Vegetarians Prepping? Surprisingly, Yes!

Vegetarian prepping. We can hear you all out there now saying “I’d rather just die than not eat meat… what do you mean, no bacon?”

The truth is that if the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF) a lot of people are going to become a lot closer to being vegetarians than they have ever thought possible, as meat will become extremely difficult to get (for those of you who live/stay in the city/burbs, anyway).

“He Don’t Eat No Meat?”

One of our favorite movies ever, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (highly recommended) contains the following scene:

That’s right, my fellow preppers, there are people out there right now, in a S has not HTF world that choose not to eat meat.

It’s estimated that about 3 percent of the US population are vegetarians. About half a percent are vegans, or people who use no animal products at all.

Then there are various different forms of semi-vegetarians including those who are vegetarians except that they eat certain types of meat like fish or poultry. 

Our Dirty Little Secret

Spice and Salty are, for the most part, vegetarians, and that have very much shaped our food storage plans. 

But wait, Salty, I just saw a review on a Wise food dish that contained meat, but you call yourself “basically a vegetarian”? What’s up with that.

Good question. Spice and I (Salty is writing this part of the article) don’t set out to eat meat, but we are not “hard core” about it. Salty purchased the Wise food mistakenly, believing it contained Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP). When we found out it contained (theoretically at least, it was hard to tell by actually cooking and eating the product) real meat, well… the ship had sailed, so we ate it. What’s done is done, we are not THAT hardcore about it. 

In our case, we choose not to eat commercially packaged and prepared meat for various reasons, not the least of which is we don’t trust them. Additionally, we are not fans of the amount of resources used to grow the cattle, hogs and poultry nor do we approve of the condition many/most of those animals are kept in during their short, uncomfortable lives.

We do eat meat grown free-range, steroid free and butchered by people we know and trust… so we are not totally vegetarians… and of course, if we hunt and kill an animal for meat, we eat that as well.

Personal Note: Why We Are (Basically) Vegetarians

The following section has nothing to do with prepping, it’s just in case you are curious.

Why Salty is (basically) a vegetarian: Honestly, a lot of things go into my decision to avoid commercially grown and packaged meats stems from two things.

One, my first job was at a meat packing plant. While still in high school, I was hired to clean out the kill room at our local meat packing plant 3 days a week. I had to wear a special rubber suit and use a huge hose shooting boiling hot water all over the place… 

When not on my job, I of course toured the plant and learned how everything like hot dogs, head cheese, salami and other “lunch meats” are made, and what is actually in them. 

Yeah, that pretty much cured me of any illusions about what people are eating every day.

Secondly, I live in a rural area where commercial meat production is king. I see the massive cesspools that are confinement hog farming, cattle feed lots, and I’ve seen the birth-to-table corporate conglomerates in action both in public and behind the scenes.

Yeah, no thanks, y’all can eat that stuff if you want, I’ll pass.

Why Spice is basically a vegetarian: Well, it’s not because I mind my position as an omnivore at the top (I hope) of the food chain. It’s because I don’t like the way the easily available (grocery and restaurant) meats are produced so choose not to support those industries.

I don’t mind killing animals, but I do mind making them miserable for large portions of their lives; and I think animal raising that is not honestly free-range does that. As a biologist, I see no reasons to accept, and many to reject, the idea that somehow ‘they can’t suffer because they’re not like us’.  

I also mind eating food that hasn’t been treated well, by my standards. Regularly feeding animals antibiotics and/or steroids as growth enhancers does not make meat I want to eat. Fattening beasts on corn (not a staple of their normal diets) is ecologically unsound and unhealthy for the animals. No thanks. I enjoy the occasional bit of meat we can get that meets my standards, and that’s enough.

The Details Of Vegetarian Prepping

Here’s a simple truth that may drive any “meat lover” crazy. It’s far easier and cheaper to be a vegetarian prepper than a meat eating prepper when it comes to food storage.

TVP is a viable (if not very tasty) option that provides outstanding nutrition, it VERY inexpensive, that stores for decades and is exceptionally easy to prepare.

We store a LOT of TVP in our long-term food stocks, as well as a lot of complementary items that we can use with TVP. 

Health Benefits Of Storing Vegetarian Foods

First let’s kill that protein myth. Plant foods have protein. Some, including TVP, have a lot of protein. Is it of the same high quality (meaning the same mix of amino acids that humans need) as animal protein? Well, TVP is. Non-soy plant foods don’t always have just the right mix, but if you eat a variety over the course of a few days, it works out fine. 

Storable meats do not tend to be the healthiest forms of meat, either. (Canned tuna and salmon are notable exceptions.)Spam and similar products are nutritionally pretty horrid; with salt and preservatives (such as the nitrites found in many cured meats) being the biggest problems. Vegetarian protein sources don’t have nitrites and tend to have far less salt. They also have a much more liver-and-artery friendly fat profile.

Veg sources also have some benefits you won’t find in meat products. Fiber is an important one; and the selection of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals is better if you’re storing a variety of plant sources.

Bang For Your Buck

We think that there are a lot of people in the prepping community who automatically discount the thought of eating primarily a vegetarian diet, but here’s the thing.

Looking back through history, through hard times, what’s the one thing you see as the norm? People in crisis eating (by necessity) largely vegetarian diets. 

Why? Because vegetarian food require far less resources, work and effort for the calories than meat. That makes it far easier and safer to get, as well as much more readily available. It also enormously expands the food supply, since it takes several pounds of corn and many, many gallons of fresh water to produce every pound of farmed meat.

Look, we aren’t trying to convince you to not have that steak dinner tonight… what we are trying to do is to get you to consider a less meat-intensive SHTF food plan than you probably already have in mind. 

All we ask is that you think about it … and maybe try a few of the options to see what works for you.