Copyright © 2017 by Quirk Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except as authorized under U.S. copyright law, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2016960821
ISBN 9781683690054
Ebook ISBN 9781683690061
Ebook design adapted from printed book design by Molly Rose Murphy
Production management by John J. McGurk
Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com
The publisher and author hereby disclaim any liability from any injury that may result from the use, proper or improper, of the information contained in this book. In other words: Use your common sense. Be careful with your equipment and ingredients. And try not to annoy your friends by going on about vegetarianism—your stir-fries will speak for themselves.
v4.1
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For the animals—human and nonhuman alike
Cover
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
GETTING STARTED
Veggie Vocabulary
Reasons to Feel Awesome
NUTRITION
Protein 101
Complete Proteins Cheat Sheet
16 Global Complete Protein Combos
Essential Nutrients
Vegetarian Food Pyramid
Vegetarianism and Special Dietary Needs
PREPPING YOUR KITCHEN
How to Stock Your Shelves
Emphasizing Veggies
Where to Shop
Secrets of the Bulk Bin
How to Cook Dried Beans
How to Cook Grains
A Note on Cooking Bulgur and Couscous
A Trick for Cooking White Rice
Where to Save and Where to Splurge
COOKING
How to Read Recipes
How to Make Recipes Vegetarian
How to Substitute Ingredients
7 Basic Flavor Combos
Sample 7-Day Menu
Hearty Breakfasts and Brunches
Inspired Sandwich Lunches
Bag Snacks
Flavor Bases
How to Make an Awesome Bean Soup
How to Make Amazing Stir-Fry
How to Make Tofu Delicious
5 Great Bacon Substitutes
Umami Hacks
How Not to Be Hungry 24/7
LIVING THE VEGETARIAN LIFE
Handling Tough Situations with Grace
4 Little White Lies
Dining Out as a Vegetarian
Traveling as a Vegetarian
5 Stealthy Nonvegetarian Foods
Acquired Tastes (and How to Acquire Them)
RESOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction
Congratulations! You’ve decided to eat less meat. Whether you’re motivated by health, animal welfare, or environmental, social, or religious reasons, you’re in good company. There are hundreds of millions of happy vegetarians around the world. Welcome to the veg club!
Even though you’re in good company, you might feel a little overwhelmed. It’s hard at first to know how to cook, what to buy, or how to make your way through a culture that doesn’t always make your new dietary choice easy. For all those millions of vegetarians, you’re still outnumbered: more people eat meat than don’t.
But you’re going to gain a lot more than you’re giving up: peace of mind, new food options, health benefits, and much more. Great stuff is in store for you when you put plants on your plate.
This handy-dandy vegetarian primer will teach you how to stock your pantry, cook a few basics, and navigate social situations as a vegetarian in a meat-eating world. You’ll learn how to stay full and satisfy cravings. You’ll fall in love with unfamiliar ingredients and spices, you’ll take care of your health, and you’ll find a lot of satisfaction in living well and with compassion. Don’t worry so much about “doing it right” at this point. Just focus on making good choices for yourself and your body. And trust me when I say that you’ll have fun in the process.
Let’s get this vegetarian adventure started!
Veggie Vocabulary
If you’re new to vegetarianism, chances are you’re learning about unfamiliar dishes, ingredients, and other lingo. Or you’ve heard these words, but you’re not sure what they mean. Here are some common vegetarian terms demystified.
Carnism: A term used first by social psychologist Melanie Joy, who wrote that attitudes about meat reflect unconscious social prejudice. The website Carnism.org defines it as “the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals….Because carnism is invisible, people rarely realize that eating animals is a choice, rather than a given.”
Flexitarian: A person who tries to eat vegetarian most of the time, but is flexible. This person is usually trying to reduce, but not eliminate, their meat consumption.
Freegan: Someone who won’t pay money for or otherwise financially incentivize the production of animal products, but will eat non-veg foods otherwise destined for the garbage stream. Typically, this is someone who foregrounds ecological concerns and strives for a low-waste lifestyle.
Lacto-ovo vegetarian: A person who eats dairy (“lacto”), eggs (“ovo”), and plants (“vege”) but not animals.
Meatless Mondays: A global movement to reduce meat consumption by eating veg on Mondays. Many restaurants now offer Meatless Monday specials. Participating in this weekly practice is a great way to try delicious veggie dishes if you’re not ready to take the full plunge.
Miso: A sweet, tangy, salty, and savory fermented soybean paste. In Japan, its many varieties are appreciated like fine cheeses. Traditionally used as a soup base, it’s also great in sauces, marinades, and spreads.
Nutritional yeast: Savory, nutty, cheesy-tasting yellow flakes that you can find in the bulk aisle of natural foods stores. Some people call it “nooch.” Enjoy it sprinkled onto popcorn or stirred into creamy sauces for a flavor and protein boost.
Omnivore: Someone who does not observe dietary restrictions (i.e., eats animals as well as plants). Biologically, all humans are omnivores because we’re physiologically able to obtain nutrition from animal and plant sources. Here, though, we’re talking about choice of food.
Pescatarian: Someone who does not eat land animals but consumes aquatic animals, like fish and shellfish.
Pulses: An umbrella term for a part of the legume family that includes beans, lentils, and peas. These terms refer to green peas, chickpeas, lentils…basically everything beanlike except for soybeans, which have a much higher fat content, and groundnuts (for example, peanuts).
Raw: In the context of food choices, this refers to eating only uncooked and minimally processed foods, typically for health reasons. People who eat this way aren’t necessarily vegetarians, and many consider it a fad diet. But raw restaurants usually serve lots of veg options.
Quinoa: Pronounced “KEEN-wah.” A nutritious, light, and fluffy seed, originally from Peru, that cooks up like a grain. It is delicious in pilafs.
Seitan: Some people call this “wheat meat.” It is the protein that holds bread dough together (aka gluten) that has been kneaded to knit the molecules together and has had the starch all washed out. As a beef stand-in, it’s savory, toothsome, and chewy—and delicious grilled, roasted, or even deep-fried.
Speciesism: An unconscious prejudice toward the rights of a particular species, most often humans, dogs, and cats. Because of this bias, we tend to think
that certain animals should be protected from harms that are commonly inflicted on others. Horrified by the Yulin Dog Meat Festival but not by the thought of factory-farmed pigs being trucked to a slaughterhouse? This is speciesism at work.
Tempeh: A nutty-tasting, high-protein cultured soybean cake, pronounced “TEM-pay.” Invented in Indonesia, it stars in regional dishes like gado-gado, pecel, or tahu tempe (look online for recipes) and is equally good panfried and served on a bun veggie-burger-style. You can also fry it in thin strips as “bacon.”
Tofu: The solidified curds from soy milk. You’ve probably encountered tofu before, but many varieties exist: water-packed and firm, silken, dried, in puffs, pressed, shredded, and more. East Asian grocers tend to offer a wide range of styles.
VB6: An acronym for “vegan before six,” describing a diet in which breakfast and lunch are vegan, but anything goes at dinner. A variant is 5:2 vegetarianism, in which a person eats veg five days a week and then eats meat on weekends.
Veg*n: A catchall term when referring to vegans and vegetarians together. Derived from the use of the asterisk as a wildcard operator in computer searches.
Veganism: A lifestyle that attempts to eliminate the use of all animal-derived products, in one’s diet and beyond. That means no meat, fish, milk, eggs, honey, wool, leather, musk, tallow, lanolin, animal-tested cosmetics, trips to amusement parks where confined animals are used as entertainment, etc.
Vegetarian: A person who does not eat animals—no cows, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, dogs, fish, humans, or anything else. Motivations range from environmentalism to personal health to concern for animal welfare to religion.
Yuba: Also called tofu skin or bean curd sheet. These protein-dense, crispy dried sheets are made from the layer that forms on top of soy milk as it is being boiled. Rehydrate them in water for a chewy, savory ingredient that you can form into rolls and fry or braise.
…And One Thing to Look Out For
Gluten free: Foods that are “gluten free” have nothing to do with vegetarianism. But sometimes when you ask for a vegetarian menu, you’ll find that waitstaff may tell you about gluten-free options instead. Be prepared for this. Just gently remind them of what you do and don’t eat.
Reasons to Feel Awesome
Just by skipping the meat and eating something equally delicious, you’re saving lives, water, greenhouse gas emissions, and your cardiovascular system. And by the end of this book, I hope you’ll find that you’re getting back more than you’re giving up—new dining options, favorite foods you haven’t tried yet, and maybe even a sense of community! The following facts and figures should help.
Awesome Stuff You’re Doing for Animals
If you’re a vegetarian living in the United States, how many lives are you saving? Calculations vary but run anywhere between 100 and 500 animals a year. According to data scientist Harish Sethu, bearing in mind both the animals killed for eating and the “collateral damage” of animals killed during grain farming or fishing, one person’s choice to go veg saves more than an animal a day—over 350 animals a year, of which at least 25 will be land animals such as cows, pigs, goats, and chickens.
Here’s what you’re opting out of: Per USDA statistics, nearly 9 billion chickens were sent to USDA-overseen slaughter in 2015. With 320 million people in the U.S., that’s more than 25 chickens per person per year. The figures for other animals: almost 29 million cows, 450 thousand calves, 115 million pigs, 2 million sheep and lambs, 230 million turkeys, and 28 million ducks.
If you stop eating meat at age 20 and keep at it, by the time you retire you’ll have saved at least 1,000 land animal lives.
Awesome Stuff You’re Doing for Your Health
Going veg is obviously great for animals, but it’s pretty awesome for your health, too.
• Your life expectancy could be longer. Many studies show an association between plant-based eating and reduced mortality rates, particularly in deaths caused by cardiac and colorectal problems. In the United Kingdom and Australia, some life insurance companies even offer reduced rates for vegetarians.
• You’re taking care of your heart. There’s no cholesterol in anything plant-derived, and as a vegetarian, more of your diet is likely to come from plants. In fact, meat consumption is correlated with higher rates of heart disease. Your arteries will thank you!
• You get the benefits of beans. If you’re going veg, you’re almost surely going to eat more beans, which provide protein, soluble dietary fiber, and a dose of iron that’s comparable gram-for-gram to a steak.
• You can “eat the rainbow.” This is a trendy way of saying that you’re piling your plate with fruits and veggies in all sorts of colors every day. A wide range of color gives you an equally wide range of beneficial nutrients, micronutrients, and only-in-plants phytochemicals like beta-carotene and lycopene.
• You’re tuned in. Bringing your attention to what’s on your plate and how it makes your body feel can benefit physical and mental well-being alike. Pop psychologists call it “mindful eating.” Rock those deliberate choices!
• You’re kicking the nasties out. Pollutants accumulate in higher concentrations the farther up the food chain you go. Fish are full of mercury. The World Health Organization labels processed meat as carcinogenic and red meat as probably carcinogenic. By eating veg, you’re skipping all of that.
• You can feel good about yourself. Don’t underestimate the psychological benefit and peace of mind of a cruelty-free diet. Take a minute to bask in your smug, self-righteous glow. I won’t tell anyone!
Awesome Stuff You’re Doing for the Environment
A recent study from the University of Oxford showed that a transition to plant-based diets globally could reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions anywhere from 29 to 70 percent by 2050. Further research out of the University of Chicago shows that if the U.S. reduced meat consumption by only 20 percent, the environmental effect would be equivalent to everyone in the U.S. switching to driving a Prius.
The Vegan Calculator estimates that every day, in addition to an average of one animal life, a vegan saves:
• 20 pounds of CO2 emissions
• 30 square feet of forest
• 40 pounds of grain
• 1,100 gallons of water
Awesome Things You’re Doing Financially
• You’re skipping on subsidies. In the U.S., tax dollars pay for meat through USDA subsidies at the cost of millions of dollars annually to large-scale animal agriculture, keeping it artificially cheap. Don’t offload your diet onto taxpayers!
• You’re saving on doctor’s visits. If you pay attention to nutrition, load your diet with minimally processed fruits, veggies, and legumes, and cut out the high-cholesterol, carcinogenic stuff, you’re doing your health savings account a favor.
• Your wallet thanks you. A pound of lentils costs $1.50. A pound of beef costs four bucks. Enough said. Put the rest in your savings account…or splurge on truffle oil and mock bacon.
Protein 101
One of the most common questions vegetarians are asked is, “But where do you get your protein?” To answer it, and to ensure you fuel yourself well, let’s take a crash course in biochemistry.
You get calories (meaning energy—a calorie is a unit of energy) from three types of food sources, called macronutrients:
• carbohydrates (4 calories per gram)
• protein (4 calories per gram)
• fat (9 calories per gram)
Aim to consume the same amount of energy your body needs to get through the day—too many calories means weight gain, and too little means weight loss. For most people, that amount of energy equates to 2,000 calories or so, though your needs depend on your age, sex, and physical activity level.
Most foods contain a mix of the three macronutrients, in addition to the vitamins, minerals, omega fatty acids, and phytochemicals classified as micronutrients. A well-rounded diet includes all these subst
ances, though when you go vegetarian, the one people fret about most is protein. Try to get about 1 gram of protein a day for every 2 pounds of your body weight (or more if you’re pregnant or an athlete; check with a health professional, and see here).
Protein is the building block of almost all tissues in the body, especially muscle tissue. It is made of smaller building blocks called amino acids. About twenty amino acids are necessary for building body tissues, but your body can make only about half of those on its own. That means you need to get the rest from your diet. If you can get all the right stuff within a 24-hour period, you’ve got yourself a complete protein: everything your body needs to synthesize the tissues that make up your body. Amazing that your body is a state-of-the-art protein-manufacturing machine, right?
Soy foods and quinoa are complete proteins. Vegetarians can also get complete proteins by pairing two different foods that have some but not all of the amino acids. Grains and legumes, for example, fill in each other’s amino acid gaps. Cover your bases by eating them within the same day.
Complete Proteins Cheat Sheet
Pair any of the items in column A with one from column B to form a complete protein.
COLUMN A: GRAINS
Wheat bread, pasta, cereal, wheat berries, doughnuts
Oats whole oats, oatmeal, granola, oatcakes
Rice white rice, brown rice, black rice, rice cakes, pilafs, rice flour treats, mochi puffs, congee
Millet on its own, mixed in a salad, as a pilaf mixed 50/50 with quinoa, baked into a dense bread
Corn on the cob, as masa or in arepas, hominy, tortillas, corn bread, polenta, Doritos, Corn Nuts
Other grains teff (the basis for Ethiopian injera bread), amaranth, buckwheat, Kamut, and more
COLUMN B: BEANS/LEGUMES/PULSES
Beans kidney beans, chickpeas, mung beans, black-eyed peas, cannellini beans, black beans, refried beans, baked beans, falafel
Peas yellow peas, green peas, fresh peas, canned peas, pea soup, wasabi pea snacks
Stuff Every Vegetarian Should Know Page 1
