Martina! It was surprisingly easier than we thought it would be. Since the challenge, we found we are eating less meat overall. It’ still a part of our diet, but makes up a much smaller amount. We’ve slowly been depleting the meat in our deep freeze and have not been replacing it with more meat which is nice. We find that we are eating more soup and pasta instead. And trying to replace some of the unhealthy snacks throughout the day with fruits and raw veggies.

As for yummy vegetarian/vegan recipes, I have a great place for you to go to on YouTube 😉

Thanks for sharing your vegetarian journey, I will be following up with you on this topic soon!
Martina

So much info here, thanks so all of this detail! I’m glad you could relate to my “doh!!” moment with your chai tea latte story – at least you realized it before consuming it! I blissfully ate so much chicken and it literally took HOURS before it sank in haha ah oh well!

It’s great to hear your vegan story as it relates to fitness to see that The Game Changers has a lot of provable points coming from someone first hand, not just from hearing it on a documentary.

We eat some beans (mostly as Texas Caviar), lentils (lentil soup), and tofu (tofu tacos). Our daughter also loves plain quinoa so we have that weekly and we also make a quinoa Greek salad which we really enjoy. She’s also a big fan of seaweed snacks which I’ve slowly become accustomed to. These are more so staples in our home so I didn’t think to include these on the list in the post! And you’re right, these are extremely filling, good for you, and not expensive compared to meat products. Love the idea of smoked tofu strips – will have to look up a recipe for that along with many of those other recipe ideas you mentioned, thanks for that list!

As for the books, it looks like We Are The Weather is available as an ebook or audiobook in addition to paperback from the Calgary Public Library if you have a card there (the other one isn’t but personally I preferred this book more).

I LIVE for tempeh! Soooo good!!

My husband and I both really enjoyed The Gamechangers. We are both very active (rock climbing and mountain running) and our fitness levels as well as recovery times have improved substantially over the time we’ve been vegan. To the surprise of most, including my doctor, my iron levels are better now than when I was an omnivore! I credit this to eating a more well-rounded/balanced diet and being more mindful of what I eat.

We find our grocery bill to be very low but we eat a lot of beans, lentils & tofu which didn’t seem heavily featured in your meal plan. Here are some of our fave meals using those proteins:
Tofu: in stir fry, in curries, tofu crumble (like scrambled eggs, can be eaten alone, as a breakfast hash, or in a tortilla), breaded tofu or smoked tofu strips (our toddler niece is crazy about tofu cut into strips lol)
Black beans: quesadillas, burritos
Chickpeas: chana masala, quinoa salad
Lentils: lentil soup, sloppy joes, daal, shepherd’s pie
Minimalist Baker has awesome simple recipes.

As for your question to the vegetarians and vegans, do they miss meat/animal products? For my husband and I, never. A huge part of it is because my number one reason for being vegan is because I truly love all animals so I can’t fathom eating them, or taking anything from them. It’s hard to explain and it sounds weird but when I see meat I don’t even see it as food anymore. It’s just something I’d never put in my body. I still have 0 willpower over (vegan) candy and chocolate so it’s not like I’m just good at saying no though!

Anyways, in conclusion, great job on your challenge and thanks for writing it up to share with all of us! I’m going to check out the books that you mentioned once the library opens again. I really believe that if everyone made small changes that those small changes would add up to big changes for the world. There’s really nothing to lose with reducing meat consumption – if done right it makes you healthier, makes the world healthier, saves the lives of animals, saves you money, and so on. And as you get going it becomes a bit of a snowball effect, it gets easier and easier! Happy Plant Eating!

Haha! Yeah, it’s definitely a good mindset to go by – especially for the Korean chicken!!

Totally! Good point – if we don’t make such hard rules, we are likely to see better results! For now, I’m hoping to stick to non-meat meals 80% of the time 🥰

Hahah it was a total oops!! Yea I think realistically if we can shift 80% of our current meat meals over to veggies I’d be very happy. And realistically that’s a happy medium I’m trying to get to. That way I wouldn’t feel deprived or upset if/when I did eat meat – especially our beloved Korean fried chicken haha.