Answers below in Comments Section

If your a vegetarian why would you want to eat veggie burgers? is from groovy vegetarian

Becoming a vegetarian is not that easy, you undergo a process to achieve your goal. Take it slowly and one step at a time. A good vegetarian diet plan is your key in achieving your goal of being a vegetarian. It does not necessarily mean that you lose all the nutrients or the protein that meat provides. You can always use a meat substitute like tofu to fill in the void.

Start with meals that you can easily substitute vegetables for meat like pastas, stir fry, rice toppings, sandwiches and wraps. Know your food, research on it and read a lot of vegetarian cookbooks that will guide you in your vegetarian diet plan. Also, make a list of vegetables you want to buy and menus that you will make, it will make it easier for you to plan your meals.

Substitute your protein needs with foods like tofu, eggs, nuts and other meat substitutes made of soy and wheat gluten. Make sure that you take in enough amounts of calcium, vitamins and minerals every day. Vary the vegetables that you use in your meals, make sure that you have a balanced diet out of your meals. Even if it is a vegetarian diet also see to it that your meals are appetizing and tasty.

It may seem difficult at the start but the benefits are worth it. In the long run, your body and palate will adjust to your vegetarian diet plan. Experiment and enjoy the goodness and benefits of being a vegetarian. Make it a colorful experience. Surely it is one thing you will not regret.

Easy Veggie Meal Plans – Vegetarian Diet Plan is from groovy vegetarian

www.ManjulasKitchen.com Corn Veggie Soup Recipe by Manjula Ingredients 2 1/4 cups corn 1 medium tomato About 1 cup finely chopped cabbage 8 to 10 string beans 1 small carrot 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 teaspoon oil 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera) 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste) 1 teaspoon lemon juice (adjust to taste)

Corn Veggie Soup Recipe by Manjula Indian Vegetarian Cuisine 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

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

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

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

What is a Tag?

Essentially a tag is like a web chain that moves from blogger to blogger. The purpose of the overall tag is to reveal a little something something about yourself. I’m not very good at revealing, so this might not go very well. With this tag, i’m to reveal 6 random things about me, and then also list 6 cool blogs. So here it goes.

6 Random Things About Missy, The Groovy Vegetarian

1. I’m Latina, my parents both originate from the warm Island of Puerto Rico.
2. I was born and raised in the most beautiful and spectacularly awesome city in the Universe, The Windy City – Chicago.
3. I took an acting class in college years ago. Was too shy to do the wacky stage exercises. We had to go on the stage and go buck wild crazy.
4. I sold all my things in 2006 and moved to a totally DIFFERENT state in a major life change, and although i don’t like it. I have learned loads and have zero regrets. Life goes on just the same, but i do hope to be back in my beautiful Chicago, sooner rather than later.
5. My nephew turned 3 this past March.
6. I have not one, not two, but 3 cats, which i absolutely, completely, and totally ADORE. The eldest is 10 years old this year. Happy 10th Cuba!

6 Cool Green (And Vegetarian) Blogs

I wonder if i’m suppose to focus on vegetarian blogs. Well just to keep it nice and RELEVANT, i will keep it in the vegetarian and green categories.

1. About.Vegetarian.com (vegetarian portal loaded with awesome info and run by Jolinda)
2. Veggie Chic (veggie blog run by Juls from the UK, lots of good stuff here)
3. Keetsa (terrific green blog, you might have seen me mention it a half a million times)
4. Alternative Consumer (love the design on AC – plus eco goodness galore)
5. Great Green Goods (like reading about super cool recycled products? then you must visit this blog)
6. Super Vegan (fantastic directory of vegetarian restaurants in the New York City area, A+)

There you have it. 6 random things about me, and 6 random super cool blogs. Hope you enjoyed this tag. Thanxs to Susie, from Jolly Green Girl for tagging me.

I Got Tagged, 6 Random Things About Me! is from groovy vegetarian

Which do you use? Do you submit stories daily? How do you feel about creating an alliance, in where we hook up, and help each other out. As you know these social networking sites, are useless without a web of friends.

The Green Social Sites I Use

Hugg – Green digg like site owned by TreeHugger.

CON: Ever since their re-design, well it just lacks alot of things. For one, there is no friending feature. Second, no forward this to someone feature. It really is very web .5, not at all web 2.0

PRO: But the good thing about Hugg, is that you only need a handful of votes to make it to front page. This is very doable.

Twitter - Aside from chit chatting on Twitter, one can also make a post go viral on there.

PRO: One can re-tweet someone else’s twit, and therein lies the viral beauty of Twitter. Depending on how many friends one has, this can be pretty good exposure.

CON: The number (and types) of friends you have, ultimately decide the fate of your posts. The more greenies you have, the better. I definitely need more green friends on Twitter, so if you’re a veggie or eco friendly, follow me.

Digg (the environment section)

CON: Making it to the front page here, is like hitting pay dirt. Well, for a day or two.

PRO: Extremely hard to make it to the front page. You need gobs of friends, precious hours of the day voting, commenting, and networking. There is a very specific crowd of people on Digg, they are VERY hard to please, quite jaded, and super savvy about social networks. A great big beast of a challenge! One day i will crack it.

Kirsty – digg like site by and for women

PRO: Great community of ladies who vote up their faves in organic food, eco friendly fashions, green celebs, sustainable home improvement, easy and affordable DIY, and recycled product shopping.

The front page stories here scream “i need help”, “i need help”. Help me with stuff. The ladies at Kirtsy are looking for ways, methods, tips, and tricks to make life easier, better, faster, or more manageable.

CON: There is a clique at Kirtsy, you need to be “one of the girls” to make your storys appear on the front page. Lots of daily participation is required, and again the right type of friends is key.

I like the Kirtsy site, alot of good stories are submitted by members, and shared. I’m a fan.

Reader Questions (+Poll)

Please weigh in below, and tell me, what is your fave green social bookmarking site? Is it a niche and small green site, or one of the big sites, like Digg? Is there a vegetarian/vegan specific social networking site, i should know about? Shoud we form a small group alliance, to help each other out?

Let’s talk.

[poll id="8"]

Your Fave Green Social Networking Site Is? is from groovy vegetarian

Why I Started Groovy Vegetarian

The reason i started this blog was too showcase items of interest to new and to existing vegetarians. I believe i have done just that, over the past year. I will continue to bring veggie goodness to the world, and to my lovely readers. As of right now, i am only a vegetarian, but i think eventually i will go all out, and go vegan! There is no time limit, and i cant say for sure when this will occur, it just feels like a natural progression, to go from vegetarian to vegan.

I wonder how many vegan readers i have, if you are one, chime in below, and let me know. I’m just curious, that’s all. Don’t read too much into it. I guess, it is something that is currently on my mind.

NEW! Contest

As my 1 year anniversary nears, i want to celebrate, and what better way, then to throw a contest.
I am only introducing it tonite, as i know the July 4th weekend is upon us. Everyone is getting busy and ready for the veggie barbeque’s and parties. I, of course, will be at home, since my significant other has to work, at the restaurant.

On to the contest, it is set for Monday, 7/7/08, and will run during the week, with a winner announced on Friday. So stay tuned for it, as it is going to be a pretty good one.

Happy 4th of July, to all of you. (be safe)

P.S. Sponsors Wanted! – If you would like to sponsor something for the contest, do let me know. Send me an email. Thx!

1 Year Anniversary Next Week, Plus Contest! is from groovy vegetarian