Wanting to stop eating meat is a desire that stems from a couple of reasons. The first is that eating less meat has been shown to reduce chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. Secondly, it has an impact on the environment in that consuming less meat reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reduces water wastage among others. Also there are ethical reasons why people choose to stop eating meat such as animal concerns and rights.
Wanting to stop eating meat is one thing and trying to actually eliminate it from your diet is another thing. Having eaten meat for a long time, just excluding it from your diet could be a hard task. This article will guide you on how to gradually have a meal free diet.
How Do You Start Making This Transition?
Know your why: This is an important step in transitioning to a meat free diet. You need to know why you’re transitioning to such a diet in the first place. Is it for health, environmental or ethical reasons? Or are you simply hopping on a diet trend? Knowing this will allow you to remain grounded in your decision and will keep you accountable.
Start small: Eliminating meat from your diet at once is not a sustainable approach. Sooner or later, you’d find yourself eating meat again. Therefore, it’s best to start small. You can dedicate one day of the week where you don’t eat meat.
The next step is to include a lot of vegetables, legumes, and whole grains into your meal. This ensures that you’re still having a lot of nutrient intake which makes your food more flavourful.
Explore other meat alternatives: The main nutrient meat provides is protein, you can switch to other foods that provide protection like beans, lentils, tofu etc. If you still feel like you need to have a protein source that is as tasty and chewy as animal based protein, you can try eating plant based chicken. We’ve created a whole article on how to make plant based chicken from scratch, do well to check that out.
Are There Anything To Keep In Mind When Transitioning To A Meat Free Diet?
Nutrients like iron, vitamin b12, and protein are all found in meat. Eliminating meat would mean you would be getting less intake of this vitamin. These nutrients are important to help support your metabolism, and maintain energy levels etc. So you want to make sure you have food that is rich in these vitamins or you opt to take supplements to make up for the lack of nutrients.
Also, you would crave meat! Yes, you would; especially in social settings like dining out with friends or family. You need to prepare your mind for such social challenges and create a strategy that would help you cope in such a situation.
Conclusion
Meat free diet isn’t just a diet trend, it actually has an impact on your health, the animals, and the environment. Transition to a meat diet is a gradual process that starts by knowing why you are transitioning to such a diet in the first place. Next thing you need to do is start by slowly removing meat from your meal for a day and then two days until you have a meat free diet.
Furthermore, you can try other protein sources like beans and lentils and for a more chewy texture and tasty alternative to meat, you can try making plant based chicken, a vegan diet. But all in all, ensure that you’re consuming nutrients such as iron, vitamin B12, and protein to make up for the vitamins that a meat free diet wouldn’t provide you with.
