Vegetarian Soup Recipes That Are Quick and Easy

Once you discover how tasty and easy to prepare homemade soups are, you'll never eat canned soup again. Most canned soup is overcooked and generally seasoned with too much salt and not much else - relying mostly on bones and meat for flavor. When you get the taste of a delicious broth simmered with natural herbs and spices, and made amazingly enough without meat or bones, you won't be able to live without it. Yum Yum.

How to Cook Soup
Making a pot of soup is really as simple as filling a soup pot up with good water, throwing in some herbs, spices and roots such as onions, garlic and ginger (possibly sautéing them first), letting it simmer away on the stove as you go about your business. Making soup in a crock pot gives you the option to leave it cooking while you're away at work and come home to an amazing smell permeating the air, waiting for you to get out the bowls and spoons.

Healthy Quick Recipes are Easy to Make
You'll gradually add items based on how long they take to cook, which might include carrots and potatoes, or pre-soaked beans and rice for longer cooking times, or spinach, parsley and cilantro at the end for just a few minutes to wilt them, but not cook. At this time you might also add a little oil such as olive or coconut oil to broaden out the flavors of the soup and make nutrients from the spices more available for assimilation.

Easy Recipes Vegetarian Style
Final additions will be some special items that help create a more tasty broth such as soy sauce, miso or umeboshi vinegar. You may not have used these much, but they are readily available and can give that heartiness of taste that other meatless soups lack; often people find it surprising how really good what vegetarians eat is.

Before You Can Say, "Where's my bowl?"
Some soups rather than having to cook all day will just take 5-10 minutes, as long as it takes water to boil, with a few quick cooking noodles and some frozen or light veggies that need just a couple of minutes to be ready to serve up with the seasonings you've added. This is a great place to start when learning how to cook soup.

Voilå! Couldn't be easier...and like I said, you'll never want canned soup again!

The Diet Vegetarian Protein Foods

When most people think of protein foods, they automatically think of chicken, beef, and of course, eggs; however, there are a number of protein foods that are not meat at all. There are a number of protein foods that are vegetarian, in fact, with some of them just as complete and nutritious as their meat counterparts. There are meat substitutes that can be high in protein but lower in calories and saturated fats than real meat, making them a better stand-in for the healthy diet. The diet vegetarian foods may give you the same nutritional boost and may be just as satisfying but is not necessarily going to cost the same calorie count as other choices. It is a matter of making sure that you are getting the right nutrition, including the right amount of protein every day for your optimal health.

The Myth that Will Not Die

There is a common myth that diet vegetarian foods do not have enough protein for the average person and that they will be lacking the vital nutrients that they need. The myth also suggests that the average person gets a greatly reduced amount of protein when they go vegetarian or vegan. The typical vegan diet is 10-12% protein while the average meat eating diet is 14-18% protein.

According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, most plant foods do have adequate but not excessive amounts of protein. Protein, while beneficial and very important to the body, should not be consumed in amounts that are too high. The American Heart Association suggests that the upper limit for protein intake be 35% of the daily calories.

In addition, it is often suggested that vegetarian diets lack other vital nutrients, too. While some new or inexperienced vegetarians might be lacking some vitamins or other nutrients, this can be the case with other diets as well.

What We Actually Need

The diet vegetarian protein foods that we need can be a major part of an overall healthy diet. What we need of each nutrient varies based on our gender, height, weight, and activity level. There are some nutrients that women need more than men while some that men might need more than women. Calcium, for instance, is needed in higher levels by women than men.

Women also need more twice the level of iron as a man when they are younger than fifty. Protein, even vegetarian protein, is needed in bigger amounts by men than women because they are bigger and tend to be more active, although that is not always the case. Basic protein needs can be roughly 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight; however, for those who are seriously active, that amount can increase to around 1 full gram per kilogram of body weight. A sedentary person's protein needs may be as low as 0.4 grams.

You can meet all of your dietary needs with diet vegetarian protein foods; however, there are some facts that you have to know about them. First, with the exception of soy protein, plant based proteins are incomplete, meaning that they do not have all of the essential amino acids that are needed by the body in them. Soy proteins are complete, however, and also have a number of serious benefits.

The Benefits of Soy Protein

Two daily servings of soy protein can lower blood cholesterol levels by as much as nine points and may also lower blood pressure as well. The two together may work to reduce the chance of heart attack. In addition, soy protein can also prevent a condition called hepatic steatosis or fatty liver. This condition is incurable and can possibly be fatal and may be an additional problem seen in diabetics. Soy protein may help to decrease the lipid accumulation in the liver and prevents a regulatory element from being over secreted. Soy also increases breakdown of fatty acids in the liver.

In addition, soy protein can help with the most serious symptoms of menopause, which affects 4000 women every year. Soy may help reduce hot flashes, decrease vaginal dryness, decrease bone loss, increase cholesterol profile, decrease cancer, decrease risk of diabetes, decrease kidney and gall stones, and better blood pressure control. Miso, a fermented soy bean paste may be one of the best diet vegetarian protein foods because it has been shown to decrease the risk of breast cancer in Japanese women as well as increasing bone density, another common problem of menopausal women. According to the Japanese National Cancer Center, eating three or more bowls of miso soup leads to a 40% decrease in breast cancer risk, and two bowls equaled a 26% decrease. Soy based phytoestrogens decreased hot flashes 45%.

The Right Diet Vegetarian Protein Foods

While the average steak has plenty of protein, it also has as much as 44 grams of fat, nearly all the fat you should have for the entire day in one meal. Most people do not only eat steak by itself, however, so a steak meal can be even worse. A cup of cooked lentils has 18 grams of protein with only one gram of fat. Beans, grains, and other vegetarian proteins are beneficial, not only because they are high in protein but because they have low calorie counts a number of serious health benefits.

Vegetarian Japanese Cooking - Free Recipe Tips

Japanese food is one of the healthiest foods in the world, and it is due mostly to the fact that Japanese cuisine involves a lot of vegetable dishes. Many people simply love Japanese food, and vegetarians are a great fan of their cuisine. Yet most people hesitate to try vegetarian Japanese cooking, for fear that it is difficult to prepare, or the ingredients will be hard to come by. But vegetarian Japanese cooking is very simple and easy to prepare, and here are some recipes to help you get started:

Miso soup is one dish that is never missed in Japanese meals. Served before eating, miso soup is a healthy starter that will surely whet your appetite. Preparing miso soup is easy, once you have the right ingredients. It is very rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, so this is a healthy alternative to many appetizers that we have grown accustomed to. Also, because of its rich taste, it complements almost any type of Japanese dish.

To make miso soup, you will need three cups of dashi, one fourth cup of red or white miso, a slice of tofu that is one inch long and a half inch wide, and two teaspoons of chopped green onions. Place the dashi in a saucepan and wait for it to boil. The miso, in a small sieve, should be placed on top of the dashi, then stirred and slowly pushed out. Do this until the miso is completely mixed into the dashi. Dice the tofu into cubes and put it into the soup. Garnish with the green onions, and if you wish, you may also add some wakame seaweed. Most Japanese restaurants do this, as it adds flavour and texture to the soup.

Vegetarian Japanese cooking starts with the miso soup; enjoy this before eating a meal, or in the morning, when you wake up.

Vegetarian Diet Tips: Make Your Vegetarian Diet A Balanced Diet!

The world has opened eyes to the harmful side-effects of non-veg food like red meat and is now opening arms to Vegetarian Food. A very common myth found among common man is that vegetarian food doesnt provide you with necessary nutrients but a Vegetarian Diet, in no ways, is deprived of necessary nutrients, only if you have a balanced Vegetarian Diet. Make sure you eat a lot of fruits and dont follow particular monotonous meals.

Some Nutrients you dont come across normally in Vegetarian Diets are:-

a) Iron

b) Calcium

c) Zinc

d) Protein

e) Vitamin D

f) Vitamin B12

But you can always have vegetarian source for these nutrients. On a other side of the coin, there are a lots of benefits of Vegetarian Food (incomplete). They are rich in:

. You can Find Iron in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
Cashews, tomato juice, rice, garbanzo beans (chick peas) and tofu.

. You can Find Calcium in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
Dairy products, fortified soymilk, fortified orange juice, tofu and broccoli.

. You can find Zinc in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
Whole grains (especially the germ and bran of the grain), nuts, tofu, leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach, cabbage), root vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, radishes), eggs and dairy products.

. You can find Protein in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
Vegetarians must eat a variety of plant foods over the course of a day to get enough protein. Eg: Tempeh, miso lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds, and peas.

. You can find Vitamin D in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
fortified cereals (or a small amount of sunlight) and Fortified milk and soymilk

. You can Vitamin B12 in the following Vegetarian Food items:-
Tempeh, miso, eggs, dairy products, fortified soymilk and cereals.. Tempeh and miso are foods made from soybeans.

They are low in calories and fat and high in protein.

Know more about Balanced Diet at [http://www.weightloss-health.com/balanced_diet.htm]