This page was updated on: 02/25/2009
This site is dedicated to all of us former meat eaters
who are looking for that reminiscent meat taste and texture in your food
but don't want to eat meat to do it! Thank you for visiting. Here you
will find a list of products that I have found to be very suitable meat
"replacements" and some of the recipes I have created around them.
Because I am vegetarian for ethical reasons and not specifically because
of the health benefits, some of these recipes aren't necessarily the
most health conscious. However, I think you might like some of them,
especially if you like spicy food as I do!
If you're looking for strictly vegetable recipes or tofu, you won't find
a lot of it here. There is some, but my information and recipes are
based around the meat replacements.
Why I became a Vegetarian...
It started a long time ago, about 10 or so years ago. I
had a series of really bad nightmares. They lasted at least 2 weeks. I
had them every night. I hesitate to describe them because they are
pretty gross...at least to me.
In the dreams I was always at a very expensive banquet. Everyone was
dressed "to the nines" and looking very forward to the feast to come. I
remember, in this dream, that I wanted to be one of the first to get
some food. I rushed, as delicately as I could, to the buffet table so I
could be one of the first to try these wonderful dishes and there was a
crystal bowl right in front of me. I went up to the bowl to see what
great dish I was going to encounter and what I saw horrified me!
What I saw in that bowl were lobsters. However, they were not the red
cooked lobsters that you see at your average "Red Lobster". What I saw
were purple and de-shelled and still living Lobsters! They were set on
ice like they were never alive in the first place! In my dream they were
obviously in pain and I backed away terrified that someone would do
this!
Now the really strange thing about this series of nightmares is that
every time I woke up I could smell a "dead fish" smell...like being at
the lake at low tide. That was my start at becoming a vegetarian.
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I was a vegetarian for a little over a year before I decided that I
could "reason" with eating meat. I thought if the animal had had a full
life on a free range ranch (which .00000001% actually do! if any...) I
could agree to eat them.
I did that for a couple of years but I still couldn't come to terms with
eating another living being!!!
I had joined PETA when I had my first nightmares but my husband, at the
time, insisted that PETA was distorting things to suit their own ends.
(I wasn't allowed to re-join and was very mad).
Needless to say, we are not married anymore. I have been a dedicated
vegetarian for 2 years now and I don't even think about going back!
Where I could reason away my meat eating and went back before, I would
rather be killed myself, protecting an animal, than eat another creature
with a face!
I want nothing more than a life of protecting animals and NOT eating
them!! I have ALWAYS been an advocate of helping the animals and I would
never be with someone who didn't have time for the animals. Why would I
want to eat that which I protect???!
I hope to be a PETA member for life and promote vegetarianism and animal
safety and well being for the rest of my life!