Becoming Vegetarian: Slow and Steady

Vegetarianism has become increasingly popular over the past decades as more people realize the health benefits of the lifestyle. Vegetarianism helps save the planet. It can make more food available to the poor. It is healthier. It avoids killing animals. There are myriad reasons for becoming vegetarian.

Still, the most determined new converts may lapse if they do not approach vegetarianism with a structured plan. While reading Animal Farm has been known to push people to vegetarianism overnight, it is not likely to keep them there unless they are prepared for the life-altering changes they will need to make. These steps help with the process and make becoming vegetarian a lifestyle changing decision, not a passing fad.

1) Know what youe getting into.

Do you research before you think about vegetarianism. It will be best for you if you know exactly why you want to be a vegetarian. If youe just discovered your place in the animal rights movement, or if youe ready to make the next step, educate yourself about the harm caused to cows, chickens, and other animals when they are raised and slaughtered for food. You should know the statistics as well as specific examples. It also is a good idea to speak with other vegetarians at this point in your journey. Find out why theye vegetarian. Ask about the changes they had to make and about how others react to them. Feel free to ask about the hardest part of being vegetarian and what theye done when they faced obstacles. Understanding the research and talking to others helps in two ways. First, it can add to your resolve when you get started so that you can encourage yourself to keep going. Second, unless your parents engage in lifestyle choices outside the mainstream, they likely will question your decision. If becoming vegetarian seems out of character, your friends and family may question or even ridicule your decision. You need to be prepared to deal with these issues, and education is the best defense against their skepticism.

2) Go meatless for a day.

Before you try to take the plunge for life, try it for a day. Write down what you eat. Take stock of how difficult it will be to find food choices for you. Try a vegetarian recipe. If you find this day-long experiment excruciating, you may want to reconsider your decision. If you want to continue after your one day of vegetarianism, move on to the next step in the process.

3) Decide where you fall on the vegetarian scale.

One of the best parts of vegetarianism is that you can do as much or as little as you like with the lifestyle. There no Vegetarian Police Force to make you move to a completely meatless or meat-product-less life. You can become vegan if you want. Veganism means that you do not eat any animal by-products, such as eggs, milk, cheese, and other food items. Being vegan is the strictest of the vegetarian choices and requires much diligence to keep up with the plan. On the other end of spectrum, some people live vegetarian lives but eat meat on certain occasions, such as Thanksgiving. Still others are octo-lacto vegetarians, meaning they eat eggs and other dairy products. Some folks choose to continue eating fish. The vegetarian choice is your to make. Research the different brands of the lifestyle and determine which one works for you.

4) Make a meal plan.

Before you jump in head first, think through what you will eat. It is a good idea at this point to purchase a vegetarian cookbook to guide your efforts. Do you remember your one-day experiment? You probably did not plan well on this day, and you probably encountered some problems, such as finding something to eat at a restaurant or discovering that you did not have the ingredients at home to make a quality vegetarian meal. The best way to solve this problem is to plan well. For at least the first few months, you will want to experiment with various meals. Use your cookbook often. Make a weekly grocery list based on the recipes. You will be more likely to stick with the vegetarian lifestyle if you are prepared.

5) Gradually cut meat from your diet.

As we already discussed, few people jump from meat-lovers to vegetarian overnight. Try making the change gradually. You can try a number of methods. One option is to cut meat by meal. Go meatless at breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. Another choice is to permit yourself a certain number of meat dishes per day and step down slowly from there until you have eliminated meat from your diet. Don give up if the process is harder than you expected or if you falter in the beginning. Jump back up and try again.

Have no illusions. Becoming a vegetarian is not the simplest lifestyle decision, and it will require rethinking how you live, where you grocery shop, and which restaurants are for you. In the end, though, it is worth the journey ?for your health, your environment, and your animal friends.

This article is written by Brandi Rhoades. We get the right from Constant-Content.com to publish this article. Republishing it is not allowed.