Hi, Trisha. You're not insane.

I have gone without eating meat for long stretches, sometimes years, sometimes months, sometimes just weeks. The reasons varied, sometimes it was because of the gross-out factor that you are describing, sometimes it was for health reasons and sometimes because I'd read one too many articles about food animal treatment/abuse. Check out www.farmsanctuary.org and you'll never eat chicken again...or not at least for a few weeks.

Here are some ideas that I use at home:

• Make more pasta dishes, but use either whole wheat or the enhanced pasta from Barilla, which is more nutritious than regular pasta and tastes great if you cook it long enough
• You can replace meat with tofu in asian dishes...mmmm...I cut up the tofu into small cubes and fry them in peanut oil until they're chewy and yummy, then I let them sit in whatever sauce I'm making for the meal and they soak up the flavor. Tofu just takes practice, and believe me, I am not yet "there" with the tofu thing.
• If your family needs to have a meat at every meal (very common, I grew up that way), make a grain, like brown rice, and a green, like broccoli, along with a meat, and then just don't eat the meat yourself.
• Try to make bean dishes to go along w/the grains. A plate of red beans, brown rice and spinach is a nutritionally complete meal, no meat needed. But my kids wouldn't touch it, so if I don't want to eat meat I just make more side dishes and skip it.

Hope something in these ramblings is of use to you. Good luck!

I eat one vegetarian meal every day. Today it was a steamed potatoes / garlic / cheese dish. I think an oft-overlooked thing is to take things one step at a time. If you like, phase it down to white meats only and then move on from there.

We're all nuts. So don't worry, you're not insane. Something you'll probably want to do is eat more nuts... Soy nuts are a really super source of protein. I bring them to work and much on them. Almonds, soy nuts, pre-shelled sunflower seeds.. (all organic) .. and walnuts. They go great with raisins.. oh my mouth is watering already.

FLAVAH... add as much flavor to your dishes as you can manage. if you have a lot of herbs, spices, and textured vegetables in your dish then you'll miss the meat a lot less. After all, most people skimp on flavor and texture when they use meat in their cooking. Somehow the meat has it all already, so the rest of the meal tends to be less chewy and less spiced. When all the non-meat is bland or lacking in herbs and spices, then it's more noticeable when you go vegetarian.

Rosemary
THYME
parsley
DILL especially dill beans or fresh dill
curry
chili
lemon pepper
lemon in general
fresh lemon or orange zest / peel
GARLIC
onions
shallots

.. all those are great for spicing up vegetarian dishes.

Good luck
Anais

Thanks LJ, Sakina, Anais and Curlygirl22   
Your support and suggestions are wonderful.  I have not eaten any beef, pork or chicken since last Tuesday and !  I did eat some fish on Friday and I'm still eating the occasional egg.  Since this is very new to me I know it's going to take me some time to flesh out (pardon the pun) the boundaries of my diet.  But I'm taking one day at a time.

Thanks Maggie   

Actually, I'm doing pretty good with the changes.  Tomorrow will make one week of no meat and I really don't feel deprived or starved--nothing negative.  Now I'm kind of excited when I pack my lunch bag in the mornings...it's like, "ooo, what do i get to eat today?!"     But I am trying to take things one day at a time.  I realize that this transformation may take years to complete...and maybe it will never be complete...maybe it's just an ongoing process!  That's fine, too.    

Quote:


I do like dates!  --I'm so glad my hubby doesn't know about this site, whew!     Bad joke!    
Thanks, Beesan, I'll have to buy some dates on our next shopping trip! 

Raw liver, eh?     I think I'm about to lose the healthy snack I just ate... blech. 

I'm trying to be very careful about including a fruit,  vegetables and a whole grain with each lunch and supper.  I'm getting enough fiber.  But I do need to start paying attention to the protein side of things, making certain I'm getting enough.  Thanks! *hugs*

Mmm, I love blueberries!  You know, I'm surprised I didn't become a vegetarian sooner because I love fruits and veggies (much better than I ever loved meat).  Oh well.  I'm just happy I'm here now.   

Just wondering how you're doing with the vegetarianism, Trisha.  Just thinking here...if you are still doing it & are serious about it, just thought I'd mention some foods to avoid with "hidden" animal products that you might not be aware of.  These are things we discovered along the way, now we are careful to read labels.

*Anything with gelatin in it...especially Jell-o!  A lot of products have this that you may not even think of, like most yogurts, chip & vegetable dips, marshmallows, store bought icings (usually on sheet cakes), certain candies like Mentos & Altoids (I think), to mention a few that I can think of.

*Anchovies- hidden in worcestershire sauce and ceasar dressings

*Animal fats- I've found chicken fat as an ingredient in the least likely places.  One was in a flavored chip, like BBQ or something, I've also recently found it in a frozen all vegetable mixture in the sauce ingredients.

*Broths- Most soups, even if a vegetable soup is made with either chicken or beef stock unless stated vegetarian.  Also a lot of restaurants use it in their mashed potatoes.

*Lard- Found a lot in refried beans in mexican food, also certain pie shells and pre-made pizza shells.  Certain potato chips are still fried in this too.

That's just some that I can think of, I hope I'm not coming across preachy, I'm just trying to help you out if you're really into it.  If I think of any more, I'll post them!