I recently had a discussion with a medical professional about my daughter’s progress in adapting to our vegetarian lifestyle. I was gently told You have to watch her diet. Why, I asked? The response was, Since she doesn’t eat meat I have to take care that her diet is well-balanced. After I remembered that I’m a non-violent person I tried not to sound as sarcastic when I said, sarcastically, “Like meat-eaters do.” It wasn’t the doctor’s fault that they’re taught so little about nutrition in medical school, and that our health care system is designed to treat us after we get the inevitable diseases rather than on how to prevent them, but I’ve run into this argument before and it defies reason.

I apologize for my pontificating but this situation is one of my bugaboos. The preachy standby is that if we remove the meat from the plate we must replace the protein.  My question is, what’s left on the plate?  Now that the meat’s gone, are there equal portions of whole grains and vegetables to compliment the meat eater’s other smart daily choices of 2 – 3 servings of fruit, more vegetables, more whole grains, legumes, 8 glasses of water and the odd glass of red wine?  Not likely.  Then why are vegetarians required to ‘watch their diets’ more than everyone else?  It goes without saying that vegetarians don’t necessarily eat more balanced diets than meat eaters (hey, I’ll swap my lack of protein with your lack of fruits and veggies, you meat-eater!), but by simply removing the steak and adding legumes to that imaginary plate the diet has already been improved.  Further, some argue that it’s easier to get enough than we used to think**.

Ask anyone what is a staple of the vegetarian diet and tofu would probably be the response. In the olden days there were few readily-available protein replacements within in the context of the average North American food store. Although there is some protein in almost all whole foods, beans, nuts, nut butters and some grains were about all the protein-rich you could get your hands on. Now there’s a seemingly endless supply of vegetarian protein options: cutlets, burgers, weiners, faux-chicken, pork, beef strips made from tofu, tempeh or seitan grace the frozen food sections of grocery stores. When I started there was no such thing as Yves or Zoglos or Veggie Patch. Amy’s was about the only brand of veggie meals out there that I could find, but they were very expensive for me in the days when I lived a simpler life. I used to scour the shelves of dusty obscure health food stores that reeked of hand-made soap and kelp, looking for foods that had visual appeal but weren’t too slimy at the same time. Tofu has always been cheap but my problem was I hated it.

Until recently I regarded it with trepidation, but really what’s there not to like? It comes in a variety of densities, for lack of a better word: soft, medium, firm and extra-firm, which I prefer to call very jiggly, slightly jiggly, jiggly and still-not-firm-enough. It also has scads of protein and very little flavour and it easily takes on the taste of the foods you’re cooking it with. It’s the texture I can’t handle. I don’t like things that don’t resist when I chew, or make my teeth bounce off them like cooked mushrooms do. It’s slightly gelatinous and unless that food is called J-e-l-l-o, then it should be outlawed. Food shouldn’t look like it would bounce if you dropped it. Or maybe it’s just the mere suggestion that it’s a curd. Bean curd to be specific, the definition of which is as follows:

cheeselike food made of curdled soybean milk*

Now, doesn’t that just make you wanna run out and by a skid of the stuff? I regularly eat “a solid food prepared from the pressed curd of milk” (cheese), and worse, “the oval, thin-shelled reproductive body of a bird” (eggs). How can I eat curdled milk and baby bird embryos (guilt!) and be turned off by tofu?

Nevertheless, as I endeavour to make myself a better vegetarian (and a thinner one – 8 pounds and counting), I’m cutting down on the cheese and hopefully the eggs will go away completely. And, I am learning to Embrace the Tofu. Mouth-feel be damned, I’m eatin’ me some tofu, and I’m discovering that I just needed to learn how to cook it. I need only to buy the extra-firm, slice it thinly and let it marinade in a veggie BBQ sauce, or a little bit of hoisin and soy. Then the marinaded strips can be fried with a little bit of olive oil and they’re delicious, the texture remarkably un-tofu-like. That rumbling you hear is not my stomach but the sound of my burgeoning determination to get over my tofu-prejudice. I have succeeded.

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As a follow up to an early post, on February 23rd Hershey’s Bill 16 passed its second reading at Queen’s Park, a great step in having BSL revoked in the Province of Ontario. This is a private member’s bill and historically these rarely become law in Ontario. We need Liberal support and only two liberal MPPs voted in favour which is hardly surprising since it was McGuinty’s liberals who established BSL legislation in 2005. Please urge your Liberal MPPs to support a third reading of this bill.

*dictionary definitions courtesy of www.thefreedictionary.com

**for more info on protein requirements and vegan alternatives go to http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm