Going Vegetarian

[amandajoyce]

So, since this is semi-related, I thought I would post this in the subforum.

I decided recently to stop eating meat. I've never really cared for meat in general, and I've never really been someone who eats that much of it, but living with my mom again over the last year, it's always a major part of meals. I decided I'm going to slowly cut it out of my diet. I'm down to only eating meat, and really, chicken or turkey at that, once a week now.

I was wondering, I know Kelly wrote a pretty great article on becoming a vegetarian a while back, but I was curious if anyone else is a vegetarian? Any tips?

[onlymystory]

I'm not technically a vegetarian but my mom has been big on changing her diet to vegetarian (and getting me to change mine). Her cancer doctors warned her that meat was pretty bad for your health so yeah.
The tips she tried was to first yeah cut down to chicken/turkey/seafood and rarely. And then for other things try instead of chicken in a salad, toss in beans for some protein or a handful of almonds. That's the thing people forget is that beans and nuts are great sources of protein. If you feel like you aren't getting enough, eat a snack with peanut butter or nutella.
The other important thing to remember is that you can be really unhealthy and still be a vegetarian. I remember Carrie Underwood commented on that, she'd cut out meat but then realized she was still eating tons of junk food. Like its great to give up the burger but not if you're still eating the mozzarella sticks and onion rings. So if you can vegetarian, keep a healthy diet. I'll try to look for any recipes my mom has and post them.

[amandajoyce]

See, it's actually not been that hard for me so far. I don't eat pork or seafood already. So, I cut out red meat first. I pretty much only eat chicken or turkey if I eat meat anymore, and I'm down to only eating it maybe once or twice a week, so I figure I'm doing pretty good, at least for now. The only hard part is really that my mom is the kind of person who believes meat is the main part of every meal, and living with her, I've been doing most of the cooking, so now, she's not all that happy.

[onlymystory]

My dad's like your mom, meat at every meal kinda belief. My mom will just grill some chicken or steak on the side for him and then toss it in his serving. Maybe you can do that for your mom a couple extra days a week and keep easing her into vegetarian habits?