My family and I love meat. Chicken, ham, buffalo: they are all delicious. However, no matter how good meat is, it does not taste good to our wallets. My family learned that by just cutting out meat, we practically cut our grocery bill in half. It all started about six months ago, when we were starting to try and cut our food bill down. We many books and articles explaining how cutting out meat can save money. It made sense to us, especially when we saw the prices for a pound of organic buffalo meat or chicken. We ended up deciding to aim towards a more Vegetarian diet. Now, we are not talking about the stereotypical Vegetarian as in people who greatly protest eating meat because it hurts animals or because meat is just generally evil. We were aiming towards Vegetarianism in order to stay healthy, wealthy and wise(er). We started by looking at our meal plans for weeks past(I make a meal plan each week, and save them for future menu ideas). As we looked, we realized that we were practically eating meat for dinner every day! Hamburgers, chili, chicken pot pies, chicken breasts, ham, the list goes on. It was shocking to see that almost every dinner we ate had some sort of meat product in it. That realization made us accept that switching to a more Vegetarian eating plan would be hard for us. And it was, no mistake. If you ever get a chance to, go through your recipes or a cookbook(a general one) and see how many main dishes contain meat. The answer: most. The non-meat main dishes were few and far between, and of course all the good recipes had meat as a main part. We ate small dinners that first week after we switched, as it was hard to try and recognize vegetables, cheese, and what not as main dishes, minus meat products. But, finally the good part arrived: grocery shopping. When we bought all our products, we went back home and compared a receipt from the previous week to the current one, and boy, were we overjoyed. We used to spend $200-250 a week on groceries(for a family of three, buying all organic items). Once we cut out the buffalo, chicken, lots of cheese and eggs, we found that we went down to $150-200, depending on how much we bought for a week or two. That certainly encouraged us that finding more Vegetarian meals and avoiding meat even more. Our one week spot is dairy products. We switched to drinking soymilk(although we are now looking into coconut milk), which did save a bit in buying milk. We still use regular butter and cheese, so we do not consider ourselves Vegans(no animal products whatsoever). The one area that is difficult for us is cheese. We love cheese: cheddar, pepperjack, swiss, you name it. We used to eat cheese everyday and that really added to our grocery bill. However, once we started eating a more Vegetarian diet, we cut our cheese intake quite a bit: from 5-6 blocks a week to 2-3 blocks, depending on our meal plan. But there are some dinners that you just cannot skimp on the cheese, so we continue to eat cheese. We still enjoy meat meals, but we have cut it down to a once a week splurge. We make sure that the one night we eat meat is saved for a god recipe, so it makes it a special occasion for us. One of the lessons we learned by cutting out meat and cutting down on our dairy intake is that when you cut out the meats and begin to enjoy vegetables, fruits, breads and grain more, you begin to have a distaste for meats. I used to enjoy the typical hamburger if we ate out, or when we made our own. Now, just looking at that pile of grease and meat just does not look appealing to me. If I am to eat meat, I prefer chicken. If I got to someone' house, I don't eat as much meat, tending to focus on the side dishes more. By avoiding meat in general, I have lost a few pounds and I do feel healthier when I eat Vegetarian meals instead of piles of meat. If you decide to reduce or even eliminate your meat or dairy consumption, here are some of the best Vegetarian/Vegan books that I have found to help you make the switch: The Vegan Table, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau; Clean Food, by Terry Walters, and Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook, by Vegetarian Times Magazine . If you are worried about any health problems that you may have if you were to switch to a more Vegetarian diet(concerns over protein, calcium, etc.) the books above also address those questions and a quick Internet search will help you find all the information you need in order to make sure that you get all your proper nutrients. Making the switch from a meat-based diet to a Vegetarian diet can be tough. But remember, it pays back in many ways, including in terms of your health, the environment and in cash.

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