Protein

As you may or may not know, I am a vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian for 26 years (yes, that is how old I am), and I can overall say that I am happy, healthy, and not falling apart, like some people tend to think when you tell them you live without meat (and fish, and chicken...). I will not get into the whole why and "isn't it hard?" stuff here, if you really want to know more about it you can ask me. I would like to say that I am not principally against eating animals; we humans are a omnivorous species, and I would love to if I knew that the animal had had a good life, hadn't been stuffed with antibiotics and growth hormones and other horrible things, and a piece of rain forest hadn't been floored to feed it. As those things are currently not really possible without paying half your salary for it, I'd rather stick to vegetarianism.

So last weekend we were eating at the house of a friend of mine, and he had pulled a vegetarian recipe from the Internet (he does not mind cooking without meat, but he lacks the culinary imagination to come up with something himself). It was a lasagna dish. Now about 90% of all the lasagna I have eaten (it's usually the default "vegetarian" dish in restaurants, the other option being a pepper stuffed with vegetables or couscous) were spinach with either bechamel or cheese sauce. This lasagna was no different. However, then someone decided to throw a whole load of proteins at the dish. Officially, it consisted of pasta, 250 g spinach, 250 g ricotta, 250 g mozzarella, 2 eggs, cheese sauce, and grated cheese. Now firstly, 250 g spinach for 4 people is just scandalous. I would have thrown in about 4 times that amount. But the protein thing is just out of control. Luckily, my friend also realised this and left the ricotta and cheese sauce out of it, but we still ended up with quite a cheesy meal.
I have seen this done before. Non-vegetarians tend to go "oh my! we need protein! what has protein? cheese! add cheese! and eggs! and nuts! and mushrooms!" until there is no sense or logic to the dish and you're just spooning the stuff up. This is very good, and sweet, and considerate, in a way. We need protein, it's hard to get enough in your system when you're a vegetarian, so it's good they think about it. However, the important thing to remember is that we vegetarians are used to eating very little protein. We can cope with it. (I know this is the most difficult thing for meat-eaters who go vegetarian; the sudden loss of protein in their diet. But once your body is used to it, you're fine not eating that much protein. And I am one of the lucky ones who started out low, so my body is fully adapted.) And the meat-eater who goes vegetarian for a day will have no problems, except that they usually feel they haven't eaten enough. So there really is no need throwing all that cheese and nuts and tofu and whatever in our general directions.

 But still, it's better than the other extreme, which is the "meat analogue" or "meat substitue" group. I have never understood why the things vegetarians can pick up to substitute meat have to look like meat. Apart from the generally tragically bad taste (it tastes like dust or soy, which are both unpleasant), it does not work in 2 ways; firstly, the vegetarian does not want to eat meat, nor something that looks like meat, so they generally don't buy it, and secondly, the meat-eater compares it to meat, isn't fooled and goes "this is horrible and disgusting and tastes nothing like meat! I will stick to meat!" so you lose out on both sides. Case in point: yesterday, we ate hamburgers with a salad, because this is easy and quite fresh, and it was unusually warm outside. I bought 2 (organic) hamburgers for my boyfriend, but for myself I didn't go for the "faux meat" hamburger, I bought falafel. Falafel is vegetarian without trying to be meat. And it actually tastes good. Luckily, most supermarkets have by now realised this mistake, and they actually sell some things that do not try to be meat, like cheese schnitzels or fritatta or vegetable things with cheese. Which usually taste good, because they're not something that looks like meat and tries to taste like meat while consisting of tofu or quorn or baked milk or whatever. (However, you can still be fooled. A couple of months ago we ate in an organic/ partly-vegetarian restaurant and I ordered the "brie schnitzel", thinking I was in for a treat, but I turned out they'd just cut open one of those horrible tofu-y shop-bought schnitzels, stuffed a slice of brie inside and baked it. I have rarely been this disappointed, because the restaurant appeared to be generally vegetarian-friendly.)

Now it may sound as if it's horrible being a vegetarian, but generally, it's pretty neat. When I cook at home I just cook whatever I like, and I never go "owh, there's no meat in here, whatever will I do to substitute it?!" but just think logically. No need to panic, no need to count every miligram of protein until you've had your fill. And when you go out to restaurants, the choice is usually limited so that you can easily choose what you want, making life easy. Or you can go out to nice, small, hidden vegetarian restaurants where eating out becomes a whole different experience (and these are literally everywhere). Moreover, whenever you get to another continent, you realise that being a vegetarian is pretty normal. There are many religions which are wholly or partly vegetarian. I've never had difficulties in Africa or the Middle East, whereas in some Dutch restaurants I've been looked at like I had some sort of disease (which is weird, because I never comment on other people eating meat, because I believe in "live and let live", whereas I've had to explain and defend my way of living countless times. In the West, that is. Where we have enough food and wealth and freedom to let everyone choose for themselves). Moreover, it was just a couple of decades ago that only the really really rich in the western world could actually eat meat every day, the poor were happy to get it at Christmas and Easter and harvest festivals.

So really, I don't see what the problem is. And thankfully, more and more people are beginning to realise the same thing. Again, it's not that I want the whole world to go vegetarian, it's just that it would be nice if people thought things through before they judge, or buy, or put a recipe online. And in the meantime, I'm perfectly able to sort things out for myself, even if it does mean I sometimes get bombarded with a protein overload.