From: red_trek@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: New vegitarian seeks info
Date: 9 Jan 93 17:45:11 -0500
Distribution: world
Organization: Carnegie Mellon Computer Club

In article <1993Jan9.121543.2865@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu>, NICK@dirac.physics.jmu.edu (Nick Mcdowell) writes:
> Hello,
>    I've recently decided to become a vegetarian (lacto-ovo for now) and I 
> was wondering if there was a FAQ out there or an archive site that could
> help me get started.  I'd like to get a basic meal-plan that gives me all the
> nutrition I need yet is simple to prepare. (That's not asking too much is it?)
> Thanks in advance.
>  
> Nick McDowell
> STU_NTMCDOWE@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
> NICK@dirac.physics.jmu.edu

Nah, that isn't asking too much --

this newsgroup does have a FAQ that's  posted about once a month,
or there's supposed to be somebody around here who can mail it to you
on request, but I forget who that was.

As for a "basic meal-plan" that's well balanced and easy to prepare:
keep reading rec.food.veg for recipices, or check into the archives
of the granola mailing list (someone posted updated directions recently--
perhaps that someone can/will send you a copy or whatever, or will
kindly repost it?).  Granola has a LOT of various recipices.

Nutrition:  the reccomended is -- 6-11 servings of grain/cereal/bread
(e.g. one slice of bread would be one serving, as wld about a cup
of most cold breakfast cereals) per day; 3-5 servings of vegetables
(you should include some dark green leafy vegetables; one serving
of vegetables is 1/2 cup any cooked vegetable, or one cup raw
dark green leafy vegetables); 2-4 servings of fruit (one whole fruit
like an apple or orange, or 1/2 c. cut fruit, or 1/4 cup dried 
fruit); about 2-3 servings of legume/bean product (soy products,
such as tofu or soy milk, count in this category; one serving of
bean=1/2 cup cooked beans).

Eat as varied a diet as possible, given your budget and the foods
available to you.  Try out different beans and grains! (eg teff,
millet, couscous, quinoa etc are interesting grains; beans consist
not only of the usual staples at your local grocery store -- kidney
beans, garbanzo/chick beans, split peas, red, black, and navy beans,
lentils etc -- but also red lentils, green lentils, mung beans
etc that can be obtained from health food stores. )

Pasta with veggies in red sauce is, of course, quick and simple to
prepare.

Lentils are the fastest cooking dried beans (even brown lentils take
maybe 30-40 minutes in boiling water; red and green take maybe 15 min.
or so), then there are mung beans (45 minutes) and split peas (an hour
or so).

I usually cook a big pot of slow-cooking beans on the weekend, when
I'm at home to tend to them, then stretch them out during the week,
keeping them interesting by adding new veggies, etc. each time I
make it.  Sometimes I'll dump two sets of leftovers together --
occassionally I get weird meals this way :-).

Then, if you have the budget for it, there is a LOT of processed
"instant" vegetarian and vegan foods on the market, though often
you have to go to a health food store to find them.  (e.g.
canned Health Valley foods, and various instant soups from "Fantastic
Foods" and Something-or-other Nile), and various vegetarian hot dogs
etc (I recommend Smart Dogs, as they are vegan (can you guess what
strip of vegetarian I'm aspiring to be now ? :-) ), fat free, and
only 40 calories per dog.  One negative: they ARE bland (other
vegetarian brands might taste better--I haven't gotten around to
trying them) but put 'em in hotdog rolls and put toppings on it,
and you won't notice.  Or put 'em in vegetarian baked beans, etc

Remember that most beans *do* come in the can, though this has
two obvious minuses:  a) $$, b) either salt or gunky chemical
stuff.  the latter, at least, can be alleivated if you drain the 
beans and rinse them *throughly* (I use a collander myself to be
sure).  In any case, you don't have to slave over the stove for
hours to get cooked beans.

Sorry this posting is long -- but in any case, I hope it helped.

(BTW, to the person who runs the FAQ if you're reading this -- I
wonder if it wouldn't be worth while to add the "New Four Food Groups"
to the FAQ ???)

--Andrea