Vegetarian and Vegan Meal Planning Ideas PLUS ... Dairy Free Muffin Recipe

By Rebecca Bennett

In a vegan or vegetarian diet, it may take time to explore new foods and develop some form of routine to it. There are many different products on the market today for vegans and vegetarians to choose from - keep experimenting to find your or your families personal preferences and tastes.

You should be-able to find quite a good amount of vegetarian and vegan products at supermarkets, natural health food stores and co-ops.

When baking, you can use substitutes like egg replacers, cornstarch or bananas to replace eggs.

Soy, rice and nut milks are great replacements for cow's milk. Plus there are many other dairy alternatives around like: vegan cheese, yoghurts, frozen non-dairy ice creams, and cream cheeses. These are all easily sourced through health stores or supermarkets worldwide.

If you are stuck for ideas on some quick easy menu ideas, here are some sample meal menu items for you to consider:

** Breakfast

- Pancakes

- Soy Yoghurts

- Fruit Smoothies

- Wholemeal Toast or Cereals

** Lunch/Dinner

- Veggie Mock Meat and salad sandwich

- Veggie Sausages or hot dogs

- Veggie or Soy Burger

- Simple Prepared Salads

- Tofu Kebabs or Wraps

- Veggie Fried Rice

- Tomato & Pasta Bake

- Soup or Curry Vegetables

- Veggie Stir fry with Tofu, tempeh, or seitan

- Baked Vegetables with Rosemary & Garlic Herbs

** Snacks /Dessert

- Cookies

- Cake

- Non-Dairy Ice Cream

- Dried Fruits & Nuts

- Fresh Fruits

- Chickpeas

- Popcorn

- Pretzels

- Soy or Veggie Crisps or Chips

- Vegan Pies

So as you can see there are an abundance of tasty foods on offer for vegetarians of all kinds, the tastes and wonders of one's food choices is only limited by one's own imagination.

If have you ever wondered how vegetarians, vegans or people just wishing to avoid dairy products make delicious tasting and looking cakes and sweets without much effort at all?

Unless you are a vegetarian or 100% animal free cooker, chances are that you have never cooked without animal ingredients like eggs and dairy. In fact, if you don't know any vegetarians personally you might not even be aware that you can cook without any animal by-products like, eggs and dairy.

Vegetarians are able to maintain a very healthy diet eating any number of traditional meals or sweets minus animal by-products.

And you don't have to be a vegetarian to benefit from such things, even if you'd just like to cut down on animal by-products for the many health benefits involved or if you are lactose intolerant, have vegetarian friends you'd like to cook for or are trying to avoid cholesterol . . . you don't have to feel you will miss out on all those wonderful sweets and treats you feel you can't live without. Because cooking minus animal by-products is so simple and easy you won't believe it until you experience it for yourself.

So I urge you to try the below recipe for yourself and then decide if vegetarians just eat rabbit food or not. You might be surprised. And you might even be shocked that you won't even notice these muffins are not cooked using any eggs or diary.

** Dairy Free Choc Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup coconut

1 and 1/2 cups flour

3 Tbsp cocoa or carob powder

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190C.

2. Mix first 6 ingredients in a bowl until blended through.

3. Sift the remaining ingredients and blend in bowl until just combined.

4. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Servings: 6 large muffins or 12 smaller muffins

If you are not a vegetarian but are considering becoming one don't let the fear of eating egg or diary free stop you. If you already are a vegetarian or don't eat dairy or eggs for other reasons, and have not tried cooking sweets, you might want to try it. It's so simple and easy if you know how and have access to proven recipes. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/377121

Three Awesome Health Benefits of Carrots

By Steve D Wright

We are all familiar with the bright orange, crunchy vegetable known as the carrot, and whether you like them or not, they are a food that is bursting with nutritional benefits. In this article I am going to portray 3 awesome health benefits of carrots for you, which will hopefully either educate, or remind you, as to why this is a food that you just can't afford to leave out of you diet.

Do you know how many calories are in carrots, or perhaps which vitamin the carrot is able to provide you with in excess of your total daily dietary requirement? There really is a lot to learn when it comes to how, and why a food is going to do your body good. We are all responsible for only really eating the foods that we like the taste of, whether or not they are having a positive or negative effect, rarely crosses the mind. The carrot is one example of a vegetable that tastes fantastic and is crammed with nutrients that your body craves, doing you no end of good.

Without any further ado let me explain 3 brilliant nutritional benefits of carrots that will have you crunching away like Bugs Bunny in no time at all.

Vitamin A goldmine

There is no doubt that the biggest and best benefit that can be obtained from eating carrots is the fact that they are a gold mine of vitamin A, in fact if vitamin A was a currency those that grow carrots would be rich! You need vitamin A for good vision long lasting vision(particularly your ability to see better in the dark), to maintain a strong and effective immune system, as well as for maintaining healthy and radiant skin.

So how much vitamin A are we talking about here?

Well with 1 large raw carrot weighing 72 grams you are able to get 2,028 international units, which is an enormous 241% of the total required in a day for the average adult. This includes a large dose of alpha carotene and beta carotene, which is made into vitamin A inside your body.

When you consider that most fruits and vegetables contribute to the total dietary requirement of all of the essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs, it truly is an outstanding feat for just one vegetable to be able to provide such a large amount.

A great source of potassium

Potassium is a mineral that is known as an 'essential mineral'. It has this name because your body requires a higher level of it than other dietary minerals that are referred to as 'trace minerals'. One brilliant carrot nutrition fact is that you can get 230 milligrams of potassium from one large 72 gram raw carrot, which is a sturdy 7% of the total you should be consuming each day. This makes a serving of carrot a great contributory factor to getting a very important nutrient.

Potassium is needed in order to help your muscles work, and to recover when they are tired. It also acts as a source of energy, as well as helping to regulate your blood pressure and nervous system. As you can see this is a pretty important nutrient and one that you should not be going without.

Contributes nicely to your manganese levels

A highly important mineral, even if it is only a trace mineral. You are going to be getting just 0.1 milligram of manganese by eating a large raw carrot, but this is in fact 5% of the total you need in a day. So carrots can provide a very positive contribution when it comes to the manganese in your diet.

For something that we need so little of, manganese is a mineral that is responsible for some rather important things. This trace mineral allows the body to convert fat and proteins into energy, it helps the body in it's ability to absorb other nutrients that it needs, as well as helping your blood to clot when you experience any type of bleed. What's more, manganese is critical to your nervous system working properly.

Put the above three nutritional benefits of carrots together with the fact that they are also a brilliant source of dietary fiber, and surely you have enough of case to give them more of a chance.

Are there any negative aspects to carrots?

Other than orange being a color you might not like to wear, there is nothing that I can point out that would sway you towards not considering the carrot as part of your diet. Of course there is the fact that you eat them as opposed to wearing them as well.

When it comes to negative aspects of food such as their sugar, fat and cholesterol levels, I can assure you that the carrot wins top prize here too. It does not contain any cholesterol, it is low in sugar, and with only 0.3 g of fat for every 100 g of raw carrot, it is very low in that to. I would also like to point out of that 0.3 g of fat, none of it is saturated fat.

These are just three of the many health benefits of carrots, and if you were to dig a little deeper as to the various carrot nutrition facts based upon the other vitamins and minerals that it contains, you will be even more impressed.

I'm not sure that there are too many vegetables as versatile as the carrot, in that you can eat it both raw and cooked, hot and cold. It can be one of a variety of vegetables you have with a main meal, or the focal point of a salad. You can have carrot sticks as a snack on their own or with a dip. In fact if you eat carrots with something that has fat in, you are helping your body to absorb the fat soluble carotenoids that your body contains.

My advice to you is to make carrots a regular food in your diet, in order to reap the nutritional carrot benefits that they provide. Miss it, and quite simply miss out. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7171967

Benefits of Carrots, Carrots Nutrition, Carrot Benefits, Carrot Nutritio...

Top Health Benefits of Carrots

By Jeff K Andrews

The health benefits of carrots can be traced back to when it was originally cultivated in the Middle Eastern, central Asian countries and parts of Europe thousands of years ago. These original carrots did not resemble the carrots we see today. There were purple, red and yellow colored carrots. During the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, carrots were widely cultivated and were initially brought to North America around this time.

In the commercial marketplace today, China produces approximately one-third of all the carrots that are bought and sold all over the world. Russia is second and the United States is a close third. Currently American adults consume approximately 12 pounds of carrots yearly.

The name "carrot" is derived from the word "karoton", which is Greek. The first three letters -kar designate a horn-like shape, referring to the part of the carrot that is underground and generally eaten.

The Nutrient Value of the Raw Carrot

The Food Chart that details the percentage of daily value of a single serving of carrots shows that each serving provides an excellent, very good or good %DV of the necessary nutrients and confirms the health benefits of carrots. Because of this, carrots are considered one of the world's healthiest foods. Carrots contain over 80 nutrients. One cup (122.00 grams) of raw carrots has 52.46 calories.

Health Benefits of Carrots

The carrot a root vegetable that is renowned for its rich supply of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant nutrient that gained its name from the carrot because of the large quantities the carrot contains.

A carrot contains many other nutrients as well. The carrot offers a multitude of other nutrients that benefit the cardiovascular system, have anti-cancer properties and assist the immune system.

Antioxidant Benefits in the Carrot

All the different varieties of the carrot contain very valuable amounts of nutrients with antioxidant values. The more traditional antioxidant vitamin C and the phytonutrient antioxidant beta-carotene are just a couple of the many antioxidants the carrot contains.

The amount of phytonutrient antioxidants varies depending on the variety of carrot. For example, the purple and red carrots are well-known for their abundance of the antioxidant anthocyanin. The orange carrots are loaded with beta-carotene, accounting for 65% of their entire carotenoid content. Half of the yellow carrots carotenoids are from lutein. It does not matter which variety is chosen, each contains excellent antioxidant benefits.

The Cardiovascular Benefits of the Carrot

It is not a surprise that numerous studies have shown that the health benefits of carrots extend to cardiovascular benefits. Much of this is due to their rich antioxidant content. The cardiovascular system is in need of constant protection from free radical damage. This is especially true for the arteries because they are responsible for transporting highly oxygenated blood throughout the body.

In a study that was recently done in the Netherlands, participants were monitored over a period of ten years. This study has provided us with some riveting new information concerning carrots and the role they play in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD).

During this study the participants' fruit and vegetable intake was categorized according to color. The focus of this study was on four colors: orange/yellow, green, white and red/purple.

The orange/yellow variety of fruits and vegetables was found to be more protective against CVD than the other colors. The deeper the shade of orange/yellow the more protection the food offered.

In the dark orange/yellow group of foods, carrots were found to be the one main risk-reducing food concerning CVD. The participants who did not eat very many carrots had the smallest amount of risk reduction for CVD. Even so, they still received some reduced risk of CVD from their carrot intake.

Participants, who consumed 25 more grams, which is almost one-quarter cup of carrots, had a significant decrease in their risk of CVD. The participants who consumed 50 to 75 grams more demonstrated an even higher reduction in their risk of CVD. This study surely demonstrates how easily the risk of CVD can be reduced. The best-researched polyacetylenes found in the carrot are falcarindiol and falcarinol. Preliminary research has shown that the polyacetylenes that are found in the carrot have anti-aggregatory properties and anti-inflammatory properties. The anti-aggregatory properties assist in preventing the red blood cells from excessively clumping together.

The Carrot and Vision Health

Growing up our parents always told us to eat our carrots because they were good for our eyes. However, there are not many studies documenting the benefit of carrot consumption on human eye health. The majority of studies have focused on the carotenoid levels in the bloodstream and the carotenoids activity themselves, not the foods, like carrots, that contain them. Even so, there have been smaller scale studies done on humans that show benefits to the health of the eye with the consumption of carrots.

For example, one study showed that women who consumed carrots no less than twice weekly have a lower rate of glaucoma (optic nerve damage generally associated with excessive eye pressure) than women who only consumed carrots on occasion.

Geranyl acetate is one of the photonutrients present in the carrot seed and has been shown to reduce the risk of cataracts in animal studies.

The Anti-Cancer Benefits of Carrots

The majority of the research on the cancer fighting benefits of the carrot was in the area of colon cancer. Some participants in the studies actually drank carrot juice. Other research studied the various human cancer cells in the lab.

Much more research is necessary; however, the results of the studies that have been done to date have been very encouraging. Lab studies indicate that carrot extracts have the ability to inhibit the growth of the cancer cells of the colon. The polyacetylenes that are found in the carrot, especially falcarinol, have been particularly linked to inhibiting the growth of these cells.

A Few Quick Serving Ideas

Raw Carrots

Shredded carrots are a nice addition to a salad as well as being one of the purest ways to enjoy the health benefits of carrots.

Eat carrots as a salad by shredding them and then adding them to chopped beets and apples for a healthy snack.

Cooked Carrots

The best way to cook carrots is to steam them.

Summary

As well as the numerous health benefits of carrots outlined above, the carrot can add a variety of colors and textures to many vegetable dishes and can be enjoyed raw as a tasty snack, cooked or as carrot juice for a nutritious drink. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6788989