Kitchen Play: Veggie Spaghetti Bolognese

Almost 6 months ago, Peter and I had a talk and decided to cut red meat out of our diet (although we’d make exceptions for travel obviously). Ever since then, we’ve done a decent job of refraining from cooking with red meat, and ordering substitutes whenever we eat out. But because we travel so frequently, it can sometimes become difficult to keep this strict diet, so instead of becoming completely red meat free, we’ve more or less become flexitarians. In the sense that we’ll avoid red meat when possible, but not actively avoid it when placed in situations where we aren’t completely in control.

Coming from families with both vegetarians and vegans, cooking without an sort of animal products and by-products isn’t out of the norm for either of us, and the dietary switch didn’t completely throw us off from our regular everyday diet.

When we decide to make dishes that typically call for red meat, such as spaghetti, we often substitute the protein for a poultry of some sorts. A common option for us is ground turkey, primarily due to its leanness. It has been awhile since we’ve made spaghetti and I decided to surprise Peter with the dish made with Yves Veggie Cuisine’s Original Veggie Ground Round. Keeping the packaging hidden from Peter’s eyesight, he had almost no idea (until I told him) that I had substituted the white meat for a vegan ground since the product looked so similar to any regular ground that we would have used in the past. Keep reading the post all the way till the end to find out what he thought about the dish, and why we’ll definitely be integrating Yves into our cooking more frequently.

A common question that I get when asked to explain my diet decisions is ‘why?‘. Because I don’t have any food allergies (except for the minor fuzzy tongue when consuming kiwis), or intolerances (does pickiness count as an intolerance?), or direct aversions to consuming animals or animal by-products, people are often confused by my decision to abstain from consuming red meat. For myself, it was more of a test of my self restraint than anything. I’m a stress eater and can hardly prevent myself from snacking on chips and sweets whenever I’m bored. Knowing that my eating habits weren’t healthy, I had long toyed with the idea of placing myself on a diet of some sorts to see if I could refrain from indulging in my every craving.

Now I know that cutting red meat out of my diet has nothing to do with cutting down on the salt and sugars, but trust me, for me it mentally does. Forcing myself to learn new recipes and to adapt my cooking styles impacts my mind significantly more than it does to not reach for that bag of chips when I’m walking down the aisle at the grocery store. It takes a lot more mental thought on a day-to-day operation to remind myself to not pick up that package of ground beef, or to not pick the chicken parm regardless of how delicious it sounds. So to me it made perfect sense. If I am able to control my everyday consumption and to be more mindful of what I’m putting into each meal, as opposed to just what I’m snacking on, then I can become more in control of my diet overall.

But cutting out red meat means that I’m cutting out important proteins and nutrients from my diet as well—which need to be made up some how. That typically meant incorporating more high-protein ingredients such as beans and nuts into my everyday meals, which can become quite boring after awhile. As much as I love beans, eating them day-in and day-out can become quite monotonous. I desperately craved the texture of some of my old favourite dishes (which called for red meat in their recipes) but didn’t want to recreate them only to have to cut out the textural meat portion completely just to stay in the lane of my diet decisions. Here enters the magic of Yves.

With the help of their products, I discovered that I was once again able to enjoy the past dishes that I loved, indulging in similar meat textures, all the while remaining completely vegetarian (to the meat substitutes only), sticking to my ‘no red meat‘ rule, and being able to consume the appropriate quantities of proteins that my body needed to function healthily.

When I first shared that I had begun using Yves on my Instagram stories a few weeks back, a few of my friends and followers reached out to share that they too love using Yves in their everyday cooking whether they were vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, or trying out a new diet. After hearing so many positive experiences from them, and also finding out that my followers were interested in learning a few recipes of my own using Yves, I become more excited to try out the rest of the Yves products (hint: there may be another fun holiday party recipe coming your way in the next few weeks).

And after getting the seal of approval from the harshest and pickiest food critic that I know (Peter), Yves has definitely made its way into our fridge and will most likely be a permanent staple there for as long as we adhere to our ‘no red meat‘ diet.

Photography Credits: The Dunk Listt
This post was written in collaboration with Yves, however all views are 100% honest and my own.