It's absolutely trivial to cook meals vegan or vegetarian and simply add meat separately at the end, or not add it at all. What you're describing is just piss-poor meal planning and has nothing to do with the cost of vegetables.
Or you were just buying every prepackaged bit of vegan food in the store.
Which is utterly fucking irrelevant to the idiot-tier statement that somehow vegans/vegetarians don't get enough protein.
Only absolute morons who tie their entire identity to eating meat think that, usually losers that hang out in the comments sections of YouTube channels with names like "Carnivoracious" or "BeardMeat" or "Beardivore" or "MeatyBeardMan." "I eat meat, I have beard, this is my personality, I have nine pounds of undigested meat in my colon and I haven't shit in a week."
"Diet For a Small Planet, however, unfortunately helped create a persistent myth that vegetarians and vegans faced severe challenges when it comes to getting enough protein. Over the next few decades, multiple studies coupled with the lack of vegans dropping dead from acute protein deficiency extinguished that hysteria."
It takes like .2 seconds to verify if your sincerely held religious belief is utter nonsense or not.
Vegan food: The west vs India (lemmy.ml)
Affordable and excellent Kitchen knife: the Victorinox Fibrox (www.youtube.com)