veg at home: my actual experience. Part I - The food and shopping. Broccoli There are sites that explain how to organize the menu, which collect information on other essential nutrients, mostly just talking about ethics, vegetarian & vegan that problems concerning the environment, factory farms, in short, the substantive reasons (ie not classified as "I want to lose weight" " is in fashion "is cool") for which a person takes to be a vegetarian.
No site I've found so far in practice, however, explaining what being a vegetarian.
that I am a very down to earth I prefer to talk about my everyday experience .
are vegetarian for a year and about two months and I'm beginning to direct my choice to veganism.
I know that many face a gradual process, but I have chosen January 1 and January 2, 2010 I have not touched meat, fish, shellfish, cheese with animal rennet, white sugar, lard products.
my part there was no effort or sacrifice. It never happened in a year of having "strange hunger with anytime snacks" to a plate of lasagna with meat sauce. Many say "cabbage that good, I respect you." there is nothing to estimate, to estimate those are very tasty vegetarian meat and fish that have renounced. In fact to me is not weighed at all.
The facts of becoming a vegetarian (relating to food and shopping) - For the first time probably read product labels.
If a first colored package or look attractive enough for you to pick and slingshots in your cart robina, now turns the cute packaging and discover that behind that aspect there is so much filth encrusted by a coronary artery until the next glaciation.
you ask questions, then type "but does not make a bit 'suck it in a sauce ready there is no sugar? (And idem in canned vegetables)" "What are all these chemical symbols?" "Why are meat and bone meal anywhere?"
- Come to find out what's behind some of the terms and do not you think true.
type when I discovered that in white bread, flat bread and croissants in the
lard was, I said "What does it mean? It is not oil?" and then I realized that it is nothing less than fat.
pork fat, right. What if I had known I would have disgusted even omnivorous and eat the brioche in the pig cappuccino, with permission but not the most natural thing in the world.
type when I discovered what was the
rennet, used to produce the most popular cheese on our table is usually extracted from the stomachs of calves
. And I did not understand on what grounds can not use weird all the synthetic or plant.
Since I own a small family dairy farm, maybe you'll make it known. Type: What good fruit jellies! And I discover that the gelatin
is nothing more than extract ...
fish. But honestly, if I had known from the candy I omnivorous fish I would not eaten for sure. Think about it: fish, strawberry, fish, orange, raspberry, blackberry and fish. Not too giriamoci around: that is.
to the principle of "nothing is created nor destroyed",
a gelatin treated is always fish! - find that many products "vegetarian" I'm not at all.
I happened to buy some "vegetarian meatballs with spinach and corn." Unfortunately I do not remember the brand. However, on the packaging said nothing. Too bad that by reading the ingredients then jumps out the chicken.
croquettes vegetarian chicken.
Ah. Uhm. We're good.
From there, you say, I will read everything and I do not care anymore.
- Your spirit becomes critical well coached against packaging and advertising.
Simply put towards advertising in general. For example, it seems to assume that everyone in advertising of chicken nuggets, there is a chicken that sings and dances. Then by vegetarians think, eh, who knows that chicken is glad to have a horrible life in a cage then be plucked and hung by one leg and Puccio gutted in a vat of sewage other chickens!
Never seen a sign of a butcher with a skinned cow or photo of the steak itself. Also the cow in the pasture green, perhaps with the daisy in the mouth by the clichés of third grade. But first it seemed normal to me, and I say this because I have been omnivorous for a quarter of a century.
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| Chicken DJ holding his sister and his aunt Martha in the bag. |
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| a cow apparently delicious slice of its own |
- Discover foods that are not even aware of their existence and understand how meals may be replaced in a creative way with other equally tasty and satisfying.
This for me was one of the most beautiful surprises and enriching at a personal level, by becoming vegetarian. Maybe there are omnivores with a very extensive food culture, but I know I (and not are few), no one is a good example.
From me, my family, my friends and relations in general, I found that the omnivorous menu is terribly boring and repetitive always runs around with the usual dishes. Soothing, like shoes that you carry battered by 10 years and you're ashamed to show around, but have now taken the shape of your foot.
With the addition of some special recipe for the holidays or events, but think about it, even in those occasions is that the ingredients do not change much then. On Sunday you eat the lasagna? The sauce is the same that you put the pasta on Wednesdays. Is not that much change.
Being Vegetarian and vegan teaches you to know so many grains, types of rice, pasta, seeds of which knew neither the name nor use, teaches you that there is only the classic wheat flour. I do not even remember the last time I used it. It teaches you to know lots of vegetables. In my experience the average omnivore eating: salad, potatoes (counted as a side dish / vegetable itself), the ubiquitous tomato and from time to time, with the conviction that they "force" the spinach. Ah yes, and peas to the vegetables are omnivorous, because they are green. When he reveals that there are pulses remains of stone. : D This is one of the few things that I knew omnivorous, but I see many friends and relatives were not aware of.
- find dishes from different cultures
The kitchen has lots of vegetarian and vegan cuisine from the Eastern and Middle Eastern flavor that is not necessarily exotic and alienating. The average omnivore is wary that differs from Western cuisine, from spaghetti to, unfortunately, the Mac Donald's hamburger, to eat because she thinks "zozzerie" (let me quote the letter to a relative).
since I am vegetarian dishes I tried Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, with a lot of fun. The combinations of vegetables are much less risky than omnivores ingredients: you are unlikely to disgust, just has to be an extreme case.
Experimenting in the kitchen is something fun and exciting, I have never been so in the kitchen as a participant in the last year. 13 months ago would have been impossible to find a complete cookbook, my mother would have thought it was a candid camera.
