Agnes, Cool. See you there.

As others have somewhat said, it’s really just a change of mindset.

14 years ago my dad came home from work and said to my mum, for the next 49 days the family is to have no meats consumed (it is a Buddhist tradition to not eat meat for 49 days after a family member has passed away). My mum responded at the time by saying she had no idea how to cook many meals that don’t contain any meat.

Guess what? She remained a Vegetarian after the 49 days, and the rest of the family joined in within the next year or two after that. Her recipes are always changing, so at dinner a meal may look “Chinese” (with a bowl of rice) but then the accompanied dishes can range from anywhere like Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Japan, China etc. Or at times a change in a totally different direction with a pizza/lasagne.

All that from a person who claims her English isn’t very good, but will easily translate English language cookbooks borrowed from the local library into Chinese with not much help.

Step into your local libraries and sample some of the Vegetarian cookbooks there. You may surprise yourself on what’s out there. (Not that buying books or finding recipes on the internet is a bad thing, but libraries seem to be a forgotten resource these days.)

Hannah, Madhur Jaffrey is one of my most used books mainly for her vegetable dishes.

The best veggie recipes just happen to not contain meat. Think dhaal, or stirfries.. yummy and nourishing without the whole trap that some people fall into of “make a bolognese sauce and omit the meat”. My son is dating a vegetarian, and I have learned to avoid that pitfall by trial and error. We have also been making the vegetables the star of the meal, rather than the animal protein. When shanks hit $3+, you gots to get creative, hey?

Tim/Sue, I just get this craving for more veggies and just spent four days in the ountry where I was surprised that I almost managed to eat vegetarian.

Another way for meat eaters to help reduce the impact of their choice is to make what’s available go further. By embracing the less popular guts and the offal, a smaller number of animals (i.e. less environmental impact) can feed (and satisfy) the same number of people.

I have no problem cutting back on meat. Sometimes I got a month without even noticing, but that is because I was a vegetarian for six and a half years and am also a poor student. But really, I just don’t crave it. When I go out, I probably opt for fish, but that too is a rarity.
But, being a poor student doesn’t mean that I an unethical. My weekly trips to the markets sees me trawling the organics aisle, and when I do buy meat, I make sure I ask a few questions before I purchase it. Simple as that. Unfortunately, my housemates are still eating processed, packaged things that you get from supermarkets that have gone to the ends of the earth in their production.
In saying that, I am currently in Darwin and couldn’t resist the amazing Hawker food at the markets last night and had a Malaysian beef curry puff. Shoik.