I’ve been vegan for a year and a half, and I keep finding indispensible products. So, to speed up the process of randomly finding these things, let’s swap ideas!

My personal favorites: Silk Live yogurt, Earth Balance vegan margarine, Odwalla bars, and New Tree dark chocolate.
I forget about Dr. McDougall’s! Those soups are delicious and always vegan! Plus, Larabars. Rich and fulfilling, and RAW!

Most people who criticize vegetarianism do so because they’ve been brought up on a steady diet of
burgers
fries
mashed potatoes
turkey
gravy
steak
fried chicken

since childhood. American (European) culinary customs are the same as they were 500 years ago. The media encourages this as well. You never see ads for tofu or curry on Thanksgiving. In the cold dark European winters, meat, cabbage and potatoes were the only foods available.
But old habits die hard. People visualize vegetarianism from their own narrow view of what vegetarian foods THEY ate – potatoes and salad, and therefore conclude it is unhealthy and tasteless.

Am I right?

How do we educate them that there is a world outside these food items?

I never know what to cook when having some vegetarian and meat eating guest at the same time! I usually end up cooking two separate meals and hate to do that. What can I make that includes meat for the meat eaters and none for the vegetarian?

Thanks!

This is a segment from the Food Network’s BBQ with Bobby Flay when the filmed our vegan BBQ a few years ago.

My husband and my son both think the world is going to come to an end if we don’t have meat daily. I just eliminated poultry out my diet, and I have been pork and red meat free for a few months now. I do plan on eating fish occassionally (I love fish anyway) but certainly not every day. Are there any vegetarian meals you can suggest? Or, does anyone know of a good vegetarian/pescatarian cookbook you can recommend?

I’m absolutely love eating meat. Plus, I’m very active and need to eat filling meals.

However, I’ve been reading a lot about how eating meat is bad for world food supplies and the environment. For example, it takes 6 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of meat.

Basically I’m interested in becoming a vegetarian or at least cutting back on my meat intake. I’m asking this to vegetarians who have big apetites and used to be carnevours: How difficult is the transition? Also, what are some good vegetarian meals?

I eat out a lot, but now I’m switching to vegetarian. How hard is it to eat out being a vegetarian? I’m worried about hidden animal ingredients.

I especially love Chinese. If I get tofu and veggies, can I be fairly certain that is vegetarian?

I am vegan and the pricey stuff is not for me. I want to know what good things to eat that I could just buy that maybe aren’t made special for vegans, but just don’t have any animal byproducts in them. I already looked at PETA’s list. Anyone have any good suggestions?

I’m a vegetarian and I’m going to a Chinese restaurant tonight with some friends. It seems like most Chinese dishes have some sort of meat in them. Can any other vegetarians recommend something to eat at a Chinese restaurant?

I have a 15 month old that is allergic to milk, eggs, chicken, PEANUTS, nuts, and peas. So, I kind of have to put her on a vegan diet. For those who were vegans since babies, did you drink soy milk? That’s all I can give her and I know a lot of vegan recipes have soy in them. The reason that I am concerned is that I keep reading and seeing everywhere that soy is bad for you. This makes me upset because I can’t help that she can only drink soy milk. I forgot to mention that I can’t give her rice milk or coconut milk. Is there anyone that’s been drinking soy milk and eating foods made with soy for many years? Let me know that you are healthy, so I can have some kind of peace of mind? Also, she is underweight from not being able to eat so many things. Any suggestions on how to fatten up her diet? Please help I can’t seem to get a real straight answer out of anyone else.