Vegetarian Advice, Articles, and Recipes that are more Than Just Salad right from the Angry Giraffe's Mouth.


Saturday, March 31, 2007

The Most Common Question Vegetarians Get ; "Where do you get your protein?!"

If you are a vegetarian no doubt you have been asked many times "where do you get your protein?" by a concerned associate. If you are that concerned friend or family member you have probably asked this question. Maybe you are a new vegetarian and you aren't sure where you are getting your protein, hopefully I can help you out.

So contrary to popular belief to get protein with out meat is not a hard thing to do. You do not have to eat excessive soy products like meatless , processed crap (unless you want to.. then you can go for it haha) or constant tofu. No
w.. let me just say that if anyone is eating a balanced diet they will get all their protein, whether they are eating meat or not. A person needs 5 -6 % of protein in relative to total calorie in take. But most people over eat protein, the average American for example eats..wait for it.. 11-21 % . I don't know the Canadian figures but I would guess that they are probably not far off.

#1:
Veggies

The reason I say that you don't have to live on soy products is that animal protein is not the only type of protein. There is such a thing as vegetable protein. Keep in mind that most veggies don't have much. Tomatoes for example has 2g, asparagus, beet root, and brussel sprouts all have 3g etc. Here is a handy dandy chart to use: http://www.weightlossforall.com/protein-vegetable.htm
Though these foods are lower in protein than meat but they are also lower in fat and calories and have lots of other good stuff in there. So eat your veggies friends!

#2
Whole Grains

Grains are a great way of getting protein and are really good for you especially if you eat whole grains - grains that are not refined. Whole products are whole
wheat bread (pastas, breads, crackers) , multi grain bread, oatmeal etc. One piece of whole wheat bread has 2.4 g of protein, and one bagel has 6 g. These are also a nice choice because they are high in fiber -yay for roughage. ;)



Rice
as well has lots of good stuff in it, but try to stay away from plain, white rice- trust me you'll be missing out. One cup of brown rice has
4.9 g of protein and lots of other good stuff. 1 cup white rice only has 4.1 g .


#3 Beans beans the magical fruit! (Lentils and Beans)

1 cup:

Baked Beans: 5g
Chick Peas: 8g
Soya Beans: 14g
Lima Beans: 14.7
Lentils : 16g

Yum yum - beans!

#4 Nuts and Seeds
Keep in mind it is best to only eat 1 serving of nuts (or one hand full roughly) a day as they are high in fat and oil.

Almond 21g
Cashew nuts 20g
Peanuts 25g
Peanut Butter 22g

#5 Soy


1 cup soy milk
33.4 G
Tofu 8g

#6 Dairy Products

If you are a lacto-ovo vegetarian (ie you still eat animal by products ((not a vegan)) ) then getting protein is beyond easy as eggs and milk are high in protein.

So as you can see as a vegetarian it's very hard not to get enough protein unless you are living on junk food
. Just eat your veggies, whole grains, dairy/soy or beans or nuts -- whatever you want , just make sure the fruits, veggies, and grains are there (that goes for omnivores too!). There is lots of variety in a veg diet (meat does not = variety), you choose what you feel like eating and don't worry about protein.

Good Luck and happy eating!
-The Angry Giraffe.

*(Protein numbers vary)

Friday, March 30, 2007

Making Homemade Vegetable Chips!

Looking for a greasy, Delicious treat? Try switching things up with these yummy, crunchy root veg chips.

First chop up the vegetable that you want to use. I used beets, sweet potato, regular potato, parsnips and carrots. For a more exotic dish try using Lotus root or Taro if you can get your hands on them. Carrots and Parsnips are best cut in long pieces, while other work best cut round and all types should be sliced thinly. Also if you are doing potato it is best to soak the pieces in a bowl of water to suck the starch out.

Next fill a pot with oil and deep fry the vegetables until crisp this should take 2-3 minutes. Then use a skimmer to take the slices out, place them on paper towel to get rid of excess grease, and sprinkle on some sea salt.

These are best served right after cooked, if not the sweet potato tends to go limp.


Chickpea Dinner.

Looking to for a fast and easy meal? Have a can of Chickpeas that you need to use up? Well look no further for a good, light , protein packed meal because I have it right here!

There are really no precise measurements for this recipe, as I pretty much invented it. First if you are using canned Chickpeas, take them out and wash them in strainer. Chop up some veggies of your choice, I used green bell pepper, asparagus (a good spring vegetable), mushrooms and broccoli.

You could also add or substitute spinach, onion, pineapple or what ever you think would be good. Put the chopped up veggies in frying pan, add the cooking oil of your choice, and saute your veggies. Next add curry powder - 1 to 2 tsps depending on how spicy you want the dish to be. I also added some garlic--about half a tsp-- and put some salt in. Add your chickpeas now, as many as you would like in proportion to the veggies. Make sure you don't wait to put these in as they take a while to heat. To make sauce for these recipe add water to the frying pan to cook with the veggies and spices.

When cooked spread over rice. I used white rice, but wild, brown or even coconut would be equally good in my opinion. This recipe take 20 minutes tops to make, 10 minutes for the rice and veggies and 10 for prep.

Bon Appetit~!

Saturday, March 24, 2007

A breif over view on why to lower or elimenate meat consumption.

What's with these crazy vegetarians anyway? Why would they choose not to eat MEAT? ;) Well there are many reasons.
Some vegetarians choose to stop eating meat for compassionate reasons - they don't want animals to die for their consumption or they don't support 'animal factories'. Animal factories are large factories that raise and slaughter animals, often the conditions are extremely unfavorable for the livestock. In these factories animals have little room to move, they are always indoors, they are feed growth hormones and they are overfeed. Be informed about what you eat and visit one of the many vegetarian sites that explain more about animals conditions.
PETA as intimidating as they are does a great video on factory farms, it's called 'Meet Your Meat' and can be found at http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp.
An example of a factory farm ^.
Although compassion is a major factor in many vegetarians choices to alter their diets it not the only reason. The general public seems to assume that vegetarians always choose their diet for compassionate reasons, the truth is however that there are many other reasons that I will outline below.
Albert Einstein once said “nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet”. Einstein was a vegetarian who knew what he was talking about, vegetarianism is an economical, environmentally and healthy lifestyle that has the potential to change the world for the better.
The environment: If livestock operation were less needed we could cut down on 18% of our green house gases, we could also reduce 64% of harmful anthropogenic ammonia emissions, cutting down significantly on the chance of acid rain. We would also have more water for human consumption and less water pollution from animal wastes etc. Check out what David Suzuki says about cutting down on meat consumption at:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/Challenge/Newsletter/Two.asp
Economy and Humanitarian reasons : Cutting down on meat consumption would benefits man kind. We could save a great deal of money that we are presently spending on livestock feed and maintenance of livestock. We could realistically solve world hunger since 70% of crops in the US alone are used to feed livestock. Peter Singer, the author of ‘Animal Liberation’ says “if Americans were to reduce their meat consumption by 10% for one year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption” meaning we could feed 60 million people. Check out how Peter Singer says you can make a difference : http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/make_a_difference.html
Health: A vegetarian diet also reduces the risk of getting many diseases. A study by the Oxford Vegetarian Society concludes that vegetarians have a 28% less chance of getting coronary heart disease. They also have less chance of having diabetes, many different types of cancers, and gallstones AND they have a less chance of being obese. Yay!
So with these environmentally, economical and health benefits we defiantly owe it to ourselves, the plant and others to make the choice to cut down or eliminate meat completely from our diets. With veg diets you can still eat all kinds of great food and feel even better about the life choices you make for yourself. You don't have to go to a field and live with the animals , join PETA ,be an extremest or live on tofu --- Trust me! Even if you cut back on meat every little bit helps the animals, environment and yourself, besides humans really don't need meat every meal, your body won't shut down with out it. I've been vegetarian for about a year and a half and I haven't died
yet. Either way get informed and you decide!