the transition
Posted by fufuberry on Jul 23, 2008 · Member since Jul 2008 · 1786 posts
Okay so here's the deal.
I really want to go vegan, and my husband could care less....except for cheese. He LOVES cheese. The problem, is we are having a hard time finding a non-soy based cheese replacement because I can't have a ton of soy. So right now we're still lacto-ova.... except we haven't been buying eggs or milk, just comsuming products that have that in it.
I'm beginning to think it's gonna be super hard to go vegan because of the soy thing....it cuts back on a ton of convenience foods and meat/dairy replacements!
I just found out my favorite frozen food ever (quorn) has milk and eggs in it =-( .
GAH. Any suggestions/support at all would be marvelous.
if you are depending on a lot of packaged and prepared foods and substitutes in may be quite hard because a lot of them are soy...there is a vegan rice cheese that some people say tastes great..I have never tried it.
If you try a more whole foods approach you may find it much easier but perhaps not as convenient considering you will have to prepare your meals and not just heat them.
Maybe instead of trying to find substitutes for meat and cheese in your diet...eat different things that are not substitutes just great meals on their own..you know?
we've been doing the whole foods thing, but sometimes it's good to have something quick on hand. It's just kind of frustrating right now trying to prepare beans in new creative ways
I am working on a technique to use ground up dehydrated mushrooms as a meat replacement.... as soon as I get it figured out (I'm thinking a month or so), I'll share it all w/ ya!
On the annual occassion that I cook/bake, I make a lot of one thing (like patties) and freeze them individually.
lol you sound like me hh... I have started baking bread though. I tried pancakes today......Then I remembered my pancakes always suck lol. burnt and mushy.at least they were vegan this time so no salmonella scare!
Beans = food of the Gods ;D :)>>>
fufuberry,
This is all new to me too. I have been so afraid to give up cheese especially, but was determined to give it my best shot this summer. I had been relying heavily on a lot of packaged foods (burgers for lunchesespecially), but have found so many great recipes to try on this site. I have had so much fun trying new things that I have not focused at all on what I thought I would be missing. Hang in there! I am right there with you ! ;)b
we've opted just not to buy any this week. We live in a small town, so we have a wal*mart, a save- a lot and a very small health food store called happy meadows :)>>>
Well....save-alot cheese...is...sketchy and mushy, the health food cheese is WAY expensive, and we hate wal* mart, PLUS they've raised cheese prices a ridiculous amount, so. None this week. We'll see how cold-turkey goes for now.
the uncheese cookbook has recipes for several different kinds of vegan cheese, i dont believe any of them use soy, most are nut based. i really like them, but they dont taste anything like cheese, they just taste good and have a cheesy texture.
if you are depending on a lot of packaged and prepared foods and substitutes in may be quite hard because a lot of them are soy...there is a vegan rice cheese that some people say tastes great..I have never tried it.
If you try a more whole foods approach you may find it much easier but perhaps not as convenient considering you will have to prepare your meals and not just heat them.
Maybe instead of trying to find substitutes for meat and cheese in your diet...eat different things that are not substitutes just great meals on their own..you know?
I had bought a rice cheese once. It was good, when afterwards, when I looked at the label, it said : contains small amount of dairy product (or something like that). I thought to myself, oh well. I tried a kind of soy "feta"' cheese and it was awful. So yes, instead of trying to find something to replace cheese, just try something different, like THHF said, but just as good! Sometimes, it's quite surprising to try some things without cheese and realizing that wow... what used to be hidden under cheese really does taste good!
I'm not vegan, although I did cut on my dairy intake. For some reason, in some restaurants, vegetarian meals mean veggies under cheese.
That is my two cents.
I second bp's "cold turkey" method. Even though cold turkey isn't vegan. ;)
Seriously, though, just try it, even for a week. I bet you won't miss it after a while. Like bp, I used to love cheese a ton, but now I'm like, ick, cheese. :P
I have had so much fun trying new things that I have not focused at all on what I thought I would be missing.
this is exactly it!
try the cheesy bean & cheese enchiladas recipe and the lasagna recipes that use tofu ricotta - so delicious when you want that cheesy-ness. i'm also in love with the cheezy sauce in the flashback mac & cheese.. i was dipping crackers in it while i was waiting for the pasta to finish cooking and couldnt believe how good and easy it was. i am also an ex cheese lover that never thought id be able to make the jump but i did & i love it!! good luck!! you can do it, too!!
where did the phrase cold turkey come from? i don't get it. (i do get it's "nonveganness" though! heh heh)
for the record and future reference; :P
"Since "cold turkey" is normally used in the context of quitting an unhealthy habit, such as smoking, we had a hunch its origins had something to do with addiction. So here you go...
the phrase "cold turkey" describes the skin's reaction to heroin withdrawal. As an addict stops using the drug, blood is drawn toward the internal organs, thereby leaving the skin to resemble a cold, plucked turkey."
i used to be quite the cheese addict myself. but if you just stop putting it on things and stop buying it... you really won't miss it as much as you think you will. after awhile, the cheese substitutes will taste less bad (i used to HATE nutritional yeast sauce, and now i'm completely obsessed with the mac n cheese meal starter recipe on this site - i put the sauce on everything). they don't taste like cheese, really... but for some reason they hit the spot in the same way.
also, i read up on cheese. a lot. and what i read grossed me out so bad, it was hardly a sacrifice once i kicked the habit. so. do some reading.
and seriously, try seitan! it's woooonderful, once you get the technique down. i reccomend the recipe from VWAV, it's my go-to recipe now, after several gross tries before.
Having premade items on hand is convenient. You could pick up Boca Chick Patties or LightLife Gimmie Lean or Chickn strips. Or you could make things ahead and freeze them yourself.
Things like Chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, seitan, and cooked beans. With the cutlets in the freezer you can pull them out and microwave for a fast dinner 'meat'. Same with the seitan. And there are tons and tons of ways to cook seitan. I personally think FatFreeVegan's ribz recipe would be awesome to put in the freezer and reheat as needed.
Beans are excellent for cheap and delish protein. Buy dried beans in bulk, rinse them, soak them, rinse them, cook them, drain them and put them in the freezer in a zip bag. When you want to have beans with dinner simply break off a chunk. There are more bean recipes than you could ever imagine as well, like Baypuppy stated. Look at International cuisines like Indian, Ethiopian, Mexican, and Venezuelan just to name a few.
You can make rice and beans a variety of ways, put beans in soups, casseroles, mashed into loaves or patties, with sauted veggies, under a lush sauce and just slowly simmered. The recipe possibilities are endless with beans. Be sure you try a lot of different varieties too! They all have such distinct yet great flavor and texture.
i never thought of cooking my dry beans in bulk and freezing them. I know I freeze leftover beans, but cooking in bulk would be a cheaper/healthier alternative to cans. Thanks for that! I also want to making try making seitan....as soon as I can find gluten....
I was a horrible cheese addict, and unfortunately none of the cheese substitutes that are vagan taste like cheese and the texture was super funky to me at first. I think the best thing for me was just to give up cheese altogether and use recipes like the cheesy bean and cheese Enchilada recipe and the nutritional yeast recipes on this site, like dragonfly's dry uncheese mix. Then I started buying the follow your heart's vegan gourmet and it tasted pretty good on pizza and in salads, but not on crackers. Veria.com has a vegetarian cook named Ann Gentry she has a cooking show that I adore, called naturally delicious and she has a recipe for a cashew chedder that is very good and you would swear it was the real thing when melted on Nacho's. The down side is it is quite expensive to make. Himkelsi's suggestion about the uncheese cookbook is good too and Ive been wanting to buy it. Good luck, hope this helps.
Thank you guys for all your help!
I have found that I love nutritional yeast sauce :)>>>
I believe I am getting unhooked from cheese. I tried it once this week, really paying attention to how it made me feel, how it tasted, etc. and I found it to be heavy and greasy and it made me feel kind of like I needed to go eat a salad or something.
Now if only I can get my husband (partner?) un-hooked......lol
Tomorrow I make my second attempt at vegan bread. First one was months ago...and I think it was just a bad recipe, I'm going to use one from this site this time ;)b
oh fufuberry! that's awesome! I would like to go vegan too, but I have the cheese issue. I could care less about any of the other stuff but cheese....I'm kinda an addicted sadly. I will say recently I tried vegan melty cheese and although some people don't like it I really thought it was good. They have a vegan almond cheese.....have you tried that?
no...unfortunately, the only vegan cheese carried in my town is either soy based and right now I can only have soy once a week, so all of it would even get eaten, or its American flavored rice cheese. I have never EVER liked american cheese.
So When we can afford to drive an hour away and invest in some groceries, We'll head out of town to some BIG health food chains to stock up on things we can't get locally.
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