Vegetarian Menu

Let's say you are having a dinner party, but you are a vegetarian and you aren't sure what you want to include on your menu that will make everyone happy. Well, the truth is that you most likely won't always be able to please everyone. However, you can make a great vegetarian menu that most of your guests will love and they may not even know that they are eating a totally vegetarian meal.

What should you include on your vegetarian menu? You should have a variety of foods that can be satisfying to a variety of people, but that doesn't scream "VEGETARIAN". Why is that? Well, even if your guests don't know that you are a vegetarian, they should not face your dinner party with fear that they will have bland, tasteless food. Impress them and show them that meatless meals can be fun, beautiful, and delicious!

Here are a couple of suggestions for a vegetarian dinner party menu:

Small Dinner Salad
Fresh Asparagus Soup
Vegetable Cutlets
"Fried" Brown Rice
Bananas Foster

You could also try this vegetarian menu:

Easy Tomato Soup
Fresh Tomatoes with Mozzarella and Basil
Spaghetti Bolognese
Garlic Bread
Tiramisu

Another terrific vegetarian menu can circle around a Mexican theme:

Spicy Tortilla Soup
Bean Burritos
Refried Beans with Spicy Salsa Topping
Cheese Enchiladas
Chiles Rellenos
Sopapillas

Coming up with a vegetarian menu that will support your lifestyle but also please your dinner guests isn't really difficult if you think about it. Just keep in mind what you like to eat and what you are good at cooking. Then make a menu that includes the following courses:

Appetizer
Salad/Soup
Main Dish
Vegetable
Dessert

It's really that simple. Most menus include all of these components, and just because you want to make a vegetarian menu doesn't mean you have to give up taste and presentation. If you present your meals with flair and prepare them with love, you will find that having a vegetarian dinner party with a menu that appeals to everyone attending is not as difficult as you might think.

Just sit down and think about what you are able to cook well and that your family enjoys. Chances are good that if your family enjoys the vegetarian menus that you present to them daily, your dinner guests will enjoy it as well. Be creative, be innovative, and be confident that your menu will please both your vegetarian friends as well as your meat eating friends as well.


 

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A Tasty Way To Do The Raw Food Vegan Diet

Many people see the raw food diet as being healthier and giving them more energy, despite the lack of any long-term analyses of the successes of a raw vegan diet as compared to other types of raw food diets. To try a raw vegan diet for yourself and see what it can do for you, these are the three food groups you can partake of: high-fat plants, sweet fruit and leafy green vegetables. As to the portions of each, opinions vary. Some say as little as two percent of your daily calories should be from leafy green vegetables; others think it should be as high as around thirty. With the high-fat foods, eat things like olives, nuts, avocados, seeds and cold-pressed oils. Again, some recommend anything from a tiny amount to as high as forty per cent.

To be honest, it's unlikely you can get as high as thirty percent of your daily calories from green vegetables. That would require eating a lot of big salads! Fortunately, such a massive intake is not necessary to derive the benefits of a raw food diet. The green leafy vegetables have plenty of calcium, protein, vitamin K and zinc. All you need to do is eat around 500 g a day to get the recommended amount. If you're sure to get things like carrots and peas in your meals, you'll get plenty of calcium, zinc and protein.

Now, when it comes to striking the correct proportions between sweet fruit and fatty foods, that's where your personal tastes and health come into play. It's common for people to have troubles with their teeth if they eat a lot of fruit, especially young children. On the other hand, if you have a high metabolic rate, you may need more high-fat foods in order to maintain your weight in the optimum range. Just one caveat: do not have more than ten percent of your diet made up of polyunsaturated fats. Instead, get monounsaturated fats in there. By eating olives, avocados, almonds, hazelnuts and macadamias you can get the fats you need. Depending on how much energy you need each day, you can make up to forty percent of your diet from these foods. Also, you need to include omega-3 fats; they're very good for you. So, eat things like crushed flax seed. Flax seed oil is also great for salad dressings. There are soils in the world that are low on selenium, and you can't be sure where your foods were grown. So, an easy way to get around that issue is to include even just Brazil nut a day.

In terms of what sorts of fruits to eat, you don't have to go with ones that are unusual or exotic. The banana has energy; it's rather low in fiber, and plenty of potassium. Oranges are great to get calcium, folate, potassium and vitamin C into your body. One of the real pluses of a raw vegan diet is that it reduces calcium loss, and thus reduces your blood pressure; it will also reduce your risk of having a stroke.

Finally, there is vitamin B12. Some health experts recommend that you don't take vitamin B12 supplements unless symptoms of a deficiency manifest themselves. And even then, some further say you should avoid taking any pills. Instead, there are some excellent natural sources such as wild plants, nori and spirulina. Now, if those are not available, eat fermented foods or a probiotic, and just be sure to include a B12 supplement.

Follow these steps, and you can eat a healthy diet that is in keeping with the vegan dietary guidelines.


 

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All Natural Body Detox for Body Cleansing

When we hear the word toxin, we mistakenly think of poison in a labeled bottled. Indeed, toxins are poisonous, but they are not necessarily labeled when they enter our body in many and perhaps unthinkable ways. Imagine how minute and invisible microbes are and that they can penetrate into our pores. And everyday exposure to street life allows you to meet all sorts of air pollution. If germs can enter your body through very small openings, how much more to total exposure where viruses can easily enter?

So what happens when the body is overloaded with pollutants? Well, it's not as simple as just getting sick. Mind processing is significantly affected and all the rest of your body. Pollutants block or slow down the delivery of needed nutrients and oxygen to all parts of the body. And since the brain is the major consumer of oxygen, it has the tendency to be damaged. Have you noticed that after doing a hard-hitting mental work, you feel very exhausted even when you were just seated for hours? It is because the brain can sometimes override the whole body. So when there are lots of toxins in you, your mind becomes sluggish too.

And most of the time, it's tough to protect ourselves to the extent of being disease-proof. Although the body provides its own system of healing, we need to take care of it and help it function better. That is why we need to detoxify. Detoxification helps in rejuvenation of the mind as much as it cleanses the body.

The safest way to detoxify is having it the natural way – through proper diet. In this process of cleansing, you reduce your intake of junk. This means that you must avoid products that obstruct your filtering system. These products are fats, alcohol, caffeine, and food additives. While you stay away from these foods, you replace them with easy to digest fruits and vegetables. They are not only rich in vitamins, but they supplement the body with energy boosting nutrients. Surely, they are clean, given that they are prepared freshly and cleanly. The fibers in fruits and vegetables toss the toxins out.

In detoxification, fasting for a short period of time will catalyze the process. Of course this should be done under the supervision of your nutritionist or doctor. During the process, solid foods are avoided. Your intake is solely made of fruit juice and herbal teas. Researches are made to prove that fasting decreases the stress on the digestive system. By emptying the stomach, toxins are also flushed out of the body. And the liquids that you take keep you away from starving. Nevertheless, fasting is quite critical so it is advised that a physician must be consulted first. Preferably, fast during the weekends when your time is allotted merely to relaxation.

In addition to fruit juices, some supplements are recommended for safety. To name a few are the fermented soybeans and algae powder. Fermented soy beans support the colon function and help produce the good intestinal bacteria which are major proponents of the inner cleansing process. In parallel, the algae powder gives you the feeling of being full. It supplies ample protein to ease the fatigue that some people experience during fasting.

Detoxification in the whole is a matter of a good system of living.


 

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Vegetarian Magazine

If you are a vegetarian or even thinking about becoming a vegetarian, you can benefit greatly from a magazine subscription to a magazine that is dedicated to the vegetarian lifestyle. Some people are interested in body building, others in writing, and still others in boating. No matter what your area of interest is, there is going to be a magazine out there that will meet your needs and help you along the way as you pursue your passion. That means that vegetarians have magazines too that will provide support, recipes, and advice for this alternative lifestyle.

One of the most popular vegetarian magazines is called 'Vegetarian Times'. This great magazine gives anyone who is interested in the vegetarian lifestyle or even thinking about becoming a vegetarian the advice and help that they need to make the switch as well as stick with their decision. "Vegetarian Times" gives hundreds of great recipes in each issue as well as ways that vegetarians can help the environment, deal with adverse reactions to their lifestyle, and much, much more. "Vegetarian Times" offers two free issues to people interested in their magazine. After that a year's subscription runs just $14.95 for nine issues.

The Vegetarian Society also publishes a magazine that provides tips about the vegetarian lifestyle that can help immensely with both the experienced as well as the new vegetarian. Their magazine also offers up a lot of advice about the vegetarian lifestyle and can also be found online. You will find that this vegetarian magazine is a great way to get some support as well as recipes that will help you stick to your lifestyle change.

Veg News is a magazine found at www.vegnews.com Like many vegetarians, the people at Veg News are concerned about the environment and the living things around us. That played a big part in making the decision to make their vegetarian magazine using a 75% post-consumer, recycled paper. They have many great areas that have advice, recipes, articles, and much more on the vegetarian lifestyle that can help both newbies as well as experienced vegetarians live the life they have chosen. A year's subscription is $20.

Of course, there are many other vegetarian magazines on the market that you can look into. Just do a little bit of looking and you will find that there are a lot of places that you can get information about your vegetarian lifestyle in a magazine format. What could be better?


 

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Vegan Cooking Made Easy

A push towards a much healthier lifestyle has left many people looking all around for help. There are many different ways to eat, and of course, everyone has their own opinion on which methods are best but how are you really supposed to learn how to properly prepare a new diet? The vast array of dietary choices just makes things further complicated rather than simpler and it can be extremely difficult trying to determine exactly how you should get started as well. The average person also does not have the time to really devote to going to school to learn how to cook either, which is just another complication to the problem as well.

Vegan cooking is not so much a dietary style, but rather an entire way of life. This means it is something that requires just a bit more information and knowledge than simply flipping through a magazine and finding a recipe that looks interesting. Learning to properly prepare and cook a vegan meal requires a really good knowledge of the vegan concepts as well as the exact foods that are impacted. This type of knowledge means that you are going to need to seek out some help and advice in order to create dishes and meals that are not only delicious but also properly nutritious.

Many people who are turning to vegan opt to take a few cooking classes. This is honestly an extremely wise investment not only of your time, but also your health. Due to the large number of foods that you are omitting from your diet it can be very easy to miss out on several key nutrients that you might not even realize you are missing. A good cooking class should teach you how to prepare the meals and cook them properly for maximum flavor but should also devote a bit of time to helping you ensure that you know which foods are critical and how you can make up for missing nutrients.

A couple of cooking classes might seem like a complete waste, but the benefits that you should reap from them makes them very much worthy of the time and effort that you will have to put in. Many people are completely uncertain how they are going to get started when it is time to change to a new dietary style, but typically cooking classes are not necessary. The reason that cooking classes are so helpful for Vegan is due to the fact that it is a change that most people aim to make for life, not just a short diet that they are trying to lose a couple of pounds.

These is a key fact which makes it remarkably different from most other dietary styles and helps to further emphasize the reality that you need to properly know how to prepare meals so that you can stay healthy the entire time you are eating vegan. A few days in a cooking class will pay off and can even serve as a fabulous inspiration of what is possible when you are skilled at vegan cooking and are capable of creating your own truly amazing vegan dishes. The lessons will also allow you to try some new foods in ways you might have never imagined as well, which brings a lot of new dishes to your collection and is certainly an added benefit.


 

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