Let Her Eat Clean

Amongst friends and family and indeed anyone that’s ever eaten alongside me, I’m known as one of life’s biggest carnivores. But I’m going vegetarian.

*Twice a week.

October is a huge month of change for my husband and I from a lifestyle point of view. My BCNH studies are in full swing, we’ve finally moved out of my family home and into our own place and our household income is now less than half what it was at the start of the year.

Not so vegetarian – the pictures that adorn the walls in our new kitchen…

During our time in London we easily spent £500 a month on groceries, usually made up of Hubbub (not tried it? You need to!) and Ocado deliveries. The biggest expense was most definitely meat and, to an extent, fish. Ok, ok there was the Pinot Noir too… I don’t regret spending that much. We ate extremely well, we completed marathons on those dinners, we lived healthy, happy every day lives.

When it comes to meat , its origin is hugely important to me – both from an ethical and sustainability point of view but also in terms of my own health. It honestly petrifies me to think what on earth happens to an animal to allow it to be sold for less than a Mars bar. Hubbub helped us get round all these concerns with a series of excellent meat and fish supplying partners.

So my version of becoming vegetarian is about eating less, but better meat. It’s about being more mindful of what we’re spending on our weekly shop without compromising our health and still sitting down to dinner each evening, enjoying the food we share.

I’ve been experimenting a bit ahead of the final commitment next week. Including lots of beans, pulses, lentils; bringing some oats and rye bread into breakfast; even more green veggies than before. I definitely don’t seem to have come off too badly – or been left hungry once. It just requires a bit more careful thought and planning to ensure a less animal protein is being compensated for.

So stand by for future posts that look at clean eating on a budget and hopefully explore some super duper vegetarian delights.

Do you have any favourite vegetarian recipes you’d like to share?

**This post was inspired by a meeting earlier this year with Part-time carnivore. Almost a year ago I also read Michael Pollan’s superb ‘In defense of food’ which raises some excellent points on meat consumption and provides the following wonderful advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.**