Tips for Eating Meatless ~ Tofu and Soy Crumbles

One important step towards eating healthier and watching your calories is to eat one meatless meal per week. What to do? It’s easy. I enjoy eating meatless meals because it keeps my diet varied versus boring and stale. Here one tip I use myself that will get you started!

Try tofu and soy crumbles.

These are mild-tasting and absorb the seasonings and flavor of whatever you cook them with. Perfect for tacos or spaghetti as a meat replacement.

While tofu can be an acquired taste for some, it comes in many varieties and flavors, and can be grilled, sautéed, scrambled…even fried or stir-fried. Tofu comes in firm and soft textures (soft is a great protein addition to smoothies) and is often used as an ingredient. I bought an all-tofu decadent chocolate cake from a gourmet bakery. It was completely all natural and vegan. Guess what? My non-vegetarian, hates health food brother in law didn’t know the difference! They used silken tofu in the cake, and yes, it can be that good.

A meat-lover wouldn’t even know the difference, with soy crumbles that is. They used to be packaged as a grain-like product that needed to be re-hydrated to take form.

“Now, frozen, bagged, re-hydrated soy crumbles (textured vegetable protein) can be found in the frozen food section and poured into your favorite spaghetti sauce or chili recipe.”

What’s a calorie?

A calorie or kilocalorie, is a unit used to measure energy. A calorie, by definition, is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 kg of water 1 degree celsius. Calories in our diet come from macronutrients or energy-yielding nutrients, which include fat, protein and carbohydrate. Carbohydrate and protein each offer 4 calories per gram while fat is much more energy-dense, providing 9 calories for every gram. Alcohol is not a nutrient but it does contain calories, specifically 7 calories per gram.

The body uses energy, in the form of calories, to perform all of its functions. If you consume more calories than your body needs, the excess may be stored as fat – leading to excessive weight. On the other hand, if/when a food shortage exists, your body can break down stored fat for energy. Losing excess body fat successfully is achieved by creating a (calorie) energy defecit. You can do this by consuming fewer calories than you need daily to maintain your weight or burning off more calories than you take in daily. Eating less through portion control, behavior modification and eating low-caloire, filling foods while increasing your level of physical activity is the best strategy for losing weight.