Question for Savvy Vegetarian:

Hi – I have been a vegetarian all my life. Recently I have been to my naturopath who has put me on my blood type diet. Thankfully this wasn’t a huge change in my diet as I’m type A, however I’m not doing so well as I’m constantly craving sugar and finding I need more energy.

About a year ago my blood test results indicated that I’m B12 deficient so i have been taking supplements and increasing fish and green veg in my diet I was having shots but haven’t had one for quite some time.

I find myself having coffee every morning and ready for a sleep at midday then at around 2pm I’m reaching for sugar and chocolate. For brekky I’m having a bowl of muesli with nuts etc and soy milk and I’m not finding that I’m hungry until 1pm but because I’m so tired at midday i eat my lunch tuna and salad or left over dinner.

My Naturopath has advised that I should eat more protein and include snacking on nuts. However I did this for a while and it appeared to work but now I cant stand to eat any nuts.

Can you suggest anything that I can do to stop the sugar cravings and increase my energy levels?

Kind regards, C. B.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

I’m far from expert on blood type diets, but from everything I’ve read, I get the impression that they aren’t really meant for vegetarians. I wondered if that’s why you’re eating fish, when you’ve been vegetarian all your life.

I’m not a nutritionist or dietitian, and I don’t want to contradict your doctor. But I’m happy to share a few thoughts on vegetarian nutrition -to follow up or not - as you think best.

It could be a good idea to have your B12 levels re-tested, along with iron, folate, Vit D & blood sugar levels. It can take quite a while – a year or more – to recover from a B12 deficiency, and it needs to be monitored regularly. And you could have some other undiagnosed deficiency or condition. So get yourself thoroughly checked out.

It’s not normal for your energy levels to be so low, and I know from personal experience, sugar and chocolate don’t help. You get a temporary boost, but then you crash, weakening your immune system & digestion, messing up your blood sugar levels, getting headaches, digestive upsets etc.

Maybe you need a wider range of foods to satisfy your nutritional needs. I recommend reading the excellent book, Becoming Vegetarian by Melina & Davis, for sound information on vegetarian nutrition.

It could be that you need more calories in your diet to maintain your body and your daily activities. I’m not saying you need 2000 calories a day, as recommended in the standard nutrition guidelines. But you could keep a calorie count for a week or two to see if you’re getting a reasonable amount. If it seems low, eat more and see if that helps your energy.

I understand getting tired of eating one kind of food a lot. BUT – nuts are packed with nutrition – good fats, protein, vitamins and minerals, and a little goes a long way. Eat a variety of nuts in small amounts: almonds, walnuts, cashews, pine nuts, hazelnuts etc - and seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, chia, sesame. Try creative ways to eat them: ground up in sauces,  puddings, or smoothies, in salads and stir fries, spreads, on or in cereal or breakfast cookies.

According to Ayurveda, digestion is at it’s peak at mid-day, and lunch should be your main large meal for maximum nutritional benefits. Include lots of veg, whole grains and legumes and other foods (like nuts) to give you all 6 tastes - sweet (grains), salty, pungent (e.g. ginger, pepper), sour, (e.g. lemon or yogurt), bitter (greens) and astringent (legumes).

Eat lunch or any meal when you’re hungry, but before your energy level is down around your ankles, maybe have your meals a bit closer together, to help keep your energy up.

If you need a snack, whole grain + protein is a good bet. Fresh fruit and a handful of nuts will give you energy, plus vital nutrients, without the blood sugar crash. If you’re sick of nuts, try sprouted grain bread or crackers with pesto or hummus.

Carbs from whole grains are important energy sources, because they digest slowly, maintaining even blood sugar levels over a number of hours. That’s why your breakfast sustains you so well. Give lunch & supper the same opportunity.

I don’t know if legumes are an option on your diet, but for vegetarians, they are a major source of protein, vitamins & minerals, such as iron, and should be eaten every day, with whole grains.

More information on vegetarian nutrition:

Getting Enough Vitamin B12

Healthy Vegetarian Protein Foods

Iron and Vegetarian Diet

Minerals Nutrition

 Q & A on Vitamin D

Savvy Vegetarian Nutrition Report

All the best, Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

Mom with twin babies is introducing solid foods into their vegetarian diet. She is looking for advice on where to find baby food recipes and baby food mills.

Question for Savvy Vegetarian:

Hello, I have a set of six month old twin babies and have just started introducing solid foods.

They have been on soy milk formula and breast milk to date and I would like to raise them on a vegetarian diet.

Do you have any advice, articles, recipes, or good web sites I can check out? It seems like there is mostly junk out there which tells you to still give them dairy. I would appreciate it! – J.K.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

Congratulations on becoming the mother of twins! Double the joy – and double the work. Hope you’re managing to get some sleep!

It boggles my mind that medical people still tell Moms to give their babies dairy milk, and I also get pretty exercised about the low level of support for breastfeeding! But that’s a whole ‘nother topic!

As far as baby food recipes go, Homemade Baby Food Recipes has some good ones, and they also sell baby food mills. Those are Mom’s best friend, because then your babies can eat what you eat. For older babies, just mash things up with a fork, or give them finger foods.

Generally, bland food, non-acidic, is best for babies – you could start them off with potato, sweet potato or butternut squash, for example. Avocado or banana is usually a hit, or cream of rice cereal with breast milk or non-dairy milk.

Babies are pretty decided in what they like to eat, actually. I recommend Cathe Olson’s website, Simply Natural Books, about feeding your vegetarian kids. She has a baby food recipe book, and there are two of her articles in the list below.

I also highly recommend the vegetarian nutrition bibles, ‘Becoming Vegan’, or ‘Becoming Vegetarian’, by Vesanto Melina and Brenda Davis. They cover the topic of child vegetarian nutrition pretty thoroughly. As an intro to vegetarian nutrition, download the Savvy Vegetarian nutrition report.

Savvy Veg Articles and advice, related to your question:

How to Get Enough Protein in Your Vegetarian Diet
Vegetarian Protein Sample Menus
Feeding a Lactose Intolerant Child
Eight Ways to Get Your Family to Eat Vegetables
Feeding Your Independent Toddler
Going Veg With a 4 Year Old

All the best, Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

How can a person become vegetarian and stop their meat eating ways when it’s so hard to get over meat cravings caused by simply loving the taste of meat?

Dear Judith, I discovered your website quite a while ago, and have recently stumbled across it again. I love the recipes, and this advice blog is great. I’ve become vegetarian at least twice before, and always fell back into the meat eating pattern. I now have cut meat eating out of my lifestyle a lot, but occasionally do have meat cravings and eat chicken, and rarely, beef.  I almost never eat pork unless there are really no other options.

I love the vegetarian options out there, and now that I’m done with university, I have more time to cook healthy and interesting meals. There is a big part of me that wants to become vegetarian – I have vegetarian and vegan friends who have very convincing arguments and points to make. I have watched movies like Food, Inc. and read Fast Food Nation (the latter was my motivation to become vegetarian the second time), and I have seen videos of slaughterhouses and heard horror stories from my father who was a medic at a slaughterhouse for a while and saw what the workers – and the animals – experienced. There are SO many good reasons to become vegetarian, and I think I want to give it another stab.

Like I said, cutting out beef, pork, and chicken has not been too hard. My biggest meat cravings challenge now is seafood. I love seafood. I know that the oceans are overfished. I know there are, again, so many reasons to not eat it.  But I LOVE the taste. I don’t know what to do to overcome this. I tried being a “pescetarian” in the past, but eventually just eating fish and no other meat got the better of me, and I decided to just go back to  meat eating. And there are other things I love – now that summers have rolled around again, I’m excited about hamburgers and chicken grilled at barbecues.

I guess my question is – how do you get over liking the taste of meat and having meat cravings just because you like the taste?

I tried to post this on another discussion board for vegetarians once and was literally harassed and told I was a horrible person who should stop being ruled by their taste buds, basically, and that I should get some  conviction. I feel like your website is a safe and respectful place to voice my question. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thank you! – V. R.

Savvy Vegetarian Advice:

Thank you, V.R.!

Going vegetarian can take a little or a long time, depending on many factors, like age, health, body-type, socio-economics – it’s a very individual & personal thing. In Western society, the cultural pressures NOT to be vegetarian are strong, and it’s not surprising that many people have trouble swimming against the stream, even if their desire to become vegetarian is strong. It’s excellent that you’re moving in the “right” direction!

Your commitment level will catch up with your intellectual understanding over time. Vegetarian or vegan diets are very life-supporting, and the more that you eat a high quality vegetarian diet, the more that your body will come to prefer it. One day you might wake up and have an “ah-ha!” experience, or just gradually realize that you can never again eat anything with a face.

But since you’re not there yet, instead of focusing on your vegetarian shortcomings, and having guilt attacks, accept that you aren’t quite ready to go all the way vegetarian. I think your best approach would be to eat the most TASTY, healthy, organic, vegetable-rich, whole grain kind-to-animals diet that you can manage, and not worry about the times when you can’t.

One reason why new veggies crave meat is that the veg food they’re getting isn’t satisfying. If your vegetarian food is tasty and nutritious, then you’ll be less likely to crave meat. Be sure that when you do eat veg, you’re getting the nutrients you need to replace those that you get from meat.  Take a multivitamin, plus separate B12 and Omega 3 supplements. It could be helpful to read the veggie nutrition bible, “Becoming Vegetarian”,  by Melina & Davis. And try tofu burgers on the grill, they hold up quite well, and are VERY tasty & nutritious :-)

All the best, Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

There are many reasons people become vegetarian.  Ethical, environmental and economical to name few.  A vegetarian diet has many healthy food choices and tasty vegetarian recipes.

The average North American diet is high in animal fats, trans fats, toxic chemicals, and empty calories such as white flour and sugar.  Other research shows that a vegetarian diet has far less of these elements and is much higher in nutritional value. One of the best reasons to become vegetarian is that a vegetarian diet provides healthy food choices.

Research shows that the primary cause of many health concerns and diseases is poor eating habits. Vegetarians don’t want to fill their bodies with toxic chemicals and hormones that animals are fed.  This is a strong issue for people who want to live long in healthy, pain-free bodies. That’s why a vegetarian diet usually starts with a healthy eating plan.

Many people have been told by their doctors that they must cut out all fats or they’ll get sick and die.  Or they’re already sick. That’s strong motivation for switching to a plant-based diet of heart healthy foods.

Health concerns aren’t the only reasons why people become vegetarian:

1) Ethical Many become vegetarian or vegan because they’re horrified by the inhumane conditions in which most animals are raised and they refuse to support the meat and dairy industries. They don’t want animals to suffer and die so that they can eat, especially when it isn’t necessary for good health. The meat packing industry is also notorious for having dangerous and/or unhealthy working conditions.

2) Environmental People also become vegetarian because they object to the environmental damage from animal agriculture. CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) are polluting streams and ground water with their waste products.  Methane gas from cows is heating up the planet.  The rain forest is disappearing so more people can eat hamburgers.

3) Economic A vegetarian diet can be far less expensive than a diet that includes meat. Many people these days find that meat is too expensive for their budget. They can save money on food, and eat better, by making vegetarian meals at least part of the time. When you compare the cost of a meal based on rice or pasta + veggies and beans to one based on meat, it’s obvious that you get a lot more nutrition for your $$ with a vegetarian meal.

4) Taste Here’s the big reason why people go vegetarian for life: Some of the tastiest food is vegetarian.  Non-vegetarians or new vegetarians are often delightfully surprised by the wide variety of delicious meals you can have on a vegetarian diet. Or by how easy it is to convert your favorite recipes to vegetarian.

Savvy Vegetarian has been inventing tasty vegetarian recipes for over 40 years. A few of our family favorites are Vegetarian Chili, Cashew Veggie Fried Rice, Tofu Burgers, and Quinoa Black Bean Salad.

Medical Disclaimer: Any changes that you make to your diet, and the results of those changes, are your decision and responsibility. I do not claim to be a health care professional, dietitian, or nutritionist. Savvy Vegetarian does not treat, or recommend treatment, for any illness or health condition – Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

Tell us why you have become vegetarian. Just leave a comment below – we’d love to hear from you!

Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian