I’ve been married for five years and my husband and I have a lot in common. We both enjoy playing videos games, traveling, and watching movies. One thing that we don’t have in common is our diet choices. I’ve been a vegetarian for about two years now and, he’s an omnivore. When it comes to picking restaurants and meal planning it is difficult to find common ground. In the beginning, it wasn’t an easy task trying to make our mixed diet household work. I found myself often not knowing what to prepare for meals or what restaurants to dine at.
So over the years, we have worked together to make our mixed diet household work. In the end, it all came down to three things creativity, understanding, and compromise. Get creative in the kitchen and create meals that can start as vegan/vegetarian and then be separated and altered to fit the individual diets that you will both enjoy. Understand one another’s choices and respect them don’t try to convince the other to change their ways. Compromise if you are a dedicated meat-eater be open to trying a meatless alternative to a dish and, who knows you might discover a new favorite dish. After realizing these three things my husband and I had an easier time with meal planning and making decisions on what restaurants we should dine at.
Using creativity, understanding, and compromise as a base I have put together some tips to help make managing a mixed diet household a lot easier. So no matter if your diets are vegan and omnivore, vegetarian and ketogenic, or paleo and a raw vegan here are three helpful tips for finding common ground between two conflicting diets.
When Dining Out Plan Ahead
When it comes to dining out it’s not an easy task to find a restaurant that two people from two different diets will both enjoy. One thing that I found helpful was researching restaurants and viewing the menu in advance. Initially, we would blindly go into a restaurant and I would end up having a hard time finding a meal that I would enjoy. A lot of times I would just end up having a sad salad. Now my husband and I will look at the menu together to see if there are items on the menu that we will both enjoy. Sometimes we will even grab food from two different restaurants and enjoy a picnic lunch.
Prepare Meals You’ll Both Enjoy
It’s not easy to make two completely different meals at the same time especially when you have to keep them completely separated. I found that out the hard way. I typically prepare dinner for both me and my husband. In the past, I would create a vegetarian/vegan meal for myself and then make my husband something different. I would spend twice the time in the kitchen. And by the time it was time to eat one meal would be cold. Over time I discovered vegetarian/vegan recipes that my husband enjoyed. So I started replacing the two dishes with one dish then we could both enjoy it.
Properly Label Your Food
Some food items look very similar to their non-vegetarian/vegan counterpart. For example, a meatless Quorn Chick’n patty looks just like regular chicken patty outside of the box. If it’s not labeled a vegetarian/vegan or non-vegetarian could mistake the two in a hurry. So if you label the two you’ll always know the difference and won’t mistake the two by accident. I place labels on all meatless items removed from their original packaging to prevent mix-ups.
With these helpful tips a little creativity, compromise, and understanding you’ll have a much easier time managing your mixed diet household. If you’re need of recipe ideas check out my recipe for Vegan Stuffed Pepper Soup it’s an easy dish that anyone will enjoy.
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