Of the four people or so who might possibly for any reason whatsoever read this site, there’s one or two who might not know that I’ve decided not to eat meat for the next month.
One of the reasons for this is that I’m going to see if it’s easier to eat less calories that way, because I want to lose a few pounds. I figure eating vegetables only will cut out most fast food, meaning I’ll eat cheaper and healthier. Another is to see if it’s possible to eat well without eating meat. I eat a lot of stuff that doesn’t have any meat in it anyway, so it shouldn’t be all that taxing.
At any rate, I figure I’ll put what I eat here, and that way I can come back to it later if I’m hard up for ideas. I’ll spend 30 seconds trying to hunt up a link, too, with more info on whatever it is I’m posting. WARNING: boring crap ahead.
I’m a week in to this, so here’s what I’ve eaten so far:
Meatless Sloppy Joe from Far East: This is the shiznit. It comes in a box, and you just add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a can of tomato paste. It’s textured soy protein, but it’s damned good.
Falafel Pita Stuffers from Far East: This is horrible, horrible stuff, even though it’s from the same company. It’s basically ground garbanzos with ground garlic and onion and stuff thrown in; you mix it with water to make a paste, and then roll it into balls and fry it to make these falafel “meat” balls that you’re supposed to put in a pita or something. Or, if you’re smart, you don’t.
Oh, and if you’re buying pita, don’t forget that it comes in pocketbread and flatbread. I learned that one the hard way.
Pasta and sauce: Yummm…….I think a third of my meals have been pasta and sauce. I eat it a lot normally, as well. For pasta I like farfalle and and gnocchi, and for sauce I like anything from Paul Newman, most of the HEB/Classico ones (especially olives and capers and vegetable primavera), and Mom’s spaghetti sauce.
Mashed Potatoes and Macaroni and Cheese: You can get this one from the KFC.
Cheese Enchiladas: In the cheap aisle of the frozen foods section, you can get these tasty entrees, which do contain beef tallow, but don’t contain any actual meat. The HEB I shop at has Patio and El Charrito brands. I ate them both, and then I looked at the ingredients–the El Charrito is not only better for you, it tastes a hell of a lot better.
That’s about as good a recap as you’re going to get from my memory-challenged self.
And today (drumroll please) I’ve eaten:
Lunch:
1 onion bagel : 360 calories for lunch. Damn. Those things really pack ‘em in. Still, I ate one big bagel and I was full. That ain’t bad. It was good.
Dinner:
2 fat-free whole-wheat tortillas: These are 80 calories apiece and taste all right, but fat must be the stuff that holds tortillas together, because they fall apart hella bad. I won’t buy them again, especially since they were $2.50 for 10. I stuffed the tortillas with…
Reser’s Potato Express Chipotle-flavored potatoes: 480 calories for a whole bag, of which I ate maybe half. Pretty damned good; I found ‘em in a fridge in the vegetable section. $2.50 for the bag, and damned sho worth it. I topped it with…
HEB Fresher Lasting salsa: 7.5 calories a tablespoon. This is the expensive ($2.50) salsa in a bag in the vegetable section of HEB. Actually, it’s not much more than regular salsa, and it is nice and fresh. More watery than the salsas you get in a bottle; kind of like what you’d get in a restaurant. I recommend it.
Supper (I eat at midnight, what do you want I should call it?):
Bear Creek “Darn Good” Chili Mix: It’s not surprising that chili tastes good without meat, because chili isn’t about meat anyway–that’s why it’s called chili. Nevertheless, this is some damn good stuff, although I didn’t prepare it according to the label. I only used one can of tomato paste, and I cooked it down from seven cups of water so that whole bag of the stuff only made 4 cups of chili.
That’s the way it ought to be made, ‘cuz it’s delicious that way. I ate half of it (480 mix calories + 75 tomato paste calories = 555) with a slice of sourdough (120 calories).
So that’s 360 + (2*(80+120)) + 675 = 1435 calories. I drink diet Dr. Pepper and iced tea, so no calories there. That’s about 650 calories under my nominal basal metabolism, so I’d expect to weigh about 3 ounces less tomorrow, theoretically.
