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You don't have to go ~cold turkey~.
This quick chickpea and pasta recipe was a game-changer for me. After a year of being completely vegetarian, then a year of eating meat again, I was looking to get back into my old meat-free habits, but it was feeling like a chore. My colleague Rachel gave this recipe a glowing review, so I tried it for myself. I now cook it at least once a week because it takes less than 20 minutes and only has eight ingredients, which include water, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
I follow Tasty Vegetarian on Facebook and Instagram and am constantly saving recipes from both. I also joined a vegetarian and vegan recipes Facebook group, in which more than 187,000 people share their favorite meat-free cooking tips.
This BuzzFeed post about things to know before you stop eating meat is a great place to start your research. It covers everything from vitamins, to smoothie tips, to daily iron intake recommendations. And if you're looking for high-protein recipes without meat, I love this list.
There's not much worse than having to awkwardly work out how many sides will constitute a real meal in front of your friend who chose a restaurant with no vegetarian options. Check it out beforehand to save yourself the trouble. Another hot tip: Italian, Indian, Thai, and Mexican restaurants are generally a great bet!
You often find good vegetarian options in the most unexpected of places. There are a few Thai restaurants around my apartment but one in particular has an amazing mock duck stir-fry on the menu.
Sure, lentils, chickpeas, jackfruit, and meaty mushrooms can make amazing recipe bases, but sometimes — especially when you're feeling lazy — you crave the ease with which you once cooked a sausage or burger patty. It's at these times that I reach for meat-alternative products. I've yet to try these Beyond Meat burgers but everyone on Facebook seems to be completely and utterly obsessed with them.
When I was totally vegetarian, I only found myself in a place with no vegetarian options once — my boyfriend's high school reunion. In hindsight, I should have thought ahead and had dinner before the event, but since these things aren't always easy to predict, it's a good idea to carry a muesli bar or bag of nuts with you when you can.
There's no denying that the first few times you tell people you're now a vegetarian can be a little awkward. At the start of my first meat-free period, I made a point of inviting people over to my place, instead of me going there — it's much easier to offer a yummy vegetarian dish along with your explanation that you're trying out a new lifestyle, rather than out of the blue announcing that you won't be eating any of the roast chicken your friend has been cooking for hours. Another solution is to tell a host that you're vegetarian, along with an offer to bring a vegetable dish along! This doesn't cause them to panic about coming up with an entirely new menu, but does give them a polite heads-up.
Having gone from not eating meat at all, to eating meat, to eating meat every now and then, I've finally come to accept that it doesn't matter if your choices don't neatly fall under a label like vegetarian, vegan, or pescatarian. What you eat — or don't eat — is only the business of you (and maybe your doctor), so make the choices that make you happy!