Our tips for eating less meat
(and still cooking delicious and nutritious meals!)
It’s been exactly ten years since we decided to stop eating meat. We made the decision when we left London as a way to lower our carbon footprint and offset the emissions from our year of travelling. At the time it was purely an environmental decision, but over the last decade, this decision to eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet has become a way of life. I don’t think I could ever go back.
I say mostly vegetarian because we do occasionally eat meat — usually when we’re invited to a friend’s house and that’s what they’ve cooked, or if we’re somewhere with a set menu and there’s no vegetarian option. But it’s actually quite rare. (Though it did happen last week when our friend Aaron made us his family’s three-generation-old goulash recipe, and it was yum!)
Eating a vegetarian diet, especially one that provides enough protein and nourishment for growing kids, requires a lot of thought and preparation. You can’t just pop a chicken in the oven and serve potatoes and green beans on the side (this was one of my go-to dinners when we lived in London). Michael is often soaking beans and leaving them out on the kitchen bench overnight for his recipe the following day, or soaking cashews in the afternoon to make a cream for dinner, or pickling veggies for toppings, etc. There are always jars of hummus or pesto in the fridge, containers of toasted seeds and dukkah in the pantry, and a rotation of ferments bubbling away on the counter.
It requires a well-stocked pantry: lentils, beans, chickpeas, quinoa, jars of nuts and all sorts of grains. It also calls for more thoughtful layering in meals — with a dollop of greek yoghurt or a sprinkle of seeds or a spoonful of nut butter, etc. Most meals involve several components with different flavours and textures layered together. (For more on how we include more protein in our meals, read this post.)
But a vegetarian diet works for us, especially because Michael does most of the cooking and he’s genuinely passionate about it. He finishes work at 4pm and often heads straight into the kitchen, trying out new recipes or experimenting with different flavours. He enjoys the process, and it shows in the meals he makes. (I’m sure if I were in charge of dinner every night, we wouldn’t have made it as a vegetarian family!)
That said, a vegetarian diet is delicious. Once you move beyond meat as the main event, meals naturally become more creative and colourful. It encourages an adventurous palate — even for young kids — because you’re constantly trying new ingredients, flavours and textures. It’s also great for your gut: when you’re cooking this way, you end up eating a much wider variety of whole foods and fibre-rich ingredients (legumes, grains, veggies, seeds, and fermented foods). And of course, it’s kinder to the planet too.
I recently got a message on Instagram from someone who would like to shift her diet toward a more vegetarian or plant-based diet and she asked if I had any favourite cookbooks, resources or tips to share… which got me thinking and reflecting on the last ten years. I think my biggest tip would be to just start eating less meat. Maybe it’s going meat-free one day a week. Maybe it’s just adding tofu to your stir fry or laksa instead of chicken, or grilling halloumi instead of beef patties for your burgers, or experimenting with jackfruit in the place of chicken (this is one of my favourite meals ever!). Or maybe it’s trying out one new vegetarian recipe each week (here are 3 that we’ve loved lately!). It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can just start out like this and see where it takes you.
Anyway, I created a long list of resources for this woman who reached out to me and I thought I’d share it here with you too. If you’re looking for more veggie inspiration, here are some of our favourite cookbooks, websites and Instagram accounts. I hope they help spark some new ideas and inspiration for your cooking.
