How do you actually (and succesfully) become a vegetarian at age forty?

Question

Is it better to change gradually or to simply ban all meat at once?
All input will be appreciated.

Answer 1

It's only too late if you're already dead. Forty sounds like the perfect age to become vegetarian, if you're forty.=P
You have your independence and don't have to listen to your parents tell you that you'll waste away without meat and if anyone else does, you'll be too mature to even respond to their thoughtless comments. The best way to do it is to study up on nutrition(nothing major) and start exploring vegetarian cuisine as you gradually eat less and less meat or types of meat. It is as broad as traditional food choices and you will probably end up expanding the range of your diet.

There have been vegan Olympic gold medalists and a vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis
http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML_(Draft).htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you want to become a lacto-ovo vegetarian, the transition should be quite simple. Almost all meats have widely available commercial replacements. All that you have to do is replace any flesh in your diet (beef, pork, poultry, seafood) with meat analogs or just leave it out altogether.

You should keep in mind that a journey such as this can be quite short but should just be the beginning of a longer one to a plant-based diet with no animal products. This is because of the reality of factory farming in which animals that are kept alive to produce milk, eggs, etc suffer much more and longer than animals that are raised to a certain weight and then slaughtered.http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/
http://meat.org
Some people use the word "vegan" in reference to this idea, but be aware that applying that label to yourself should always come with the inclusion of wise activism and advocacy.http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/index.html
Two extremely important examples of this are that you should never speak to someone about vegetarianism/veganism without their consent and genuine interest or as a comment on what they are eating AND your dietary beliefs should never be used as an introduction or explanation of who you are as a person. Veg*ism should be something that comes up AFTER people get to know you and they offer you a situation that makes it confusing to withhold the information/discussion. Also, if you are presented something that you choose not to eat or you are
ordering food/eating together somewhere/picking the best place to eat.

When you you hold off on the subject until it's necessary and then act like it isn't a big deal at all, people are usually surprised and WAY more interested and curious than if you were to bring it up when someone's eating or just using it as a conversation starter.

A responsible vegan ALWAYS studies the subject of their own health and how to keep their body completely provided for in every sense. http://www.veganhealth.org/sh
To neglect their body is to define a plant-based diet as unhealthy and is the opposite of helping the animals.

Just to clear things up, the vegetarian/vegan diet is not composed of salads, vegetables, fruit and fake meat. Fruits and vegetables are always important but they DO NOT make up the largest portion of any healthy diet.
A balanced plant-based diet includes grains(breads, pasta, rice,cereal), legumes(soy, beans, peas, lentils), fruit and vegetables.
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/food_groups.html
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/eating.html
Being vegan can be an art, one whose challenge is to take things that involve the suffering of the innocent and change them into something free of cruelty.

A vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.

Technically the term "vegetarian" does imply that you don't consume anything that comes from the body of an animal that requires killing it. Many ingredients such as gelatin and glycerin are found in many candies, Fig-Newtons, and many of other foods as well as rennet found in many cheeses.
http://www.happycow.net/health-animal-ingredients.html
The best thing to remember is to take your time so that for example: when you are comfortable not eating beef and pork you can then give up chicken when you are sure you can make the commitment permanently.
Depending on your age or reliance on parents or regional options, it may not be best to give yourself a label. The important thing is to do your best to make progress and be committed to your compassion towards animals. Never put your focus onto what you or other people use to describe yourself.

If you meet someone that talks down to people for eating meat, dairy, etc or to you because they think they are "more veg" than you, laugh in their face and tell them they are a disgrace to the entire philosophy. People like this only hurt the idea of veg*ism AND the animals. The point of all of this is to live compassionately and and as free from cruelty as you can, all the while maintaining your health and a positive attitude. People who don't maintain either, need not open their mouths and represent our beliefs.

If you actually choose to read all of this, I hope it helps. If not, feel free to e-mail me if you have questions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm vegan and these are some of my favorite things to eat:

Breakfast: bananas, cream of wheat with brown sugar and soy butter, cereal, pancakes or french toast with real maple syrup, vegan "sausage" patties, smoothies.

Snack: BRUSSEL SPROUTS =) no joke

Lunch: VEGAN "SAUSAGE" SANDWICHES, sandwiches with vegan deli slices(Tofurkey is the only one that's kinda funky), fruit, dinner leftovers, couscous salad, vegan sushi, potato or pasta salad.

Dinner: sloppy joes, "sausage" and gravy with homemade biscuits, Spaghetti and Trader Joe's "meatballs" or TVP, lasagna, Thai pad see ew, pad khi mao(drunkard's noodles), pad prig king, tofu+eggplant with basil sauce, yellow thai curry with tofu or vegan chikn and veggies and jasmine rice, Indian dal with homemade roti or dosai, channa masala, aloo gobi, vegetable or minestrone soup, pizza, STEAMED "PORK" BUNS with potstickers or spring rolls, sweet&sour/orange/lemon chikn, vegan pho or wonton soup, baked tofu, BBQ homemade seitan (tastes like meat from boiled+BBQ'd ribs)

I use these sites to find recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com
http://vegweb.com
http://www.recipezaar.com

Answer 2

Depending on how much meat you've been eating, it *may* be more comfortable to stop gradually but if you're already not consuming a lot of it, you might prefer quitting everything @ once. What works for *you* is what matters.
When I became vegetarian I had been so brainwashed by my family & our meat-based culture that I was actually *afraid* to do it all @ once, so I began with eating some meat every other day & the last flesh I gave up was from sea creatures. My body went through a purification process which took a couple of weeks & was similar to a mild cold.
Good luck & best wishes on your vegetarian journey.

Answer 3

Either way, it's up to you. I just wanted to tell you I know another vegetarian in real life who went veg at 40. He gave it all up in one day. I don't know your reasons for becoming vegetarian, but the age doesn't matter. Whether it's for animals, your health, or the environment, sooner is better than later though, so if you do it gradually, I would shoot for something like 2 weeks or a month for your end goal, rather than years. And I think that eating more and more veggie meals until they're all vegetarian meals is a better method than giving up one type of meat at a time, because with the latter you're just replacing some meat with a different kind of meat. Good luck!

Answer 4

Well, it doesn't really matter how old you are, and different methods work for different people. Some go cold turkey and some others make a gradual transition. Go to your nearest supermarket and try the various vegetarian meat substitutes that are out there. Of course, they won't taste exactly like the real thing, but often the taste and texture are VERY similar. Take the ones you like and use them as replacements for meat.

Answer 5

My close friend is a body builder he is 38 and he is becoming a vegetarian like me.. He has cut out a type of meat one at a time first pork then beef then chicken next is fish and after that he will be veggie,.. He put himself on a one year plan of gradual reduction of meat..

Answer 6

I went veg at 33, although I stopped eating cows' flesh about a year earlier and eventually decided I didn't like chickens' flesh either. And I read a lot of stuff (this was pre-"Skinny *****") and decided to go vegan. I know someone who went veg at 40, and she says she knows someone who went veg at 60. Coretta Scott King was in her late 60s when she went vegetarian back in 1995. So it's never too late!

While I don't know the rate of their transitions, I can tell you that you've got to find the one that feels right for you. Good luck and good for you!

Answer 7

I'll be 41 in October, and I became a Vegan this April 2007.

I went cold turkey after reading this book "Skinny B i t c h"

I went through some detox, but it wasn't so bad, until I went on my raw plant food diet (vegan), I was told that for every year you ate SAD (standard american diet) it takes a month to detox.

DO IT, get rid of the bad food, and eat healthy, you will see the improvements and your body will feel GREAT!

If I could do it, you could do it!

Answer 8

If I were you, I'd do it gradually. First cut out red meat, then slowly no chicken, then no fish.
That way your body has more time to adjust.
And don't forget to supplement your diet with plenty of other protein sources so your body won't react negatively to the change.

Answer 9

Do a week without any meat than cut out fish. I'm a lot younger than you like thirty some years but I really think you should start saving animals now! But.. please... be healthy.

Answer 10

age has nothing to do with it. take it slowly. buy a good veggie book. do one veggie meal a week then build up from there.