My favorite type of Indian food is chicken tikka masala. Back in the day, in Jackson Heights Queens, I used to go to an Indian buffet restaurant called the Jackson Diner at least once a week, to pile up the chicken tikka masala, chick peas, veggies and naan (thin bread) and have a feast. If I were ever a condemned prisoner, this would be my last meal request. So I joked to my friends that on my 22-day trip to India I was going to eat chicken tikka masala daily (it would only be about $5 a plate there) and come back probably weighing an extra 15 kg. Instead, I became a vegetarian and lost several kg.
The first restaurant I walked into happened to be an all-vegetarian place. I desperately scoured the menu for chicken tikka masala until I realized it was a menu for all vegetarian food. There are many, many all-vegetarian restaurants in India for religious and cultural reasons. It would have been rude to get up and walk out, so I quickly chose mushroom masala and garlic naan. It was delicious and it filled me up. I realized, in fact, that the mushroom masala scooped up with the naan was just as delicious as chicken tikka masala. I almost couldn’t tell the difference. You put that masala on mushrooms, scoop it with naan, and it is just as tasty.
One of the reasons I was not a vegetarian had nothing to do with taste or my willpower. Like a lot of problems in our society, it’s structural. American restaurants and supermarkets make vegetarianism hard. I realized that most supermarkets, for example, could easily create a “vegetarian corner” where it would be easy to grab sources of non-meat proteins and maybe some inexpensive brochures on how to cook paneer, chick peas, tofu etc. They could have some masala or sauces and lots of naan or other types of bread, lentils and rice. They could make it easier.
People could learn how to eat differently, but they don’t get the opportunity from their supermarkets. Instead, they make the easiest and customary food choices which also wind up being the least healthful ones. We’re getting fatter not because we lack discipline, but because our food system encourages our culinary laziness, pushes meat on us because it’s more lucrative and punishes curiosity and experimentation. It took a trip to India, where vegetarian restaurants are ubiquitous, for me to realize that if the opportunities for non‑meat options are there, I’ll gladly take them.
The U.S. food system makes vegetarianism difficult because corporations have no incentive to make it easy. Perhaps the key is to encourage food providers to take a chance on profiting from vegetarian food.
Here are the economic truths: Processed meat products have higher profit margins. Fast, salty, fatty foods keep customers coming back. Supermarkets are designed around convenience, not health. Educating customers takes effort and probably will not increase profits. So the default American diet is economically “engineered,” and not rationally chosen. People don’t research what they don’t have to and if the easiest option is a big fatty burger filled with grease and covered with cheese, people will just eat these burgers. If the easiest option is chana masala, people will eat chana masala. The U.S. adds research and work to vegetarianism while India removes it.
So what is to be done?
A starting point might be to reward the stores that already make vegetarianism easy (if you know of any). This is the simplest consumer‑level type of pressure. Buy from supermarkets that already have real vegetarian sections. Support co‑ops, ethnic groceries and small chains that stock plant‑based staples. Shift even 20-30% of your grocery spending to places that make vegetarianism easier.
Companies track spending patterns obsessively and if enough people shift even a fraction of their purchases, stores will respond. This is how gluten‑free, organic and plant‑based milks went mainstream…through purchasing patterns that became impossible to ignore.
Another strategy – many American supermarkets have feedback or suggestion cards you can fill out and drop into their suggestion box. You could suggest that they start a vegetarian corner. “Hi, I am a regular customer who is a vegetarian and I love your store. Would you please consider creating a small vegetarian-friendly section that puts plant‑based proteins together with the sauces, seasonings and ready-to-cook items people need to make quick vegetarian meals? I know a few other people in the neighborhood who would be excited about this.” If you can find the email address of your local supermarket, you can also send a friendly email asking them to experiment.
One more strategy is to do, basically, what I did in New Delhi – find restaurants that serve vegetarian food and go exclusively to them. Chinese restaurants are one of the best vegetarian survival zones in American cities, but they’re not the only type of restaurant that will help you. The best vegetarian food in American cities comes from immigrant cuisines whose cooking traditions never centered around meat in the first place.
Chinese places are usually good because the cuisine already has tofu as a default protein, entire dishes built around greens, mushrooms, eggplant, noodles and there are Buddhist vegetarian menus in many Chinatowns.
In the U.S., Indian restaurants are the closest thing to my Delhi‑style ease with dal, chana, rajma (high protein), veg thalis (built‑in variety), paneer dishes (protein without meat). This is the most reliable vegetarian infrastructure in American cities. Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurants have falafel, hummus, baba ghanoush, lentil soup, mujadara. These cuisines treat legumes as normal food, not “alternatives.” By the way, have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Or, how about Mexican? Beans, rice, veggie tacos, salsas, nopales. Protein is packed in the beans.
But who wants to do research? I don’t know how to cook this stuff. Where do I get my protein?
OK, so nobody wants to do research, but research is not that problematic any more. You probably use AI for various reasons. Type in a simple prompt: “Give me three vegetarian meals I can make this week that require zero cooking skills and use ingredients from a normal American supermarket. Make sure I get enough protein and I don’t want to get fat.”
I just did that. Here’s what my AI gave me:
Greek Yogurt Power Bowl
Protein: ~25–30g
How:
1 large tub 0% Greek yogurt
Handful of berries
1–2 tbsp nuts (almonds or walnuts)
Optional: drizzle of honey if you need sweetness
Why it works: Greek yogurt is basically a protein bomb with almost no fat if you buy 0%.
Microwave Lentil + Veg Bowl
Protein: ~20–25g
How:
1 pouch microwavable lentils (Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Target, etc.)
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables
2 tbsp salsa or bottled vinaigrette
Why it works: Lentils give you protein + fiber, vegetables keep calories low, and the whole thing is microwave-only.
Tofu + Stir‑Fry Sauce + Frozen Veg
Protein: ~20g
How:
1 block firm tofu (no cooking: just cube it)
1 bag frozen stir‑fry vegetables (microwave)
2–3 tbsp bottled stir‑fry sauce
Why it works: Tofu is lean protein; the sauce gives flavor; frozen veg keeps volume high without fat.
Here’s another prompt: Give me a week of vegetarian meals that require zero cooking skill, use only normal American supermarket ingredients, hit at least 20-30g protein per meal, stay low‑fat and avoid anything that would make me gain weight.
So, you don’t need any textbooks, no nutrition charts, no hours on YouTube. Tailor the prompt any way you want (no cooking, minimal cooking, extravagant cooking) and get a week of meals, a shopping list and protein sources. Remove the difficulties and boring stuff and vegetarianism becomes possible.
Here’s something that hit me in India: why do we eat? At the most basic level, I eat because if I don’t, I feel hunger pangs, and the longer I wait, the worse they get. Hunger is a signal that gets louder. You don’t need meat to silence that signal. We eat far more meat than we need, and it’s bad for the environment, bad for animals and not great for our health.
The point is you can stop hunger just as effectively with inexpensive vegetarian food. If you can quiet those hunger pangs with a bowl of mushroom masala or a plate of Chinese stir‑fried vegetables, or yogurt, tofu, rice, dal – that’s the optimal path. You can satisfy hunger with greasy junk that makes you feel worse, or you can satisfy it with food that actually supports your body.
Since I stopped eating meat on this trip, I feel better. I’m lighter, clearer and I’m finally trimming down again. I’m not preaching, I’m just describing what happened to me. I’m happier eating this way and I wish the same for you.
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: author
