There are a bunch of really cool veg restaurants in the city and over winter break why not go check one out? I love going to Candle Cafe on the lower east side because the menu is so extensive when you’ve been living off of mainly beans and rice for a while. For the Holidays on of the presents my mom got me was “The Candle Cafe Cookbook”. I definitely want to try these recipes out and see which ones I can bring to school for lunch.
Other restaurants include
There is a new documentary on dumpster diving out called “Dive!”. It is about how much food can be found in the dumpsters of America and while this isn’t directly related to vegetarianism it is interesting and important when discussing how much waste there is and how we can better feed the people of America who need it.
Check it out!
Many Americans simply throw medicines and chemicals at their bodies when something is off. From Tums for stomach pain and Advil for headaches there seems to be an endless stream of products for every discomfort. There is a strange disconnect between what we eat and how we feel. Try recognizing what is causing the pain and then use foods that are good for you to get rid of the discomfort. When I get a headache from an overly sweet dessert after a long time with none I turn to Alicia Silverstone’s tea, she adds umeboshi plums. A cool thing about being a vegetarian is that you become an expert in the field of you and can decide what makes you feel better or worse while I wouldn’t have associated the cake with the headache before I was a vegetarian I now knew that it must have been from that.
http://www.petacatalog.com/products/Vegetarian_Celebrity_US_PhotoStamps-641-21.html
Athletes, actors, and thinkers alike have been vegetarians and paved the way for today’s vegetarian movement. Recently PETA has created a line of stamps and each stamp is a famous vegetarian. The stamps feature Natalie Portman, Ellen DeGeneres, Paul McCartney among others. There are a lot of famous vegetarians out there. Tony Gonzalez of the Atlanta Flacons was a vegetarian for 10 year and Mac Danzig is a vegan UFC fighter. This just goes to show that a pro-athletes lifestyle can be supported by veganism.
My friend is a vegetarian who has recently told me she is deficient in omega-3s and might have to start eating seafood. Omega-3 is a fatty acid that is essential for brain function, growth and development and have even been linked to decreasing heart disease. Your body can’t make them, it has to get them from food. Both vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike can be deficient. The question is how to get Omega 3’s as a vegetarian. Certain foods such as walnuts, avocados, soy, nuts, seeds, and olives have essential Omegas. Some oils that are rich in Omega-3’s include flaxseed and hempseed. Flaxseed is also available in a powder that makes it easier to digest. You can add it to everything from nut butters to smoothies. Walnuts are a really good way to get Omega-3 and if you don’t like them you can always disguise them by adding them to muffins, brownies, oatmeal or even just eating them with honey or maple syrup.
I love soups especially in the winter because they are warm and make me feel wholesome. This lentil soup from Vegan Yack Attack looks really good. I must try it!
I along with many others believe that dairy is not essential for humans to consume however it has been a part of society for a long time. During World War II the food and health administration started a campaign to promote milk drinking because many Americans fell short on essential vitamins and minerals and had low BMIs. Today this campaign is still enforced except the times have changed, people don’t fear for lack of calories. Many people are lactose and tolerant to some extent. I was not aware until I had stopped eating it for a couple months and had something containing it how sensitive I had become to it. I got piercing headaches (from the sugar in the cake) as well as stomach pain.
Cows are injected with many steroids and antibiotics to produce more and as a result the milk that is pumped is also full of these chemicals. This is linked to diseases when researched. (The Kind Diet 35-36) Despite common belief dairy doesn’t have more calcium than leafy greens, sea vegetables, sunflower seeds, other fortified products…Though it is possible to fall short on certain proteins and minerals as a vegan it is also possible to lack essential things as a vegetarian and as a meat-eater. When eliminating foods in a healthy way the transition can be very smooth.
Nomads did not have herds of cows that they milked but instead they had lots of leafy greens and their bones show good development. Think about it, what other species consumes the milk of another animal? Even cows stop drinking cows milk after they are babies. We are the only species that turn to the milk of other mammals. An example of a society that has existed and thrived without milk and dairy are asian countries which have spent centuries without dairy and have had less examples of osteoporosis in comparison to countries that do consume dairy.
sosoyme 