Becoming Flexitarian

The influence of my niece Jelome, whose dad is a health director, is quite strong. She stayed with us for just a month on a vacation but has left to us a remarkable footprint - our becoming a vegetarian. But ours is a flexitarian-type, a new coinage for a category of vegetarian who eats plant-based products most of the time but may eat meat once in while. But in the broader category, we can be typified as pescatarian/pescetarian as we include fish in our diet. For Jelome, she also eats fish but not meat at all even in parties or dining out occasions. For me and hubby, we are still flexible when the situation demands being new to it. However, it is good for hubby to completely avoid meat, major contributors of bad cholesterol and triglycerides - culprits for hypertension and heart diseases. His annual medical check-up results have consistently shown he got high risks for both as his LDL(bas cholesterol) and triglycerides are quite high every year. Thus, becoming vegetarian in the family is the right way to go, otherwise, the head of our family, whose mom and uncle passed away due to hypertension, will not also be able to see or enjoy his grandchildren as hypertension runs in his bloodline.

As the household-and-kitchen-manager, I see to it that I prepare a wide variety of plant-based food. It's good that there is abundant supply of vegetarian stuff to buy around here in Thailand. One kind I like which is very versatile is soya gluten/ soy protein available in supermarkets here. With it, I can make one of the family's favorite dishes, caldereta (stew) which is shown in the picture above. I also use it for my vegetarian pancit using yakisoba noodles or even in my vegetarian spaghetti.

What about you, dear friends? Do you have any healthy habit you have practiced lately or healthy recipe to share? March is Nutrition Month so let's share anything about healthy living and nutrition here the whole month to support the world campaign for eating not just nutritious but healthy food.