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Vegetable Dishes Your Kids Will Beg For
Vegetables are a great way to provide the necessary vitamins and minerals to your family. However, how many times have you told your children to eat their vegetables? Probably a lot. Most children seem to have an aversion to vegetables. They will push them around their plate, refuse to eat them and cry. Whether you are trying out vegetable soup recipes or good vegetable grill recipes, children know when you have sneaked healthy vegetables into their meal, and they will probably kick up a fuss.
Vegetables do not have to be the enemy. All you need to do is find a creative way to cook them and your family will love them - guaranteed! When you stop and think about it, when you were a child and your mother dropped a droopy, soggy, green hunk of broccoli on your plate, would you eat it? Probably not.
There are ways to make your children eat their vegetables. Broccoli, for example, is very high in both vitamins and minerals and there are various ways of preparing it. Good vegetable grill recipes usually turn out great and a lot of kids love these but what if that is not enough and your child still complains? Here are some tips:
Raw - you can put a plateful of raw broccoli in bite size pieces in the refrigerator, arranged around a little dish of salad dressing. Children love to dip their food and serving it in this way is something new for them. Leave the tips of the broccoli on the plate and either encourage your child to eat some or make a game of it. Grilled vegetable recipes are not the only way to prepare veggies.
If all else fails, bribery often works. Tell your child that they will get a special treat if they finish their vegetables. Make sure you have a treat for them afterwards.
Use cheese. Cheese and broccoli go very well together. If you pour a cheese sauce over the broccoli, you are adding texture and changing the flavor. You might find your children eat the broccoli in cheese before whatever else you have served with it.
Lasagna and Pizza - you can add broccoli to lasagna and cover it in cheese and sauce. Your children might not even realize the dish contains broccoli. You could also use a vegetable pizza recipe to make a delicious and nutritious vegetable pizza. Kids think of lasagna and pizza as fun foods and will be more likely to eat them without a fuss and without questioning the contents.
Chop it up - if all else fails, pre cook the broccoli and let it cool a little and put it in a food processor. Chop it up until it is not recognizable and add it to whatever dish you are cooking. Your children will not even know it is there.
Shakes - make a milkshake using ice cream milk and a lot of chocolate syrup. Add the broccoli to the shake as you are blending it. The taste of the chocolate will hide the taste of the broccoli. Just make sure that the ice cream that you use has chunks of something in it that is not hard to find in grocery stores.
There are so many ways that you can get your children to eat their vegetables. It is a very important part of their nutrition.
Low Calorie And Vegetarian Recipes - The Mouthwatering One
Many people tend to sit on the fence when it comes to a decision to switch to healthy diet. This is because they believe that they will have to give up their demand for palate to go for low calorie and vegetarian recipes. Well, the good news is that there are actually tasty alternatives, and I am about to give you two examples.
1. Vegetarian Black Bean Burgers To prepare this dish, you will need:
* 1 can of black beans
* 1/2 of an onion
* 1/2 cup of flour
* 2 slices of bread
* 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
* 1 teaspoon of onion powder
* 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
* salt and pepper
Follow the steps below for cooking:
a) Dice and sauté the onion for 4 to 5 minutes to make it soft.
b) Pour the black beans into a large bowl and mash them until they are almost smooth.
c) Add to the mashed black beans with the sauteed onions, garlic powder, onion powder, and seasoned salt.
d) Crumble up the sliced bread and add them to the mixture.
e) Add the flour to the mixture, a few tablespoons each time. Keep stirring after each addition.
f) Put a small amount of oil into a frying pan, heat it up.
g) Scoop some of the mixture out of the bowl with your hands, and shape it into a pattie that is about 1/2 thick.
h) Fry the patties until they are firm.
Have a try and you will be amazed at the wonderful taste of the burgers.
2. Tofu Scramble
If you have ever tried vegetarian diet, you will know that tofu is always used as a meat substitute. And, the tofu scramble which we are about to try can be served as a wonderful substitute for scrambled eggs.
The following will be needed to prepare this dish:
* 1 block of tofu, drained and press
* 1/2 yellow onion
* 1/2 green pepper
* 1 teaspoon garlic powder
* 1 teaspoon onion powder
* 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
* 1 tablespoon soy sauce
* 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
* 2 teaspoons oil or margarine
Here is how to cook:
a) Cut the tofu into one inch cubes, and crumble it slightly with a fork.
b) Dice the onion and bell pepper.
c) Add some oil or margarine to a skillet, and set the heat to medium-high.
d) Add the onion, green pepper and tofu to the skillet. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes.
e) Add garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, soy sauce, and nutritional yeast to the skillet.
f) Cook the tofu scramble for 6 or 7 minutes, stirring frequently. When it is done, pour onto a plate and enjoy.
You may also add your favorite vegetables to this tofu scramble, just as what you may do with scrambled eggs. Some common choices include tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, and carrots.
If you just give a try to these two recipes, you will be convinced that low calorie and vegetarian recipes do not have to be bland or boring. In fact, there are thousands of vegetarian dishes out there that are tasty, easy to make, and yet good for your health.
Eating Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate, sometimes refered to as plain chocolate, is manufactured by adding fat and sugar to the cacao bean, without milk being added. Some would say milk contaminates the purity of the cacao bean. Perhaps they are right, I won't argue though! If you are going to eat chocolate, then choose a dark chocolate candy bar or the same in smaller quantity. It is one of the many varieties of chocolate available today, not necessarily everyone's favorite, but definately a healthy choice. You can purchase bars, truffles, drinks, and more. The awesome thing about this is, no matter what form you choose, you can still enjoy the heath benefits of dark chocolate. There are quite a few different benefits offered by dark chocolate. Not only is it delicious, but for one it can be used to enhance moods. This should be law on Mondays! If you ever feel down in the dumps you can eat some chocolate and it can make you feel better, as proven medically. Just look in the face of a child who's crying and put chocolate on the tongue and you'll see! Chocolate actually contains quite a few different chemicals that are associated with happy emotions. Holidays, like christmas, Easter and Valentines Day are a perfect examples of happy celebrations that include all kinds of chocolate. Dark chocolate is also full of antioxidants, which can help prevent heart disease, and lower blood pressure, and improve blood flow like the plant phenols(anti-oxidants) from the cocoa plant. I have read that pure dark chocolate has more anti-oxidants than red wine. Keep in mind that if you want to get the most benefits from your dark chocolate, you should buy it in its pure form because other forms of chocolate have been manufactured with additives that have removed parts of the pure chocolate. You can talk to your doctor for more information on this, but they will definitely agree and tell you that there are many health benefits offered by chocolate, dark and other types. "Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies." -Artist/cartoonist John Q. Tullius Just as with wine, which is supposedly healthy to drink a glass of it a day, but not healthy if you splurge with it, the same applies to eating dark chocolate, or any other type of chocolate. A bit of it will be good for you but too much of it will add layers to your waist line! Moderation keeps the smile and the opportunity to have more.
Rose Gardening Tips
Planting is the first step to consider when compiling a list of rose gardening tips. Folklore tells us to plant flowering plants when the moon is in a waxing phase. Indeed all plants that produce their most desirable growth above ground are said to be best planted during the time the moon is growing into its biggest, most visible, phase. (In turn, plant carrots, potatoes, and other plants where underground action is most desirable when the moon is waning, or becoming less visible.) Trim your hair, visit your barber, or comb your dog the day before planting your roses. This, another of folklore's rose gardening tips, ensures you’ll have a bit of hair to mix in with the soil in which you plant your roses. Decomposing hair is said to provide excellent fertilizer for thriving roses. Sunshine is one of the most important rose gardening tips. Make sure to plant your roses, always during their dormant phase, in a spot where they can get at lease six hours of full sun every day. Rose gardening tips include trees, too. Keep your roses away from tree roots, especially deciduous trees, or they will divert the soils nutrients from your hungry roses. Roses need lots of room to breathe fresh air so add plenty of space to your rose gardening tips. Fungal infections are persistent problems with roses and room for adequate air circulation might help minimize this problem. Aphids like your roses as much as you do. You might include a thriving population of ladybugs in your rose gardening tips. Ladybugs (also known as green fly) like your aphids as much as aphids like your roses. Pruning is a tricky item to add to your rose gardening tips. Proper pruning will either make or break next seasons blooming phase and proper pruning depends upon which type of rosebush you’ve got. Trailing roses have different needs than bushy or stately roses. Those that bloom once each year require different pruning techniques than those that are ever blooming.
Vegetarian Eating
The health benefits connected with vegetarianism go beyond simply having better eating habits. People who have been following a traditional vegetarian diet for many years may be healthier because they also tend to avoid or use less alcohol, caffeine and refined foods. They also tend to have other positive lifestyle habits including being more physically active, having less stressful lifestyles and being non-smokers.
Vegetarianism has been part of the lifestyle of many religious and cultural groups for centuries. But vegetarianism is a more recent phenomenon in North America.
Despite the interest in vegetarianism, only about 4 percent of Canadians define themselves as vegetarians. But the desire to adopt a more vegetarian eating pattern is truly here. Thirty percent of Canadian grocery shoppers now serve meatless meals on a regular basis.
The term "vegetarian" is used quite broadly to describe individuals ranging from true or pure vegetarians, to lacto-ovo vegetarians and semi-vegetarians.
True vegetarians or vegans avoid all foods of animal origin, including eggs, dairy foods, gelatin and honey. Lacto-ovo vegetarians avoid all animal products except eggs (ovo) and milk products (lacto). Most vegetarians fall into this category.
People who are moving towards a vegetarian food-style are called semi-vegetarians. These individuals are eating less animal foods but are not ready to give them up for good. Eggs, milk products and limited amounts of fish, chicken and sometimes meat are still eaten.
A vegetarian diet, based primarily on plant foods, is higher in carbohydrates and lower in fat than meals containing animal foods. When this diet includes plenty of whole grains, fruit and vegetables it also provides fibre, antioxidant nutrients and plant phytochemicals which play a role in chronic disease prevention. Respectively taken from here because i love it
HOW TO BECOME A VEGETARIAN
Vegetarianism is the only natural way of eating for humans
There are clear anatomical, physiological and psychological evidences of that.
Structure of digestive organs and composition of digestive secrets of human body is the best to acquire plant food, namely fruits including fruits themselves, vegetables, nuts, and grains.
Saying figuratively, human being is designed to consume fruits. However, the main evidence pro vegetarianism is its pleasantness and simplicity when it is right. Please let me explain what is right vegetarianism.
Being vegetarian presents currently a big difficulty
Since vegetarian diet is the most suitable human being, it ought to be pleasant, easy and joyful for us. However, people who try to transit to vegetarianism experience big difficulties instead. Several days of strict vegetarian diet would surely wake up a hungry beast of prey within you.
Many famous people failed in adherence to vegetarianism and appeared later to be not vegetarian - despite reports.
However, even people who currently reckon themselves as vegetarians are not such in the original sense of that word. In point of fact, there is no true vegetarianism among varied present lifestyles called vegetarian.
This means that something is wrong with vegetarianism at present.
What is amiss in the present vegetarianism?
Thus, we see that lifestyles pretending to be vegetarian are not natural contrary to the expectations. Their followers have to take pills or some kinds of animal food mainly because of principal absence of vitamin B12 in usual plant foods.
However, the problem can be easily solved in full accordance with the basic vegetarian principles.
The matter is that vitamin B12 missing in plant food appears within fruits as a result of fermentation after they come off their mother plant mature, or cutting off and following long-term lying in a warm place.
The fermentation occurs owing to activity of good microflora (community of microorganisms) that naturally lives within fruits. Remember how nice are slightly overripe fruits (bananas, kiwis, pears, for example). The nice taste of such fruits accords to their benefits! Our feelings do not mislead us!
But usually such fruits are treated as refuse. Really, they are perishable, and quickly turn bad.
However, just such fruits should be eaten. And just consumption of such fruits (or their substitutes - see further) makes vegetarianism in true sense of the word possible and allows us to reject any animal food and artificial supplements. You just experience no wish for animal food if you consume overripe fruits.
Besides production of vitamin B12, good microflora destroys some specific substances within fruits (phytates). Those substances prevent absorption of essential minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc etc. - another common problem of the present vegetarianism that is currently solved by means of supplements. Maybe this microflora improves fruits in some other ways too.
In a wonderful way, this way of eating corresponds to the basic principle of vegetarianism that tells us not to injure any living creature.
Saying living creature we usually imply 'animal', but plants are alive too and one injures them when one picks fruits, leaves, stems, shoots from them, or entire plant from the ground. Thus, we shouldn't eat food obtained in that way. Of course, we mustn't injure plants for any other purpose.
In the case we eat ripe and overripe fruits fallen off their mother plants we do not injure plants.
Available substitutes of ripe fruits
Of course, at present it's practically impossible to obtain enough supplies of ripe and overripe fruits. Currently fruits are produced industrially and taken unripe for the purpose of shipping and storage. However, this is no reason for giving up.
There are several easy ways to overcome the problem.
1. Leaving purchase fruits in a warm place for several days to let them ripen. 2. Leaving a mass of crushed/rubbed/cut/pulped fruits sit in a warm place for several hours (a night, for example). 3. Leaving extracted juice of fresh fruits sit several hours (a night, for example). 4. Leaving cut fruits, plus cold water with sugar dissolved in it, for a couple of days in a warm place (a night, for example).
Don't put together different kinds of fruits! The matter is that different fruits contain different types of the microorganisms that can prevent activity of each other.
Consume the foods and beverages obtained in these ways any time you want and as much as you want. Rely on you feeling, and relish them, they are not pills!
Those fermented foods and drinks are to be merely additives to your vegetarian board. You need not live on them only. But it is important that you refuse eating green parts of plants (lettuce, fennel, parsley etc) because they contain bitter substances that suppress that good microflora.
My own experience
More that two years ago I became a vegetarian without the intention. I conducted one of my usual kitchen experiments, namely I added to my meals a homemade fermented beverage. As a result I started to note that my piece of chicken always stayed untouched on my plate whereas my rice was eaten. I just did not want to eat any animal food and do not up to this time.
I boiled it again and again several days until it became like a rag. It was the last piece of animal flesh I ever bought.
I also eat neither eggs nor dairy and take neither vitamin nor mineral pills. At this I don't "vegetate"!
Before that I had decided that vegetarianism is not natural human diet because of absence of vitamin B12 in plant food, but I surprised myself.
I should add a couple of noteworthy features of the diet I adhere to, which I consider essential.
I'm not a row food diet follower, and am convinced that mild cooking; especially baking is quite necessary for human health. I believe so because fallen ripe fruits that are apparently the only human natural food ought to be slightly baked under the hot tropical sunlight of biological homeland of humanity.
Also since I accept ripe fruits to be the only natural food, I refuse greens that, incidentally, taste unpleasantly bitter. The bitter flavor just signals and warns us that the food is bad. Of course, the greens are a traditional food, but likewise meat is.
Many "healthy" and vegetarian foods contain MSG in the form of yeast extract
There's a great deal of deception in the labeling of food products found at your local grocery store and even at many health food stores. A disturbing trend I've noticed is that many vegetarian products and grocery items billed as "healthy" or "natural" are using chemical additive taste enhancers found in an ingredient listed right on the label.
The taste enhancer is MSG -- monosodium glutamate -- a chemical that has been associated with reproductive disorders, migraine headaches, permanent damage to the endocrine system leading to obesity and other serious disorders. MSG is a chemical compound that simply does not belong in the body in the concentrations provided by these foods. It is used by food manufacturers as a taste enhancer -- something to cover up the bland tastes of these foods and make them more appealing to consumers. But food manufacturers don't want to list MSG on the labels, especially when they know that consumers will avoid purchasing products that list MSG.
So what do they do instead? They hide the ingredient in another ingredient called "yeast extract", then they put yeast extract in the product and list "yeast extract" right on the label. So this is the scam: all sorts of natural health products and vegetarian products are using chemical taste enhancers in the form of yeast extract but failing to disclose to consumers that they actually contain MSG. And if you look around at the natural health products in health food stores and grocery stores, you'll find that yeast extract is a rather prominent ingredient. It's used in soups, in vegetarian mixes, in some tofu mixes, and even so-called natural frozen foods.
I can personally verify that yeast extract has the same effect as MSG, because I am an individual who is extremely sensitive to MSG. Upon consuming even a small amount of MSG, I experience a severe headache that lasts for 6 to 8 hours. Consuming yeast extract causes precisely the same effect as consuming MSG.
In fact, food manufacturers don't deny that yeast extract contains MSG -- it's something that's well-known in the food manufacturing industry. What's going on here is a blatant deception -- an attempt to mislead consumers by essentially renaming dangerous ingredients with harmless sounding names such as "yeast extract". I believe this practice to be irresponsible and unethical, and I strongly urge you to not only avoid purchasing products made with yeast extract, but avoid products from companies that use yeast extract in any of their products. It is simply a dishonest practice, and we should not reward companies that engage in such practices by purchasing any products they manufacture.
Unfortunately, many of these food manufacturers are creating products for the so-called health foods industry. In a way that is sadly all too real, traditional grocery products and processed foods will list MSG right on the label. At the same time, so-called healthy products will use yeast extract, so they can avoid mentioning MSG on the label. Yet, both products contain MSG, and both products carry the risk of toxic side effects associated with MSG.
So, are you any safer by purchasing health foods rather than traditional grocery store foods? The answer is that you should avoid purchasing processed foods at all, regardless of what health claims are made on the label. Processed foods are unhealthy foods, period. If you want optimum nutrition, and foods for which the human body was designed, you need to purchase and consume raw ingredients, such as vegetables, fruit, nuts, whole grains, and healthy oils. It's also a good idea, as you've often heard me recommend here, to supplement your diet with whole food supplements, organic vitamins, and superfoods, such as chlorella, spirulina, broccoli sprouts and sea vegetables. This is the way to achieve optimum nutrition, not by purchasing processed foods that are disguised as healthy foods, even though they contain ingredients known to induce toxic side-effects in the human body.
But don't take my word for it -- check it out yourself. Next time you go to a health food store, look at the product boxes and cans on the shelves, and see just how many you can find that contain yeast extract. It's especially easy to find with vegetarian foods, which just goes to show you that just because a product says "vegetarian" on the label doesn't mean it's good for you (or that the company making it gives a hoot about your health).
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