The holiday season is just around the corner and that means getting to spend time with family and eating good food. Having a family dinner around the holidays is very common. Although it is normal for everyone to sit down together, it’s not that easy for some people. Some people are vegetarian and that makes it hard to eat together with their family. 

“My family likes to cook a lot of meat and they go all out with the turkey and stuff like that,” sophomore Kat Marberry said.

Despite Marberry’s family having different eating habits, they are very supportive of her and so is freshman Kaitlyn Mitchell’s family.

“Like my parents, they’re like totally cool with it,” Mitchell said. 

While these guidelines are hard to follow if you are a vegetarian, it’s also a personal choice. On a normal day, being vegetarian is easier because you get to choose what you eat, but when your family makes a holiday meal for everybody, it can be overwhelming trying to cater to the people that have those guidelines.

“You can have a vegetarian Thanksgiving pretty easily by making small changes to a traditional Thanksgiving menu,” Foods teacher Elizabeth Laley said.

There are a lot of other options and substitutions you can use for a Thanksgiving dinner. In order to supplement the protein you’re missing, you can add nuts, eggs, lentils, and cheese to your salads. Having a large variety of vegetable dishes will also give you a lot of the nutrients and minerals you need. 

“Most side dishes we eat are already vegetarian or can be pretty easily,” Laley said. 

Some Vegetarian-Friendly Recipes for Thanksgiving:

Recipe for Stuffed Acorn Squash

Recipe for Vegetarian Pot Pie

Spaghetti Squash Mac and Cheese