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Helping Your Family Transition to More Meatless Meals – Part 2

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Helping Your Family Transition to More Meatless Meals - Part 2

Helping your family transition to more meatless meals doesn’t have to be a battle. In my last post – Helping Your Family Transition to More Meatless Meals – Part 1 ; I shared some of the health reasons that a meatless meals can benefit your family. Today I continue sharing how easy it truly is to make the transition.

There’s always one big way that people go wrong when trying to get their family members to transition to meatless meals. Because they try this approach, it can often shut down any conversation about switching and make family members reluctant to even try to make a change.

The way that you can go wrong is if you suddenly introduce brand new meals featuring meatless products. What goes wrong is that not only are you suddenly giving your family a new menu item, but making it with other ingredients that are new as well.

That’s the wrong approach because it’s taste bud overload.

There are just too many new things for your family to consider. The best way to do it is to make the same meals that you’ve always made, but instead of making these meals with meat, you substitute a meat product. So that means when you have spaghetti or lasagna, don’t use ground beef or ground turkey. Use a ground meat substitute. It will be added to the sauce that you use just like real meat would normally be used.

When your family tries it out, they’ll be having what’s familiar with the noodles and the sauce. This will make it easier for them to try the meatless product and grow accustomed to it. It’s always best to start out with using meat products in dishes that use sauces and other ingredients. The reason for that is because it helps ease the transition and lets your family become accustomed to the meatless product.

It really all boils down to what your family gets used to. If you think about it, you have a way of making spaghetti with certain noodles, the sauce that you choose and your bread selection. When you go to someone else’s house, if they make spaghetti, you’ll often not think it’s as good simply because it’s not what you’re used to. Once your family members get used to something, then it becomes what they want to have.

All you have to do to have a successful transition is to get your family used to it. Make the exact same meals as you’ve always made and don’t make any changes except for the meatless product as a substitute.

Use Small Changes, Not Big Ones

When you suddenly change your family’s way of eating, you can expect some flak – and rightly so. It’s not really fair to make a change of such magnitude and just expect everyone to get with the program. Even if you’re completely onboard with these changes and you know the benefits of going meatless, it’s highly possible that your family isn’t going to agree – especially if you sweep in and every meal is suddenly different.

You conquer a mountain by taking a small step at a time.

There are no magical transporters that can zip you to the top. You reach the top with small movements, and that’s how you can help transition your family to a meatless lifestyle – by implementing small changes that your family will welcome rather than dread. You can make small changes by choosing your transition method according to days or meals. If you choose to focus on making small changes by introducing meatless meals according to the days of the week, you must first decide how many days of the week to begin with.

Most people start by having one or two dinner meals every week that are meatless, such as “Meatless Mondays.” Again, when you just start out, make these meatless meals using the same recipes that you would have used to make your meat meals. Set specific days of the week where your family knows that the meals will be meatless. As they get used to the change, you can slowly add on meatless dishes until you’re eating meatless meals more often than you’re not.

Take it slow and don’t fret if weeks go by. The changes that you want to happen won’t happen in the blink of an eye. But that’s okay. Small changes are what lead to long term changes.

If you don’t want to go that route, you can choose one specific meal and that meal can be meatless for a specified time. For example, you can decide that you’re no longer going to use any meat products in your breakfast foods. Because you don’t want to make a sudden change that would cause your family members to not want to go along with you, set a limit on the change. So if you choose breakfast as the meal to use only meatless products, set the time limit for a week or two weeks.

By the end of the set time period, your family members won’t want to go back to the old way of eating. Have a set goal for when you want the transition to be complete and slowly work toward having all meals in line with that goal.

It can take anywhere from two to six months for the transition to stick, but if you make small changes rather than big ones, you’ll have happier and healthier family members.

 

The post Helping Your Family Transition to More Meatless Meals – Part 2 appeared first on Wholistic Fit Living.


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