of cooking, and definitely an ageless alternative. There are so many reasons to choose a vegan lifestyle and I'm so proud of you for considering it because it is definitely worth it!!

She is not trying to be vegan, yet.

slap_maxwell said:

She is not trying to be vegan, yet.

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Her whole post is about possibly become vegetarian

vegitarian and vegan are two different things.

slap_maxwell said:

vegitarian and vegan are two different things.

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Either way, they all mean herbivore

True, but to what extent is the difference. Vegetarians eat no meat, but can choose to eat milk, dairy products, and animal byproducts. Vegans don't. (Just for those who may not know). I never did like mayo, is Miracle Whip vegan? Just wondering, I've never actually checked. (I'm aiming to be vegan, recently turned vegetarian though).

mncavylover said:

True, but to what extent is the difference. Vegetarians eat no meat, but can choose to eat milk, dairy products, and animal byproducts. Vegans don't. (Just for those who may not know). I never did like mayo, is Miracle Whip vegan? Just wondering, I've never actually checked. (I'm aiming to be vegan, recently turned vegetarian though).

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I know what they all mean it's just stupid to fight over either vegan or vegetarian. No miracle whip isnt vegan.

I didn't think so--thanks! Usually, if you're applying things you say to both vegans and vegetarians, you put veg or veg*n (the star can be replaced with "etari" or "a"). Not trying to sound rude or anything, it just makes things a little more clear.

No prob : )

Well yeah. I can say vegetarian, but that can apply to both vegetarians and vegans..so it doesnt really matter if your not being specific, just in general about it

They are two completely different things... if they wern't then there wouldn't be two terms!

Piglet said:

They are two completely different things... if they wern't then there wouldn't be two terms!

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jesus, i am vegan i would know! if your thinking about a certain lifestyle, wither veg or vegan then who really cares what you say..

vegan said:

jesus, i am vegan i would know! if your thinking about a certain lifestyle, wither veg or vegan then who really cares what you say..

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Then you need to realize that there are vast differences between the two. Some people are not interested in the vegan lifestyle and would like to know more about being a vegetarian...which is DIFFERENT. I am neither but I got tired of this crap so I needed to put in my 2 cents worth.

::Trixie::

1, Mayo. Vegitarian friendly, Vegan no-no. I think you at least deserve a badge for making the first step by actually thinking about the subject and presenting it to your family. I would imagine that vegitarians and vegans applaud you for that at least- Half the battle won.

2, Tofu tastes like unflavoured contraceptives, I've eaten many and I know. You do not have to eat it if you don't want to. Nor do you have to do Yoga, hug a tree, or worship Mother earth. Orgies are optional.

3, If you are truly a family, and you are one fifth of that family, then tell them that you think that there might be something wrong with eating intelligent, sentient creatures. If they are not too socially conditioned, and are curious enough to question why you might think like this, then explain to them that food without animal protein and cholesterol is actually a lot better for everyone than food with.

If your husband is absolutely adament on the meat-eating issue and can carry a debate, then ask him to talk to me - someone who used to be able to eat a whole heard of cows and their owners. Technically I am neither a vegitarian, nor a vegan, but I empithise with both philosophies.

The carnivor/omnivor/vegitarian/vegan debate boils down to Freud's Pleasure and Reality principle. In my humble opinion.

Gold star for you.

Mr.A

Mr.Anasazi said:

2, Tofu tastes like unflavoured contraceptives, I've eaten many and I know. You do not have to eat it if you don't want to.

Mr.A

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This is the funniest sentence I've read in a while. Thanks.

Thanks all for the help.
There is no chance of me changing hubby's mind about what he eats. He is a meat and potatoes person.

My kids are way to young to try to explain to them why I am working on this. My 5yrs old looks at me like I am nuts. My 12 yrs old though. Well she is in that stage where nothing I say she actually listens too.. I tried talking to her about it and she looked at me square in the eye's and said " Oh Well".
Me on the other hand. I tried a "boca" burger the other day. Talk about getting majorly sick. Wow. I thought I had food poisoning. Found out that I was allergic to some of the veggies they used to make it. So for now, I am working meat totally out of my diet and working more veggies in. I still will be the dairy and tuna person though. I don't eat any other fish besides tuna. And that is very rare.

Thanks for the insite on tofu. I am not touching that stuff.. LOL.. If I want testure to my food well there is things like rice that work just fine along with crackers they add testure without the thought of "birth control food".

With tofu it's all in the way you cook it. I was eating tofu long befire become vegitarian in the form of good Japanese cooking.

My favourite tofu dish is miso soup. Miso is fermented soybeans (red tastes stronger than yellow). It's a very flavourful soup and since the tofu is cooked in the soup it doesn't have a strange texture. Just strong enough that you can eat it with chopsticks (proper Japanese ettiquite states that one eats the bits out of ones soup with chopsticks the drink the soup, but most restuarants will give you a soup spoon)

For a good vegitarian meal go to a decent sushi place and order cucumber sushi and miso soup.

Here's an easy recipe. Most of the ingredients can be found in an Asian Grocery Store. I'm lucky enough to live near a Japanese grocery/book store. I you can find or can't read the packages just ask the sales people who are usually very nice and happy to help. Some of these things may also be found in your normal grocery store if you are lucky. (broken link removed)

Not that lucky here. We don't have much in the sence of oriental foods. There is a Thai resturant and a few chinese places to eat. Other then that it is not common here. This is a mexican food town. Most places even the oriental places serve mexican food. I mean we have a buffet here that is for chinese food and you can find taco's, gorditas, etc. Living on the boarder of mexico sucks sometimes. (But then again this is a farming town. Dairy farms are everywhere. Though you will only find free range cattle,chicken, and dairy cows here. That is the only good part!)

But in my new venture I will for sure look for more and newer things to try. Today breakfast was an apple. Now lunch will be 3/4 cup cottage cheese with a nice big salad. I am cooking beans for dinner. So it will be one meat free dinner for the family. Even though they wont relize it. hehe.

Acctually, meatless hot and sour soup has tofu in it, and I enjoy that very much.