Saving the earth one step at a time

 “I did not become a vegetarian for my health; I did it for the health of the chickens.”

My love for animals has made me become vegetarian. Although I have only been vegetarian for 3 months I have wanted to become a vegetarian for a long time. I am not saying that because you aren’t a vegetarian you don’t love animals, but for me a way to care for them is not to eat any type of meat or fish.

Being a vegetarian isn’t easy. You have to make sure you are getting the right nutrients and make sure you are getting enough of them. I have had to make a lot of changes in my diet to make sure that I stay healthy.  It is hard going to a restaurant and only having 2 to 4 choices of vegetarian meals that don’t include salads, and it is usually the same thing in every restaurant.

That is why I am going to do two things in this blog:

1.       Look for vegetarian recipes, make them, and give them a review.

2.       Make my own healthy vegetarian recipes.

My goal is to use a nutrients vegetarians lack as the main part of the recipe and by the end of this project have many recipes that other people and I can use that are good and healthy!

The top 5 nutrients vegetarians lack is protein, calcium, iron, zinc, and vitamin B12.

		Non-Vegetarians	Vegetarians
Protein		Beef, chicken, pork, and fish.	Eggs, dairy, beans, nuts and seeds.
Calcium		Fish	Dried herbs, cheese, tofu, almonds, yogurt and milk.
Iron		Red meat, mollusks, turkey, chicken, and artichokes.	Dark greens, dried fruit, soy beans, lentils, and chick peas.
Zinc		Oysters, roast beef, and lamb.	Sesame, roasted pumpkin and squash seeds, and dark chocolate.
Vitamin B12		Clams, oysters, mussels, caviar, beef, lamb, crab, and lobster.	Eggs and cheese

As you can see there aren’t many options you can choose to substitute most meat or fish. That is why I would like to not only teach myself, but to teach others the importance of them getting enough of the nutrients they need. It may also be harder to get enough nutrients if you have a different vegetarian diet.

You may not know but there are different types of vegetarian diets. The most common types of are pesco-vegetarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian, lacto vegetarian, ovo vegetarian and vegan.

• Pesco-vegetarians are vegetarians that include only include fish in their diet.
• Lacto-ovo vegetarians are vegetarians that eat dairy products, eggs, fruit vegetables, greens, grains, soy products, nuts and honey.
• Lacto Vegetarians are vegetarians that do not eat eggs but they do eat dairy products.
• Ovo vegetarians are vegetarians that eat eggs but not dairy products.
• Vegans are vegetarians that do not eat anything from animals, like honey. They try not to use products made with animal byproducts.

I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I usually don’t say I am, but you see these different types of groups of vegetarianism I fall into the lacto-ovo group. This is also the most common group.

I hope to learn a lot from this project and experiment with other types of ingredients that I wouldn’t usually use.  By the end it is my goal to be as healthy as everyone else, especially those that aren’t a vegetarian.