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This is why I said my child would have had to discuss rationally why he wants to eat vegetarian. If it was just to avoid the foods he didn't like, then my answer would have been 'no'. If it was because of a moral reason, then no problem. A child who's smart enough to use the moral reason when it isn't...well, they'll soon find out that a lot of their favorite 'junk' food is made with animal products (fats, etc.). Like you, I feel it is my duty as a parent to teach my children to eat a balanced diet and I don't believe I'm setting them up for an eating disorder by making them try 2 bites of a dish before they refuse it. There is nothing I hate more than hearing an adult say "Ew...I can't stand <insert food here>" and they've never even tried it. Such unreasonable thought processes rarely stay segregated to one part of their life.

I think she was saying it was a little late in the afternoon for her to post the reciepes. Not that it was to late for her to become a vegetarian.

I have 2 children one 10 the other 11 the 11 year old will eat anything but prefers vegetables only, and the 10 year old will only eat it if it can be microwaved or fried as long as it isnt a vegetable, both of my children have been exposed to many different types and encouraged to eat healthy foods. IMHO i feel that feeding your children a well balanced diet is important and a parental DUTY. In order to accomplish this I start at the grocery store and buy only those things that can be incorporated into a ballanced diet. My10 year old will eat anything in the house he likes first, then he will resort to eating other "junk" (as he puts it, this of course only makes me hide a smile). The thing that I have realized it that his stomach is a powerful motivator when it comes to eating and that he wont let himself starve just because we only bought one box of Hot Pockets for him to eat. Question: My 11 year old girl would be a vegetarian if I let her, not out of any kind of moral issue but because it is what she likes, should I cater to her eating perferences when I don't cater to her brother's or do I treat her the same and only offer her the same balanced diet we all eat?

Uh, you misunderstood what you read. Haha. Obviously, I meant that it was a little late in the day for me to post recipes because I was sleepy. Why else would I follow up "it's a little late now," with "but I'll make sure to come back tomorrow?" Also, I spent the next paragraph giving her advice on how to make a healthy transition to vegetarianism, then I wished her good luck on the switch, and told her to message me for tips if she needed them... so, just from the context of the statement, it's pretty clear that I'm not trying to discourage her from becoming a vegetarian.

I don't believe she meant it was too late for the OP to become a vegetarian...I believe she was referring to the time of day - it was approx 2 am according to the post time.

i've been a vegetarian for 13 years, although i've tried to incorporate fish into my diet since being banded. i don't have any recipes that jump out at me, but i'm very simplistic with most of my eating...i put pam in a pan and 'stir fry' tofu with spices (adobo, pepper, garlic, etc) and fresh basil i grow in my aerogarden. i LOVE morningstar's vegetarian sausage patties (or links). i have a lot of low fat cottage cheese and normally one hard boiled egg a day for Protein. i actually try to keep my veggie burger/veggie sausage pattie/etc consumption pretty low - only a few times a week b/c the carbs will add up pretty quickly if you eat them frequently. and as much as i absolutely love most Beans, especially chick peas and black beans, i try to limit them to once a week or once every other week b/c they are very carby as well. if i think of any great recipes that i use, i'll email you them, jackiedi. since it's a friday morning, and i've already been at work for an hour, my brain isn't functioning at top speed

How is it to late for her to become a vegetarian? Anytime you want a different lifestyle change is good. Im sure she has reseached it and was asking for recipes.

It's a little late now, but I'll make sure to come back and post some recipes tomorrow. For now, I'll just give you some general advice about making the transition to vegetarianism. I've been a vegetarian for a little over 7 years, but in the first couple of years, I just replaced meat with more carbs. When my parents would make dinner (some kind of meat with rice), I'd just add more rice to my plate, along with a side. This led me to gain weight rather quickly and become temporarily anemic. So, I guess I'd just warn you to watch out for that. Although vegetarianism is associated with better health, higher brain functioning, and longer life-spans, if done improperly, it can actually be more unhealthy than a carnivorous diet. Always shop for enough non-meat protein to cover every meal. Typically, I make foods that are usually made with meat, but I replace the meat portion with tofu, veggie ground meat, or Beans. Also, as a new vegetarian, it's easy to fall into the all-soy mentality. In the first year of being a vegetarian, I drank soy milk, ate soy ice-cream (found a pretty good one too), ate soy hot dogs and burgers with soy cheese regularly. We, all of us, including meat-eaters, already get a high amount of soy in our foods. I try to limit my soy (tofu and veggie meats) to no more than 4 servings a week, since studies indicate that too much of it is risky. Out of all soy products, tofu and tempeh are definitely much healthier versions of soy than soy veggie meats, as veggie meats are highly processed. If you are buying veggie meats (i.e. burgers, hot dogs, chicken strips etc), try to search for those that are made from grain or non-soy protein (legumes, taro, shitake mushroom burgers etc). If you don't want to drink cow's milk any longer, I'd recommend switching to a non-soy milk such as almond or rice milk. Unless you're considering veganism, I also recommend replacing some of your meat protein with eggs (since they contain all essential amino acids, many important minerals and Vitamins (especially the very important Vitamin B12, which only comes from meat or meat byproducts!), and are only about 70 calories each). In order to get a proper amount of Iron (and other minerals in your diet), you may want to increase your regular intake of dark veggies like broccoli and spinach, and eat more beans and whole grains. You won't need iron supplements (or supplements of any kind) if you eat these types of foods. Anyway, that's it for now. Good luck on switching to vegetarianism. You can always message me if you need any tips.

Hey everyone, I'm leaning more towards a vegetarian lifestyle. After being banded a year and being on a high meat Protein diet I feel I need a change. For many reasons I'm turning vegetarian and I know my doctor will not like this. I find that Boca burgers are more filling than real meat. So I was wondering if any other veggie banders had some good recipes for me. You can paste them on here or send them in a message. Thanks in advanced and happy banding, Jackie

Im a lacto/ovo vegetarian, and get by fine. Lots of Beans, low fat cheese and dairy, meat substitutes... what do you eat now for protein? There are several other posts on this board that go into detail. I would google vegetarian protein sources, and see whats out there.

I'm going to be sleeved in a little over a month, and know that Protein intake is VERY important after surgery for a healthy diet. I have been vegetarian for a few months now, and have no plans to go back to eating meat. Are there any fellow vegetarian sleevers out there (or any one really) that can give me some advice for alternative methods of getting enough protein besides Protein shakes? Thanks!

Absolutely. Reasonable doesn't just apply to children. If one of my children decided they wanted to be a vegetarian (or even try to be), it would be unreasonable for me to refuse to let them if they could intelligibly discuss their reasons. .

You guys are really making some excellent points. As I'm reading all of your strategies, I'm also considering which ones I'd be most likely to implement when I finally have kids. As it is, I'm more open to either repeated encouragement (in a positive tone) or to requiring my future children to take a bite of a new food before they refuse it. Of course, I'd have to consider what my consequence would be if they did refuse even that bite (highly likely with many kids). In that case, I'd probably withhold a favoured alternative meal until they try the new food. Anyway, I'm still leaning to the "encouragement-only," surrounding them with good foods, and setting a positive example route, just as my mother did (it worked really well with all three of her kids, even the picky eater). But, I really never know until I have kids myself. One thing I will definitely not do is to physically put food in their mouths or offer comparatively unhealthy alternatives. I wouldn't have soda and white bread in my house. I'd have to find a spouse who feels the same way. One thing about the "one-bite" rule: many people have said that they use some variety of this rule in their house. As I said, I rather like the rule and I think it would be effective. However, it got me thinking about cases where I would not want to pressure a child into taking one bite of a new food. I'm a vegetarian and I would be very upset if I had been either forced to take one bite of meat, or given the choice to take a bite of meat or miss a meal. Some may be thinking: "Oh, boo-hoo! Suck it up, ya tree-hugger!" But, imagine if you were the child and the one bite was cat-meat. The situation is significantly worse if you had no choice but to eat it, but let's go with the gentler "one-bite" rule, where you'd have to eat it or miss a meal. Of course, now you could just choose the option of skipping out on that meal, but what if you were really hungry? I'm not sure how fair it would be to have to go to bed hungry because of your deeply-felt philosophical objection to cat-meat. Also, if you were a vegetarian, you'd be faced with the "cat-meat" dilemma at almost every meal (probably every dinner and lunch). My questions are: do you (or would you, when/if you have children) ever make exceptions to the one-bite rule? If so, in what kinds of cases? If you have multiple children, would you give the one (let's say, vegetarian) child the alternative but the other(s) the one-bite rule? Anyway, I think the one-bite rule is still justified in cases of vegetables, or meat where the child is a meat-eater but just doesn't want to try it in a new form. Thanks for contributing your input, guys!

I have been a ovo-lactovegetarian off and on for a few years. But since I got my lapband I find I can't eat meat or eggs at all without sliming like crazy! So about a year ago I went back to being a lacto-vegetarian and find it incredibly satisfying, both mentally and physically. I coudn't be a vegan, though--I love cheese and dairy products too much!

My doctor wanted me to lose 15 lbs in one month. I have failed miserably. I will lose 5 lbs, then gain it all back w/in a week. while working out and dieting I don't know what's going to happen. I go in for my follow up on monday. she's gonna be disappointed but i don't know what to say. I haven't cheated, i've even changed my diet drastically, i cut out red meat and started eating vegetarian "meats", elminated a ton of carbs, no soda, no snacking etc. substituted one meal for a protein shake etc. Been hitting the gym 5-6 times a week and nothing. My insurance company does not require me to lose weight, but my doctor does. my surgery isn't schedule til april 26th so i don't know what's gonna happen

Thanks for your post. Again, the purpose of this thread, at least my intention in creating it, is to ask everyone what their own individual philosophy to introducing new foods is, how they came to the approach, and why they find it effective (along with whatever other topics come up). These questions are not presumptuous in any sense nor is expressing an individual opinion on what works best for you or what strategies best fit your personal philosophy. As far as having a lot to learn about eating--if I take your statement literally, as only speaking for yourself when you say "I"--I'd say that many of us have already learned all that we need to know about eating at least much healthier than we were formerly. No one here is suggesting ways to reach maximum health. No human knows how to do that. But we know that eating veggies and fruits is one way to reach better health. You don't need to be thin (not "on an obesity board") to know that. Now that we are putting into action ideas of better eating for ourselves, the question is: how do parents get their children to do the same? For those without children, how would you do it and why? If you were speaking for other people when you alluded to the hypocrisy of being obese and presuming to tell parents how to feed their children, for my part, I always ate many veggies and fruit since childhood. I'm a vegetarian, I stopped drinking soda and artificially sweetened juice as a child, I always loved unpopular veggies like brussel sprouts and beets, and I hated white bread (etc). And yet, I have a weight problem. I talk about my problems with obesity in the other thread. My problem was not quality but quantity; quantity of good food and quantity of exercise. How parents can regulate those two aspects of a child's behaviour seems infinitely more difficult, but my mother certainly did try. Now that I have the band to control portions, I don't feel like I'm dieting at all because I don't have to change the kinds of food I eat at all in order to be healthy. I learned from an early age to love the alternative to greasy and sugary foods.

I am a vegetarian (no surgery yet...3 days away!) and have attempted veganism a few times. I did not watch that clip, but I imagine it is from the film Earthlings which is an excellent movie and one I think anyone who wants to eat animals should watch. I am a firm believer in the concept of knowing what impact you are really having on the planet. If you want to eat meat, know where it came from and what that animal has to go through in order to feel your gut. If you want to continue to eat meat, but do so in a more ethical (and environmentally) friendly manner, there are a number of options for you. As someone mentioned, contact your local farms. I am lucky in that my local Whole Foods gets a lot of products (milk, cheese, and meat too I assume) from local farms. Here at the University, there is a program which teaches proper butchering and the cuts which are not cut to perfection are sold at a discounted rate. Those cows live a pretty decent life here on campus. Big thing: Go to your farmers market. This will be your best asset to getting good quality and ethical products. They are locally made and therefore decrease your ecological footprint. But, since these are typically smaller operations, the owners don't have the same pressure to hoard 300 cows into a space big enough for 50. Also, look at getting involved in a CSA (Community Sustainable Agriculture). Weekly deliveries of veggies, fruit and sometimes meats if those farms are involved too, can be a great. Hope that helps. I would suggest being a vegetarian for a while post-op (meaning, eating eggs and dairy products). Baby steps. Even take it slower..just phase out beef first. Then chicken and/or pig. And eventually fish and seafood. I did it all at once and that worked for me. But most people find it easier to progress in stages.

My mother's opinion on how American's make veggies is that they are boring. Take cooked spinach, bleah who would eat that. Add some garlic however and you got something! My sister has two boys both grew up in a house that was practically vegetarian for many years. One won't eat vegetables.

No one knows I'm doing this. It's funny, even though I don't qualify for regular insurance and even though I'm clearly obese no one would suspect that I, the quietly growing mushroom in the corner, would one day get on a flight to Mexico to have my stomach cut out. Maybe this is common for wealthy or extremely confident people. I read all the time about movie stars and other sparkly people jetting off to Rome or Cancun -- or what is it these days? Cabo San Lucas with only a bikini and a couple of syringes in a Prada bag but for me this is one gutsy, desperate, expensive, slightly terrifying thing I'm doing. I am not a good flyer. I am a bad flyer. When I get on an airplane I instantly begin to calculate the strength and the agility of the people around me to gauge whether they would be saveable or not if we rocketed into the ocean and it was up to me to get their infirm asses up to the surface and home to their yorkie, Funyons. I usually drink a lot on a flight but this will not be allowed eleven days from now because, as I mentioned, I will be having my stomach cut out the next day. I was just reading an article in the New York Times about the search for an incisionless solution to obesity. They're not having much luck. The fact is that even though twenty percent of people in the US would qualify for surgery, a number that's growing each year, no one's got much more of an answer than to cut your stomach out. I used to think there was some kind of special thing I was not personally doing and once I discovered it I would find myself in an instant size eight, but now I don't think so. I think consumer culture is trying to kill us. The problem is that as food gets cheaper to produce and there are more people on the planet, the quality of it all tanks. There are these places in the US called food deserts where you can't find a leaf of lettuce to save your life but Little Debbie, Hostess and Aunt Jemina are smiling from every shelf like spokesmodels for the apocalypse. I'm five ten and I weigh about 280. Seven years ago I went on the Atkins diet and lost all the weight: I zipped around in teen section jeans from Target and fell in love with a guy who didn't understand what it was taking me, what it had taken me to get to that point. He was a food nazi and a semi-vegetarian and he kept telling me everything I did was "unhealthy". I would work out an hour and a half a day, he told me I wasn't doing enough cardio. He would actually get redfaced over this stuff. His thing was, he was born naturally thin and he really paid very little attention to what he was supposed to be doing or eating, because being naturally thin, he was naturally healthy. I had to work at it. So he would go to work and graze from the Estrogen Bar set out by the office ladies and then come home and want to go out to eat. He loved restaurants.I would have to diet like crazy to keep up with this, and it finally got to the point where I would go off by myself, binge for a couple weeks, then spend the next couple weeks starving myself, and then reappear again, thin as ever. By the time we broke up I weighed about 240, up from a very happy 150 when we first met. During the breakup process, I put on forty more pounds. It was easy, it was instanteous. So for a while I gave up on the whole thing. I mean, how much heartbreak do you need to pack into an issue before you just check out and go for the pasta? I just kept buying bigger and bigger clothes. I didn't care, no one was ever going to love me again and I was now over 40. If I lived in the old country I could put on black robes and a veil and make everybody in the village dumplings every day. And then I realized something kind of odd. The reason we really broke up was because I was too fat for him already, when we met. I wasn't perfect then. I was a blank, doofus of an in-love slate to be improved upon, screamed and tantrummed at and *nothing* in the world would ever make me loveable enough for him. You really have to ask yourself in these moments if you want to live or die, because I had been almost intentionally, systematically destroying myself for a couple of years. But I didn't have the heart for another diet. Atkins wasn't working the way it had for one thing and my life and my body had changed in the past seven years. I had started smoking again. Seven years ago people were saying my god you're so thin how are you doing this you look like a different person just beautiful where is the rest of you? I'm ashamed I'm all the way back where I was then. I don't like to go out where people can see me and compare my old self to my new self. I hate the whole thing. For a while I just decided to be fat. I would walk around asking myself, am I loveable this way? Am I really disqualified from society because of a hundred pounds? It's still a good question, right? Then for a while I tried to do a Geneen Roth thing and "just eat normally". The problem is, for me, eating normally means I gain forty pounds in six months. It would take a year to get back there if I got there at all. I need help, that's just all there is to it. I am not going to count, measure, starve, obsess, and do all that, live on the edge of anxiety all the time worried that I'll somehow destroy my life if i have a piece of cake, only to gain it *all* back anyway in a moment of weakness. There has to be a better way. I really hope this is the way. I'm so sick of this now. It's enough already.

Although I agreed with SOME of the logic of Spartan's post, he was wrong in other ways. Well, he is first wrong in his presumptuous and rude attitude toward the OP for her personal decision. Let's say that she had done something to be sorry for and let's say that she owed her family or the greater society for her "grievous" wrongs; there are aspects of everyone's lives that could stand improvement, that negatively affect other sentient beings, and linkages can always be made from those actions to a negative effect on society in general (in fact, this is almost always a popular excuse used by certain people in society in order to demand a legislative control on the personal and private behaviour or speech of others). But, the link to a negative effect on society of a private and personal action is usually tenuous and, Spartan should admit that, even if the links were not tenuous but very real, his justification is still just an obvious excuse to be rude to strangers. You can tell by his tone. Come out of the closet, put on your big-boy pants, and be rude in the open without recourse to false justifications. Also, any negative effect of her private actions upon herself that radiates to her family is up to her family to attempt to influence through shame or an intervention. As long as the actions are afflicted on herself, even if their effects indirectly emotionally interfere with another's feelings, it's the business of her friends, her family, and herself. The next problem is of a logical, not moral or emotional, nature. He justifies his shaming of the OP also by claiming that some (as he admits, not all) fat people deal with food in the exact same manner as a drug addict. He proceeds to make a generality about the entire overweight community's one true way to weight-loss, as suggested by him. And then, he shames a dieting person, whom he doesn't know, but who is non-compliant with his idea of managing food addictions. Now, I agree with the view that, at least, many obese people feel that they have a genuine food addiction (in the literal sense, on par with other addictions). I also agree that, if it is on par with an official addiction, they should avoid even a little bit of their trigger food, in the same sense that drinking just one shot of alcohol wouldn't be a successful strategy for a recovering alcoholic. However, you can't umbrella all people struggling with weight under the same psychological motivations and prescribe the same treatment for all. For a good fraction of obese people, the problem that needs control might be of portion-sizes (or of other kinds), as in, general over-eating, and a sedentary lifestyle. Those two categories apply to me. Because I now understand the underlying motivations or nature of my struggle with my weight, I also know that, actually, I can have one chocolate bar and not go into a day or week long binge. I could psychologically tolerate a wrap in the morning (I don't because I rarely went to fast food places, even before my band, and I probably couldn't get it down now) and not use it as an excuse to carry on binging because "my diet's ruined, so I'll have to start again on Monday." My problem is that I would overeat with good foods too. I never have been in the habit of eating bad foods, with the exception of chocolate. Even before the band, I stopped drinking soda altogether as a child, I always love eating vegetables, I'm a vegetarian (not for anything noble, like animal rights hahaha), and I really dislike sugar-based candy. I just have a serious problem with stopping myself from eating until I'm stuffed and an extreme distaste for exercise. But, how would your strategy help me? I still need to eat, so unlike the alcoholic who could potentially physically live without his addiction, I can't. The band, for me, is a perfect implement. I am barely on a diet right now. Yet, I calculated that my average loss is 2 pounds a week since I got the band 6.5 months ago, and the rate of loss is getting faster with more fills. It's effective and steady weight-loss, at a rate recommended by researchers. And guess what? The theory that you shouldn't deprive yourself unnecessarily of a treat works very well for me. I eat one to two chocolate bars a week. That's usually the limit to my unhealthy eating, although I don't abstain from special occasions (less than once a month). So, I never feel like: "I can't wait until this is over, when I've lost all my weight, so I can get back to real eating!" I could literally go on like this until the end of my hopefully prolonged life. I never said that about any diet before now, because nothing helped with portion control. If I want a treat, I'll have it. Psychologically, this is the best strategy for me. Making small but regular changes that I can maintain for a lifetime and getting the band for the problem of portion-control. And, that was a rather weak attempt--trying to say that other dieters will come on this forum and be negatively influenced if they read our strategy of moderation and managed indulgences. By that same token, you should be held responsible for anyone that reads your posts and adopts your general aura of ill-will and misanthropy. Crap, I am atrociously long-winded today. I just can't be concise. I still maintain that if you keep reading passed a decent length, you've brought the head-ache on yourself

it will be 2 years for me on april 22nd this year and i have fills every 1-3 months. have lost about 170 pounds. i measure everything, am a vegetarian and do my best but damn my sweet tooth. sometimes it little squares of chocolate w/ nuts so i pair it w/ a protein and sometimes i go all out and eat donuts or pie or whatever. some days i hate myself. i am getting to the point i don't want to go in anymore bc i am embarrassed at the gain. i feel like a failure. my doc says this is normal based on the amt i lost and at the stage i am. he's happy with me but i'm not. the whole point of this for me, was to learn how to deal with stress and i haven't. i quit smoking but i munch, i am in school at 44 yrs old maintaining a 4.0 but i munch on sweets. i even bought hemp hearts which are proven to reduce a person's addiction to sweets and i still have it. ughhh....

Vegan diet is pretty hard to stick with, and I think it'd be extra tough to not become malnourished on it after getting your sleeve. There are some high-protein vegan foods like beans, chickpeas, tofu, etc, but you have to eat a lot of them to get enough protein, and you couldn't eat very much after your sleeve. So you'd have to drink lots of soy protein shakes to make sure you are not low on protein. If you've never been vegetarian or vegan, I think a good place to start would be to buy your animal products at the local farmer's market or Whole Foods and gently phase them out of your diet until you become a vegetarian. Some things are quite easy to replace (e.g. milk with soy or almond milk - the difference in taste and texture is not that great), but the toughest thing, IMO, is with processed food - that includes breads, pastas, frozen meals, protein bars, protein powders, etc. SO many processed/prepared foods have animal products in them, whether it's eggs, whey, or gelatin. I would venture into a health food store (Whole Foods, Planet Organic) and see what animal-free prepackaged foods they have. A 100% vegan diet is very tough to follow, but you can always get as close as possible and make that the few animal products you do consume come from ethical sources.

Hi Gang, Another fly by...I'm on my way to the Tucson Book Festival. Plan on attending both Saturday and Sunday. They have some pretty big authors here and a bunch of hour long lectures (workshops?). FNSC went very well...more people than I thought showed up and DH loved his gift (a motor for a bicycle). I made pizzas, several types including vegetarian, white, gluten free, and meat (for DH). Don't have that much left over. I'm very tired because besides the cooking, I cleaned house and then entertained until 11. But all in all things are good. Missed Apples and her DH last night, but maybe next year she'll be able to hang out for the B-day FNSC. There were three B-days we celebrated. Okay....off to the book thing....lots of walking involved because its on the University of Arizona campus....huge campus covers maybe a mile square (4 miles around). Later Eva

Oh my God that video is very disturing, I can understand people who decide to become vegetarians

Im a vegetarian, and do eat some eggs and dairy, however I have become lactose intolerant, so the milk product are minimal right now. I like tofu, but its pretty bland out of the box, find good recipes with yummy sauces. I make seitan and this kind of product is high Protein and does fill up the sleeve nicely. It can be done! I don't want to contribute to the meat industry either. There are good ground "beef" products in the refer section in Supermarkets, Soyrizo, dry TVP (texturized vegetable protein) which soaks up great flavor when cooked, You can also get "chicken" powdered broth that can jazz up soup and such with a chicken flavor. just found this link with some ideas... I have used most of these and they are really good. They are not meat, but close enough for me. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/460945/top_10_vegetarian_meat_substitutes.html?cat=5