Fourth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

btw feel free to suggest/nominate post titles

Post about fandom! Or whatever! Whether it's a rave about some obscure series, or an essay dissecting every last reason why some internet-famous author should rethink their career, someone will probably read it at some point! We also just chat about life.

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Comments

Re: Food

[(Anonymous)]

I had the same issue when I went vegetarian. I don't plan on doing it again because it turns out putting any kind of hard restriction on my diet makes me go full eating disorder, but I still eat a good amount of vegetarian meals.

I think the big thing is calorie density and satiety. Meat is really good at both, especially if you're looking at size and not weight - a small piece of meat will provide the same amount of calories as a whole bag of spinach because spinach is mostly water, for example. Carbs and grains are more calorie-dense, but a lot of processed grains metabolize quickly and I find I get hungry fast after eating them.

My solution is just that I eat a ridiculous amount of green vegetables, and I also supplement with more calorie and fat-heavy things like eggs or nuts. It's not a great solution if you want to eat vegetarian to lose weight since I'm still eating at calorie parity to eating meat, but it's what seems to work well for me.

Re: Food

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

In my case it would be for ethical reasons (environment mostly), though I do also need to lose a bit of weight. It'd be helpful to be someone who just loved veg and non-meat protein sources, especially because it seems like it'd be much harder to *over*eat that way, but I usually don't like the taste much, AND I never seem to get any energy from them. I find that when I have a meal with a meat substitute (eg: veggie sausage rolls), I may as well have not had a meal and I'm super tired until I get some meat again. Very convenient, given my tastes. Means I'm always a bit like 'how much of this is me making excuses because I like the taste of meat and how much is this really an issue?' I've noticed that friends who seem to cope better on a veggie diet seem to like the taste of those foods much more than I do, which makes me wonder if some people just suit it better; for my own part I have no idea what people are talking about when they say 'meat sweats'-- but bit of a leap! xD maybe it's just bc I eat pretty small portions in general and I don't change them when I switch to other things, so if I'm just about hitting reasonable nutrition with nutrient+calorie-rich food, I fail to get that when I switch to less rich food. I dunno, but I think things like the veggie sausage rolls must still be pretty high in fat but there's a huge difference between veggie ones and meat ones for me.

Re: Food

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, meat substitutes are usually fairly calorie-rich so I'm a bit surprised you're still getting no energy from them. I'm not really an expert on them, though, because I don't like them. They feel like a poor imitation of real meat and since I'm not a vegetarian I just wonder why I'm not eating real meat to begin with.

I do like most popular protein sources, though - it's just best for me if I don't think of them as 'substitutes' and enjoy them as they are. I guess it helps that I love tofu, but there's a huge variety of vegetarian dishes out there so I'd recommend just trying out some until you find some you like. If you have Asian grocery stores near by, a few things I'd probably recommend are:

1. Five-spice dried bean curd (豆腐干), which is a very firm, flavorful tofu that work well in stir-fries. I like to match it with what I'm cooking, so I cut it into strips and serve with bean sprouts and thin-sliced celery and carrots, or into cubes with squash and potatoes.
2. Tofu skin (豆腐皮 or 腐竹), which are thin sheets of tofu that you can chop up for stir-fries, salads, or soup. They show up a lot in Buddhist vegetarian recipes like Buddha's Delight (罗汉菜) or vegetarian goose. I also use these as wrappers for bean skin rolls (百叶包), but the filling for those are meat so they're probably not a good vegetarian recommendation.
3. Fried tofu pouch (油揚げ abura-age), which I am still learning to cook with but which is a nice addition to noodles or soups.

I think I will pan-fry some tofu tonight. I just like tofu a lot.