You’ve finally made the decision to change your eating habits and dive head first into a vegetarian lifestyle. Now you have to decide whether to go? Cold turkey? Or make the transition gradually.

Whichever way to choose to start your vegetarian lifestyle, you can will notice the health benefits of vegetarianism.By firstly significantly reducing the amount of meats consumed, and making vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains the focus of your meals.

Take your time when shopping for food, plan ahead, and make sure you read food labels to ascertain information about food additives, food coloring and hidden animal ingredients. If you decide to eat dairy products, choose non-fat or low-fat varieties.

There is a wide variety of vegetarian foods available in most grocery stores; however, some of the more uncommon items may need to be sourced from one of the many specialty vegetarian food stores. Eat a wide variety of foods, and don’t be afraid to try vegetables, fruits, grains, breads, nuts, or seeds that you’ve never tried before. Convenient, ready-to-eat, whole-grain breakfast cereals, and quick-cooking whole-grain cereals such as oatmeal, whole-grain breads and crackers, such as rye, whole wheat.

*You should give consideration to the following foods:- *Canned beans, such as pinto, black beans, and garbanzo beans *Rice (including brown, wild, etc.) and pasta (now available in whole wheat, spinach, and other flavors) with tomato sauce and canned beans and/or chopped veggies *Vegetarian soups like lentil, navy bean, or minestrone *A wide variety of plain frozen vegetables, and canned and frozen fruit *Fortified soy milks and soy cheeses, should you choose to not eat dairy *A wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, which should be the core of any diet

As a matter of fact you will find it easy and fun to serve up such healthy, tasty and perhaps life prolonging meals that you and your family will thoroughly enjoy.

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Filed under: Vegetarian

There are a few distinct differences between vegetarian and raw food diets. Basically, a vegetarian is someone who is committed to not eat meat, fish, poultry or any animal products, but only consumes vegetables, pasta, and rice. On the other hand, a raw foodist is a vegetarian, but one who eats unprocessed, uncooked, organic, whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds, legumes, dried fruits, seaweeds, etc. It denotes a diet that is at least 75% uncooked! Raw foodist cooks very little and definitely doesn’t cook or process fruits and vegetables. Raw foodist simply eats them raw.

Raw foodist, vegans and frutarians are some of the different categories of vegetarians. Yes, raw foodist is a category of vegetarianism as mentioned earlier. However, to be a raw food purist, you should eat raw vegetables like raw broccoli, not steamed. To a vegetarian, who doesn’t eat meat or fish or any animal products, steamed vegetables are just as good, though every person would concur that steaming can take out nutrients from foods and turn them into less nutritious. A vegetarian might consume dairy or egg products but a vegan will not consume any animal products at all. The raw foodist then is a vegan who consumes only uncooked, unprocessed raw foods.

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Filed under: Raw food

A raw plant base diet is one way to experience natural weight loss as well as improved health, increased energy and even more health benefits.

Many believe that a raw vegan diet is the natural diet for humans. It seems like people on raw food diets can eat almost as much as they want and still maintain a healthy weight. The theory is that before the caveman discovered how to harness fire, they had to eat all of their food raw. Once they begin using fire they slowly incorporated cooked foods into their diet.

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Filed under: Raw food