I’m short on time, as I’m off to visit my family in Chicago, so I’m gonna keep this short and sweet. Because Alternative Outfitters completely and totally rocks, i’m going to giveaway one of their master creations.

Nice, huh?

The I Heart Veggies T-Shirt.

This cute vegetarian t-shirt is an American Apparel 100% baby rib cotton and is fitted, so it’s recommended that the winner (maybe YOU!) pick the next size up. These tee’s run small!

Ok. To enter to win this baby, do any of the following:

1. Leave a comment below and tell me: What you’re doing for Christmas this year? If you don’t celebrate it, that’s cool. Tell me what you’re doing anyway.

2. Tweet about the giveaway, and dude! please use the hashtag #groovyvegetarian

That’s it. Tell your friends and get your entry in.

T-shirt giveaway ends on Wednesday, December 30th  at midnight. Winner announced a few days later here, via email and Twitter. ***RULES: Open to US residents only older then 18 with a valid email address and winner has 48 hours to respond. Prize will be given in the form of an Alternative Outfitters or Amazon gift card.

Good luck!

Who Has The Best Vegetarian T-shirts? Alternative Outfitters That's Who! [Win One] is from groovy vegetarian

If you’re going for the funny and wacky look this Halloween, try this carrot costume. C’mon look at the face of the guy wearing this costume, does he or does he not look like the  life of the party. Wahoo!

The carrot costume for adults is full sized and features the following:

• one size fits most
• full body costume
• cartoon hands sold separately
• tights not included
• unisex
• easy to wear
• available online

What do you think of this one, our second food costume for vegetarians? Vote YES or NO in the comment area. Let us know!

If you liked this one, then check out our others go to the category entitled Halloween food costume ideas.

Funny Carrot Costume For Vegetarians is from groovy vegetarian

image via WikiMedia

Vitamin C is found in plenty of vegetables and fruits, and is laced in many a food entree. So this isn’t particularly hard to get in our diets.

Since there are many sources of Vitamin C, we wanted to get to the bottom of the top fruits and veggies containing it, the one’s with the highest milligrams per serving. For our research, we paid a visit to the trusty and reliable Nutrition Data for the goods.

Now on to the list. Below are our picks for the top 10 vegetarian sources of Vitamin C.

Top 10 Vegetarian Sources of Vitamin C

1. Guavas (377 mg of Vitamin C per 100 g serving) >pictured above<
2. Green Peppers (49.6 mg per 28 g serving)
3. Red Peppers (45.6 mg per 28 g serving)
4. Broccoli (81.2 mg per 91 g serving)
5. Kiwifruit (68.2 mg per fruit)
6. Oranges (97.5 mg per 165 g serving) note: Orange peels also have a significant amount of vitamin C!
7. Strawberries (89.4 mg per 152 g serving)
8. Persimmons (16.5 mg per 1 fruit/25 g serving)
9. Peas (58.8 mg per 98 g serving)
10. Papayas (86.5 mg per 140 g serving)

Do feel free to share your BEST vegetarian sources of Vitamin C in the comment area, as we totally love to hear your super creative ideas.

Just hit the comment are below. Cheers!

Top 10 Vegetarian Sources Of Vitamin C is from groovy vegetarian

For vegetarians with an iPhone, it’s time to celebrate, as there are a bevy of useful vegetarian apps now available from the iTunes shop. Some are more useful than others, but all are worth a look.

Let’s take a look at some of the hottest vegetarian apps for the Iphone.

VegOut
$2.99 Author: Mitchell A. Bennett

First up is VegOut, a vegetarian restaurant guide. This app has a listing of vegan, vegetarian, and vegetarian-friendly restaurants all powered by the wonderful vegetarian directory site HappyCow.net.

Cool Factor? The app uses the built-in GPS feature of the iPhone to help you locate the restaurants, and in many cases, even links to the restaurant website to help you pull up menus and plan your outing.

Locavore
$2.99 Author: Buster McLeod

The local food movement goes hand in hand with the vegetarian movement.  You don’t have to be a farmer to know what local crops are in season, you just have to use this handy app.

It features 234 fruits and vegetables with links to their Wikipedia pages and Epicurious recipes.  The App features data from all 50 states and gets updates from Twitter and GetSatisfaction to keep you up to date on the latest local food news.

Veggie Passport
$1.99 Author: Lior Weinstein

This app has to be one of the most brilliant, yet simple ideas I’ve heard of (wish I thought of this one myself).  It communicates your vegetarian needs in 33 different languages so you can express yourself to friends, dinner hosts, and waiters.  You type what you want to say in the app and it outputs text in the language of choice.

Languages include English, Arabic, Albanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Chinese (Simplified), Croatioan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hebrew, Indonesian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, or Vietnamese.  That’s a LOT of languages!

Vegan Xpress
$1.99 By: Brandon Burger

Vegans often face the awkward situation of going to restaurants like Applebee’s or TGI Fridays with their friends.  This app takes the pain out of such experiences revealing surprising vegan food choices at even the most meat-centric dining chains.  The app includes over 100 popular restaurants.

And that’s not all.  It also includes a listing of junk-food, snack food, vegan beers, and vegan wine for times when you want to treat yourself.  Bet you didn’t know Skittles are now vegan (gelatin free at last!)!!  But this app could have told you that!

Vegetarian SmartList
$24.99 By: Mark Woollard

While a bit expensive for many app pickers’ blood, this app and its authors (Clan Thompson) act as the private eyes of the vegetarian world sleuthing out which foods are really vegetarian and vegan.  Over 4,399 food, drugs, personal care items, leather alternatives, cleaning supplies, and more have been covered.

The entries include extra info that will interest many, such as the presence of GMO’s, cross contamination, and whether the product has been certified organic.  With the list growing daily, this app might be worth a buy.  Just think of it as a nice cookbook.

Dirty Produce
FREE Author: Environmental Working Group

Everyone knows that pesticides aren’t good for you.  However, not all produce is created equal — some gets heavily sprayed with pesticides and mandates an organic buy, while other fruits and vegetables are rarely treated with pesticides.  This handy app helps you know the difference, with over 47 fruits and veggies listed.  A list of the “dirty dozen” — the twelve most sprayed items — as well as the “clean fifteen” — the least sprayed — are also included.

The app gets its data from U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration tests for pesticide residues between 2000 and 2007.

Food Additives
$3.99 Author: Andrew Middleweek

This utilitarian little app helps to warn you of the side effects of food additives.  Over 450+ additives are covered.  Information is given for each on potential health side effects with text and graphics.

The source of the additive is also detailed, helping you watch for animal derivatives.  And the additive’s status overseas (if it’s banned in Europe, look out) is also given,

Veggie Lovers Recipes
$0.99 Author: Karl Post

This app comes with some cute graphics, and 15 yummy recipes. Among the mouth-watering entries are Vegetarian Christmas Roast, Carrot Jam, and Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash. This app keeps it simple, but may become a kitchen staple.

Vegetarian Cookbook
$0.99 Author: Web 2 Mobile Design

Boasting recipes from American, Chinese, Indian, Italian, French, Mexican, Thai, Dessert, Fast Food, and Gourmet cuisine, this cookbook will help add some spice to your kitchen.  Like some of the others, this app’s authors encourage user submission.  Send them a picture of your best recipe and a text description and they say they’ll try to include it in their next edition.

Vegan Yum Yum
FREE Author: Stewart Rosenberger

This app features the tantalizing recipes from the fabulous Vegan Yum Yum blog – all for free. If the app is anything like the blog, you will LOVE IT. New recipes are regularly added, and you can organize your favorites or search for something new.

Did We Miss Any Other Good Ones?

That’s our top 10 vegetarian iPhone apps round up. As new apps come out we will update you.

Feel free to share below any we missed, and we will include them next time.

Top 10 iPhone Apps For Vegetarians is from groovy vegetarian

As with many iPhone apps, it is total cool geekines. One thing which makes it geeky sweet is that it automatically picks up your location and with one click, brings up a handy dandy list of various vegetables and fruits currently in season. It also lists those that will soon be available in your neck of the hood.

You can also grab info on local farmers markets. So if you’re planning a trip this weekend to the city market, check with the app and see what is good and new in your hometown.

How does it work? The Locavore iPhone app basically gathers and aggregates info from various trusted web sources, such as the NRDC food miles database and from Local Harvest.

Check out the complete list of features below.

Features:

• Automatically detects which state you’re in (currently only covers the US)
• Food that’s in season near you
• Food that’s coming in season near you soon
• Farmers’ markets near you
• Browse all 234 fruits and vegetables to see where it is currently growing
• Links to Wikipedia articles and Epicurious recipes from each food detail page
• Browse all 50 states to see what’s in season in other parts of the US

Wanna try it?

Go to iTunes and download a copy of Locavore

The app is great for vegetarians (and vegans) who want to keep up with local produce. And if you’re traveling and want to know what is in season elsewhere, the phone will pick up the location and let you know.

Let me know what you think?

Locavore iPhone App Great For Vegetarians is from groovy vegetarian

I was born in Chicago, IL but both my parents are from Puerto Rico. One thing i remember about my mom’s cooking is rice, beans, and a host of yummy root vegetables from PR.

Which root vegetables?

Yuca a/k/a Cassava, then there are green plantains, batata, yautia, llame and a host of others. All yummy healthy and 100% vegetarian.

I want to get a resource page going on the different vegetables and fruits from Puerto Rico, complete with nutrition details. I have to admit i will have to do research on this, as i have lost touch with my roots and don’t know. Yes, I deserve a wet noodle beating for this disregard.

Call For Your Puerto Rican Food Stories or Tips

Please chime in and contribute your ideas, tips, and ingredient list of foods and recipes native to the Isla.

Are You From Puerto Rico And Vegetarian? is from groovy vegetarian

North American Indians were enjoying many different varieties of squash before the Europeans arrived. The Indians grew their squash together with corns and beans on little hills because these three food plants actually grew healthier this way. The squash is enjoyed for its delicate flavor and its incredible nutritional value.

image via City of Holland

1. Squash is officially a fruit and the smaller the squash, the more flavorsome it will be.

2. There are both winter and summer varieties of squash so you can get “squashed” year round.

3. The winter varieties produce more beta carotene after storage than when the squash is fresh from the vine.

4. When spaghetti squash is cooked, it forms delicious strands that can be covered with your favorite spaghetti squash or just butter and salt.

5. The sweet dumpling squash is so sweet that all you have to do remove the top and the seeds, bake whole and serve with butter and cinnamon as a dessert.

6. Many parts of the squash plant, besides its flesh, are edible including the seeds, leaves, tendrils, shoots and flowers.

7. The tradition of lighting candles inside a carved pumpkin at Halloween is originally from Ireland where lit vegetables were hung in the window to ward off Jack O’ Lantern, a wayward soul condemned by the devil to walk the earth for all eternity.

8. George Washington, the first U. S. president, loved to grow squash.

Many gardeners enjoy growing squash because, depending on the variety, one squash plant can produce much fruit and it is very easy to grow. You practically just have to bury the seed, water occasionally and watch the squash grow.

Any variety of squash will provide loads of fiber, beta carotene, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and protein.

Feel Free To Share

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to email it to your friends or share on social networks. Thanxs!!!

8 Fun Facts About Squash is from groovy vegetarian

Your Backyard Farmer requires just a plot of land big enough to feed the mouths involved—10 by 10 square feet is about the minimum for an individual or a family of two—along with six hours of direct sunlight a day and an outdoor water source. In exchange, the farming team will provide clients with an organic vegetable farm right outside their door, customized to their family’s size and dining choices. Customers get to choose the produce they want grown from a seasonal list of summer and fall crops. Your Backyard Farmer both installs and visits the garden once a week to weed, harvest and do any additional plantings necessary. Each time they leave, a basket of freshly harvested vegetables is left behind that’s cleaned and ready to be cooked or eaten. Weekly costs for a garden big enough to feed a family of four are roughly USD 40.

This is an idea that can be implemented by anyone anywhere. But especially in rural areas, where is land abundant. Imagine supplying your local neighborhood with fresh organic veggies, and getting paid to do it.

I love this idea, and although i’m not a good gardener. I did have a hand at it last Summer, with my very first tomato mini-garden. If you’ve never tasted a home grown tomato, you are really missing out on delish flavor.  Store bought tomatoes versus organic home grown tomatoes, just don’t compare in TASTE.

To read more on Your Backyard Farmer, hit the website.

Source: [Springwise]

Vegetarian Business Idea: Your Backyard Farmer (dot com) is from groovy vegetarian

5 Cool Trivia Tidbits About Tomatoes!

1. Tomatoes used to be thought of as being poisonous, because a toxic alkaloid is found in the stems and in the leaves.
2. The cooked tomato contains lycopene and considered a preventative food for prostate cancer.
3. Outside of Valencia, there is a small village that holds the Tomatina Tomato Fight. Spain’s most popular festival, held each year.
4. When you’ve gone without watering your tomatoes for a few days, then you try to hurry and catch up in watering, it will cause them to crack. The inside will soak up the water, getting nice and plump, but the outside will not be able to stretch fast enough to catch up with the inside.
5. The first Tomato soup was made in 1872.

Don’t forget to answer below the question.

“What is Your Fave Way To Cook and Eat Tomatoes”?

5 Cool Trivia TidBits About Tomatoes is from groovy vegetarian

The difference between carnivores and herbivores is as obvious as the difference between, coincidentally, a large steak and a simple tossed salad.

Compassion VS. Aggresion

One is filled with aggression, the need for incisors, and a guilty steak-house location where bull heads and pseudo-western lassos are mounted above every table. The latter, however, is related to a light feeling of well being, a bright and colorful appearance, and probably garnished with something dainty, equally healthy, and invitingly green.

Vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism are perhaps the two most world-wide polar opposites. The argument is abundant in every niche of the world, always following the same pattern. The non-vegetarians (or carnivores as we will call them) are shunning the meatless world, assuming that a diet without chicken, pork, or beef will be bland, uninteresting, and bereft of all protein. As a defense to these naive conjectures, I can speak from experience when I say that vegetarian meals from all over the world can be absolutely delectable.

Unhealthy Fast Cruelty-Filled Meals VS. Varied Delicious Cruelty-Free Meals

On my trip to France, for example, my carnivorous teacher warned me that my meals would be just some steamed broccoli and maybe some rice. This prophecy based upon the presumption that vegetarians were scant throughout Europe. However, over my stay of 10 days, I was served perfectly buttered red potatoes (lightly seasoned). On the side was a salad made of five different vegetables and three different cheeses (dairy products are fantastically rich in protein) on a night where everyone else ate large, slimy sausage links. I also dined on the most delicious Lebanese rice dish with crisp green beans and a spicy curry sauce when the others chewed on a poor, little lamb.

Evidently, the argument on which the carnivores seem to be so dependent is merely based upon a distorted perception, and perhaps an apathy or laziness that prevents them from looking further into the reality.

Thoughtless VS. Thoughtful

This lack of knowledge is what sets the tone for the subtle difference between the two sides. The careful vegetarian will plan an extra ten or twenty minutes each day for some meal preparation. They will spend this time boiling water for rice, maybe cutting up vegetables, or using the small amount of effort that it takes to spread some baba ganoush, cheese, and cucumbers on a piece of pita bread.

This is because, for one thing, there are no fast food restaurants that offer much more than maybe a cheese quesadilla (TacoBell) or some French fries as a meatless option (McDonalds). However, it may indeed be more so the case that the stereotypical vegetarian really does care more about what is being fed into the body, and would like to supervise the preparation of said nourishment.

A carnivore would not think twice about being caught placing a (McDonalds) chicken nugget in his or her mouth, even though, ironically, this particular choice from the menu is actually 56% corn. (1)

Time, Life, and Diet Choices

Perhaps I am wrong in accusing these meat eaters of their carelessness. Perhaps they are simply caught up in the importance of work and the general duties of life. Excluding eating, and therefore have no time to worry about how many grams of fat are in that beef chalupa, much less from where it truly originated. If this were the case, then it would be us vegetarians who are obviously doing something wrong. That is if we are provided with enough time on our hands to be able to wonder around preparing a pasta salad here, or a tofu lasagna there.

After all, most of us are also concerned with waste and pollution, an obsession that takes some of us as far as to discontinue a daily shower routine. Do we really care, or are we just lazy? Maybe in the end we will find that bragging about our ability to combine whole grains with dairy to create the perfect protein has failed to cover up the fact that we are just a bunch of smelly, hungry, spastic herbivores who thought that choosing the soy milk for our latte would make a world of difference.

Meat Eaters Vs. Plant Eaters, Battle Fuels On

The heated battle between plant and meat eaters will be occurring for as long as humans are faced with the opposing choices. The vegetarians will stick to their sensitivity and awareness as a form of personal growth, whereas the carnivores will continue to nonchalantly eat the quickest food accessible.

Chances are, if you’re easily persuaded, you’ll end up an herbivore some day, which, of course, will make you a better, guilt free person. If you’re not, then may you be blessed with a successful career and copious amounts of take-out.

[photos - flickr and flickr]

Carnivores VS. Herbivores! A Story. is from groovy vegetarian