Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Being Vegetarian, 3rd Edition

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Unlike other books I've looked at that were primarily vegetarian cookbooks, Being Vegetarian is meant to teach you how to go vegetarian, why vegetarianism is a good and healthy option, and how to survive and thrive as a vegetarian. It does a truly amazing job of this, covering a wide array of fascinating and helpful information.

While the author is a lacto vegetarian (a vegetarian who eats dairy products), she details the wide array of potential vegetarian diets, from the least strict to the most. Her recipes suit a lacto vegetarian diet, although she includes suggestions for adapting them to vegans.

Dr. Wolfe includes a huge amount of nutrition information, both in support of the idea that a vegetarian diet is a perfectly healthy one, and to make sure that you continue to get all of your nutrition as a vegetarian.

Since vegetarians often take up their diet due to health concerns, environmental concerns, or reasons of conscience and animal cruelty, Dr. Wolfe includes information about organic foods, nutrition for all stages of life, cruelty-free products, and so on. I think this holistic approach to the book is going to be particularly useful for many readers.

There are many issues related to going vegetarian that I'd never even thought of that Dr. Wolfe addresses. She provides suggested ways to gradually phase your diet over to a vegetarian one. She details ways to handle holiday meals with the family; road trips; airline travel; restaurant eating; neighborhood barbecues; pregnancy; vegetarian teens; and more. She discusses the idea of using the various available vegetarian substitutes for diary, meat, and eggs, vs. finding other ways to fill out your diet.

In addition, the book includes 92 vegetarian dishes, ranging from breakfasts to dinners, and including a handful of dishes from various cuisines around the world. The recipes are laid out clearly, occasionally include black-and-white photos, and often come with helpful tips. The ones we tried came out wonderfully and were quite delicious; my favorites were a meusli recipe and a chard kopita recipe.

Now it a newly revised, updated and expanded third edition, "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Being Vegetarian" continues to be a premier instructional guide for aspiring vegetarians enhanced with the inclusion of almost one hundred, 'kitchen cook friendly' non-meat recipes for dishes that would grace any dining occasion, please any palate, and satisfy any appetite. Of special note is the inclusion of nutritional advice focused on keeping meat-eating habits in proper balance; tips for helping non-vegetarian family members and friends to understand the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle; finding vegetarian options at grocery stores, restaurants, and when eating while traveling. The recipes range from such staples as Vegan Gravy, to popular dishes like Veggie Bean Chili, to ethnic fare such as Tofu Tamale Bake, to such party fare as an Eggless Potato Salad. Each individual recipe includes along with a list of ingredients and cooking instructions, an 'info block' noting the number of serving portions, servicing size, and prep time. Especially recommended for practicing and aspiring vegetarians, "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Being Vegetarian" is an ideal addition to personal, family, and community library cookbook collections.

I was a vegetarian for 7 years and vegan for 2 years. When I became pregnant with my first child, I added small amounts of meat back into my diet. With childbearing behind me, I am looking for support and encouragement to go back to a completely meat-free diet [with my children]. My diet at present is about 95% vegetarian and filled with whole grains and organic products - produced locally if at all possible.

I purchased the "Complete Idiot's Guide" because I own several others in this series and I've come to expect certain things: I expect the "Idiot's Guides" to give me all the basic information I need to know in an accessible manner, to be entertaining, and to be easy to read.

This book is not any of those things.

First off, this book is HEAVY. It read more like a dietician's text book than like something fun I want to read in my spare moments. Not a fun read.

Second, this isn't really a vegetarian book - it is a VEGAN book. I think this book would confuse most readers as to what a vegetarian actually is - as opposed to being a vegan or someone with other dietary restraints. This book overflows with the author's personal dietary agenda, which is: strict vegan, low or no carb, completely sugar free, salt free, 100% organic, whole foods [gluten free is also mentioned many times]. The author makes it sound like anyone who does not eat this restrictive diet that she recommends is headed for nothing but suffering and death.

I think this book would be really intimidating and overwhelming for someone who was just contemplating adopting a vegetarian lifestyle from the "average american diet".

Third, the author devotes a lot of space to bashing things she doesn't approve of [like eggs] but does not disclose any of the "cons" to things she approves of - such as the dangers of large amounts of soy in the diet, for example. She is an advocate of using copious amounts soy products, including soy cheese, soy milk, soy meat substitutes, etc. But she doesn't share any of the research on the possible down side of that - too many plant estrogens can cause other health problems. I felt this book was extremely biased towards her personal preferences without being balanced or honest.

Fourth, I just found her egg bias personally annoying. :) I would have expected it if I had bought a VEGAN "how to" book, but I bought a VEGETARIAN "how to" book. Her chapter on eggs [titled "scrambling for an egg alternative"] was not balanced or fair in my opinion. She goes on and on about salmonella and all these other "risks" of eating eggs. She tells her readers that if they *must* ignore her advice and eat eggs, they should look for "free range, organic" eggs. This isn't necessarily good advice, because often "free range" chickens are still kept in deplorable, inhumane conditions on factory farms - "free range" does not automatically equal "cruelty free". A glaring omission in the egg chapter was her failure to mention what many people in the growing "back yard chicken" movement are doing these days: raising chickens as pets in their back yards. They get fresh, wholesome, salmonella free eggs and they enjoy their pets, who live lovely lives. After a whole dire chapter on how horrible eggs are, she could have at least given that option a mention as an alternative... just my personal bias there. :)

Fifth, I felt she was dishonest about the health benefits and consequences. YES, there are wonderful health benefits and they should be shared. But I felt she exaggerated or just plain made up some benefits. One example: on page 62 she says that heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes are "almost nonexistent among vegetarians" and ends the section by saying "Meat-eaters, take note: both of these diseases [heart disease and cancer] can be either prevented or made worse by diet!" I don't believe either of these things is universally true - as a vegetarian [and a vegan for 2 years] I had high blood pressure. My sister has been vegetarian for 20+ years and she has high blood pressure. My late grandmother was strict vegetarian for her entire 84 years of life and she suffered with heart problems and high blood pressure. My best friend was a vegetarian for 15+ years and she died of breast cancer. A vegetarian diet is not going to 100% cancel out genetics and environmental toxin factors - and to say that is dishonest in my opinion. There are enough actual benefits to going veg without exaggerating or making them up. I felt that if the author was misleading me about things like this, I couldn't trust her on other subjects either.

Anyway, I could go on about what I didn't like about this book [yes, there is more!], but instead I'll go look for an alternative. Maybe I'll buy the "Living Vegetarian for Dummies" one and hope I get more of what I'm looking for.

If you are looking for a no-nonsense book that will give you a "do-able" roadmap to living a basic vegetarian life style, this is not it.

This book gives you a nice overview to start eating less meat.
Like a primer, which I suppose what this Idiot Series is about.

It's not very science heavy (though still there's probably enough for a layman), but that's fine, because Ms. Wolfe has common sense ("You weren't created with a calculator in one hand to measure the food value of every item going into your body"), and that helps a lot to make you feel what she says is true enough, and she gives you what you really need. Many insights like this one : "The teeth are tiny samplings of the condition of the rest of the bones in your body."
You can also kind of feel what a person who eats mostly vegetables and such is like inside- it somehow comes through.

A note: The second edition of this book, also by Ms. Wolfe, gives you a lot more background and foundational information for being vegetarian. The third edition has lots of vegetarians recipes.

Quote from the book : "Eating meat creates uric acid in the body. A carnivore's body produces uricase, which breaks down uric acid. Humans do not produce or have uricase."