Are you looking for some tips to help you start eating less meat? There are a lot of reasons to cut down. Here are twenty tips straight from the pros to help you eat less meat, incorporate more plant-based foods, and help your personal health while also sparing the planet from the trouble of supporting the meat industry.
Reasonable Start
There’s no reason to cut out meat from your life overnight. If you’re an extremely disciplined person, maybe you can. But for most people, the best plan is to simply start small and ramp up over time. There are several ways to get started.
Portion Sizes
Consider reducing the portion sizes of the meat in your meals. Do you like to eat a huge steak and a few potatoes? Consider increasing your potato portion and shrinking the amount of steak you’re eating. As you ease yourself into it, you can continue to adjust your portion.
Making Swaps
Consider swapping in new foods, like protein-heavy plants or plant-based meat substitutes, as you phase meat out of your diet. This helps you not feel like you’re missing anything important from your diet! Balanced nutrition is as simple as constructing meals with enough sources of protein as well as vitamins and minerals.
Meatless Mondays
Another option for starting small is to start observing meatless Mondays. This is as simple as it sounds: just avoid eating any meat at all on Mondays. Those three meals per week where you avoid meat can go a long way in helping your physical health and also sparing the planet a few more animals.
One Meal Per Day
Another option could be to have at least one meal per day where you avoid meat altogether. This allows you to cut meat out of seven meals per week instead of just three. Consider making every day’s breakfast vegetarian, since it’s so easy to find tasty meat substitutes for things like bacon and sausage.
Plant-Based Options
You don’t need to eat meat substitutes to be vegetarian. Plenty of vegetarians exclusively eat plant-based proteins in their natural forms, such as whole grains, legumes, and beans. Even things like chickpeas and broccoli are loaded with protein, making them great options for your diet!
Seitan
Have you ever heard of seitan? It’s made from vital wheat gluten and is extremely high in protein, with around 21 grams per serving. That makes it among the best plant-based protein sources for people looking to bulk up without eating any animal products.
Tofu
Tofu is a perfect food product for aspiring vegetarians to add to their meals. This is because it’s both low fat and high in protein, making it the perfect substitute for meat in some dishes. It’s also loaded with vitamins and minerals that are great for your overall bodily health.
Tempeh
Another great option is tempeh, a soybean-based food product that is similar to tofu. It has a somewhat nutty flavor, owing to its creation process involving fermented soybeans. People often like to marinate tempeh to get its flavor throughout their dishes.
Eggplant
Eggplant is a common substitute for chicken in Italian cuisine. Eggplant parm is every bit as tasty as chicken parm! The porous and chewy texture of eggplant makes it perfect for soaking up marinades, much like meat. Remember, the sauce is what you taste! The meat just provides the texture.
Mushrooms
Like eggplant, mushrooms have a meaty texture and a porous structure that makes them perfect for sauces and marinades. If you don’t like the flavor of mushrooms, it’s not hard to cover it up with barbecue sauce or any number of other strong-tasting, yummy sauces.
Walnuts
You can also replace meat in your dishes with walnuts! They’re not just tasty and crunchy, but they’re also high in fiber, antioxidants, omega-3s, and, you guessed it, protein. You can even blend them and then boil them to create a substitute for ground beef that is surprisingly good at imitating that texture.
Veggie Burgers
If you love a good hamburger and can’t see yourself giving up meat due to that, don’t fret. Brands like Impossible and Beyond offer extremely convincing fake meat patties that are made from plants. These tasty burgers can fool even the most discerning palettes, making them perfect for people just starting out with meatless diets.
Veggie Hotdogs
Another surefire way to improve your overall health is to avoid eating hotdogs. The veggie alternatives are extremely tasty and do a convincing job of mimicking the taste and texture of the real thing. Moreover, they won’t take a few minutes off your life expectancy every time you eat one!
Veggie Sausage
As we mentioned above, veggie sausages are awesome to pair with breakfast. The flavor of sausage has everything to do with sage, which is easy to add to plant-based proteins. Morningstar Farms makes a breakfast veggie sausage patty that is indistinguishable from the real thing.
Beating the Cravings
If you get some serious cravings for meat, don’t freak out. Stock up on meat substitutes and use those to mimic the texture and flavor of your favorite meat dishes. If you really need it, you can make a regular cheat day. Maybe you treat yourself to a burger or steak on one day out of the month, for instance.
Focus on Protein
If you’re finding yourself not getting full while eating plant-based meals, you might have forgotten to add enough protein. Make sure you focus on seitan, beans, and other protein-rich plant-based foods so that you’re getting hardy meals that will keep you full for a normal amount of time.
Nutrition is Critical
Many people say they can’t go meatless because they feel like they won’t get enough nutrients. However, planning can make this problem go away. Again, focus on the protein! And make sure you’re taking a multivitamin daily so that your body is getting all the important vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy.
Read More: 10 Amazing Benefits of Cutting Down on Meat
Check the Menu
You can avoid awkward moments in restaurants by checking the menu or calling ahead before you arrive. If you find the menu has few plant-based options, consider ordering something that can be easily modified to be meatless, such as a salad where they can just leave the salmon or chicken off. Ask the chef to substitute in eggplant in the chicken parm, for instance!
Read More: 10 Vegan Dishes Even Non-Vegans Will Love
Perfect is the Enemy of Good
Don’t throw in the towel on your diet just because you messed up one time. Perfect is the enemy of good! Give yourself some grace and accept that you’re doing your best to go meatless. If you slip up and eat some fried chicken, it’s not the end of the world. Just don’t make it a habit and get back on track tomorrow!
Read More: 15 Plant-Based Meat Substitutes that Don’t Suck