Hi all. I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat alot of meat. I eat maybe a pound a week, and eat several vegetarian meals. I've been thinking of going more veggie.

One of the main ways I eat meat is with my lunch at work. I have a ten minute break. I now bring a sandwich with FF mayo, about two ounces of turkey or ham, and two slices of diet bread. It comes to about 200 calories. It's boring, but I like it well enough and can do it consistently. But, I'm open to trying vegetarian options.

I'm not really interested in trying mock meat coldcuts (more expensive, not alot less calories). Whatever I eat, I will be eating cold. I have a cooler to put it in. I can cook in advance and bring in a container. I eat a lot of dairy, so that is fine. About the only thing I refuse to eat is raw tomatoes. I love fruits and veggies of all sorts.

Any ideas?

well, right the moment I'm eating my lunch I brought to work

Steamed mixed veggies with a little sweet chilli sauce and a small Hoki fish fillet with bush spices also steamed. Mmmm....

One thing that I really like to do is make a sandwich with veggies instead of the meat. So you could do some sliced cheese and then add peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, whatever you wanted really.

Another thing DH has been doing is grilling extra veggies and then I throw them in a cooler with a pita pocket and add some cucumber dill sauce (fat free sour cream, chopped cucumbers, a little milk to thin it out, dill and salt and pepper). I also add some crumbled feta cheese for what tastes like a meatless Greek gyro to me. They're good either warm or cold to me.

I love a sandwhich made with whole grain bread, flavored cream cheese, and grilled vegetables

A huge salad of romaine lettuce, baby spinach, chopped cucumbers, peppers, red onions, mushrooms and whatever other veggies you like. Pop open a 3 oz can of tuna in water and mix it altogether - yummy.

Roasted veggies in a flat wrap. I roast onions, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and mushrooms with lots of garlic.

Salmon, baked with lots of garlic and lemon. I make it ahead of time and then eat it cold or room temperature. I eat it with a bunch of roasted green beans which I've made ahead. I take them out a bit before eating to get them to room temperature.

2 Danon Light and Fit yogurts (60 calories each) with a 1/2 cup of Fiber One cereal mixed in (another 60 calories)

Glad to hear you're looking for more meat-free lunch options. I eat a lot of sandwiches for lunch too.

If I have leftover falafel (I usually just make baked patties from a box mix) I'll have that for lunch. Just stick them in a whole wheat pita with hummus and whatever veggies you like, I usually do cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and maybe peppers. Olives and feta are good too.

Leftover baked tofu makes a tasty sandwich filling too. BBQ and teriyaki are my favorite flavors.

Veggie burrito wraps - just mix beans (I like black) and rice (I use brown) and wrap up in a whole grain tortilla with fixings. If you're packing in the morning it's best to bring salsa and other wet things separate, otherwise you'll end up with a soggy burrito.

Just veggies and spreads like hummus, ajvar, tzatziki can make a tasty sandwich or wrap. Grilled peppers, eggplant, and mushroom caps are my favorite veggie sandwich stuffings.

This sounds gross (at least it did to me when I read it in a diet cookbook), but bean paste made in a food processor - baked beans in sauce (but not pork and beans), onion, and a bit of bbq sauce or catsup, and puree until smooth. This is really good on toast, wrapped in pitas and tortillas or served with crackers or veggies as a dip. White beans and italian dressing made this way is really good too.

Great ideas! For some reason I never really thought of grilled veggies for a sandwich. But now that I am, hmmmm. Eggplant, peppers, hummus... yeah, I might be able to work something out. Having cold cooked fish also sounds interesting.

And Kaplods, your bean dip thing sounds like an interesting take off on hummus. I do make baked beans fairly often, but I never thought of white beans/italian combo. Might be pretty interesting!

Well, all this talk of grilled veggies inspired me. Last night I made a roasted veggie salad with whole wheat pasta. I roasted zuchinni, eggplant, red pepper, onions, and mushrooms and mixed it with the cooked pasta (two servings dry, weighed out). I would estimate that I got about a 50/50 ratio of veggies to pasta. I made a dressing of perhaps a tablespoon of olive oil, basalmic vinegar, garlic, and "italian herbs" from a tube of herb paste, and a teaspoon of Splenda and a bit of salt. It looks to me like I got a good four lunch servings.

I'm hoping that it will not go moldy over the week, with all the vinegar. It looks so good! I'm actually looking forward to lunch as work for the first time in a long while.

using avocado as a replacement for meat is delicious and high in protein. it is high in calories but using 1/5 of the avo on your sandwich should get you w/ in your 200 cal goal.

Avocado is delicious, no doubt but it is sadly, not high in protein. It is, however, a healthy addition to a sandwich, salad or other food!

http://www.avocado.org/healthy_living/nutrition.php