Vegetarian Information

Being a vegetarian is still something of a conversation killer even in today’s health conscious society. “What do you eat then?” is muttered quietly whilst images of the gourmet meat pies are tossed aside for green salads at the next dinner party.

Vegetarianism has actually shown a slight decline over the last decade although statistics have shown that many people have been a vegetarian at one period in their life. But overall, the vegetarian lifestyle is still as popular as ever as shown by the ever increasing range of vegetarian products and meat substitutes entering the market.

Whilst the vegetarian terms may seem confusing at first - the concept behind the terms are actually quiet easy to follow.

Lacto-Ovo - Most people when they hear the term vegetarian would think of a lacto-ovo. The term refers to people who do not eat any fish or meat but who do eat dairy products and eggs.

Ovo - This term refers to vegetarians who will eat eggs but will not eat any dairy products in their diet.

Lacto - Refers to a person who will not eat any meat or eggs in their diet but who will eat dairy products.

Vegan - Vegans are the strictest form of vegetarians as they do not eat any form of animal product or by-product.

Semi - The term semi-vegetarian has become increasingly popular with the rise of the so called “fad diet”. This category is set aside for people who want to try the vegetarian lifestyle but who still enjoy the occasional hamburger.

Many vegetarians choose this lifestyle not only for the health benefits associated with it but also for their belief against animal cruelty and associations such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) now champion animal rights.

Before the advantages of the vegetarian lifestyle were well documented we assumed that vegetarians were insipid, thin, pale creatures but with the number of famous celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Paul McCartney and Alicia Silverstone touting the benefits, the attitude has been given a more positive makeover.

Vegetarians can run the risk of suffering from a lack of iron, protein, Vitamin B and calcium if they do not balance their diets. But a little bit of education and knowledge of vegetarian sources should ensure that this does not occur. Protein can easily be found by eating nuts, seeds, tofu, veggie burgers and grains. Vitamin B2 can be found by eating leafy green vegetables, almonds and mushrooms and many vegetarian products are now fortified with Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D as an aid against any deficiency which may occur. Calcium can be found in tofu, leafy green vegetables, dried fruit, watercress and many of the soy milks found on the markets are calcium fortified.

Dining out can also pose a problem as many restaurants still have few vegetarian options and some vegetarian products may be more expensive than their meat counterparts.

The upside about being a vegetarian is that you do not have to worry about raising cholesterol levels by eating too much red meat. Research has also shown that many vegetarians suffer less from obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, diet related cancers, constipation and gall stones.

Even if you don’t embrace the vegetarian lifestyle wholeheartedly, trying a veggie meal once in a while certainly can’t do you any harm.

Recommended Vegetarian Recipe Websites:

http://www.sanitarium.com.au/recipe/recipes.do?cat-id=312
http://www.vnv.org.au/Recipes.htm
http://www.vegsoc.org.au/recipes.asp
http://www.annabella.net/vegetarian.html

Michelle Sweeney is a self confessed vegetarian of over 12 years. She is also the owner of the online gift store - http://www.tonicgifts.com.au. Tonic Gifts registered as a business in October 2004 with an aim to provide quality and affordable gifts to online shoppers both in Australia and overseas and to make the whole experience as simple and enjoyable as possible.

Tags: cooking, fad, food, health, kitchen, lifestyle, ovo lacto, recipe, vegan, vege, vegetarian, vegetarianismcooking, fad, food, health, kitchen, lifestyle, ovo lacto, recipe, vegan, vege, vegetarian, vegetarianism

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For any of the many reasons people choose to eat
vegetarian food - religion, politics, finances, or health -
one thing in common is that everyone prefers food that
tastes delicious and provides good nutrition. There are
some basic techniques to vegetarian cooking which will
accomplish that.

There is a range of vegetarianism. From the vegan to the
person who eats meat on rare occasions. Some people
consider themselves basically vegetarian if they never eat
red meat, but do eat fish and chicken once in a while.
Other vegetarians eat animal products like eggs and dairy,
but never the animal itself. A vegan is at the far end of
the continuum, rejecting animal products entirely. Vegans
won’t eat mayonnaise because it’s made using eggs, for
example.

Wherever you are on the continuum of vegetarianism, you
want your food to taste good, be satisfying, and provide
good nutrition. Here are some methods for cooking
vegetarian to meet those basic requirements.

To begin, if you are making some dish that is actually a
meat-based recipe, such as chili con carne, stop
substituting textured vegetable protein for the meat and
leaving the rest of the recipe unaltered. The result never
tastes quite right, and you’ve been robbed of the pleasure
of good food: it’s neither meat nor properly vegetarian.
Furthermore, you haven’t gained in terms of health or
economy. Soy is the primary ingredient of textured
vegetable protein, tofu, and tempeh. These are usually
high in fat, high in processing, and fairly high in cost.
Not much better than organically raised meat, if at all.
So if chili con carne is what you want, buy organic meat
and enjoy it! Otherwise, cook a delicious soup using red
beans that doesn’t pretend it’s chili con carne.

The key to good vegetarian soup is to use oil. Even if
you prefer low fat, your body does require fats for healthy
metabolism. And it definitely enhances the quality and
flavor of any vegetarian soup when some of the vegetables
(onions in particular) are saut~ed. Use an oil that’s
liquid at room temperature, such as olive, vegetable, or
grape seed.

The next critical ingredient of vegetarian food that
tastes fabulous is really simple: use sea salt. Although
any kind of salt will enhance the flavor of most foods, sea
salt is best. It naturally contains minerals, while it
doesn’t contain the nasty chemicals of regular processed
table salt. Important to note~ use salt *during* the
cooking instead of waiting until after serving the food.
This makes a difference in the final quality of the dish
because cooking is chemistry. Remember back to your high
school chemistry classes: the order of combining the
elements, and the application of heat to the mixture could
make a tremendous difference to the results of the
experiment!

The third tip for vegetarian cooking is obvious, yet needs
emphasis. Use lots of vegetables! You can’t over-do
vegetables in your diet - the greater the range and color,
the better. Use leafy veg (lettuce, spinach, and chard),
root veg (yams, carrots, potatoes, turnips), and the stems
and seed carriers of veg (for example celery, eggplant,
peppers, zucchini). Buy organic veg if you can because
they really do taste better, and of course they provide
better nutrition because they are gown in healthy, ‘clean’
dirt.

Take any vegetable and bean soup recipe, and follow these
three simple principles: saut~ the veg in the right oil,
cook the beans in sea-salted water, use a variety of
organic vegetables, and you’ll have a rich delicious soup.
These simple tips make a big difference. Take my word for
it, or do a little test. Use the same list of ingredients,
but don’t saut~ in oil, add the salt at the table, and use
conventionally grown veg. The result will be inferior -
still nutritious, but bland rather than satisfying, and
that’s a shame because the few simple techniques described
here can make your vegetarian cooking consistently
terrific.

Articles by Nora Poulous on topics related to cooking are
published in Z Cooking
News the leading resource on-line for information about
cooking. Visit the complete archive of articles here:
http://www.zcooking.com

Tags: cooking, diet, health, nutrition, vegetariancooking, diet, health, nutrition, vegetarian

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I became a vegetarian in the early 80’s. The Czech refugee I had lived with forbade any meat products from entering the little hovel we called home. I didn’t own a car then, and only traveled as far as my Raleigh three-speed English racer could take me. On Fridays that was to the home of a well-respected psychotherapist whose house I cleaned. When my chores were finished I’d welcome myself to her stocked pantry, and indulge on a simply prepared can of Star-Kist. I had to time that lunch well enough in advance of my homecoming as not to carry any lingering fish on my breath, otherwise I might not hear the end of a long speech about how Krishna may have incarnated into that same tuna that I had so ravenously devoured.

At nineteen years old, my relationship skills were practically non-existent. We argued about everything and nothing at all. I would storm out of the cabin and head to the deli in the center of town, the one with the huge loaves of European style bread in the front window. The ticket was always the same: turkey piled high on raisin-pumpernickel with Russian dressing, and a can on Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray tonic on the side. There was a hidden spot behind one of the galleries where a stream ran, and I could sit in silence while I mulled over the thought of living alone. Each stolen bite of that sandwich brought me closer to a sense of myself - reminding me of all the cold-cut meals I had consumed as a child. When the last crumb was finished, and I had licked the last drop of dressing from my fingers, I would go back to the place I called home, knowing full well that it would just be a matter of days before I returned to the same spot.

Preparing dinner, in those years, wasn’t a simple as braking open a bag, or defrosting a pot pie. We had no freezer compartment in the four foot high GE that was packed with containers and bags from the food co-op. A big bag of carrots for juicing was always on the bottom shelf, and bags of exotic flours stuffed the middle ones. We did eat well, though. Every night there was a variation on a tofu dish with fresh vegetables from our garden. I became quite proficient at cooking with soybean curd, and one year entered the local tofu cook-off. My non-fish version of Gefilte, aptly named Gefilte-Fu took first prize and brought home Mollie Katzden’s bible to vegetarianism - The Moosewood Cookbook. Oh, how I adored that book! Twenty-five years later, its soy sauce stained pages crammed with additional index cards with recipes like lentil loaf and mock salmon salad still sits on my bookshelf.

We lived a simple life with four dogs, a cat, and a semi-permanent resident who slept in his old VW bus. I can’t tell you his name - because he didn’t go by one. “No Name” was the moniker that some folks referred to him. I just called him Doctor, bestowing the title half out of respect for his age, which was somewhere around middle age, and half because of my perception of his spiritual knowledge. He viewed himself as a Yogicelibate, and living a life of renunciation. His constant presence in our 200 square foot cabin, though, was a blessing and a curse. At best he was a mentor who challenged the presumptions of my middle-class upbringing, and at worst, a drain on my food stamp allotment.

There was no door on the bathroom. In fact, the toilet and bathtub were in the kitchen. So I learned quickly how to shed excess modesty - or did my business when the cabin was vacant. “Doctor” likened himself to Richard Alpert, who through education and doses of LSD, had had a spiritual awakening, and as a phoenix rising from the ashes of his former self, emerged as Ram Das. We dosed ourselves many times in those years with the psychedelic sacrament and each trip had a meaningful lesson. The long hours of meditation and mind expanding thought were always followed by a broth of root vegetables, which I had prepared the previous night.

The Doctor and I once hitchhiked together to a Rainbow Family Gathering in the Blue Hill Mountains of West Virginia. We each ran around naked for a week, were fed curried goulash by the Hare Krishna Kitchen, and played drums until the early morning hours. I learned how to make whole wheat japatis from The Sufi Kitchen, and took instruction on meditating with a pyramid on top of my head.
I saw the Doctor get in the sack one night with a young hippie girl. After that my impressions of him were never quite the same. I packed up my sleeping bag and hitched home to Woodstock alone.

The T-shirt that I wore till it was thread bare and read “World Peace through Vegetarianism” has long since become a canvas for someone’s art project. My kids most requested meal is meatloaf, and my partner will only consume tofu when it is camouflaged with other vegetables in Asian hot and sour soup. I still go to the health food store and buy marinated tofu salad, but it’s the one container that could sit in the fridge without the risk of being ransacked as a midnight munchie by my carnivorous family.

Lentil Loaf

1 cup green lentils

Tags: cookbook authors, cooking, food essay, food humor, food memoir, hippies, vegetarian, Woodstockcookbook authors, cooking, food essay, food humor, food memoir, hippies, vegetarian, Woodstock

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