Want to Save Money on Food? Choose Vegetarian Meal Plans
May 17 2012
There’s an easy and proven solution to higher food costs…EAT MORE VEGETARIAN!
Without a doubt, reducing our consumption of meat products will not only lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of diabetes but will also lower our food bills. I know it’s not easy for us North Americans that were raised on a steady diet of meat and potatoes. I can hear the protest cries now: “But my husband/wife/child will not eat vegetables”. Well, if you’re serious about saving money and are concerned for your health, you need to make certain sacrifices…and eating meat every night of the week is one of them.
I don’t expect everyone who reads this to automatically stop eating meat tomorrow and nor should you. What you can do is begin gradually. Start by creating one vegetarian meal plan a week. Make sure that whatever meal you choose has enough proteins, enough calories and enough flavour to appeal to everyone. Meals with legumes (beans, lentils etc) are a good place to start. Odds are you already serve beans every now and again with pork chops so next time…don’t add the pork chops. At MealEasy, we’ve developed over 600 vegetarian meal plans that are not geared solely to the vegetarian but were created with the meat eater in mind as well. A balance of nutrition and flavour is essential to every vegetarian meal plan, especially if you’re trying to convert the die hard carnivore.
It wasn’t that long ago that a meal at our house that didn’t feature some sort of meat was unheard of. But then we started omitting the chicken from our weekly stir fry. Then pizza night became veggie pizza night when the Bee had me making a special pizza for her because she didn’t like the sausage on it…turns out, my wife and I actually prefer it without sausage too. Now, we easily find ourselves having a vegetarian meal plan three times a week all the time and saving money because of it too.
So give it a try. Start by cutting out meat once a week and go from there…who knows, you may like it and you WILL SAVE MONEY!