Calling all vegans!?
March 1st, 2010 | 
Author: I need a few “convert them” recipes. I’m trying to be vegan and with a family of established omnivores it is going to be difficult. My husband is very defensive of his meat-eating and my kids have so far been brought up with plenty of eggs and dairy (though not much meat – they won’t miss that at least). My kids are quite little (5 and 2) so I could use some good fish-finger/chicken nugget alternatives too.
Honestly guys, no internet recipe websites please – I can do that myself. I want tried and tested “this is the best meal I’ve ever eaten” recipes. If there’s no “meat replacement” products involved then all the better, since I think that negates the point somewhat…
The Surgeon’s Assistent: come up with something else, please. Any more of the same tired objections?! How can a diet of fruit and veg, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes etc. be harmful? Oh, and marmite takes care of the B12 by the way.
Edward S.: I do the shopping and cooking, so if I have to buy things I disapprove of, and think are unhealthy to boot, how is that OK? It’s like saying, your kids like McD’s – how dare you shove your lifestyle down their throats by not taking them every day?! I mean, wouldn’t you try to do what you thought was best/healthiest for your kids – and spouse?!
Oh, and Psycee: Thanks for a good laugh! Are you high?
Seriously: If I used to eat three steaks (or whatever!) a week, and cut down to none, is there some radar somewhere that says “Quick! Omnivores, step up the meat consumption!” Honestly. It’s a simple supply and demand mechanism – if less demand is there, supply falls accordingly. The trick is to get the percentage of non-meat eaters high enough to make an impact.
As I see it, my responsibility to my kids is to bring them up to be decent human beings and feed them as healthily as I can. As for school, why would they be teased? I don’t dress them in “Mommy’s Little Vegan” T-shirts. What’s wrong with a peanut butter sandwich, some grapes and an apple for lunch?! Nothing to tease there, is there?
Edward S.: My McDonalds/meat analogy was ENTIRELY apt with what it is you are suggesting I should do, since for me the two are interchangeably definable as: junk food. Shall I lay it out for you very simply so as not to confuse you?!
Here goes: My kids like meat/McD’s.
I don’t like them to eat meat/McD’s (health AND ethical reasons for both).
My analogy was simply that feeding my children animal products every day is, for me, like taking them to McD’s every day.
As for being attention-seeking, well I haven’t told a soul yet (nope, not even my husband) and my strategy so far is to try to introduce meals that a) are very nutritious and b) they will like. As for my supposed superiority complex, wrong again. I have eaten meat and other animal products practically all my life, in fact I am not quite “animal-free” yet. I simply am working towards it as being the IDEAL way to live. So no, I’m not into self-congratulation.
Incidentally, I’m not into harshly judging others, either.
Posted in Meal Replacements
a vegan diet is harmful to children you must have animal produce to get vitamin B12
Maybe you should let your husband make his own decision and teach your kids to do the same instead of shoving your lifestyle down their throats. They like meat … you’ll get over it.
Well, you’ve definitively answered the most important question about your veganship. You aren’t vegan because you simply don’t like meat … you’re one of the “look at me, I’m an attention whore!” precious snowflake vegans who carries a clear disposition of superiority with them wherever they go because they don’t eat meat (surprise!). Congratulations, you’re a tremendous human being … or not.
Here’s a newsflash for you … animals provide quite a bit of nutrition, and are damn tasty as well. Millions of people the world over eat meat and are perfectly healthy, so your whining about not eating meat because it’s unhealthy is a solid load of horseshit. If you want to be a vegan, go right ahead. Your kids should have the ability to make that decision on their own, and your husband clearly already has. Whether you realize it or not, your smug “go vegan!” terror campaign is tantamount to forcing your own lifestyle on the rest of your family (and, incidentally, is why carnivores like myself find most vegans to be monumental assholes who don’t know the difference between their business and mine).
And the McDonald’s analogy? Sorry, that’s a huge FAIL on your part. *Never* taking my kids to McDonald’s would be an apt analogy … not taking them to McDonald’s every day of their lives is not. Thank you for clearly demonstrating your intellectual ineptitude.
I’d invite you to go fly a kite, but the wind would probably carry your protein-deficient body away, along with your warped sense of nutrition and misplaced faux morality campaign.
On second thought, go fly a kite.
Congratulations on your decision to do what’s healthy for yourself and your family! (Please ignore ignorant haters who regurgitate nutritional “facts” fed them by a multi-billion dollar industry.)
My favorite is burritos: tortillas, rice, beans, guacamole, salsa, jalapenos…mmm!
Here’s my personal favorite:
2 shallots
2 soon fulls of olive oil
1 packet of seitan
3 larges potatoes
2-3 carrots
400 ml of vegetable stock in water
salt
pepper
paprika
20cl of soy cream
Peel and chop up the shallot. Fry it in the oil, then add the seitan in cubes and cook for 5 minutes. During that time, peel the potatoes and carrots and cut them into slices. Add them to the seitan and shallots, cook for 5 minutes. Add the vegetable stock, salt and pepper. Cover and cook at low heat for about half an hour. Take the lid of and let it cook a little longer until the water evaporates, then add the soy cream and paprika, until it’s hot. Eat right away.
Good luck, hope you get there in the end. Any one who has tried this recipe has loved it, so I hope you and your family will to!
You can also try simple but great dishes like rice in tomato sauce with red beans and a few spices. Your kids should enjoy that (maybe without the spices?).
Anyway, don’t listen to the rubbish about kids needing meat, I never eat any (I was brought up in a veggie familly), and I never, ever had any health problems or lack or anything.
Go vegan!
Not eating meat is equal to saying marijuana is illegal. God, or what ever you believe in, created this apparently for humans and we neglect to respect that. What I never understood was if the animals are going to die anyway, why not eat them. For example for every steak you don’t eat I or others eat 2. So what you are doing isn’t saving the animals, so you are simply doing it for your own reasons. (don’t like the taste, blood etc.) But the biggest problem I see is that you are passing your beliefs onto your kids. Aren’t they free to make there own choices? And if they do decide to eat meat how are you going to feel, more importantly how are they going to feel? You must realize that when they go to school they WILL be teased. I guess I don’t understand why you would want to be a minority with beliefs that some think are foolish.
Hey there, good lookin’! hahah!
You sound like a great mom, watching out for your kids’ diets like you do. My favorite recipe is a veggie burger my mother makes. The great thing about this recipe is that it also makes a great stuffing for, say, a chicken for your husband or even stuffed peppers or mushrooms.
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup cooked bulgar
1/2 cup whole rolled oats
an emulsifier (to replace an egg)
1 cup vegan cheese
1 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
one large chopped onion
one to two garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbls chopped chives
oil
seasoning
saute onion and mushroom in oil – let cool
mix cooked rice, bulgar, oats in a large bowl
stir in vegan cheese
stir in cooked mushroom and onion
add chopped chives
add emulsifier
season to taste
to cook: grill in patties, fry patties in pan, etc. or
to stuff peppers:
Brown a bit in a pan with oil, slice peppers in half (long ways) stuff pepper halves with the browned veggie mix and place in oven at 350 for 20 minutes or until peppers are to the desired softness.
to stuff chicken:
brown mix in pan, stuff whole chicken and place in oven at 350, cook until chicken is done!
Before I get all kinds of grief for talking about chicken on the V & V forum – I am a vegetarian but I do cook meat for others in my house.
I’m really sorry you got hit by all those haters! Yahoo Answers at it’s worst!!
Now to your question
Here’s a few things you can do that my experience has shown meatie types really enjoy.
The one thing that always gets a positive response and comments like “This is all tofu?” is a chocolate ‘cream’ pie made from tofu flavored with cocoa, raw sugar and either vegan margarine (like EarthBalance) or extra virgin coconut oil. You can top it with Soyatoo (vegan version of Redi-Whip), Ener-G whipped topping or soft tofu whipped with powdered raw sugar.
To make “fish-finger/chicken nugget” type stuff is also easy! Simply cut a block of firm tofu into sticks or chunks, freeze, then drain, batter and fry. You can add fishy flavor to the tofu by marinating the sticks in a seaweed broth for a few hours before freezing. You can get poultryish flavors by marinating the chunks in veggie broth heavily dosed with poultry seasoning spice blend or you could use one of the vegan replacements like “Not-Chik’n”. You can add seaweed powder or poultry seasoning to the batter/breading to boost the flavor as well.
It’s *really* not that hard to replace the dead animal stuff, I’d give you exact recipes but I stopped doing that after finding out that some paid membership only websites were claiming my recipes as theirs and charging folks for them.