INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the “When Veggies Come to Dinner” series. When I started this blog, I knew that I wanted to share different aspects of my life, like my love of gardening and crafting. I also knew that I wanted to share recipes and information about being a vegetarian. Writing about gardening and crafting is easy, everyone can understand and enjoy it. Writing about vegetarianism is not as easy.
When you choose to become a vegetarian, you unexpectedly inherit new personality traits, many of which are not flattering. Traits like being “judgmental”, an “angry activist” and even “crazy” are now yours to contend with. Just like all stereotypes, some people embody these traits and some do not. I do not. It’s important to me that anyone who has a question about being a vegetarian, meat-eater or otherwise, doesn’t feel intimidated to ask. So when I’m asked time and time again “what do you eat?”, I’m always happy to answer. It’s in this spirit that I started the “When Veggies Come to Dinner Series”, to help everyone better understand their veggie family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
I know that feeding a vegetarian can seem like an intimidating and stressful event, afterall…what DO they eat? So, not only for for those with a vegetarian in their life, but for those that are thinking about adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, I’ll give you definitions to help you better understand the different veggie diets. In each part of the series I’ve also included a list of sneaky ingredients that you may not realize are veggie unfriendly. There’s also suggestions for easy meat-optional meals, fast food choices and restaurant choices that are great when eating out with your veggie friends. These are just guidelines, so when in doubt, just ask your veggie friend what he or she doesn’t eat.
PART 1: VEGETARIANS, PESCATARIANS AND FLEXITARIANS DEFINED
Vegetarian – “Nothing with a Face”
Sometimes “vegetarian” is used as a blanket term for a lot of different eating choices. Most people define vegetarian as someone who will eat eggs and dairy, but not any type of animal, including fish. This type of vegetarian is sometimes referred to as a lacto-ovo vegetarian. There are vegetarians that will eat eggs, but not dairy (ovo-vegetarian) or dairy but not eggs (lacto-vegetarian).
Sneaky Foods/Ingredients: gelatin/Jello, gummy bears, Frosted Mini Wheats, marshmallows (but not marshmallow fluff), most gravy,
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