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Thinking Of Maybe Going Veggie
ThailandTom
Veteran
I have been an avid meat lover my entire life, I was first introduced to meat when my crazy dad decided to blend up a steak with vegetables in a small portion and feed it to me at the age of like 18 months. From then on I have eaten pretty much any meat I have come across including fried insects, lambs heart, chicken intestine, you name it I have probably eaten it.
My questions are though as follows.
- If I stop meat totally, cold turkey (pun unintended), will I have any kind of WDs?
- What vegetables and fruits will be best for replacing the iron, protein and anything else you gain from meat?
- Also I already eat plenty of fruit and veg, but how much of it really has been tainted due to GMO and crop spraying? I do not have the capacity to grow my own where I live so I have to deal with markets, not super markets but actual markets. Are there are ways to get around this?
My questions are though as follows.
- If I stop meat totally, cold turkey (pun unintended), will I have any kind of WDs?
- What vegetables and fruits will be best for replacing the iron, protein and anything else you gain from meat?
- Also I already eat plenty of fruit and veg, but how much of it really has been tainted due to GMO and crop spraying? I do not have the capacity to grow my own where I live so I have to deal with markets, not super markets but actual markets. Are there are ways to get around this?
1
Comments
Then two and so on...never looked back .nowadays there is plenty of choice about. Qourn,soya
Etc.
Cup
Yildun
I eat meat once a week, I eat the same as everyone else, no special meals required. Gradually other members of my family are eating less of their traditional diet . . .
Beans and tofu should be possible for you?
I am hesitant to eat fish these days, even though I live in a good fishing town/port. Firstly because the water is not exactly clean and I am not too far down from the ever leaking Fukushima nuclear plant. I may be over worrying there but the sea is not the cleanest of places these days.
Also, a group called The Vegetarian Resource Group has educational materiel that answers basically every vegetarian question out there. They are a very good vegetarian resource for everything vegetarian, hence the name.
As for protein, you generally don't even have to worry about it. As long as you are getting enough calories, (AKA eating enough food of whatever) As long as you are eating enough food, it's near impossible to not get enough protein.
The best course of action is not really to focus on specific foods or specific veggies, etc. but to just eat a wide variety of different kinds of foods from the 4 veg food groups. I personally don't concern myself with gmo or crop sprayed food. Although, getting it from a local farmers market, instead of a big supermarket, is usually better when it comes to that sort of thing.
There is no way around it though, if you intend to continue to eat out frequently, it will vastly limit your choices. Although, as a weird side note, after years of being veg, when I go to restaurants with more than like 4 veg options... it feels too overwhelming now! Lol.
The only withdrawals I think you should expect wouldn't be comparable to say, a drug or a real addiction. You might just miss meat on a taste level. But it's just a craving thing though, I've never heard anyone say they got like headaches or any sort of real WD symptoms.
Green leafy vegetables are good for iron: kale, spinach, swiss chard, etc.
I couldn't tell you anything about the GMO markets in Thailand. Do they have a system in place for organic labeling like they do in the US? That's really the only way around it here. But also, try not to get too worked up about the small details. If you're suddenly worried that cutting out meat means eating more veggis and they might be GMOs, well, it's likely the animals you eat have been eating GMOs all along... so... yeah. This probably isn't that helpful, heh.
2. Darker fruits and veggies contain more nutrients. Be careful to get enough iron and B vitamins. Personally, I eat a lot of fortified cereal for this.
3. I don't know the answer to this, but I'd imagine local markets are a safer place to get your food than supermarkets.
Also, it's pretty ironic to me that you are having trouble finding vegetarian options in Thailand because, here in the U.S., Thai restaurants are the only place that I've found that offer a completely vegetarian menu (with numerous options, no less).
Good luck to you!
There's no shortage of fresh fruits and veggies in Thailand.
The problem is more in preparing them.
So that would be only fair.
Switching to a high carb low protein diet suddenly may make you feel weak and hungry at times due to blood glucose level swings... A person might think that these feelings are somehow due to not eating meat, but really they can be mitigated by balancing out your carbohydrate/ fat/protein ratios. Make sure you're getting good amount of all three in every meal. It takes a little planning but once you get used to it, it's not difficult.
make sure you dont dive into it without researching what the body needs such as iron and b12. eat a well rounded diet not just all grains or all leaves. kale is a huge thing for vegetarians as it has alot of calcium and when the body doesnt get enough calcium it will "eat" its bone marrow causing early osteoporosis. b12 is a vitamin vegetarians may not be able to get much of though their are ways to get it like through sea weed but idk any places that sell sea weed around me so i take a supplement of methylcobalimin which is more highly bio available than the other cyanocobalomin which is a form of cyanide that your body purifies out the cyanide and takes in the cobalimin.
eat foods that have things in them naturally such as beans contain: iron, packed with protein and fiber. kale: calcium, potassium (vitamin K), and vitamin A. potatoes are great as they have: thiamin, niacin, folate, magnesium, copper, vit. c, iron, riboflavin, vit b6, phosphorus, zinc. quinoa is an amazing grain to eat it has zinc, iron, folate, magnesium, b6, and a minimal amount of calcium. it also has all the essential amino acids your body needs!! also has a buttload of protein! the incas (a tribe that once called south america home) honored it as a sacred crop. ( or so my bag of organic quinoa suggests) but this as well is hard to digest so eating it with ginger tea or something will help.
some things may be hard to digest like beans and sometimes kale (for me at least) so i like to spice food up with herbs that will help me digest them better such as ginger tea cayenne pepper.
id recommend getting almonds rather than peanuts or any other nut because almonds have calcium and iron and are healthier than most other nuts also try to find the ones that are NOT roasted because the nuts when they are eaten raw they have a special bacteria in them that help your body digest them better and when their roasted it kills that bacteria. the better your stomach digests stuff the more nutrition youll receive and less likely youll develop ulcers in your intestines. one of the best ways to ensure youll better digest stuff is to chew your food thoroughly and be calm while eating because when you remain in a calmer mood your digestion is stronger.
id recommend reading the Ayurveda Bible by Anne Mcintyre also go to DRoz.com he has alot of good material for making healthy choices i know you dont live in the US and i am not sure of the situation as far as your local market and the availability of supplements and foods.
the reason why im saying to read ayurveda bible is because it explains in a good depth what foods go well with each other so you can optimize your nutritional intake.
no there are no withdrawals from not eating meat lawl. but if you do consume it again you may feel sick to your stomach as mistercope said.
I'm at work now, and will probably get a container of oatmeal (about 1+ cup) and a Muscle Milk r.t.d. shake. I do have a small buffalo chicken wrap for lunch, but I'll add more vegs. to it. And I hope to make some days completely veg. I know it takes baby steps.
I thought I would miss my favorite chinese broccoli beef stir fry, but I can still enjoy the same dish using portobello mushrooms to replace beef. And life is good!
I think your biggest challenge isn't going to be biological but social. That is, if you like being around different people, being a strict vegetarian will introduce tension and division. When there is a social situation with food present, food serves as a kind of a glue that holds those present together, a medium through which they connect. And as vegetarianism is still completely incomprehensible to the vast majority of earthlings, except in India and some Western cities, you'll face some degree of marginalization as an uncompromising vegetarian.
I experience something similar because I do not drink, ever. While I believe that alchohol is not right for me personally, I also realize that the depth of my socialization is compromised by my unwillingness to drink. There are a lot of groups out there that I cannot fully enter because of my radical stance towards alcohol. I also suspect that if I started drinking I would not stop because I wouldn't be willing to give up that extra intimacy.
As for meat, I take the Buddha's approach: eat what is put on my plate. And if I'm the one putting food on my plate, than there's no warm-blooded animal's corpse on there. That is my middle way solution. That way I pay my respect to both for-legged and two-legged beings.
I don't mind going veggie, my father used to be a vegetarian, and I quickly learned that good food is good food, even if there is no meat in it. I had some vegetarian Thai styled curry a few days ago, on a cold rainy day. It was delicious and satisfying to boot.
If I was in thailand and doing dorm style cooking, I would
- soak beans, so they cook faster, maybe several days worth, it takes a long time to cook beans unless you use lentils (1hr -to 1.5 hrs depending on the bean), store the extra beans in the fridge.
- rice of course. The extra rice gets turned into porridge in the morning. Throwing in a few beans is an asian way to make the porridge more interesting.
- buy cans/jars of pre-made curry sauce, mix with the beans and server over rice. The curry sauce is the source of oil. If that doesn't exist, I would experiment with different ratios of coconut milk & chili sauce. I was just at a Thai grocer yesterday, can't remember if they had ready made curry sauce.
- optionally some sort of other plant matter for fiber.
I think I could live on that indefinitely.
Oddly, I would have thought being in Thailand is not so much a problem. In the US, I find my self eating 80% of the time at ethnic restaurants, including Thai because they have more vegetarian/vegan options.
As a male vegetarian, the only real thing that I've found needs monitoring nutrition-wise is Vitamin B-12 and maybe Vitamin D. I honestly don't eat in a super-balanced way so I'm not sure what plant-based sources of B-12 there are. Honestly, probably a lot. But you have to pick your battles, IMO. Eating a vegetarian diet is great in so many ways, it'd be a pity to be turned off due to agri-business concerns.