How to eat less meat: A practical guide

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Meat/Less: Vox’s newsletter to help you eat vegetarian-ish

On January 3, Vox is launching Meat/Less, a 5-day e-course, to help you set an achievable goal to reduce your meat consumption and have an impact on climate change and animal welfare (and eat healthier to boot). We’ll send you one email a day that teaches you how to easily incorporate more plant-based foods into your diet, gives you evidence-based behavior strategies to make it last, and serves up plenty of food for thought on how our choices impact animals, our health, and the planet.

I doubt I could ever fully go vegetarian, but I would like to increase my veggie intake/reduce my meat, so hopefully this will prove useful.


We've evolved into a largely meatless household and I've gotten used to it.  Fish (a lot of salmon, which i love), pasta, various kinds of veggie dishes (those newfangled veg burgers are amazingly burger-like BTW).  


We've been vegetarian for about 10 years, it's something that our household had to work into.  We started with a strategy where some weeks where we would eat meat on the majority of days.  Eventually, we ramped down those weeks and then eventually extinguished eating meat.  What really helped was building up that library of good, go-to vegetarian recipes that can be done in 30min-hour. 


Komarovsky said:

We've been vegetarian for about 10 years, it's something that our household had to work into.  We started with a strategy where some weeks where we would eat meat on the majority of days.  Eventually, we ramped down those weeks and then eventually extinguished eating meat.  What really helped was building up that library of good, go-to vegetarian recipes that can be done in 30min-hour. 

would love to get some of those 30 minute recipes. I try to work vegetarian meals in 2x per week but even with that few it is hard to find things we like.  It gets challenging to find things that aren't some kind of bean soup or very complicated.

I generally don't choose substitutes of meat / dairy so that limits things. We eat beyond sausages but not many other vegan alternatives.


I actually started a few years ago. ALDI has some good beef less meatballs, Trader Joe’s has a few good meals also. Just have to try them and see if you like it. I eat a lot of chick peas and a wide variety of beans. I’m actually just tired of animal meat. 
How do you get to eliminate meat completely after you were fed it all your life? It takes time and commitment. I’m getting there, I only eat meat about 3 times a week.


My parents stopped eating meat in the 70's in support of a meat-packers strike. Then they stayed pescatarian (ate fish, but no chicken or red meat) most of their lives. But they cooked chicken, and occasionally beef (in the form of meatballs and hamburgers) for us kids. 

They also made us lots of good vegetarian meals growing up. Our regulars were veggie lasagna, mushroom cabbage pie, tofu stir fry, baked ginger tofu over rice, and a zucchini tomato stew (heavy on the olive oil) over pasta. Oven roasted veggies (beets, Brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, okra)  were also regular side dishes. My current favorite comfort food is a carrot soufflé, or a risotto (with asparagus or arugula, since I'm not a mushroom fan).

I frequently seek good veggie meals when I order food (even though I do eat meat). I really miss Lalibela restaurant which had amazingly delicious veggie options...  


HatsOff said:

Komarovsky said:

We've been vegetarian for about 10 years, it's something that our household had to work into.  We started with a strategy where some weeks where we would eat meat on the majority of days.  Eventually, we ramped down those weeks and then eventually extinguished eating meat.  What really helped was building up that library of good, go-to vegetarian recipes that can be done in 30min-hour. 

would love to get some of those 30 minute recipes. I try to work vegetarian meals in 2x per week but even with that few it is hard to find things we like.  It gets challenging to find things that aren't some kind of bean soup or very complicated.

I generally don't choose substitutes of meat / dairy so that limits things. We eat beyond sausages but not many other vegan alternatives.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015843-charlie-birds-farro-salad?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page®ion=all&rank=57 

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019878-farro-broccoli-bowl-with-lemony-tahini?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page®ion=all&rank=65

If you use a quicker cooking farro, like what they sell at Trader Joes, you'll shave off 15-20 minutes from both recipes cook times

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019926-cheese-grits-with-saucy-black-beans-avocado-and-radish?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page®ion=all&rank=75


I've also done a lot with recipes from the Chinese culinary traditions, and specifically Sichuan cuisine.  A lot of the recipes from these traditions are originally light on meat, so it's not hard to either sub in some Impossible meat when they're looking for minced beef, or just to omit it altogether.   

Fuchsia Dunlop published some great books on Sichuan cuisine, and I'd highly recommend her latest one "The Food of Sichuan."  Some of her recipes that aren't explicitly vegetarian have notes on how to make them that way.  You'll need to visit a Chinese grocery store for some of the ingredients, but she gives great descriptions of the ingredients.  In the same vein, Chinese Cooking Demystified on Youtube has some GREAT recipes that are either explicitly vegetarian or are basically flavor profile videos that you can apply to a great many ingredients.  


 



Anyone looking for some substitutes might try Gardein products in the frozen food section in most supermarkets.

I was vegetarian for years before I went vegan. 

Between Shoprite, Trader Joes and Whole Foods there are quite a few options. There are tons of recipes online.


Thanks for the recipe suggestions.. some good ideas there. Grain salads and grain bowls are already in rotation but new combos always welcome. 

I will return with a couple of things we've tried recently and liked.

This one is pretty tasty for those who like retro American: https://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-sloppy-joes/

I didn't follow this exactly - used table sugar rather than coconut sugar, ordinary Worcestershire sauce, and much more spice than the recipe called for. in particular I used at least a teaspoon of smoked paprika, and added some sharp paprika as well. Had the leftovers for lunch the next day and it was even better.

for super easy, lazy nights this one is going into rotation too:

https://www.mayakaimal.com/recipe/chole-chickpea-tomato-curry/
I threw a bunch of spinach in, too, to add some veggie content to the meal without having to cook a separate side dish.  Requires a jar of simmer sauce ... I mostly cook from scratch but the Maya Kaimal sauces are all really good. I consider them as much an emergency staple (for nights when traffic is bad and I have no energy) as pasta sauce. 



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