<p>LOL, the name of your mushrooms was censored.</p>
<p>Agreed, it does no good to belittle people we might like to change. Setting a good example and respectfully explaining the benefits of a lifestyle choice will make a hundred times more converts than condescension.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand - even if I’ve been vegetarian for my whole life, because I’m young, it’s just my “flavor-of-the-month.” But if I ever make the decision to eat meat I’m going to have a whole restaurant of people cheering me on? No wonder I’m so “humorless and doctrinaire.”</p>
<p>I was mostly/largely vegetarian in my last two years of grad school because my BF & room mate were. We ate mostly veggies, some eggs, lots of grains. We took turns cooking and experimented with may great veggie cookbooks, baked our own bread, sometimes grew our own sprouts and made our own yogurt. We had no trouble maintaining our weight and health. We did sometimes lapse and eat fish and/or red meat, especially me when I went home to visit my family.</p>
<p>It is a good idea to get any vegetarian involved in shopping and cooking, hopefully s/he can help make some great dishes/meals that everyone can enjoy. It is not fair for the family to have to make multiple meals–one for most of the family & one for the vegetarian. I never expected my family to make special food for me–I cooked for myself and/or ate what was served. </p>
<p>It is a lot more complicated when young children are the only ones in the family who want to be vegetarian & important to try to be sure they get a good balanced diet, preferably supplemented with a good multi-vitamin.</p>
<p>Grilled kale IS delicious, but time consuming to make. 
Whole Foods & other health food stores have delicious vegetarian options you can try before deciding whether you want to search on the web for a similar recipe to cook/bake. I actually do enjoy many vegetable dishes but find it difficult to go completely vegetarian for many reasons.</p>
<p>Mantori.Suzuki – you caught that! Reminds me of Spy Kids – that’s how they ‘swore’ – xxxxtake mushrooms!</p>
<p>Thanks for understanding what I was trying to say about tolerance and how to effect change in others. I was afraid of getting flamed (but the day is still young).</p>
<p>HIMom – you’re right about the vegetarian person needing to make their own meals. I feel like I have 4 weeks left with D so I am a weepy sap when it comes to “this is the last time we’ll cook together!” Thanks for the tip on kale – I’ll check it out. They tasted like the outer crispy leaves of roasted brussel sprouts, which D loves. I agree though – she needs to be able to navigate food choices and make her own meals, so I may back off in a week or two.</p>
<p>Another poster suggested doing vegetarian 1x/week. I have pulled that off once or twice, but only because I didn’t call it “vegetarian” – it was more of “let’s have a big salad and corn because it’s in season”. I find S and H are much more likely to go along with the plan that way.</p>
<p>CF and EK, thanks for the additions. I think chickpeas are another item frequently used in dal.</p>
<p>Ive been a vegetarian for 15 years, and ive hardly ever gotten sick, never been sick for more than 2 days, and it really seems to help with energy levels. I recommend trying edamame, its super high in protein. Personally, I make fruit smoothies all the time (no sugar, and with whey protein, which is a great boost) and peanuts. Make a salad every night, or almost every night, and instead of iceberg lettuce, use spinach. And that’s great that she still likes fish. Try making eggs more often too. Tell your daughter I said good luck!</p>
<p>^thanks julieannab – I will!</p>
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<p>Shiitake mushrooms / black mushrooms?</p>
<p>If you leave one of the i’s out of shiitake, it gets censored to protect the public against the negative influence of bad spelling.</p>
<p>I once got censored because I used a word (started with a “c” and ended with a “k”) to describe how a dog might tilt his head to the side when looking quizzically at someone. </p>
<p>I was kinda pumped that i got censored.</p>
<p>OK, so I am a stick my head in the sand person. I know, but don’t completely know, ie didn’t watch videos, about how animals are treated. I did learn years ago about veal, so no longer eat it. My veg kid will only eat free range eggs. So now that is all we get.</p>
<p>I only eat red meat every 2-3 months (health reasons) and love it. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW about the stuff that will make me want to stop eating it. Let me have my pleasure every few months. </p>
<p>Don’t tell me about chicken or fish either. I do not want to become a vegetarian. I do go completely meatless several times a week or sometimes all week. But I enjoy a salmon or chicken meal occasionally.</p>
<p>So call me a coward or hypocritical or whatever. But I do love a good steak–every few months.</p>
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When my youngest wanted to try being a vegetarian, I took the attitude that I would give him the best vegetarian diet I could. Some days we all ate vegetarian, and some days I cooked a little bit of meat for his picky older brother. But there are plenty of yummy things a vegetarian can eat. Bean salads from old fashioned three bean, to new fangled southwestern. There are a million vegetarian Indian dishes. You can make things like spaghetti sauce and have meatballs or sausage on the side. </p>
<p>I’m not a vegetarian, but I try to have at least one vegetarian dinner a week, and I often eat vegetarian meals for lunch. Last week we ate eggplant stuffed with nuts, sesame seeds, tomato, feta cheese and a little bit of bread. It was pretty good. It was from Mollie Katzen’s Still Life with Menu, my favorite of her cookbooks. (She did the original Moosewood.)</p>
<p>I’ll make reasonable accomodations to any vegetarian guests or family members. I’ll save aside a portion of the stew or spagetti sauce sauce before adding the meat and so on. Feeding everyone is just good hospitality. But I’m not going to entirely revamp the menu or serve some wretched soy substitute instead of turkey on Thanksgiving or anything like that. We do have plenty of meatless meals or meatless days, but that’s because that’s what was on the menu anyway, not because of some dietary crusade imposed by one of the kids.</p>
<p>^right – it’s got to be livable and workable for the whole family. I read something in the NYT once about how to serve picky eaters – have a variety of dishes – a salad and a vegetable, a protein, a few starches – and let people put together their own meal. The only “rule” is you have to eat something.</p>
<p>Last night I made two things we all can eat – gazpacho and lentil salad. Tonight, if I’m lucky, that will be dinner, plus a turkey sandwich for those who want it.</p>
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<p>Maybe it’s because we’ve been balancing the dietary needs and preferences of one vegetarian daughter and one carnivore daughter for a decade now, but I don’t see how preparing and serving some vegetarian dishes on a regular basis is any more caving in to “some dietary crusade imposed by one of the kids” than is serving the beef, chicken, or fish dishes favored by the carnivore daughter.</p>
<p>We don’t much go in for “wretched soy substitutes” either, but we do allow D1 to prepare her own tofurkey with vegan gravy as an alternative to the traditional turkey the rest of us eat at Thanksgiving. No harm in that; no one’s imposing their dietary preferences on anyone else, and no one feels shortchanged on the holiday. If we’re grilling burgers or sausages in the summer, it’s really no more work to throw a veggie substitute on for D1 and grill it alongside the traditional meat versions the rest of us enjoy. As for other meals, there are actually dozens of healthy, nutritious, and tasty vegetarian main courses that our entire family enjoys—none of them involving soy substitutes, by the way—that are just a regular part of our family menu. No doubt the number and variety of vegetarian meals we eat has increased in the years since D1 became a vegetarian, but that’s been to our benefit: it’s expanded our menu and introduced us to new and enjoyable dishes, reduced our consumption of saturated animal fats, and increased our consumption of healthy whole grains and other high-fiber foods. It’s also better for the planet. Americans eat far too much meat; we don’t need all that protein, we certainly don’t need all that saturated fat, and the amount of grain and consequently the amount of land it takes to produce an animal for slaughter is just phenomenal, an incredibly inefficient way to meet your dietary needs, and not a healthy one. </p>
<p>It’s also pushed us, and D1, to develop a repertoire of healthy vegetarian dishes that we cook from scratch. D1 helps in menu planning and cooking because it’s in her self-interest to do so, and sometimes she prepares the entire meal. It gives us great confidence now that she’s on her own most of the year that she’s got the nutritional information and menu planning and cooking skills to eat a healthy, nutritious, balanced, and satisfying vegetarian diet. Those are valuable life skills that don’t just fall out of the sky.</p>
<p>That said, I’m an omnivore. I love a good steak once every now and then, lately maybe twice a year, one of those being D2’s birthday by special request—talk about a “dietary crusade imposed by one of the kids.” I love a good charcoal-grilled burger, and we eat chicken or fish 2-3 times a week, tying to keep red meat consumption at a fairly low level. But I’m not unhappy eating vegetarian maybe 60% of the time, which seems to be ample to keep our D1 well supplied with healthy, nutritious, and tasty vegetarian meals either on the first pass or as heat-and-serve leftovers. It took us a while to find that balance, but having gotten there we’re all pretty happy with it.</p>
<p>A public service announcement for those who serve a Tofurky fake turkey for Thanksgiving: you can do much, much better with the Celebration Roast. [Field</a> Roast Grain Meat Co.](<a href=“http://www.fieldroast.com/products.htm]Field”>http://www.fieldroast.com/products.htm) It looks nothing like a turkey, is unimpressively small, and let’s not talk about the sodium content, but it is actually tasty enough that even omnivores will take a slice on their plates and enjoy it in addition to the turkey.</p>
<p>I would never expect a hostess to accommodate our dietary preferences. When we go to weddings, banquets, etc., we never say anything and just work around what is served. DH knows to eat some oatmeal or dry cereal before we go in case there is nothing for him to eat.</p>
<p>When we go to someone’s house, I will call and ask if I may bring a side dish for DH. I tell the hostess NOT to make any changes to their menu and that she can make him most comfortable by not saying anything or drawing attention to the fact that he doesn’t take any meat. We were at an event recently, and I knew the hostess very well. She was having a casserole with chicken breast and I just asked if we could throw in a piece of tempeh in one of the dishes. I brought it to her home the morning of the event and she just put it in with the chicken. It soaked up the marinade and she was amused be the whole thing.</p>
<p>^^ I’m the same way. I don’t expect to be accomodated unless they actually ask in advance. I usually get plenty to eat with the side dishes. When I first stopped eating meat, I took a tiny piece of roast as it was being passed around and just left it on my plate. I’m also not that rigid, and if a stray piece of ham or two is in the quiche, I eat it.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen any posts about a culture that has thrived for centuries with the majority eating a vegetarian diet. I learned a lot from my H from INDIA. They don’t approach being vegetarian as most Americans do, they do not “substitute” for meat. Anyone considering being a vegetarian should look at how Indians eat. You will notice the beans of many kinds are eaten with rice to give complete proteins in the diet. You will notice, that like with most meats, spices are used to give flavor. They also have a much greater variety of fruits and vegetables available to give micronutrients.</p>
<p>Indians use dairy products- in a culture where the cow has been sacred. Textures of cooked beans are basically mushy- this can be stuffed in a pita but most Indian food is not that portable. It also includes hot foods, even in hot weather. H and I recently discussed some of the cultural reasons- lack of refrigeration historical being one. We also have hypothesized on why cold climate people eat meats. It makes sense to get your protein where you find it- winter is not good for finding vegetable sources.</p>
<p>Vegetarians need to look outside the box of Western food culture. Take all of the many beans and such and play with flavors. Chickpeas can be hummus, falafel or an Indian dish. Lentils can be flavored in many ways. Soy as tofu can be Chinese or other flavors.</p>
<p>I would definitely want my American child taking multivitamins when they try a vegetarian foodstyle. I have heard an Indian born father wrestle with maintaining the Indian vegetarian foods for his sons who also wanted to be good at soccer and build the muscle mass- the protein load is much greater in animal (fish and fowl included) proteins.</p>
<p>I have been to restuarants over the years who served vegetables- unspiced- instead of finding a can of vegetarian beans for protein to vegetarian customers. It has improved in recent years. I usually serve essentially two meals at once for Thanksgiving and other get togethers with Indian friends and relatives to include their and my traditional favorites (not turkey since none of us really like it). Some hosts need to be aware of the subtle uses of meat products- broth in soups, bacon bits… I have to warn guests that the Stove Top Stuffing has chicken in it if they are concerned, but the brown gravy from a mix doesn’t. My inlaws who won’t eat fish or chicken will eat products with eggs in them- cakes and cookies for example. At one Indian wedding the hosts served a token, not very good, lasagna on the buffet for meat eaters. Good turn about for those who don’t imagine how it is to find proteins without meat. Before our small wedding decades ago, when I knew nothing about Indian cooking, and not much about the culture (H Americanized) my relatives loved the roast beef choice on the buffet (limited choices available for it and in town then).</p>
<p>Most of the dishes can be prepared vegetarian.</p>
<p>Chinese:
Vegetable dumpling
Spring roll
Vegetable stir-fry
Vegetables with different kinds of sauces from Chinese store
Vegetable Pad-Thai</p>
<p>Mexican:
Corn & black bean salad
Tacos, burritos with beans, rice and fixings
Nachos platter</p>
<p>Italian:
Any kind of pasta with vegetables
Pasta Primavera
Eggplant parmesan (Trader-Joes sells cutlets)
Vegetable /spinach lasagna</p>
<p>Grill:
Vegetable burger (masala burger from Trader-Joes)
Vegetable kabob
Pita with grilled onion, garlic, fresh spinach, feta cheese with honey mustard sauce
Portabella mushroom burgers</p>
<p>Indian:
Plenty of items with vegetables and lentils</p>
<p>Soups, vege wraps</p>
<p>Vegetarian chilli, corn bread</p>
<p>Babaganoush
Falafel
Hummus
with Pita</p>