Lifestyle changes are the most difficult ones to make and one of the toughest lifestyle changes that anyone can attempt voluntarily is to become a vegetarian. Often people find it easier to become part of a support group while attempting lifestyle alterations; think of Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers or giving up smoking. Joining a support group can help the novice vegetarian too.
The benefits of being a member of such a support group are manifold, yet some of them are encouragement, advice and friendship. You may not need the friendship, yet you might like to socialize with other vegetarians so that you can see how they deal with eating out and basically simply mixing into a society designed by and for meat-eaters.
However, whether you propose giving up your old friends or not, you may find yourself gravitating away from them after a while quite naturally. Remember the old expression: ‘Birds of a feather flock together’? This is fairly standard.
You will have problems substituting something else for meat; you will be worried that your diet is deficient in some nutrient; you will be wondering which restaurants serve truly vegetarian food and plenty more.
Your newly found support group friends will be a immense source of encouragement and advice in this sphere. You may not like the notion of a ‘vegetarian support group’, yet you could just as easily join a vegetarian dining club or vegetarian cookery class, the effect will work out the same – you will learn and you will make new acquaintances.
If you have difficulty locating such a group by the standard ways of your local Yellow Pages and an Internet search, try going to the local community centre, where there may be yoga classes – a few of the attendees will be vegetarians that you can ask. Or go to you local health food shop and ask there Similarly you could ask at a martial arts club or a Hindu Indian restaurant. If all else fails, you could start your own club.
If you organize your own club, find a supportive bar or restaurant that will prepare your meal suggestions for that night at a reasonable price. After a time, I am sure you could build up a lovely little club of twenty individuals and the landlord might let you have your own room to dine in once a month like the Masons.
If you think that this is too much in the early days, you could simply set up a blog. A blog is an interactive website, where you and others can post relevant knowledge. If you keep the name of the blog relevant to your town and vegetarianism, you should find that other people looking as you once did will find you, whereas you found no one. Once you have built up a circle of local, on line vegetarian sympathizers, you could suggest meeting once a month in the flesh and take the dining idea from there. An advert in the local paper would help too.
Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with vegetarian recipes for kids. If you want to know more or check out some special offers, please go to our website at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.