Going Veg In Three Easy Steps
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PCRM offers a three-step process to go veg:
First, think of three vegetarian meals that you already enjoy. Common ones are tofu and vegetable stir-fry, vegetable stew, or pasta primavera.
Second, think of three recipes that you prepare regularly that can easily be adapted to a vegetarian menu. For example, a favorite chili recipe can be made with all of the same ingredients; just replace the meat with beans or texturized vegetable protein. Enjoy bean burritos (using canned vegetarian refried beans) instead of beef burritos, veggie burgers instead of hamburgers, and grilled eggplant and roasted red peppers instead of grilled chicken in sandwiches. Many soups, stews, and casseroles also can be made into vegetarian dishes with a few simple changes.
Third, check out some vegetarian cookbooks from the library and experiment with the recipes for a week or so until you find three new recipes that are delicious and easy to make. Just like that, with minimal changes to your menus, you will have nine vegetarian dinners.
Get the whole vegetarian starter kit here >>
I love the idea of showing people that it’s easy to go veggie, and I think these steps are great in principle. However, most occasions I’ve seen something like this, it addresses removing meat from the diet but implicitly gives approval for continuing to eat eggs and dairy (e.g., the pasta primavera example, or another common one is cheese pizza). They’re doing good in getting people to cut down on meat, but they’re also perpetuating the myth of humane lacto/ovo diets and contributing to a misunderstanding of what it means to be “vegetarian.”
The idea of vegetarianism has been reconstructed in our culture to include eggs and dairy, and that’s both semantically and ideologically wrong. I think we really need to work on reclaiming vegetarianism to exclude eating flesh, eggs, and dairy. It doesn’t necessarily have to be explicit, and we don’t have to make a fuss about it; we can just stop listing cheese and eggs as vegetarian alternatives to meat.
Kayla, please follow the link provided to the Vegetarian Starter Kit:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/vsk.pdf
- On page 4 it says, “Order your next pizza without cheese but with a mountain of vegetable toppings.”
- Page 5 has a section on cooking without eggs.
- On page 7 it explicitly addresses dairy. It explains how to obtain calcium without eating dairy, it cites the nutritional problems with dairy, and it offers alternatives to dairy.
- Pages 10-11 it has a diagram called “The Veganizer” where it offers vegan alternatives to nonvegan items.
- All of the recipes included are vegan.
Kayla wrote: “The idea of vegetarianism has been reconstructed in our culture to include eggs and dairy, and that’s both semantically and ideologically wrong.”
I agree that vegetarianism should NOT include eggs and dairy (or any other animal products), but when in our history did it?
Donald Watson saw the need to create the term veganism because vegetarianism at the time included the consumption of eggs and dairy. Gandhi was a vegetarian way before that and he still consumed dairy products.
To my knowledge, vegetarianism has never meant veganism.
.-= Daniel´s last blog ..Violent vegans =-.