New Veggie Meal Plans, Part II

Ha, ha! I knew I wouldn't make it long before I had to buy them! Ooh, shiny new recipes!

I bought the Deluxe Easy Veggie Meal Plans this morning. ;) I am having a total information overload! There is so much to read, I wasn't sure where to begin. I finally decided on The Lazy Man's Guide to Vegetarian Eating. I actually do like to cook, but that doesn't mean I'm not looking for "Easy Button" every now and then. :) Craig Ballantyne goes through everything he ate and what he thought about it for about the last 2 months (he's been eating nearly vegan). It's kinda cool to see what he's been eating and it gave me a few ideas for variety.

Next I read through the "Quick Start Guide Call" transcript. (There's an audio file too, but with 2 kids I couldn't possibly hear the audio file. I got interrupted enough trying to read it!) Kardena Pauza talks about her background and why she has chosen the diet path that she did. It also talks about steps to take if you are trying to ease into the vegetarian lifestyle. I'll be honest, my goal is not to be fully vegetarian. I'm just trying to eat healthfully and am looking for more variety. But to be fair, I may go meatless for a week and see what I think!

Next I looked through the Easy Veggie Lifestyle Guide. In the first chapter, Kardena talks about how it is important to eat the right kinds of foods, and how just being vegetarian does not automatically make you healthy. She also touches on how a vegetarian diet could give you more energy, how it's environmentally-friendly, budget friendly, and how it can be just as convenient as any other weight loss meal plan.

The second chapter goes through the different types of vegetarian. (I would be "Semi-Vegetarian - Eats less meat than the average person.") Chapters 3 and 4 talk about how to make your vegetarian diet healthy and foods to avoid. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 deal with vegetarian proteins, carbohydrates and fats respectively, and how much you need (and good sources of each). The last chapter is about soaking your own beans, nuts and seeds to make them sprout. Kardena says this makes them easier to digest and absorb the nutrients. Quite a lot of information!

There's also 101 Delicious Vegan Recipes, a 90 day meal plan for men and another 90 day meal plan for women. I only printed the 101 Delicious Vegan Recipes and the 90 day plan for women for now (that one is 175 pages long!) and I saw lots of yummy looking recipes. I've only paged through, but I got a lot of ideas. (A few I want to make immediately: carrot ginger oatmeal cookies, garden patch gazpacho, and the breakfast quinoa.) I'm pretty set on variety for quite a while! Although I probably won't use the meal plans exactly as they are written. I'll jump around and just use the recipes for ideas.

There is a short smoothie guide, with a couple of yummy-looking smoothies. I don't make smoothies very often, but the strawberry one looked pretty good (it has dates in it!)

Lastly, there is a guide on defending the vegetarian lifestyle. Kardena offers tips on how to answer people who may criticize or ask questions. I just skimmed through this transcript. It's also an audio file if you have the time to listen to it, maybe at the gym or something. :)

So that's the Easy Veggie Meal Plans package in a nutshell. It gave me a lot to think about and a lot of good ideas for meals!