Mayo Clinic’s Advice For Going Veg
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The Mayo Clinic offers some advice for how to go vegetarian or vegan:
If you’re not following a vegetarian diet but you’re thinking of trying it, here are some ideas to help you get started:
- Ramp up. Each week increase the number of meatless meals you already enjoy, such as spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable stir-fry.
- Learn to substitute. Take favorite recipes and try them without meat. For example, make vegetarian chili by leaving out the ground beef and adding an extra can of black beans. Or make fajitas using extra-firm tofu rather than chicken. You may be surprised to find that many dishes require only simple substitutions.
- Branch out. Scan the Internet for vegetarian menus. Buy or borrow vegetarian cookbooks. Check out ethnic restaurants to sample new vegetarian cuisines. The more variety you bring to your vegetarian diet, the more likely you’ll be to meet all your nutritional needs.
The advice above comes at the bottom of a tipsheet for new vegetarians. The tipsheet includes definitions, nutritional information along with a “vegetarian food pyramid”, and more. Check it out here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/vegetarian-diet/HQ01596/METHOD=print
I like the suggestion to try ethnic restaurants. However, one must be careful, because many Chinese restaurants add oyster sauce to their vegetable dishes, and many Thai restaurants add fish sauce. My partner and I are so fortunate to live in a part of Los Angeles that has four vegan/vegetarian Thai restaurants which do NOT, of course, use fish sauce (and there is another vegan/vegetarian Thai restaurant in a neighboring city that is also very close to us)! Indian restaurants also typically offer many delicious vegetable dishes, though some of them do contain dairy products.