The Vegetarian Store Cupboard Your key to a healthy, easy & nutritious vego lifestyle But... what do you eat? What vegetarian is NOT: meat & 3 veg, minus the meat Where to start? Vegetarian staple foods & meal planning So what DO you eat then? An apple, grain, legume, nut & seed a day... What's on your shelf? The essential vegetarian kitchen cupboard guide Grains <> Legumes & pulses <> Nuts & Seeds <> Dried fruits <> In the fridge <> Snacks & more

As vegos, we hear this question all the time. It's as if people imagine we subsist on lettuce leaves and carrots!

If you're considering or becoming vego, it can also be one of the most perplexing questions. Some people, as they struggle to imagine familiar dishes without their main (animal-based) ingredients, find they can only imagine a gaping hole on their plate.

Mistake number 1. A vegetarian diet is not a "NOT". It's not a negation of something else, it's not about what you don't eat. It's not about depriving yourself or about something missing. And it's very far from being a meat-based diet minus the meat.

A vegetarian diet is a varied, delicious, healthy, abundant diet in its own right. Nothing is missing!

To get the most out of your life as a vego, it's important to stop thinking in terms of familiar meat dishes, minus the meat. (Otherwise, the sense of that gaping hole on your plate is likely to leave you both physically and psychologically feeling hungry.)

Forget about what vegetarian food isn't... We reckon the best way to enjoy your life as a vego is to focus on what vegetarian food is!

Naturally, man can't live on lettuce leaves alone. One of the most important things you'll do as a vego is get a grasp of a range of basic (staple) vego foods, and get them on your shelf.

These are the foods you can plan meals around, starting with a staple ingredient (a grain or a legume, or both) which supplies substance and nutrition - then dressing it up with the addition of vegetables, spices, and other ingredients to create a delicious recipe.

They also include the foods which are not the basis of main meals, but provide important nutritional elements in vegetarian diets, (and also add variety). These are nuts, seeds, and dried fruits. They're not optional extras - it's important for vegetarians to include these important categtories of plant foods regularly as part of their daily diet. (To find out why, see our Dried Fruit and Nuts & Seeds pages.)

Once they're there, we think you'll find that choosing one thing from each shelf (one grain, nut, seed, legume) a day - and combining it with as much fresh fruit and vegies as you can get your hands on - will keep you happily and healthily fed... and you'll probably never give another thought to what you're not eating.

A vegetarian diet is a plant-based diet. Plant based foods basically include:

Naturally, 'plant foods' also include other foods such as oils (such as sunflower, olive, sesame, peanut and canola oils) and sugars (such as cane sugar and maple syrup). The foods we've listed above are the staple foods of a vegetarian diet - those which make up the substance. In our cupboard we don't address the foods which

In each of the categories above, there are obviously many, many more choices - we've only named a few basic ones - and we'd encourage you to explore, taste and try different options in each category. However, the limited number we've listed are enough to provide for a varied, nutritious vegetarian diet, offering a variety of tastes and textures and a range of nutrients. They're also easy to find, keep and prepare. That's why we think they deserve a regular place on the shelves of your storecupboard.

(A quick note: whole foods versus processed foods)

Although they can still be nutritious, refined or processed foods are generally less nutritious than their more "whole" (less processed) counterparts, as nutrients are lost in the processing. In addition, processed foods are less environmentally friendly due to both the processing and the packaging required.

For best results in terms of taste, health and nutrition, our storecupboard assumes fruit and vegetables to be mainly fresh (with some dried fruits), grains and cereals to be mainly whole grain (with the occasional addition of foods like non-wholemeal pasta), nuts to be mainly fresh (with occasional treats of roasted nuts), and seeds to be mainly whole.

Whole foods can be surprisingly easy to cook and prepare, and surprisingly yummy compared to processed foods (yes - they have heaps more texture and flavour). If you have a variety of whole foods in your storecupboard, you may be surprised how easy it is to build up the amount of whole foods in your diet.

Variety is the key (as well as the 'spice of life'!) Each different grain or cereal has different nutritional properties. Each bean, pea or legume has different micronutrients. And so on for each nut or seed.

That's why we suggest, as a starting point for a vegetarian diet, that if you

1) eat something from each plant-food category each day (fruit & veg, grains & cereals, legumes, nuts & seeds),

and

2) try to choose something different from each category each time,

we think you'll have the basis for an interesting and wholesome vegetarian diet.

Once you get your cupboard stocked, no-one will stop you! Vegetarian cooking is as easy, fun, varied and tasty as any other form of cuisine (well we think it's by far the best, but we're biased!) Having the right things in your cupboard is a great start to enjoying life as a vego.

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Whichever way you look, the future is vegetarian...