From: red_trek@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Meatless Entrees for Carnivores
Date: 9 Jan 93 03:13:22 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon Computer Club


> 
>     The question is less about what he SHOULD Be eating, and more 
> "What can I make him that he WILL eat?"  He is relatively open to new
> ideas, but he is stuck in a rut.  I need some things that will entice
> him out of the rut.
> 
>     Myself, I have been reducing the amount of meat that I eat, but am not
> yet ready to go pure vegetarian.  Perhaps after I have more things that
> I can make, I will be able to make that step.  My first step was to decide
> that I wasn't going to have more than one "meat-centered" meal a day.  I
> defined that to be slab of dead animal with little things on the side.
> Compared to the changes that other people here have made, that seems 
> insignificant, but it is a start at least.


Yeah, it IS a start.  Some few people have been able to go straight
from a meat-based diet to a vegan diet literally overnight, but
not everyone can.  We're only human.

As for your father:  the first thing I can think of is the usual
suggestion of trying out TVP products, meat analogues (sp??!) etc
from your local health food store.  One example are "smart dogs"
from Living Lightly, which are vegan tofu dogs with no fat and only
40 calories per dog.  They're bland, but if you put toppings etc
on it (or, I suppose, if you put them in with vegetarian baked beans
or split pea soup or whatever) you won't really notice.  But then
I've only had a handful of meat-based hotdogs in the past few years,
so maybe my memory of what meat-dogs taste like isn't reliable anymore.
(I've had no livestock meat at all in a couple of months, only 
once on purpose in four -- one or two more times by accident).

Some fake-meat products, unfortunately, still have fat -- if they're
vegan, however, they will at least be cholesterol free, and the
fat that's there will be primarily UNsaturated.  (Most ofthe fat
present in animal products, however much is there, will be SATURATED
fat -- the nasty kind that contributes to heart problems).  Better
to eat vegan meat-subsitute that gets, say, 20% of its calories from
fat than to eat an equivalently fatty serving of animal product.

Also try meatless versions of old meaty favorites (e.g. chili without
meat -- substitute protein-complementing corn, or substitute
other veggies, or if your father must have that familiar meaty
texture use TVP granules; other suggestions: lasgana with veggies
instead of meat, perhaps even tofu instead of cheese; pasta with
veggies in red sauce instead of meat; lentil loaf instead of meat loaf;
etc.)

Hope some of this helps.

--------------

Oh, a tangential thought I had:

What has worked for me in gradually converting to veganism in the 
past few months/past year or so is this:

I don't set a firm quota for myself (though this might well work
for some people).  Instead, whenver I go to a resturant, I simply
LOOK for vegan dishes first.  That doesn't mean I always ORDER them,
but at least I make sure I neglect vegan options from a conscious
choice to do so, not because I don't even give them consideration.
More and more often, the vegan dishes start to sound more appealing
than some of the meat-based (even fish-based!) dishes I used to like.

Whenever I'm faced with the temptation/option of eating fish, egg
or dairy products (the remaining animal products in my diet) I
try to ask myself if I "want" this product because I truly WANT
it, or just because I'm in the HABIT of wanting it.  (Looking back,
I can think of many times in my life when I ordered such and such
a fish dish simply because I was used to THIS dish being my favorite,
and knew everyone else at the table was expecting me to order that
dish--not because I had an actual CRAVING for that dish at that
particular moment.)     Sometimes I'll still go ahead and eat the animal
product, but this change in my thinking patterns has helped
as a general thing.  There's even some carry-over effect with perfectly
vegan but not-good-for-you things (choclate! etc), simply because
I have gotten used to asking whether I REALLY want what I think
I want.

--Andrea
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg