Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipe

If you are a vegetarian, you are always on the lookout for great recipes you can make quickly that taste delicious, so don't overlook the slow cooker as a way to prepare great vegetarian meals with a minimum of effort. There are tons and tons of vegetarian recipes for the slow cooker and you can find them with a minimum of effort if you take the time to look for them. We'll start you off with a couple of our favorites!

Slow Cooker Spinach Marinara Sauce

– 1/4 cup olive oil
– 1 onion, chopped
– 5 cloves garlic, minced
– 1/3 cup grated carrot
– 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
– 2 2/3 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
– 1 (4.5 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
– 2 tablespoons salt
– 2 tablespoons dried oregano
– 2 tablespoons dried basil
– 2 1/2 tablespoons crushed red pepper
– 2 bay leaves
– 1 (28 ounce) can peeled and crushed tomatoes, with liquid

In a 5 quart slow cooker, combine olive oil, onion, garlic, carrot, spinach, tomato paste, mushrooms, salt, oregano, basil, crushed red pepper, bay leaves and tomatoes. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours. Stir, reduce heat to low and cook for 1 to 2 hours more. Serve over cooked pasta of your choice.

Vegetarian Slow Cooker Mediterranean Stew

– 1 butternut squash – peeled, seeded, and cubed
– 2 cups cubed eggplant, with peel
– 2 cups cubed zucchini
– 1 (10 ounce) package frozen okra, thawed
– 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
– 1 cup chopped onion
– 1 ripe tomato, chopped
– 1 carrot, sliced thin
– 1/2 cup vegetable broth
– 1/3 cup raisins
– 1 clove garlic, chopped
– 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
– 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
– 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
– 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
– 1/4 teaspoon paprika

In a slow cooker, combine butternut squash, eggplant, zucchini, okra, tomato sauce, onion, tomato, carrot, broth, raisins, and garlic and season with cumin, turmeric, red pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. Cover, and cook on Low for 8 to 10 hours, or until vegetables are tender.

There are lots and lots of vegetarian recipes that you can make in the slow cooker that are easy and delicious and there are lots of places where you can find them. One of our favorite websites for vegetarian slow cookers recipes is www.allrecipes.com. Check out their website for some delicious and easy to make vegetarian and vegan recipes.


 

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Body Cleanses and Weight Loss – Is There a Connection?

Do you want to lose weight? Although exercise and a healthy diet are the best approaches to take, many are starting to turn to body cleanses, also known as body detoxification. In recent years, multiple celebrities have brought weight loss and cleansing attention. As nice as it is to hear from a celebrity that you can lose weight with a body cleanse or detox, you may be wondering if this is true.

So, is there is a connection between detox and weight loss? Yes and no. It all depends on a number of important factors. These factors include:

The detox diet used. You may be surprised to hear how many ways there are to detox your body. Before you start a body detox plan, it is important to know your options. These options include water fasting, juice fasting, the Master Cleanse, the use of detox pills and patches, the consumption of all-natural foods, and exercise.

Water fasting, juice fasting, and the Master Cleanse are three popular detox diet methods. These methods are popular as they allow for the largest weight loss. This is due in part to the consumption of solid foods, as there is none. As enticing as it is to lose the most weight, fasting is not right for everyone. Those who are overweight, those who have become dependent on foods, and those with certain medical conditions may not only find it difficult to fast, but dangerous.

Organic only foods are an easy way to detox your body, as you are still able to eat, unlike with fasting. The detoxification process will be slower, but when you stop putting unnatural foods and chemicals into your body, it can begin to repair itself. If on an organic only detox diet, you may notice a slight weight loss. This is because all-natural foods are healthier.

The length of your detox diet. How long you detox for will impact your results, including weigh loss. Generally speaking, the longer you detox, the more weight you will lose. However, before you start a month long detox plan, it is important to know the risks.

When consuming organic only foods, your body still receives needed nutrients, for that reason cleanses can last much longer. With the Master Cleanse and juice fast, your body will lack nutrients, but it will still receive some. That is why detox lengths vary. Most recommend a week to two weeks, but always listen to your body and its warning signs. As for water fasting, extreme caution is advised. Your body will receive no nutrients at all. Too long, such as five days or more, and the risk of health complications arise.

Your weight. Your current weight will also impact your weight loss success on a detox diet. The more you weigh, the easier it will be for you to lose weight. For example, if you are 20 pounds overweight, you may lose weight on a detox diet. However, if you are at a healthy weight, you may not lose any weight at all.

Your lifestyle changes. As you can see, it is possible to lose weight with a body detox or cleanse. With that said, your weight can return just as easily as you lost it. When you start adding solid foods into your diet, you will automatically start to gain weight. You can, however, make healthy choices. By eliminating foods high in sugar, fats, and calories, or by making the switch to organic, you can maintain a healthy weight for years to come.

You can lose weight on a detox diet, but your results will vary. The main goal of a detox diet should be to improve your overall health and wellbeing. If you are solely interested in losing weight, this approach is not right for you. Remember, your weight loss may be significant, but it will only be temporary. Instead, rely on a combination of healthy eating and exercise.


 

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Vegetarian Restaurant Eating

If you are a vegetarian or thinking about becoming a vegetarian, you might be worried about how you are going to be able to eat in a restaurant with your meatless lifestyle. It can be intimidating to think about eating in a restaurant when you are a vegetarian, but the reality is that you actually do have many, many options available to you on menus in restaurants that can support your vegetarian eating habits.

To begin with, you can always order a healthy salad that contains no meat. Many vegetarians take this option when eating in a restaurant. Salads are made of a variety of vegetables and if you want to get some protein, ask for a bit of garbanzo beans or seafood if your vegetarian diet allows you to eat seafood. Add a nice balsamic vinegar and oil dressing and you have a delicious vegetarian meal.

You can also scan the menu for any meatless meals that are available. If you are going to be choosing the restaurant you are eating in, a good choice for vegetarians would be either an Italian or Mexican restaurant. These two types of food styles don't rely on meat for their entrees, so there are almost always a huge variety of meatless meals on the menu.

Another option for the vegetarian when eating in a restaurant is to ask the cook to prepare your meal without the items that aren't in your diet. At most sit-down restaurants, they will be happy to adapt their recipes to adhere to your vegetarian eating habits. It is usually easy to cut out the meat from a simple pasta sauce or take the chicken out of the grilled chicken salad.

What do you do, though, when you are a vegetarian eating in a fast-food restaurant? While most fast food restaurants are starting to offer more salads on their menus in an effort to adhere to new governmental health standards, your choices are much more limited when eating at a fast food restaurant as a vegetarian. Really, the only thing you can do is order one of their salads, or opt for the fish option if you eat fish.

Don't make a big deal about your vegetarian eating habits when in a restaurant. You're likely to be met with some disdain, so order what you want that will meet with your lifestyle and then go about the business of enjoying your meal as well as the company!


 

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Body Detox the Easy Way

You may wonder sometimes why your body seems to be heavy and you feel lazy to move, yet you are not sick. You are more than willing to be energetic but your body is not just up to it. To address the problem, you resort to eating a lot, gulp up cups of coffee and smoke, thinking that you will be lively after. For a while, you feel good and going. Unknowingly though, you are accumulating toxins in your body. With this scenario happening more and more, you might need to detoxify.

With our ever-dynamic world today, we want our bodies to be constantly active so we can move along with the fast paced lifestyles. Hence, we resort to body stimulants such as coffee, cigarettes, diet pills, drugs and a lot more thinking that they will help the body to stay up all the time, but they do otherwise. These stimulants cause immediate loss of energy and emotional symptoms such as headaches, sickness and depression. They are also considered as toxins in the body.

What are toxins? Toxins are agents that are able to cause body harm. There are two kinds of toxins, the Exogenous or external toxins and Endogenous or internal toxins. The Exogenous toxins come from external sources such as car fumes, tobacco smoke, drugs, factory pollution, etc. On the other hand, the Enogenous toxins come from viral or bacterial infection. Due to metabolism, the body creates its own toxin called Autogenous toxins.

These harmful substances are eliminated in the body in a process called detoxification. Detoxification is the removal of stored toxic products from the bowel, the blood, liver, and kidneys including the great amount of toxic substances stored in body fat to cure chronic diseases such as cancer. The easiest way to detoxify the body is the body detox through a natural diet. To detoxify the body naturally is a change in the diet from a poor to a healthy one. A healthy diet includes raw food diet, specifically, fruits and vegetables.

Naturally, the body detoxifies itself all day. The peak of detoxification occurs when the body is rested during sleep until noon. This is a way for the body to eliminate the toxins acquired from pollution, stimulants and nutrients.

Sugar has a stimulating effect. Hence, we feel invigorated when we drink colas. What we do not know, refined white sugar has detrimental effects on the body. Examples of products containing refined white sugar are cola and ketchup. It is advised to cut down on it by using brown sugars like cane sugar which is natural. Fruit juices also give the same kick as to refined white sugar.

For cigarette smokers who think smoking stimulates their mind to think, they must think twice for smoking causes cancer. If they take carrots, they will experience the same effect in a more natural way.

For red meat lovers who really feel good and strong after feasting on said food, they better think about cutting on it. Fish is a better substitute.

Now, we understand why our parents keep on reminding us to eat fruits and vegetables. They give us energy in more natural ways plus they keep us fit and healthy.


 

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Doing the Raw Food Diet Right

Raw food diets have advantages over eating cooked foods. For one, because raw foods are not cooked, they retain much more of their original nutritional value than if they were cooked. Second, raw foods are frequently much easier for the digestive system to process. And third, because of the previous two points, the body's energy level is much higher. However, there are some precautions to consider along with the advantages.

Although raw food diets are good for most people, they are not good for everyone. Children, for one, may not benefit as much from a raw food diet as an adult would. Children are very energetic. Their growing bodies need many nutrients that are not found in many raw foods and they need more of these nutrients than an adult does. Children can get their salts and sugars, to sustain their energy, from fruits and vegetables, but they also need large amounts of calcium and protein as well.

Raw foods, to include raw milk, don't have the amount of calcium needed to grow strong bodies. Also, children need other nutrients and minerals to help them grow. The amount a child needs may not be able to be provided from a purely raw food diet. If you are considering putting your children on a raw food diet it is strongly suggested to consult with your child's pediatrician before you do. You may also want to think about adding vitamin supplements to the children's diet once you do start the raw food diet.

Raw food diets may also not be appropriate for pregnant women and those who are nursing too. Here again, many raw foods don't possess the necessary nutrients for a child body growth and development. In fact, the wrong raw food diet can deplete a woman's body of required nutrients for her fetus or suckling child. Once again it becomes important to consult your doctor before starting a raw food diet.

People who have osteoporosis, or who are at risk for it, should also be careful about raw food diets. And those that suffer from anemia are another group of people that need to use caution when putting together their raw diet plans. The best advice to anyone with a health condition is for them to talk with their doctor before actually starting a raw food diet. Even including a dietician or nutritionist into your raw food diet plan is a good idea for everyone.

All people considering a raw food diet should be aware that there are certain nutritional deficiencies inherent in all raw food diets. As was indicated earlier there is no raw food that provides calcium. Some raw foods such as fish do have a certain amount of protein in them, but many fruits and vegetables certainly lack this needed nutrient. Iron and vitamin B-12 are other minerals the body needs but is difficult to acquire from a raw food diet without supplements. In fact, the Journal of Nutrition found that those on raw food diets have higher levels of homocysteine because of B-12 deficiency.

It is true that some raw foods can be more expensive than other diets. There are some prepackaged raw foods that will be expensive. But your best raw food buys will always be found in your grocer's produce section. Fruits and vegetable are a bargain when compared to the money you were spending on meats such as a steak. If you find your raw food shopping bill getting a little too high, make adjustments and modify it.

Many people might think that once they start a raw food diet that all their meals must be eaten at home because there are no restaurants that prepare raw foods. This couldn't be further from the truth. Since more and more people are recognizing the benefit of raw foods many restaurants are adding raw foods to their menus. In addition, many restaurants, especially in the big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are catering specifically to the raw food crowd. And a crowd it is becoming because the numbers of people eating the raw food diet is increasing.


 

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