Could you go meat-free? We asked three omnivorous Australian households to cook vegetarian meals for a week and to keep a diary of their results.
Eggs and dairy products were allowed but all other animal proteins including seafood were not.
The results? Two households saved time and money, while one family actually spent more dollars and minutes preparing meat-free meals. And those with children had a more difficult time switching to a temporary vegetarian diet.
‘It was like the dark clouds rolled in and never went away’
Patrick Lum lives with his partner in Sydney
My wife and I are a pretty typical Asian Australian unit in terms of food: rice and a meat main with a side of veggies is the staple – at least until one of us sees a recipe on TikTok. So I thought this challenge would be simple: cook rice, take out the meat and double the sides.
The weekly shop was largely unchanged. We hit up one of Sydney’s various Asian market hubs as usual (foregoing the butcher and fishmonger) and popped into local supermarkets during the week. The total came in at about $75; $10 of that went to tofu alone. Nothing compared with the cost of salmon or red meat – though it’s worth noting we already had spices, garden vegetables and a huge bag of rice lying about.
If I had been doing this alone, my menu of rice, veg and egg dishes would have sufficed, but my partner had other ideas. She cooked a cavalcade of vegetarian meals: tofu, mushroom and chive dumplings; potato croquettes; egg noodles with tofu and eggplant; burnt-butter gnocchi.
Around day three or four our unspoken conclusion became apparent: we just weren’t feeling satisfied with vegetarian-only dishes. Despite shovelling more than usual on to our plates, we felt less sated. Maybe that’s something serious vegetarians become used to? But for us beginners it was like the dark clouds rolled in and never went away.
This was best exemplified by one dish: a sundried tomato pesto we whipped up to serve with gnocchi and mushrooms. It tasted good and was easy to make but the moment the challenge ended, we tried it again – this time with prawns and bacon. It was the best thing we ate all week.
Did you save any money? About $20 to $40.
Did you save any time? Probably about five to 10 minutes’ worth of trying to get a busy butcher’s attention.
Would you do this again? Adding some vegetarian dishes to our repertoire is fine, but probably not for a whole week.
‘Where I ate mushroom burgers, the masses demanded beef ones’
Doosie Morris’s family lives in Melbourne and consists of two working parents and two school-aged children
Aside from the odd weekend fry-up, breakfasts and school lunches are vegetarian by nature. Dinners are a carousel of pastas, stews and the occasional meat and veg experience, and legumes already feature heavily.
I try to keep meat to no more than 125 grams a day per person, which works out at about 2.5kg total per week. But despite the fact we aren’t raging carnivores, there was little enthusiasm in the house to further diminish meat intake.
Nonetheless, I pressed on. Nixing fast-perishing meat for longer-life vego alternatives meant I could do something I never do: plan a full week of dinners and shop for it in one go. Generally speaking, vegetarian options are also less hassle to transport, keep better and are often less messy to prepare.
Hearty vegetarian pastas dishes such as pasta alla norma are an easy sell and a perfect fried egg can economically and excellently replace meat in many dishes. And no one turns their nose up at a pulse-heavy vegetarian soup, such as mercimek or minestrone, and an oozing cheese toastie during winter.
But throughout the week, dissidents broke ranks. Where I ate mushroom burgers, the masses demanded beef ones – and even though the burgers were organic (albeit on sale) they were actually cheaper per serve than the field mushrooms.
Halloumi would be more expensive again, but tofu was about half the price. Despite my best efforts to dress up and disguise tofu, it was invariably rejected by at least one hungry mouth.
Across the board it was cheaper to banish meat from the shopping list and if my family would comply, it would be more efficient too. But with growing kids and a partner with a physically demanding job, eliminating meat completely isn’t on the cards any time soon. That said, the challenge has definitely reminded me that even a few vegetarian meals a week can save time and money without causing mutiny, but only if you choose your alternatives wisely.
Did you save any money? About 50% on like-for-like ingredients overall. But meal to meal, the savings varied widely and the grocery shop on the whole required extra veggies, cheeses and breads to balance things out. Overall the cost of weekly provisions was down about 20%, but so was its capacity to please the crowd.
Did you save any time? Yes, meat tends to fluctuate in price more than things such as eggs, beans and tofu, so not standing around figuring out what’s the best value at the butcher makes a difference. And the cooking time is often less for veg options too.
Would you do this again? Unlikely, but I will make an effort to squeeze in more meat-free meals during the week.
‘I accidentally ate a chicken sandwich on day two’
Jasper Peach’s family lives in regional Victoria and has two working parents and two school-aged children
My wife and I have done stints of vegetarianism many times, so I anticipated going meat-free for a week to be a walk in the park.
I am all about tofu and its many guises – a soy Barbie you can dress up in any flavour you fancy. My digestive system refutes the existence of many pulses, so protein sources like chickpeas and lentils were out.
We source our meat as locally and smugly as possible (a half share in a monthly farm subscription costs $25 per week). Fruit and veggies come in a weekly delivery of supermarket imperfect produce for $65.90. Other grocery items bring our weekly spend to approximately $300.
It was mainly dinner that we needed to change. Then there was the matter of our children who are fond of processed dino-shaped nuggets; my youngest is made of 43% salami but I hoped for the best. I’d miss the easy dinners that featured tinned tuna or prawn dumplings, because they will reliably eat them.
Even so, I relished making vegetarian dinners: Quorn burgers, tofu nuggets, a vegan “cheesy” edamame pasta, homemade noodles with basil and tomato, tofu stir-fry, dumplings. Dinner can feel like drudgery but changing things up brought some welcomed fun. It was hard not being on menu autopilot though.
I accidentally ate a chicken sandwich on day two. Most parents will know the years of eating their children’s discarded food, which happened here without thinking. We also gave the kids nuggets from the freezer to avoid mutiny and general chaos around day four.
Did you save any money? No. I bought some liquid smoke, facon, nutritional yeast and a bunch of exciting new things for $96. Having more vegetarian dinners will save us money in the long run, but not in the first week.
Did you save any time? No, I actually added time. I take new projects seriously so the menu had to be new. I couldn’t possibly repeat vegetarian meals already on rotation.
Would you do this again? Absolutely – but my kids might need to go stay with their grandparents.
