Published: August 26, 2007 10:30 pm      

Life without meat is easy

FROSTBURG — Eating is an act that fills many different needs. We partake of food to satisfy hunger. We pig out to satisfy emotional cravings. We break bread to build relationships, and we dine out to deepen social connections.

Sometimes, what we eat speaks volumes about us as individuals, as people, and as a society. Other times, it says nothing at all.

A recent report from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine urges people not to eat meat, but to instead adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, which will lead to fewer health problems.

Vegetarians don’t eat meat, fish or poultry, and their reasons are many and varied. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, based in Baltimore, some people don’t want to see animals hurt, others are worried about health or religious issues, and for some people, it’s purely a matter of economics.

The group’s Web site says being vegetarian is as hard or as easy as you make it, and getting enough protein, iron and calcium is possible as long as enough calories are consumed to maintain one’s weight. Whole grain bread, greens, tofu, nuts, seeds are just some good sources of protein, while dried fruit, mushrooms, spinach, chard and iron-fortified foods such as cereal, will give a vegetarian enough iron. Most types of greens will offer needed calcium, as will broccoli and fortified orange juice.

But how, you might ask, can I live without meat? Wouldn’t that be monotonous and boring? And how would I be able to get all the protein my body needs?

One local vegetarian says it’s not hard at all — and it’s anything but boring. Yashmi Shah cooks vegetarian fare for her family and friends, and even her customers, all the time.

“They don’t miss the meat part at all,” she said.

Shah, whose meat-free lifestyle comes from a both a religious and cultural philosophy, believes there’s “plenty of food available without having to kill.”

In fact, dinner guests who join the Shah family usually end up saying the same thing: “I had no idea vegetarian food could be so good ... if spinach could be this good, I’d eat it all the time,” she said, adding that more than one friend has said Yashmi’s veggie sandwiches are “the best I’ve ever had in my life.”

Unlike most people believe, eating without meat is not a form of privation, and Shah said all it takes is a good vegetarian cookbook and a willingness to work with spices in the kitchen, to come up with some tasty dishes.

“Take a combination of spices and flavors and add them to make an ordinary dish into an extraordinary one,” Shah said. “I can basically make any dish that is not vegetarian and turn it into vegetarian.”

Lots of lentils and beans provide much of the protein, as well as the foundation, of Shah’s vegetarian fare. “The options are so many you will not miss meat,” she said, adding that an ordinary vegetarian meal in her home consists of a platter with bread, lentils and vegetables spiced with curry, and a little side of yogurt.

Lentils are a staple the Shah family — and something they consume daily. “There’s 100 varieties from each (type) of lentil,” she said.

Shah, who creates and cooks the daily lunch specials at the Mountain City Coffeehouse, said she has made cream of lentil soup, lentils with cilantro or coconut milk, and even black-eyed peas. And for those carnivores who must have meat — or a good substitute — Shah creates sandwich recipes which are “not just tomato and lettuce.”

Instead, she will use eggplant, which offers a nice, meaty texture, or roasted red pepper.

She also uses textured vegetable protein wherever a recipe calls for crumbled meat such as hamburger. That goes into chili, jambalaya, and stews. It provides all the things meat lovers miss — but “without your fat,” Shah said.

Daleen Berry can be reached at dberry@times-news.com.