moonshayde asked for suggestions on moving towards a more vegetarian lifestyle with a focus on healthy. This isn't the first time this has come up amongst people I've corresponded with...and being the lazy sort who doesn't want to type out the same thing over and over...I thought I'd put it here in a post that I can reference. I know I have several other vegetarians on my f-list as well as omnivores who have an appreciation for good food whether it has meat or not so I'm hoping to get lots of good ideas here. Recipes, tips, your own experiences, whatever you're motivated to share.

Becoming a vegetarian was most difficult for me in the "well, how do I organize a meal without the meat?" department. I'd always complemented whatever the meat dish was with, "sides." Yanno what? A collection of vegetable piles on my plate just didn't feel like a meal. It might be nutritionally sound but it was...lacking. I had to learn to rethink everything I knew about eating and how I related to my food. But, philosophy of food will have to wait for another day.

( Recommended Recipe Books )

I listed the books first because they helped me to arrive at my new shopping lists. I'm not certain I want to put whole recipes here because I don't really follow them anyway but I do have foods that became my staples; those I'll list.

( Recommended Staples )

I'm sure I've missed some obvious ones but these are my staples that changed the most on becoming a vegetarian. I still have bread and though my milk is now hormone-free and my eggs come from free-range hens, those foods were staples before I went vegetarian. These are the foods that moved from "sides" to "staples." I'm sure others will have different ones.

A word on eating out. I have found that there are very few restaurants in which I cannot eat. My choices might be too limited for my tastes or their version of vegetarian might not appeal to me, but there's normally something I can down. When I first became a vegetarian, it was damned hard to find "road food." As one going to school in Houston and working my summers in Wyoming, that was a lot of time on the road downing french fries and iced tea from drive-thrus. These days, Subways are everywhere and it's damned easy to find a healthy vegetarian meal in even the smallest po-dunk town. YAY for progress!!!