I’ve never really considered Groovy Vegetarian to be a diet and fitness blog, but more of a lifestyle blog. We try to vary it up abit and feature nutrition articles along with vegetarian diet books, etc. But since we are not medical pro’s, I try to not delve too much into these categories. But as any vegetarian or vegan will tell you, it’s pretty hard to have a vegetarian blog and NOT mention the foods we eat, the ingredients we use, the books we read, the food blogs we follow, and the tricks and tips we use when cooking.

I’m not the best cook out there, in fact I’m learning as I go along. When I first started this blog I could barely boil water, let alone make scrumptious vegetarian dishes. But again the point of this blog was never to be a recipe blog or a cooking blog, etc.

But since 2007 this blog has evolved and I do on occasion feature recipes and nutrition articles. Just always remember that I’m a novice and you should ALWAYS consult with a health professional when making meal or diet arrangements.

Anywho, I have completely digressed from my original thought, which was to let you know that this blog was featured on a very cool list of top diet and fitness blogs.

Do take a moment, and head on over to check out the list. Lots of good blogs to learn about and maybe even subscribe to or follow on Twitter.

http://www.citrimax.org/blog/2009/top-100-diet-and-fitness-blogs

Till next time,

Missy

We Are A Top 100 Diet And Fitness Blog is from groovy vegetarian

I’m the manager of a Texas Hill Country Bed and Breakfast that caters to vegetarians, among other visitors.

One of the most interesting things about my time here has been observing people and their dietary habits. Of course, not everyone who comes here is vegetarian and not all vegetarians eat healthy. But most people interested in nutrition find this topic fascinating, so I thought I would contribute here, to Groovy Vegetarian, the top five unexpected dietary habits I have observed while working in a food service capacity.

1. Lachanophobia: Or fear of vegetables.  Some people are so afraid of vegetables that the mere mention of anything grown outside, like a carrot or tomato, gives them the shivers and causes their faces to crinkle in utter disgust.  I once had a man need to be fed by his wife with an airplane-like motion because the omelet he was eating contained fresh, garden-grown rosemary!
2. Super High Protein for Older Women: Some people who have had gastric bypass surgery or those on Atkins type diets must have higher amounts of protein, but these types of special restrictions are not what I am referring to.  There is a segment of 50 to 60 year-old women who demand huge amounts of animal protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  It does not matter what is served as long as the animal protein is there. The reasons they give tend to be either they are trying to maintain their strength or simply that they have always eaten that way.
3. Anti-“Healthy” People: Words like “healthy”, “organic”, and “nutritious” can be enough to make some people refuse to even taste the food.  For example, we serve Innocent Chocolate, which is some of the best tasting chocolate most people have ever tasted and it’s sugar-free and dairy-free.  I learned early on that many people would refuse to eat the chocolate if I told them it did not contain sugar or dairy before they ate it.  We once had a woman who had just complimented us on how good the food was, stop mid-chew and refuse to finish her meal.  Why?  We told her the vegetables were organic!
4. Vegetarians Who Won’t Eat Vegetables: Typically, the reason they call themselves vegetarian is because they don’t eat meat.  They still eat primarily processed foods like nachos, French fries and Twinkies.  Vegetables, however, turn them off just as much as meat.
5. Diet Soda Addiction: This is a huge problem.  There are a number of people who are addicted to diet soda and many of these people are vegetarians.  Almost every weekend we have people bring 12 or 24 packs of soda (usually diet) with them and they drink all of them during two-day stays. I’ve even seen vegetarians chug a diet soda, like it was water, everyday after a run.

The saddest part about most of these people is that they are usually somewhat overweight and when I speak with them, they complain about everything from diabetes and high cholesterol to cancer, but don’t make the connection between their health and their poor diet choices.

Editor Note: Thanxs for the interesting article, Jason.

image via culture feast

Top 5 Unexpected Dietary Habits is from groovy vegetarian

To easily add everyone on the list, scroll down and use Twitterator. This is a free tool for mass adding peeps via a copy and paste function. And if you find the list useful – be sure to tweet or write about it on your blog.

Groovy Vegetarian @m38967

Vegetarian Star (veg celebrity gossip) @vegetarianstar

Veg Daily @vegdaily

Vegan Fusion (author of the complete idiots guide to eating raw) @veganfusion

Savvy Vegetarian @savvyveg

No Meat Athlete @nomeatathlete

Chicago Soy Dairy @chicagosoydairy

Vegetarian Organic Blog @amiraelgan

Victor Kareh – (latin vegetarian recipes blogger) @vkareh

Melissa Gion – (awesome vegetarian twitterer) @mgonyeo

Kelly Twomey – (cute vegan shop in Canada) @veganslovelava

Vegan Break @veganbreak

HSUS (humane society of the us) @humanesociety

The Traveling Vegetarian @travelingveg

Go Veg @goveg

Official PETA @officialpeta

PETA2 (peta for kids) @peta2

Happy Cow (vegetarian directory) nope – not on twitter – shame shame @happycow

Super Vegan @supervegan

Fat Free Vegan @susanffvk

Vegetarian Society @vegsoc

Vegan Boy – (vegan twitterer) @veganboy

Try Veg @tryveg

Vegan Mama Dot Com @veganmamadotcom

Reluctant Veggie @reluctantveggie

Veggie Tweets @veggietweets

Elisa C – vegetarian blogger (and co-founder of Blog Her) @elisac

21st Century Vegetarians @marthatheus

Maria Laino (vegetarian blogger) @marialaino

VegTV @vegtv

Vegan Bliss @veganbliss

Vegan Man @veganman

If you want to be added to the list, leave a comment below with your @username. I will update the list below weekly with the new suggestions.

From now on i will be referring to this list for follow friday, as i think listing every person individually on Twitter, is kind of annoying. Plus as you can see the list is quite long.

Not on Twitter, yet? Grab a copy of my awesome twitter guide…a beginner’s guide.

P.S. To follow everyone on the list, copy and paste the usernames below, and add them to Twitterator.

@m38967

@vegetarianstar

@vegdaily

@amiraelgan

@vkareh

@mgonyeo

@veganbreak

@veganfusion

@humanesociety

@goveg

@officialpeta

@peta2

@supervegan

@susanffvk

@vegsoc

@veganboy

@tryveg

@veganmamadotcom

@reluctantveggie

@veggietweets

@elisac

@marthatheus

@marialaino

@vegtv

@veganbliss

@veganman

4/11/2009 UPDATES:

@isachandra

@vegimentary

@bowlofplenty

@gonepie

@earthtophilly

@whatdoveganseat

@rebos2003

@howunremarkable

@lindsaycb

@travelingveg

4/17/2009 UPDATES

@vegiegail

@shanonaryder

@chicagosoydairy

@brooklynvegan

@savvyveg

4/24/2009 UPDATES

@vegateam

@veganb12

@nomeatathlete

@tantina

@vgchefyoliouiya

5/8/09 Updates

@livingwithoutmeat

5/29/09 Updates

@veganslovelava

Vegetarians And Vegans On Twitter is from groovy vegetarian

Not on Twitter, yet? Why not. It is fun and a fantastic way to mix and mingle with other vegetarians. The cool thing about Twitter is that because everyone is limited to 140 characters, convos are quick and to the point. Plus there are only two things you have to add to your profile page to make it complete, #1.) a sweet background and #2.) an avatar. That’s it. You’re now ready to add followers and to tweet away.

Follow us here and we will follow you back.

One Caveat: Because i never created seperate accounts for my diff web properties, i ramble on a variety of topics. I don’t just cover vegetarian stuff. Hope you enjoy my ramblings. If not, you can always unfollow me. No hard feelings. (well ok i will be hurt a little)

P.S. If you need help with setting up an account on Twitter, adding a background, finding followers or anything at all. Please just leave a comment below or send me an email via my contact form above.

I would be happy to hook you up. Tweet Tweet!

Follow Groovy Vegetarian On Twitter is from groovy vegetarian

Monday comic relief at Groovy Vegetarian is brought to you by Comics.com

Next week we will serve up another. Hope you get a laugh out of these. If so, let me know. Cheers!

Monday Comic Relief – Elf Thoughts is from groovy vegetarian

1.  Vegetarian Times

Vegetarian Times magazine is a fun read, and a terrific resource for everyone from starting vegetarians, to long time healthy-eaters.  The recipes section of their website is quite spectacular.

They have so many recipes they had to include a full featured, intuitive search which includes categories such as your diet type (vegetarian, vegan, etc.), the appliance you’re cooking with, the season, and even special categories to select a holiday.  If that’s not enough to get you drooling, users can rate recipes, so you’re sure to find good ones.

Check it out here:
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/

2. VegCooking.com

What better place to find vegetarian recipes than a site entirely devoted to it?  While Vegetarian Times may be slightly quicker and more intuitive for quick recipes, VegCooking is more full featured, with shopping and dining guides, and more.

When it comes to recipes, the site has some delicious ones.  Check out their seasonal article on making a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast.  You won’t be disappointed!!

http://www.vegcooking.com/

3. VegWeb

VegWeb is much more organic in format to most other recipe locations.  Users submit recipes and photos and other users submit reviews.  The recipes here include delicious entries like “Double Chocolate Oatmeal Banana Cookies” and “Vegan Banana Pancakes”.  Strengths are its grassroots nature and the fact that it caters to a variety of diet types.

http://vegweb.com/

4. Savvy Vegetarian

This site has a lot of recipes.  If you can get past a garrish color scheme (at least on my browser) and are willing to dig into the less-intuitive (or at least less graphically pleasing) menus, you should find some good stuff here.

Categories of recipes include bread, beverages, vegan desserts, pastas, salads, soups, and tofu recipes.

http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/vegetarian-recipes/index.php

5. Simply Recipes

Simply recipes is a blog headed by Elise Bauer.  It has a massive list of neatly laid out recipes.  When looking for a random recipes the layout works very well.  Looking for a specific recipe might be slightly harder.  Still, there’s just so many good recipes here, with attractive pictures, that its hard not to love this site.

The site employs several culinary bloggers, so there’s lots of fresh creativity as well.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/vegetarian/

6. BBC Good Kitchen’s Vegetarian Section

BBC?  Like the British news station?  Yep!  The British Broadcasting Company, interestingly has a massive culinary page filled with recipes of all kinds.  To go along with Europe’s Vegetarian-friendliness, BBC Good Food indeed has a full page of vegetarian recipes filled with beautiful pictures.

The recipes are split into Dessert, Dinner Party, Main Course, Starter, and Vegan dishes.  More recipes can also be found under Occasions and Cuisines, but these are not purely Vegetarian, so beware.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/vegetarian/

7. The Food Network

I admit, I’ve been a bit of an addict of The Food Network at times.  Even if you don’t find cooking TV shows fun, its hard to deny their eye-catching website’s appeal.  Why do I rank it this low?  Well there’s pictures of meat entrees everywhere, which may turn off some.  And while there’s many vegetarian recipes, including a large soy section, there’s less than some places and they’re less sensitive to special diets like veganism.

Still it’s worth checking out, in my opinion:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/healthy-eating/index.html#tab3

8. Veg Kitchen

Veg Kitchen has an attractive website, easy to follow recipes and a lot of them.  The only thing that I was not a big fan of, and this is pretty subjective, is the lack of images to accompany the dishes.  I liked how some of the sites included tempting pictures to motivate you to embark on your culinary adventure.

Still this site is a treasure trove of some great vegetarian (and vegan) recipes.

http://vegkitchen.com/

9. 101 Vegetarian Recipes

The site “101 Vegetarian Recipes” is slightly deceptively named as it actually has more than 101 vegetarian recipes.  The site has no pictures, but has many good recipes, most of which are Vegan.

One minor note is the site pops up recipes in a new tab, which I suppose can be good or bad depending on your browsing preferences.

http://www.101vegetarianrecipes.com/

10. VegNews

This site wins points for creative appetizing recipes with beautiful color images.  Navigation is easy as well. The only drawback that makes it less than tantalizing, is that there’s only a small rotating selection of recipes and it’s hard to navigate to past recipes.

http://vegnews.com/ (recipes)

10 Good Sites To Find Vegetarian Recipes is from groovy vegetarian

For the solo Halloween enthusiast:

1.  The Jolly Green Giant
While you may prefer organic offerings to the Jolly Giant, this will always be THE poster boy of veggies.  Also makes a great family costume as you can dress the kid up as Giant Jr.

Jolly Green Giant

2.  Blueberry Muffin
There’s no denying this costume’s appeal.  The only hangup might be the price — it comes in at a cool $659.  Maybe some homemade crafting is in order.

Available here, for an arm and a leg:
Blueberry Mascot

3.  Vegetarian Sushi (eco friendly)
This costume is not available at any outlet, so you’ll have to craft it yourself.  Use packaging peanuts for rice and felt or other materials for the roll.  For a rough idea, check this kids’ version out.

Via: Coolest Homemade Costumes

4.  Ramen Noodles
Perfect for starving college types (or starving writers).  The costume will have to be homemade… so quality might be an issue depending on your talent and high-quality color-printing resources.

Via: WTF Costumes

Here’s some creative Halloween food costumes for couples:

5. McDonald’s Fries
Greasy fast food and death — they just seem to go hand on hand.  This costume works on many levels. The fries can either be handmade from red and yellow felt or be ordered online. The grim reaper can also be handmade or bought at major Halloween shops.

McDonald’s Fries Costume

6. Mr. Potato Head

Many of us vegetarians love ‘taters.  For a fun trip back down memory lane check this classic mens food costume out.

Tommy Tater (a/k/a Mr. Potato Head) Adult Costume

7. Gingerbread Man

With some quick alterations, you should be able to make a second one look woman-ish, and you’ll be set to impress.

Gingerbread Man Adult Costume

BONUS ENTRY: Dirty Martini Costume

Who says you have to go as food. Not us. No way.

Dirty Martini Costume

7 Halloween Food Costume Ideas For Vegetarians is from groovy vegetarian