For me right now it’s either noodles with random veggies, tofu and a spicy sauce. Simple, easy to make and cheap. But really nutritious.
Or it’s classic Dutch kale stamp:
But with a veggie sausage as I don’t eat meat. It’s potatoes, kale, sausage and piccalilly sauce (sweet sauce made of pickles). It’s a great meal before or after a heavy workout and it’s very healthy. And great on a cold fall or winter day.
Sound like such a nouveau riche vegetarian, but I’ve been making this quinoa-tofu-spinach dish that I’m in love with recently, just delicious. Should be said that I get all that shit with EBT/food stamps before I give off the wrong impression 😅
It’s weird that it’s considered nouveau riche because quinoa-spinach-tofu would be incredibly cheap where I live.
Ever since I banned meat etc. from my diet I eat far cheaper really. Don’t understand why it’s considered an upper class thing to do.
Honestly I think a lot of the narrative that vegetarians must be very privileged and that it’s much cheaper to eat meat stems from nothing more than concern trolling and whataboutism when confronted with uncomfortable truths about the global meat industry, “eating vegetarian is too expensive”, bringing up the exploitative nature of the quinoa industry etc. (I don’t tend to bring this aspect of my politics much to Marxist-Leninist circles because I do understand why many comrades eat meat, but I have pretty militant views regarding the meat industry, its impact on health and the ethics of animal suffering etc.)
In the U.S. there is some truth there, the meat and dairy industry is one of the most subsidized food industries alongside corn, whereas healthier foodstuffs esp. fruits and vegetables are not subsidized so tend to be more expensive. The bag of quinoa I got is like $12 usd and could maybe last me a week if I ate it every day, whereas I could probably find a box of 12 shitty frozen burgers for about $5 or so. So there is some truth I guess. I find myself, personally, spending substantially less money on food as a vegetarian. The meat substitute stuff can be expensive, but it’s not healthy to eat burgers, Beyond Meat or not, every day anyway.
I agree. People not knowing what to cook is a problem for going vegetarian. The typical Dutch food is potatoes, meat and veggies and if you substitute the meat for fake meat you will still spend a lot of money and tbh most of them don’t taste that good.
But there are so many cuisines out there that are naturally vega(n) and healthy and tasty and cheap. But you have to look for it.
In my area of the US, it’s often tied to a lot of food trends that are heavily capitalized on, like “organic” kale vs the kale right next to it that’s not marketed as organic and is cheaper. That, and the difference in cost between fresh produce and prepackaged foods. Most of the people around here don’t imagine things like canned vegetables being something vegetarians eat, just the fresh produce.
Absolutely… and from my understanding the “organic” shit they peddle doesn’t tend to be any better for you, or even less pesticide-infused than the non-organic stuff. In my experience it just tends to rot quicker. Sweet peas are 50c a can where I’m at and they’re a staple food for me. Vegetarian canned chili costs just as much as beef canned chili. Supplement my diet with nutritional yeast and flax+chia seeds, the latter two being pretty expensive but they last a long time. You don’t even need to spend a whole lot to eat somewhat healthy as a vegetarian, just have to be able to wade through all the over-advertised and expensive crap to find affordable fruits and veggies.