Depending upon who you talk to, some people believe following a vegetarian diet is healthier than one containing meat products. People of all ages, including teens, have adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. If this sounds like your child, you may wonder how to keep your vegetarian teenager healthy when you feel they’re missing vital nutrients.

What most non-vegetarians don’t realize is that it is possible to meet all your body’s nutritional needs by eating only fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and legumes. Because there is no meat in the diet, vegetarian diets usually have less fats and cholesterol, although there will be some. It will, however, take some planning to ensure your teenager includes a variety of foods to get all of the vitamins and nutrients they need. By learning more about the vegetarian lifestyle, you will be able to guide your teen into making wise food choices.

Standard diets are based upon a food pyramid and it is possible to find a vegetarian food pyramid as well. If you’re concerned your teen may be missing vital nutrients, you may want to speak with a registered dietician to learn how your teen can compensate by eating other foods rich in those nutrients.

If your teen decides to become a vegetarian after having eaten meat all their life, they may find it’s not as easy as they thought. To be able to enjoy many of the same flavors, your teen can try meatless products made from soy. Protein is needed to keep bones, muscles, and organs healthy. Your teen can eat legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and soy products.

Everyone knows calcium is needed to build teeth and bones. Calcium can be found in dark green, leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, broccoli, turnip, or collard greens.

In order to make red blood cells and help prevent anemia, it is important to have vitamin B-12 which is usually found in meat, milk, cheese and eggs. Some fortified soy products and enriched cereals provide this vitamin, but your teen may need to take a supplement to ensure they get enough of this vital vitamin.

Another component needed to make red blood cells is iron. Most people know liver is a good source; however, if your teen doesn’t like or isn’t eating meat they may not have enough iron in their system. Dark, leafy green vegetables like spinach and kale are good choices as are dried beans and peas, lentils, and dried fruit. Be sure your teen eats or drinks foods rich in vitamin C so they can properly absorb the iron. Citrus fruits or juice, tomatoes, broccoli, and strawberries may be chosen.

Minerals, as well as vitamins, are needed to maintain good health. Zinc is important for cell division and for the body to form proteins. Your teen may want to eat whole grain breads, nuts, wheat germ, or soy products to ensure they get enough zinc.

When you learn that your teen wants to change their diet, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the idea they may not get enough vitamins and minerals to maintain good health. The fact is vegetarian diets can be lacking some nutrients, but by eating a wide variety of foods and taking a multi-vitamin supplement, they should be fine. If you do become concerned, make an appointment with your teen’s doctor or a registered dietician to give you additional information on how to keep your vegetarian teen healthy.

The Chocolate Green Super-Food Drink Powder is a great way to help you and your family to get your 5 to 9 daily fruit and vegetable servings. The drink tastes delicious and can be part of your healthy eating diet. It comes in a 8.5oz bottle with a scoop. The recommended dosage is 1 -3 drinks daily.

The Chocolate Green Super Food contains only natural and organic ingredients such as:
* Organic alfalfa
* Organic barley grass
* Wheat grass
* Organic spirulina
* Organic spinach
* Organic chlorella
* Organic broccoli
* Organic dutch cocoa
* Organic redwood cocoa
* Organic cacao
* Organic acai
* Organic maca
* Organic carrot
* Organic beet
* Raspberry
* Pineapple
* Green tea
* And other nutritious ingredients.

The drink is 100% vegan and provides a wholefood nutrition with pre and probiotics.
It is a super healthy chocolaty drink that all members of the family will enjoy.
You can buy it at Amazon at a great discount: Amazing Grass Chocolate Green SuperFood, 17-Ounce Bottle

You may like something spicy when it comes to tea. You can make a cup of spicy chai to warm you up. Items you’ll need on hand include:

* 24 ounces water
* Tea (loose Darjeeling is a favorite but you may use any type of tea bag, including black teas and decaff teas, or redbush herbal tea)
* Tea pot and strainer
* Milk
* Sugar or honey
* Spices such as cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla bean, cloves, black peppercorns, anise, all spice, bay leaves, almond or nutmeg

Bring 24 ounces of water to a boil in a pot. Turn down the heat and place the tea into the water to steep for five minutes. Add the solid spices but be sure to test the tea to ensure the tea isn’t too strong. Stir the tea and put a lid on the pot. Leave the tea on low heat for about 15 minutes. Strain the tea and then add sugar or honey, and milk to taste. It goes well with soy milk too.

Green teas
Fruity green tea may give you the benefit of the fruity flavors of summer while having the health benefits of hot green tea. Bring water to the boil and remove from the heat. Add a green tea bag and whatever fruit juice you prefer to the water. Allow the tea and juice to steep for 8 to 15 minutes, depending upon how strong you like your tea. Pour the tea into a cup and add sweetener to taste. Green teas (and also white) are said to be rich in antioxidants.

There’s nothing like a hot cup of tea on a cold day to warm you up from the inside out. Try one of these hot and healthy winter tea recipes. When you’re warm and toasty, you’ll be glad you did.

* Increase foods rich in thiamine including cooked lentils, long-grain brown rice, Brazil nuts, pecans, spinach, cantaloupe, milk, and eggs. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic believe thiamine helps relieve cramping during menstruation.

* Eliminate trans-fatty acids, not only during your period, but for the sake of your overall health. Trans-fatty acids, found in commercially prepared pastries containing partially hydrogenated oils, and in certain margarines, may increase cramping. They are most commonly found in fast food, and many be another reason for your strange and uncontrollable cravings during this time of the month. If you can reduce or eliminate transfats, you may feel some relief from cramps.

*Eat more fiber. It can help control cravings and reduce bloat by reducing constipation and keeping your bowels and digestion working well.

*Avoid sugary foods, which can produce wild energy and mood swings. Also avoid chocolate, which can be high in calories and fat unless you eat the 85% pure variety.

Many people don’t believe changing your eating habits can affect whether or not you get menstrual cramps, or affect the severity of them. But it is possible for menstrual cramps to be reduced by eating some foods and avoiding others.

If it is possible to treat menstrual cramps with nutrition, why don’t more women use this method? Part of the reason is that they are not aware of the role nutrition plays in their overall well-being. Now that you know about menstrual cramps and nutrition’s role in reducing cramps, what changes will you make?

Women experiencing menstrual cramps may be willing to try almost anything to avoid having cramps each month. Did you know you can treat menstrual cramps with nutrition? If you’re tired of having cramps every time you have your period, why not think about changing your diet to improve your symptoms?

* Eat a diet consisting of a variety of foods. Low fat, high fiber diets appear to combat the salty or sweet foods women typically crave during their menstrual cycle. Besides helping avoid cravings, you’ll also have more energy and a more stable mood.

* Ensure your body is getting all of the vitamins and minerals you need by taking a multivitamin each day. Minerals such as potassium, magnesium, and calcium are particularly important before and during your monthly cycle.

* Eat more foods containing omega-3 fatty acids such as salmon, mackerel, albacore tuna, swordfish, and lake trout. You may also want to add walnuts, Brazil nuts, and olive oil. These foods help stabilize your mood and have an anti-inflammatory effect. They also reduce the effect of cramps because they block the production of prostaglandins.

* Add or increase the amount of flax seed you eat. They are very high in omega-3 fatty acids. Two teaspoons of ground flax seed a day will do wonders for reducing cramps. You may sprinkle them in cereal, over salad, or include them in baking. Be careful not to eat too many flaxseed in one day, however; eating too many has been reported to cause diarrhea.

* Reduce the amount of salt you consume during your period rather than taking diuretics to avoid the bloating and swelling you may experience with your monthly cycle. Alcohol will also cause you to retain water, so avoiding it during your period will only help improve your symptoms. Remember also that alcohol is a depressant, another reason to avoid it when you are already moody at this time of the month.

Weight Watchers has been hanging tough in the diet world since the 1960s.  The program is backed by body science and thousands of satisfied dieters.  If we have your attention, here is how the Weight Watchers program works.

With this eating plan, people use a patented Points system to track their eating habits.  Based on your answers to a short survey, you are assigned a points value for your eating program.  As you lose weight, the amount of points that you can eat will be cut.  A points value is assigned to each and every food and drink including meals that you eat in restaurants.

By tracking your points and how much of what foods you are eating, Weight Watchers helps you to chart eating habits and where you need to make changes in order to lose weight and become healthier.  The program includes weekly meetings so dieters can discuss their strengths and weaknesses with others and find support.

From the Points system, evolved the Core plan.  With the Core plan, instead of counting daily points, you were assigned a list of healthy foods to choose from.  As long as you ate until you were satisfied and stuck to your list, you could lose weight just like dieters on the Point tracking, or Flex plan.

Weight Watchers went online and dieters could use e-tools to help them manage their exercise and eating.  The program provided hundreds of recipes, an online points tracker and a helpful guide determining points in each serving of your recipes.

The newest breakthrough for Weight Watchers is their Momentum program.  It combines the Point system and what they call filling foods.  Dieters start with counting points to learn the basis for choosing their foods and how to manage portion sizes.  Next, they transition into eating filling foods.  These are foods that are designed to give you more sustained energy throughout the day and to fill you up so you are not hungry all the time.

The new changes in Weight Watchers teach dieters to learn about food and not simply eat points.  There was always the hazard that dieters would eat their daily point limit but not change their views on food.  Eating 30 points worth of sweets is not the way to get healthy.  The turning point comes when dieters learn to make better food choices.

Dieters still track their eating habits with the Momentum program.  Keeping them accountable is the difference between staying on the right track and slipping back into poor food choices.

Weight Watchers equips the dieter with all they need to succeed on the program.  The support system created by the meetings aid in more permanent weight loss and not yo-yo dieting.  Getting involved in your own weight loss is invaluable.

Ingredients:
2 cups canned butter beans
2 cups canned kidney beans
2 cups canned green beans
2 cups yellow beans
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1/4 cup red onions, chopped
1/4 cup red pepper, chopped
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp celery seeds

Method:
Add all drained cans of beans to a large serving bowl. Add chopped celery, pepper and onion and gently stir.

In a saucepan, combine vinegar, olive oil, celery seeds and sugar and bring to a quick boil. Pour the mixture over the beans and gently toss.

Cover and marinate for 24 to 48 hours.

This is a great salad to take to a potluck BBQ. Enjoy!

So the summer is here, and entertaining friends is among one of my favorite things to do in tthe summer.

This recipe is great and really easy to do, goes well with a glass of chilled wine or lemonade!

You can also add ricotta cheese to the mix and it becomes a delicious light summer dip.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)
2 tbsp water
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp soy sauce

Method:
In a little bowl combine the tahini and the water. At first, the mixture might look like it is curdling because the natural oils in the tahini wonít blend easily with the water. Keep blending and youíll find that eventually it will make a nice smooth cream.

Add the lemon juice, olice oil and soy sauce, taste and season if necessary.

This dip is delicious and can be served as an appetizer with crunchy raw vegetables and crackers.

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

2 blocks firm tofu (16 oz)
1/4 cup tamari soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange peel

Fresh parsley or fresh coriander, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Cut tofu into large bite-sized pieces and place into a dish. Combine all other ingredients and pour over the tofu pieces. Marinate for one hour.

Remove tofu and place into a small baking dish with 1/2 cup of the marinade. Bake in oven for about one hour, occasionally stirring and basting with the remaining marinade.

Sprinkle finished tofu with chopped parsley or coriander and enjoy with brown rice and a tossed salad. .

A great vegan dish!

People have discovered what their ancestors knew a long time ago:  the earth can be used to heal the people who live on it.   Some remedies for cuts, scrapes, cold, fever and internal ailments are as close as the kitchen in your home.  Two of those cures are found in honey and garlic.

Bees have known since the beginning of time that they were special.  They spend their entire lives gathering pollen to create nectar and turn it into honey.  You enjoy the sweet-tasting fruit of their labors in your tea and desserts, but what about when you are sick?  Honey has a wide range of applications for curing what ails you.

Honey has properties to fight infections in the body.  When you cut yourself, apply a little honey to the wound to kill any bacteria in the vicinity.  It is sticky and dries quickly to form a seal over whatever it is resting on.  If it happens to be your scrape or cut, honey can be just as good if not better than a bandage for keeping dirt and bugs out of a healing wound.

Honey has been added to tea to soothe tired vocal cords and reduce the irritation of a sore throat.  Forget the tea and eat a spoonful of honey every day to induce a restful night of sleep and keep your immune system operating at optimal levels.  That same spoonful of honey can turn that irritating cough into a productive one by loosening mucous secretions.  Mix it with vinegar and apple juice for a stomach soother.

What about garlic?  It is not a desirable smell on your breath, but it does wonders for your body.  Garlic and onions are from the same family of plants that contain a substance called allicin.  This substance has been found to lower blood cholesterol, blood pressure and cut the symptoms of a cold.  Those who ingest garlic regularly are doing a good thing for their heart and vascular systems.

The best way to get garlic is to include it in your diet.  Pills are a second choice, but the garlic tastes so much better sprinkled on a baked potato or baked into a steak.  Garlic is activated when it is cut; that is when the smell of the allicin is given off.

Garlic is known to be an anti-microbial agent, fighting bacteria, fungus and viral infections.  It strengthens the immune system to fight colds and their symptoms.  Eating hot soup infused with garlic keeps the body strong against colds, flu and sinus issues.   You can use garlic in a paste or poultice directly on the body to aid in healing of cuts.

Garlic has a strong odor but it also does a mighty job.  Add a little garlic to your daily menu to keep the body healthy proactively.  As for honey, just ask a bee how helpful it is.