Being vegetarian is too hard! How many times have you heard that. As someone who is not vegetarian it’s something I believed until I started cooking for a vegetarian family member.

What started as a pain, became a challenge and then became pretty easy. It’s not turned me into a vegetarian but it has changed my point of view and led me to making and eating a lot of vegetarian meals that are much nicer than I imagined was possible.

There are two main myths around vegetarianism, the protein and nutrients myth and the flavour myth.

The Protein and Nutrients Myth

This myth is that it’s difficult to get all the essential amino acids and key nutrients, such as vitamin A and Iron with a vegetarian diet.

Here comes the science bit – essential amino acids are those that cannot be produced by the body and therefore must be consumed in your diet. Animal products are typically complete proteins, meaning they contain all essential amino acids.

These essential amino acids can all be found in vegetarian options, as can vitamin A and Iron but the myth is that this requires careful planning and preparation with a huge variety of plants. I read once that a healthy vegan diet requires two hours of food prep per day and that was  from a vegan writer.

This is nonsense, dairy products are complete proteins and even if you are vegan there are many easy complete protein options. Some plants are in fact complete proteins, quinoa and soy being two, although with some “super foods” like quinoa you would need to eat vast quantities to get enough protein.

No super foods are required. Simple combinations also give you complete proteins. Combine beans, peanuts or lentils with grains like wheat, rice or corn and you have a complete protein.

 

There’s lots of good guides to protein combining on the web, including this one – greatist.com

If this is still too much effort or you worry about not getting enough protein, there are now lots of vegetarian and vegan shakes available that are complete  proteins, as well containing other important vitamins and minerals.

The Flavour Myth

This myth is that vegetarian cooking is bland and lacks flavour.

Here comes another science bit – there are five main components to flavour. These are salt, sweet, bitter, sour, umami (savoury). Some people would add fat to that list believing that the tongue has receptors that taste fat, rather than it just being a matter of texture.

None of these require meat or even dairy to be present. In a lot of food what we assume is meat flavour is actually herbs and spices. This is particularly true in fast food and processed food where the meat content is low and the quality is poor. Paprika and nutmeg in breakfast patties, salt and paprika and garlic in cured meats. Many gravy products are actually vegetarian even when branded as beef or chicken gravy. The blend of herbs and spices just combine well with those meats. Does chicken salt have chicken in it? You get the idea.

What is sometimes missing is the texture of meat. Eggplant and mushroom are a good substitute in stews and pies. Rehydrated dried mushrooms combine well with cashew nuts in a stir fry and there are good soy based and other meat substitutes for most meals you can think of.

Don’t be a vegetarian if you don’t want to be, but don’t think protein or flavour is an issue if you want to try it or even just  want to eat less meat.