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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Environment
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Yeah, aware of the fact that meat tends to be a big issue with carbon emissions and environmental sustainability. While I'm not *currently* planning on being vegan, I'm definitely cutting out beef and pork and replacing them with chicken and fish for the time being for both diet and environmental reasons.
Overall trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat regardless, and I'm glad that's been an easy change so far.
What is holding you back from going vegan or at least vegetarian? I'm not trying to judge, I'm just interested. If you care about the environment it would seem a logical choice, that's why I'm asking.
To give a direct answer, familiarity honestly. While I would want to move towards even having poultry less, it's just a thing of acquainting myself with recipes and whatnot and finding ones that work for me.
Attempted making bean burgers for example, and they turned out becoming more like sloppy joes, so trying to get things to work out without having to make them each day ha. Trying to challenge myself to use a binding ingredient that isn't eggs. I got flax seeds since it was recommended before in a convo, but kinda lost on how to properly use them as a binder.
Also idk how much it helps, but being lactose intolerant has greatly reduced the amount of dairy I have, so I tend to go with products based on plant-based alternatives with the only exception being cheese the few times I have it since the texture and mouth feel of vegan cheese just doesn't match what I'm comfortable with.
Oh no! Just buy them! My better half is vegetarian, which means I started mostly cook meat-free because it is easier than making two meals, but now I'm just in the habit of not eating much meat. Our bean-burger experiments were never worth effort. We use fake-beef veggie crumbles for casserole-type recipes and big frozen packs of Beyond Burgers (Impossible is also good) if we want an actual burger. For chicken, we'll buy some unbreaded seitan/TVP substitutes, like these examples.
I have the same problem with egg substitutes, so we're still eating eggs -- but from happy-seeming chickens we can visit. The hard part for me is cheese. I'm waiting for lab-grown cheese, but for now I can't match the flavors of actual cheese.
I've bought them premade before, but it's also just a thing about diet and questions on if making them at home are any cheaper than buying them premade.
I've noticed the premade frozen ones at the store have a lot of sodium in them, and while I'm not specifically on a low-sodium diet, I also want to make sure I'm keeping things balanced. Making the burgers from scratch at home allows for me to theoretically control how much sodium is in the burgers.
But yeah, in terms of cost, assuming I find a recipe that holds together well, I think it'd be worth finding how the costs compare between the individual ingredients to make them at home, vs the cost of them premade, especially if I can then substitute the black beans for other beans that happen to be on sale like Red Kidney beans or Navy beans.