I had been a vegetarian for four years (1995-1999), but gave in to major chicken cravings while pregnant....unfortunately, I haven't gone back to being a vegetarian, but do eat just poultry and mainly vegetarian meals.
Anyway, I know there are a few vegetarians/vegans here.
I wanted to recommend all the books by Dr. John McDougall, and his wife Mary, who is nurse. Together they have written many books on cooking, health and weight loss. One book is for heart health, another on women's health.
He also has a weight loss book specifically for vegans, including recipes.
I think they have at least five or six different cookbooks as well. Check your local library, they may have most of all of their books.
If you're into alternative health as well as vegetarianism, look for books by Dr. Susan Lark. She has books on women's health, anemia, hypothyroidism, etc.-an entire series of women's health books. They include vegan recipes as well. The library may have some of hers as well.
I have lots of vegetarian cookbooks. And yes, I'm a walking oxymoron--an obese vegetarian. But I'm working on it and making strides in the right direction. Here's 3 that I return to the most:
Laurel's Kitchen is well known with lots of pretty simple recipes and info on vegetarianism. I wish it had color pictures of the finished product.
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison is also good. There's tons of recipes--some with esoteric ingredients I would probably never try but she also includes a lot of more practical ones as well.
Linda's Kitchen by Linda McCartney. I love this one! She includes lots of color pictures of finished recipes. The recipes are pretty straight forward and I've been successful with the dishes I've tried. She's also put together menus and gives suggestions on what to serve the recipes with. Pretty informative info on vegetarianism in the back of the book too.
I hope I explain it correctly, and if I don't someone please correct me.
There are :
Lacto-ovo vegetarians-they do not eat meat, fish or chicken, but do eat dairy and eggs
there are also pesco vegetarians-I think they eat eggs but don't drink milk-but I might totally wrong on that. I'd need to check a book.
vegans-do not eat meat, fish, chicken or any dairy, or anything that includes products from an animal.
An example of something a vegan would not eat is gelatin -I have read in several places that gelatin (jello) , or whatever the thickening agent of jello is made from a part of horses. I think the hooves. There are tons of other foods that include things from animals that are not obvious. Being vegan takes real dedication.
You got the terms mostly right. Lacto-ovo refers to dairy and eggs so I suppose someone who eat dairy but not eggs would be a lacto vegetarian, actually what I am trying to do.
Pesos refers to fish, the word has the same root as pecies I can't spell, you know the astrology sign. So someone who was a pesos vegetarian would eat fish. I had just been reading up on all the terms because I switched recently so of course Carol its a question everyone new to this asks. I didn't know what the terms refered to either. BTW I still feel fantastic, 2 weeks in, and no cravings so far. I have heard from some women friends that they also had cravings when pregent and went back to eating meat. It would be interesting to know if it is 'safe' to be vegetarian during a pregency especially because I found a lot of what I had heard about vegetarianism to be wrong.
Larry, it is extremely healthy for women to be vegetarian, abd even vegan during pregnancy... I wish I would have known that years ago when I was bullied into eating meat by my doctor when preg with my second child... a friend of ours has been through 2 vegan pregnancies, and has to beautiful boys, her oldest son is 2 months older than my daughter, and is tall, strong and very smart. I'm just glad they live here, now Ravyn won't be the only veg kid in her class
I wish I'd stayed vegetarian while pregnant. It was in my fifth month that I went back to eating chicken (only). Oddly enough, when my son started eating real solid foods, he loved chicken and would eat it for days straight. At least I know the cravings were real.
I have a copy of "Vegetarian Children" from the writers of the Vegetarian Times magazines. Would you like it? I'd mail it to you for the cost of postage. I'm obviously not using it.
Another vegetarian book for kids is called something like "Better than Peanut Butter and Jelly." It's all vegan and vegetarian recipes for children. I bought it for my niece-she became a vegetarian on her own (I'm so proud of her) at age six. She'll be thirteen this year and has stuck with it....and my sister Meryl is one of the biggest red meat eaters I've ever met in my life. Kind of ironic. I'm pretty sure that book is still in print, or you may be able to find it used at the website "Advanced Book Exchange."
Thanks Sherry... if you want to find out how much postage would be on that, and you can just email me at [email protected] with the info and your home addy...or I guess you could drop me a PM too, huh? Silly me... well, whichever... the cookbook sounds groovy too, we try to stick mostly to vegan, but we do make some allowances, especially for Ravyn, around holidays... we try to let her have some of the goodies...