If you live in or near New York City, the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts is an excellent choice for a vegan culinary school. They offer a comprehensive 619 hour education that incorporates eliminates of vegan cooking, Chinese medicine and the raw food lifestyle. However, for those of us who don’t near New York, finding a vegan culinary school can be challenging.

Vegan Cooking Class

It’s true that most large cities offer culinary schools. Still, although many of these schools are attempting to meet the demand for healthier eating by offering vegetarian or vegan courses, the bulk of their coursework still requires use of meat, dairy and eggs. Vegan culinary schools often require more extensive travel and relocation plans for their students, which in turn requires a greater expense.

If you are in the market for a vegan culinary institution and such relocation is not in the realm of possibilities, consider one of the alternative ways of gaining a vegan culinary education.

1. Consider specializing in raw food.
The primary raw food culinary school is the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, run by Cherie Soria since 1998. While attendance will obviously depend upon your feelings about the raw food lifestyle, it holds several advantages beyond being vegan friendly. Courses can be taken onsite, offsite or online, and are available to chefs with a variety of cooking abilities, ranging from beginners to experts.

2. Consider a vegetarian culinary school.
If a vegetarian school is closer or more affordable, investigate what their course requirements are. Some vegetarian schools block their meat/egg/dairy portions together, and you may be able to skip that week and still obtain your degree or certificate.

3. Consider a non-traditional degree program.
While traditional vegan culinary schools can be difficult to find, the more nontraditional model certainly isn’t. Schools that offer courses exclusively online or through correspondence courses continue to grow. Some examples include the School of Natural Cookery located out of Boulder, Colorado, the Vegan Culinary Experience and the Vegan Culinary Academy. Though not all of these schools offer degree or certificate programs, many of them do.

Three Tips For Getting a Vegan Culinary Education is from groovy vegetarian

Vegetarianism for the working person: Quick and easy vegetarian recipes is from groovy vegetarian

Answers below in Comments Section

Help with being less brash about the benefits of vegetarianism? is from groovy vegetarian

For a long time people have been trying to find alternative to their diet, to improve their health, and make their life longer. This desire is well understood, even that modern level of medicine is advanced, and new medical products guarantee curing from lots of diseases, but still the problems with   heart, blood pressure, liver and kidney diseases as well as cancer are of major medical authorities concern. They form the top of the list of the most wide spread diseases nowadays. The answer to the question of their reasons is quite obvious, it’s the food we eat.
From this point of view, it’s an essential problem of very person to choose the his own diet, that will guarantee more or less healthy life. Nowadays even with a great development of medicine, and appearance of new medicines, as well as new  ways of diseases treatment, people also refer to untraditional sources of medicine practiced in eastern countries as China, India, etc. Actually in the most cases untraditional medicine, is not medicine at all, it’s the way of perception surrounding world and some religious traditions. Starting to speak about the subject of the paper it’s important to mark that vegetarianism is way of life of many eastern nations, especially it’s widely practiced in India, by Krishnaits.(?) Now the conception of vegetarianism is spreading in most of western countries, and research made by Western dietologists   showed that this diet has a positive influence on our health.

Light food, as vegetables and fruits is easily adopted and doesn’t cause future abnormal changes in human’s body that is caused by very nutritious food as meat and animal fats.
I’ve heard a lot of reasons for practicing vegetarianism, basically these reasons justify it’s ethical side, that it’s more humanistic to eat plant food, than to eat animal food. Another reason was that plant food is lighter and reduces the risk of heart and liver diseases. But I didn’t that much of attention to eat, before I began to study this problem deeper, and found enough material to make my own inferences.

The most important argument in favor of vegetarianism is ethic consideration. People have to realize that animals also suffer from pain and have the right to live as every man. The arguments of vegetarians and «Green Piece» activists are bad treatment of domestic animals. Animals spend all their life in the cages, nearly never seeing day light and are feed by unnatural food with the only reason to stimulate their growth and weight gaining. The other argument of vegetarians is cruel treatment of animals in the slaughter-house. As they say any person who would like to visit this cruel and bloody place, will forever refuse from eating meat at all.

All the world religions are based on non-violence and love. Everything that exists in our world is made by God, that’s why only God has a credit to decide how to dispose it. All religions promote spiritual life, free of violence and killing animals can be considered to be definitely a violence. The protection of animals is marked in Bible, also.

Here are the example from Bible that prove it: Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do it unto me. (Matthew 25:40)

You shall not eat the fat of any ox or sheep or goat. Although the fat of an animal that has died naturally or was killed by wild beasts may be used in any other way, you may under no circumstances eat it. For whoever eats the fat of an animal offered as a sacrifice to the Lord, he shall be cut off from his people. Moreover, wherever you dwell, you shall not eat any blood, whether of bird or animal. Whoever eats any blood shall be cut off from his people. (Leviticus 7:22-27)

And God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit to be your food. And to all the animals of the land, birds of the air, and living things which crawl on the ground, I give them all green plants as food.” Then God looked at everything He had made and found it to be good. (Genesis 1:29-31)

To kill an ox is like slaying a man; sacrificing a lamb, like breaking a dog’s neck. (Isaiah 66:3-4)

What about financial side of a question? To eat meat is cheaper than fruits and vegetables.»- these questions are often asked by people. But lets refer to the facts, the USA government publicaated the following information: over 30% of grains, grown in the country is fed to the domestic animals. The production of 1 pound of meat requires from 16 to 40 pounds of grain. Interpreting this facts it’s well understood that it’s a waste of money. A person, eating a steak is depriving the opportunity of 50 persons to  have a plate of some kind of porridge. And at the same time the statistics says that every minute 85 people die of hunger on the planet earth.

In undeveloped countries an average person eats 450 pounds of grain a year, and at the same time the diet of average European or American consists of 4500 pounds of grain, 90% of which are spent on feeding domestic animals.

All these facts give a reason to decide that eating of animal food in such a global frame artificially make the problem of starvation in undeveloped world.

Nowadays a global community produces enough food and goods, even more then it’s needed to feed the entire population of the planet, but they are  spent not reasonably.

The research made by Harvard dietologists shows that if to reduce meat production only on 10%, it will free enough grain to feed nearly 60 million people.

In 1842 the founders of British vegetarian society introdude a new word «vegetarian». It origins from the latin word «vegetus», that means strong, healthy and cheerful. At the begining «vegetarian» meant harmonic ( from the philosophical and ethic point of view) way of life, not just fruit and vegetables diet. Vegetarianism, by the words of «Green Piece» activists is an important decidition on the way to a happier and healthier society.

Great philosophers as Pythagores, Socrates, Plato,  Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Voltaire, Franklin, Tolstoy, Show and others were convinced vegetarians. For many politicians, artists, actors and show men the refuse from eating meat is a normal thing.

Man’s organism is not able to adopt all the cholesterine and animal fats that contain in the animal food. Storing in the cells of blood vessels, it doesn’t give an opportunity for normal blood circulation that later turns into high blood pressure, insults, heart problems.

At the same time the vegetable protein helps to reduce the cholestrine level in the blood.
Famous Swedish scientist Carl Linney stated: « the comparative analysis of human’s and animals anatomy shows and proves, that natural and the most useful food for a man is food based on vegetarian diet.»

As many biologist say the digestion system of a human is  well adopted to meat diet. Carnivorous animals have a high concentration of hydrochloric acid in their stomach, important for meat digestion. The level of hydrochloric acid concentration is 6-10 times less than those of carnivorous animals, so meat won’t be digested appropriately any way.

Meat that is not able to be removed from human’s organism promotes the appliance and development of toxins, makes worse kidney and liver functions  and promotes the development of diseases, cancer included. By the way, the nations that live in far North of Russia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska are likely to die at the age of 40-50, because of poor food diet, basically meat and fish.
Also by the words off some scientists there is a sort of relationship between people who eat meat and their emotional and mental activity. To be more specific the meat diet can promote the appearance of violence bents.

As Dr. J. Robert Hatherill, a research scientist and faculty member of the Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, says the influence of meat is more bright on the mental activity and apperance oif violance in the teenage age than the influence of mass media. The reason of that is in the chemicals containing in meat as heavy metals and pesticides widelty used in agriculture. His research shows that the influence of  chemical containing in meat is very obvious on the biological level and the outcomes of meat eating can course even more serious diseases than those united with functions of human organs, meat usage can cause mental and brain illnesses.

Studies made in 1980th showed that the level of violence that rapidly grew in the age group of teenagers was influenced mostly by the chemicals contained in food. Scientists also marked that ability of childish organism to absorb toxins, pesticides is on 50-60% higher than those of adults.
Another example to prove this statement is the article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, titled “Chemical Levels and Delinquent Behavior,” that shows the link between chemicals and toxins contained in food with body and mental behavior issues such as aggression and attention disorder. The further research showed that prisoners accused in violence crimes had a higher level of chemicals, antibiotics, and pesticides in blood than those prisoners accused in non violence.

The growing level of crimes can not just be seen as a result of  mass media influence and decline of  social morality. More and more physicians, biologists and psychiatrists agree that the social roots of violence are found in the diet. The great demand of food increased the usage of pesticides, steroids, antibiotics and toxins to accelerate the growth of animals, at the same time making a damage to the health of common people.

Vegetarians insist on the health and more over moral benefits of food we eat. Indian medicine insists on food purity , because it influences the moral health. As they explain it the person who allows violence on the animals and uses the products of violence: eats meats, is more likely be become aggressive and commit violence himself, as well as he iss more likely to become less kind and sensitive. Developing  this concept they argue that every calorie, every mineral and vitamin have a distinct influence on physical and mental functions of the human body. The human’s brain is the most effective part of a human body, that is very sensitive to incorrect nutrition and presence of chemicals in food. As they continue, the dead food which is actually meat contains a lot toxins caused by the biological and chemical processes that follow the death and as the result their influence abnormal mental issues. A person who is eats meat is more likely to become intellectually erratic and irresolute, as well as have difficulties between distinguishing evil and good, truth and lie.
As the vegetarians observe themselves, the family life of vegetarian families is more harmonic, with less problems that are usual and typical to people having traditional diet. Children who are brought up by vegetarian parents and who eat mostly vegetable food are less exposed to violence, because they absurd the principles of harmony and peace with food. As the result, they are not likely to do violence in future, like to kill animals in order to satisfy their physical needs in food. And so they are not likely to commit violence against other people.

Because food is the only source of body’s chemical and biochemical processes that keep it living and well functioning, it also influences on our consciousness and emotions as integrated part of a n organism. A great amount of chemicals in the animal food introduces along with negative emotions the fear of death which is typical for butchered creatures. The fear of death and other emotions are contained in the form of hormones and other biologically active junctions in meat and generally are not destroyed by temperature. Because of these reasons vegetarians have more psychologically stable character and can manage their emotional life, which is not so typical for those who eat meat.

To show more evidence of food influence on our physical and mental activity it’s appropriate to use the description of the experiment made by Harvard scientists in 1998. They tested four groups of rats, that were given different diets, in order to differentiate their behavior in groups caused by difference in food. Those of rats who were fed by natural food and water didn’t exhibit any kind of abnormal issues, they remained attentive and active. Those who were also fed by hotdogs showed the issues of violence, and aggression. The 3rd group of rats had a diet based on vegetable products but transformed with the usage of chemicals as preservatives like cereal and fruit punch behaved nervously, and showed hyperactivity. The 4th group that was fed by doughnuts and soda acted definitely different. They were not behaving as a social group, were restless, had problems with sleep, etc. And the conclusion made by the scientists was following : 75% of our behavior problems are easily solved if we practice vegetable diet.

The evidence in favor of vegetarianism, also explains as we see the problems of modern society, as stress, hatred, aggressiveness and other abnormal issues of our mental activity, on the hand with health problems. Basically information got, and analyzed while studying the subject of  vegetarianism, has overturned some of my beliefs and attitudes towards modern problem. Now I understand quite well the saying» Wee are what we eat». The information I’ve studied did really made me think about my own diet. About some health issues I feel and think that I’ll be never that young, cheerful and healthy as I’m now, if I don’t change some of my eating habits. It’s widely known that one can not totally reduce the penetration of toxins and pesticides into one’s body, because of their extremely wide usage. But what can we do is to refuse from eating and drinking chemically and biologically modified food and basically if not refuse from meat then minimize it’s usage. The information about the treatment of animals and influence of  meat on our mental activity is a good thing to think about, and change the attitude towards a lot of things in our lie, not only attitude to animals but to those who surround us, to be more kind and anxious about people who surround us, as well as to think about our future and the future of our children and the ways we can do to make it better and improve their life, so that they’ll live in harmony with the surrounding world and harmony with themselves, not thinking about violence. And to begin it we have to start with the essential and first coming thing with their diet and food habits.

Vegetarianism is from groovy vegetarian

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BMV Quantum Subliminal CD Vegetarianism Aid: Enjoy the Vegetarian Lifestyle is from groovy vegetarian

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Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness is from groovy vegetarian

simon cowell in bikini lol

Simon was prompted by fellow American Idol alum, the UK version (and long-time vegetarian) Leona Lewis who asked him to partake weekly in not eating meat.

Why? First because Simon is a big fan of Lewis and also because he’s an ardent animal lover. He plans to spread the vegetarian word to all his UK co-horts and as an international star, get the ball rolling all over the globe. Not too mention, that after a few more Meatless Mondays, he’ll look even more fetching in his itty bitty teeny weeny blue bikini. Ha!

Let’s also give credit to Sir Paul McCartney, who started the Meatless Monday campaign to give people an easy entry into the world of a plant-based meal. Essentially you’re given recipes, videos and other good simple ideas on turning your Mondays into a meat-free zone.

Kudos to Simon for supporting Meatless Mondays, and to Paul for creating it. Yay!

via Ecorazzi

Simon Cowell Of American Idol Supports Meatless Mondays is from groovy vegetarian

1. why do some vegetarians eat fish, while some do not? what are the main arguments for and against this, and why is fish a debatable meat?

2. how do vegetarians get enough protein? i’m not found of pills, and i’m sure there would be some other way. I believe thats probably the biggest problem for me with vegetarianism; it’d be really hard for me to get enough protein.

3. how does not eating meat affect your body? both positively and negatively.

thanks everyone, i know there were a lot of questions in this one.

Answers below in Comments Section

Vegetarianism? is from groovy vegetarian

(no fish were hurt in the writing of this post)

I feel very fortunate to have been able to be raised a vegetarian — but my parents were not vegetarians when I was growing up.  No, I turned my parents to vegetarianism at age 5.  I wanted to dedicate my first post to this story, which I feel is just one example of the diversity of the experiences that turned each of us on to vegetarianism.  And I encourage you to share your own story after reading mine.

My Love For Nature, Fish, And How I Helped My Parents Go Veg At The Age of 5

As a child I was a bit precocious in my environmental consciousness and love for all things nature, including its animals (it’s no wonder I would one day be fated to blog).  I gave up diapers at a ripe young age of 2, when I heard that they had to cut down trees for them.  Yes, I was a bit of a weird child, but my parents catered to my unusual whims.

One of my early loves was fish.  I memorized every single type of fish and could repeat them with alarming accuracy.  My grandmother at one point became quite unnerved when I began to recite the names of fish in a book of hers.  She quickly closed the book and said “That’s enough of that!”

My love of fish, however, brought me sadness because at an early age I could comprehend at some level that the fish in the store at the butchers counter were dead.  These weren’t like the magnificent creatures that I saw swimming in my beloved fish cards.  They were cold lifeless, and if I dare say, a bit sad looking.  So whenever I saw my favorite fish — the rainbow trout — at the fish store, I took to saying “Rainbow Trout want out!” in a mournful voice.

My parents at the time ate a pretty healthy diet, but did eat some fish and chicken.  However, they began to feel increasingly guilty taking home fish, when it obviously upset me to see them dead.  So when I was just 5 they made a big decision — they were going to go vegetarian and give up fish and chicken, raising my brother and me vegetarian.

Now

Over the years my enthusiasm for vegetarianism has waved a little bit at times, but has never faded.  And I find myself today finding great joy in exploring it.  And my parents?  They are still vegetarians, and its already helped them.  All of my grandparents had severe heart disease by their 40s, but my parents, thanks to a vegetarian diet and exercise are virtually problem free.  For families with genetic predisposition to high cholesterol and heart disease, the vegetarian diet definitely seems a great choice from my experience, and studies have backed that up.

So, How Did You Get Turned On To Vegetarianism?

My story’s pretty fun I admit, but I’d equally love to hear each of yours.  Diet is a very personal topic.  I’d love to hear how each of you got turned on to vegetarianism, and what challenges you faced!

How Did YOU Get Turned On To Vegetarianism? is from groovy vegetarian