Comment by soulofmischief

I like cooking, but many days I wish I could just eat a daily nutrition block and go back to my business :)

And I totally feel you on the taste thing. Meat tastes good, and we're used to it!

I'd recommend looking at some dishes from various Asian cuisines, for example Indian food. The problem with American cuisine is that we've been conditioned to expect meat as part of every meal, three times a day. Even just reducing your meat intake by one meal a day, or even just a few meals a week, can make a massive difference collectively.

I was a vegetarian in my teens, but I suffered from frequent fainting (this had been going on both before and after I was vegetarian, it was just worse during that period), sometimes at really unsettling moments like while shaving my face. I eventually seemed to grow out of these fainting spells, but I went back to eating meat for years.

And the entire time, I recognized the taste of meat as my main barrier to giving it back up. I finally made progress by removing or heavily reducing consumption of one meat at a time. First pork, then beef and other things, and then finally chicken.

Even today, I am a pescatarian and occasionally eat a little fish, shellfish and dairy. I also eat a lot of eggs. Dairy farming still involves what I consider torture however and I have worked to significantly reduce my intake. I really don't mind vegan cheese or even just shredded cashews as a replacement.

I don't feel bad eating mussels, oysters, etc. so I don't think I'll ever stop eating those, but I have significantly reduced the amount of fish I eat as well. I get nervous because I don't want to start fainting again, but I just track my protein and try to get it wherever I can, for example sprouted protein bread, eggs, whey, hemp and pea powders in smoothies, etc.