Animal Writings

Not every suggestion here will please, or be relevant to, everybody. We each have individual tastes and unique time, budget, and accessibility constraints. What I'm going to try do, for most of this series, is present suggestions and recommendations that will be applicable to most people, most of the time.

Every reader is going to already know some of what I say here. My hope, and my goal, is that there is enough new—and usable—information in this series to make it worth your while.

Feel free to comment (or email me) on this series. I try to answer all non-spam correspondence.

For the most part, and within reason, I'm going to ignore cost. In general, you can feed yourself with nutritious food and be perfectly satisfied more cheaply on a vegetarian diet than on a meat-heavy diet. And that's before you get into the long term costs from increased risk of obesity and deteriorating cardiovascular function when you eat too much meat and cheese—heart bypass surgery and lifetime prescriptions are expensive.

But there's something to said for convenience, for which you usually pay a premium, so I'm not going to overlook items such as takeout meals, frozen dinners, and prepared dishes from the deli.

There are a few general rules for saving money on food purchases:

• Eat at home more. Even instant meals are cheaper than most restaurant meals.


• Eat more of these foods: Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts. With few exceptions, these are extraordinary values.


• Use up what you buy. A giant bag of mixed greens may look like a great bargain, but not if you end up throwing half of it out. I'll provide hints later in the series on how to easily prevent waste.


• If you never cook, reconsider. You may enjoy it and have an aptitude for it. Also, the more you do it, the better—and more efficient—you get at it. There are additional potential advantages to cooking, which I'll get into later.

• Watch less TV. At least change the channel or get up and do something when commercials air. TV food advertising during prime-time and sporting events is dominated by fatty, unhealthy products. (There are also lots of advertisements for heartburn medications and erectile dysfunction medications, to partially offset the effects of eating too many bacon cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizzas.)
  
  The advertisers use every technique possible in TV commercials—including camera angles, lighting, backgrounds, facial expressions, use of likeable personalities, music, carefully crafted dialog, and excruciating attention to detail in how the food is presented—to draw you in. McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and other corporations spend huge sums on TV advertising because it works; it increases demand. You may not be as immune to these schemes as you think.


• Start each dinner with a salad. A healthy salad, that is, with lots of greens and other vegetables. Aim for a pleasing variety of colors, flavors, and textures.
  
  The fiber from the salad fills you up and is a hedge against gorging later in the meal.
  
  The bag-o-prewashed-salad products that have become popular in recent years may be a godsend to salads. Just pull the stuff out of the bag and you're ready to go. You don't have to eat a huge salad, but please eat something bigger than a dinky "side salad." For one thing, you're more likely to use up the salad ingredients before they go bad that way.
  
  You can add all sorts of healthy ingredients to salads that work really well: walnuts, dried cherries, steamed asparagus, orange and grapefruit sections, avocado slices, olives stuffed with pimientos—you name it. I'll go into more detail on salads further down.
  
  If you're pressed for time, use the salad bar at your local grocery store. In fact, shop around; some salad bars have much more healthy variety than others. Resist the temptation to add mayo-saturated options to your salad; that nearly defeats the purpose. On the other hand, the salad bar is a great place to try new food selections, or partake of foods that you like only in small doses or on an occasional basis. You can add one beet to your salad, or one cube of fried tofu.
  
  At restaurants, order a salad and, if need be, ask that it come out before the main course. Pass on the parmesan cheese and ranch or blue cheese dressing. While we're on the subject, try not to fill up on bread, either. However, at a Mexican restaurant, you could do a lot worse than eating a bowlful of chips and salsa that they typically give you as soon as you sit down. The chips tend to be fried and fairly limited in nutritional value, but salsa is actually very healthy.


• Where feasible, hang out with people who eat better than you do, especially at mealtimes or at events where food is involved. The influence rubs off.


• Prefer, or at least try out, restaurants with more than the average proportion of vegetarian selections. Ethnic restaurants, especially Asian or Indian, are often a good bet. Greek and Mideast restaurants will usually have a range of vegetarian offerings, including falafels, hummus, and babaganoush—all of which I'll explain later. You can always get pasta with marinara sauce, and sometimes other meatless tomato-based sauces, at Italian restaurants. A couple of chain Mexican restaurants that come to mind that make mighty good burritos free of animal ingredients are Baja Fresh and Chipotle.
  
  If you live in a large metropolitan area or college town, you probably have access to one or more restaurants that cater to vegetarians. Please consider these. In some cases, they are real eye-openers. You may be able to try vegan versions of quiche, General Tso's chicken, steak and cheese subs, cheesecake, and a thousand other dishes that may or may not have a meat and/or dairy counterpart. Some areas of the country, such as DC , Baltimore, Illinois, and Ohio, have guides to veg-friendly eateries, markets, and bakeries in that area. Often you can order a free or cheap printed version of the guide. These are really handy to have in your car, brief case, or coat pocket. Highly recommended.
  
  If you live or are traveling elsewhere, just search on the web for "vegetarian restaurant" and the name of the city or region in which you're interested, and you're almost certain to get back results that point you in the right direction. Frequently—especially for establishments in larger cities—you'll be able to read reviews as well.
  
  If you're not used to dining at vegetarian restaurants, feel free to tell your server that you're new to this, and you like such-and-such types of foods, and ask what he or she would recommend.

Next: Overall tips to increase the amount of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, respectively, in your diet.

To be continued...

Labels: cooking, diet, food, fruit, legumes, meat, restaurants, vegetables, whole-grains