Preventing Rickets due to a Vegetarian Diet

The vegetarian diet bashing collective has been in overdrive again this week following the publication of a story by the Daily Mail that a five month old baby died from Rickets due to the diet of his Vegetarian mother. A Vegetarian or Vegan Diet can sometimes cause a child to develop Rickets if they do not eat a varied enough combination of foods, but there are many vegetarian and vegan children in the world who have not developed the disease, so even though they are more pre-disposed to it, if they have a balanced diet, it can be prevented.

Rickets develops when there is a lack of Vitamin D, phosphorus and calcium in the diet. It causes problems with growth and bone development, and pain in the bones. It also subsequently can cause death.

Vitamin D is found in Vegetarian foods such as oily foods such as eggs, fortified fat spreads, fortified yoghurts, fortified breakfast cereals, powdered milk and mushrooms. Sunlight also provides Vitamin D.

Phosphorous is found in almost every food. It is an essential nutrient required for proper cell functioning, regulation of calcium, strong bones and teeth. Foods high in Phosphorous include Cheese, Pumpkin and Squash Seeds, Brazil Nuts, Non Fat Yoghurt, Soya (Tofu), and Beans and Lentils.

Calcium helps build strong bones and teeth, regulates muscle contractions, including heartbeat and ensures that blood clots normally. Foods high in Calcium include milk, cheese and other dairy foods, green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage and okra, but not spinach, soya beans and drinks, tofu nuts, bread and anything made with fortified flour

As a Vegetarian, it is important that you try to eat a balanced diet with all of the correct vitamins and minerals. It is even more important if you are Vegetarian and Pregnant, or are a Breastfeeding Mother. The Daily Mail article cited how the mother featured followed a very strict religious vegetarian diet, so it is likely that she wasn't getting all of the vitamins and minerals that she needed and wasn't eating a a balnced diet.

The Vegetarian Society and NHS Choices has some good tips for vegetarian pregnant and lactating mothers.

The Vegan Society list some key nutrients for a vegan diet to prevent Rickets and also has an article on Sunshine and Rickets.

Foodies 100 Veganuary Roundup

How is your Veganuary going? If you haven't already heard me harping on about Vegnuary, it's a campaign to encourage people to try eating Vegan for the month of January, in a bid to reduce factory farming and 

encourage healthier eating.

We have been trying to follow Vegnuary too. I have blogged a couple of the recipes we have made, and there are others in the recipes section of my blog. Tonight we had Veggie Fajitas - a great family favourite which we haven't had since well before Christmas. As a filling I used Mushrooms, Peppers and Onions, and mixed them with a packet of Fajita Spices. I also added some lime juice to the mix for a bit of extra liquid. I cooked some long-grain rice and then added it to vegetables and spices, to bulk the filling out a little. I used Mission Valley Wraps which are Vegan. You could also add an enchilada sauce to pour over the top and bake in the oven for a little more of a substantial meal, which I guess would make them enchiladas rather than fajitas! For some dairy alternatives, you could add some Vegan Cheese too.

The Foodies 100 kindly asked me to contribute a round-up of Veganuary recipes to their site. I trawled the best of the internet, to find some great bloggers who have either been blogging about Veganuary, or who have created some delicious vegan recipes this month.

You can read my Veganuary round-up here. There are lots of fantastic vegan recipes being created by bloggers - perhaps try searching for them by using the #veganuary or #morethancarrots hashtags on twitter.

Happy Veganuary!

Half Price Quorn Products!

This week I popped to Tesco for some shopping, and noticed that their Quorn Sausages are currently half-price, at just £1.50 for 12. This is a fantastic deal if you like Quorn products. I have stocked up for my kids as I don't like cooking them real sausages, and they can't tell the difference between meat sausages and the Quorn ones. I have also found that these sausages are so versatile, and quick to cook, so they have saved dinner on many an occasion. 

Quorn Mince and Chicken Style Pieces 500g packs are also currently half price. Make sure you get the right sized bags though so that you aren't overcharged. The Quorn mince makes a mean veggie lasagne or bolognese, and the Chicken Style Pieces are great for pies and especially fab for veggie fajitas!

Even if you aren't vegetarian, these low fat options make great meat alternatives if you are perhaps trying to eat a little lighter in January.

I would recommend stocking up on these products at such a great price if you can. The offer is on until the 3rd of February.

Disclosure: These are my own recommendations and haven't been prompted by the brand. 

Review: JUST EAT Takeaway Delivery Service

Even though I am avid home cook, as I have said before, everyone has nights when cooking a meal is the last thing that they feel like doing, and reaching for the phone or internet seems like a tantalising option. . 

According to research, the average person orders twelve takeaways per month - that's around 151 a year for men, and 126 per year for women. Chinese has now overtaken Fish and Chips as the nation's favourite takeaway. With the introduction of online ordering, until recently, it was the case that only major eateries had an online presence - and Pizza tended to be the only thing you can order, but now with the development of new third-party online takeaway services, smaller, independent retailers are now able to maintain a web-presence, and appeal to a wider audience.

We were invited to review JUST EAT Takeaway Service- one of the UK's most well known third party take away operators. Over the Christmas period, bored of the traditional festive offerings, Hubby and I decided to opt for a grown-up takeaway when the kids had gone to bed. A grown-up takeaway affords us a wider range of food choices, whereas the kids will only really eat Pizza or food from there Chip Shop.

JUST EAT asks you to create an account, which enables you to receive offers and promotions, re-order saved meals, and leave customer reviews. After logging onto the site and entering our postcode into the search box, we discovered that there are around eighteen takeaway suppliers in our area offering the JUST EAT Takeaway Service. Some charge for delivery and some don't. There was a good range of foods on offer including Pizza, Pasta, Chinese, Indian, Thai and Kebabs.

It was easy to look through JUST EAT and browse the various different eatery options. You can order them by distance, or user rating, you can also select by cuisine. There was definitely an abundance of vegetarian options, so us vegetarians or vegans would be spoilt for choice deciding which kind of food we would like to eat.  We decided to go for the Indian restaurant with the best reviews, which was quite close to our house. The full menu was available on Just Eat and so we were able to easy select dishes and see the price.

Although our regular favourite Indian Takeaway wasn't on the list, we decided to go for "Sahara" in Hemel Hempstead - one of the Indian Takeaways which offered the Just Eat service. I liked the fact that you are able to read customer reviews on Just Eat and see what others think of the service, as customer reviews are a big deciding factor for me when I am eating somewhere new. You can also pre-order if you would like to, which I think is a great idea, especially if you are short of time before you want to eat. We went for our usual Indian offerings, a Veggie Korma for me and a Chicken Tikka for hubby, served with with Pilau Rice, Peshwari Nanan, Onion Bhajis, Aloo Gobi, and Poppadoms.

It was very easy to select and make our order online, and the payment process was also very slick. You can either pay cash on delivery, or pay by card using Visa, Mastercard, or Maestro. We were quoted a waiting time of about fifty minutes, which I thought was quite reasonable. The food actually took around forty minutes to be delivered, and when it arrived, it came piping hot and smelt amazing!

We were really impressed with how the food was packaged, and how good it tasted as we tucked in. This Indian is definitely a contender to add to the list of eateries we like. The Aloo Gobi was especially noteworthy, as was the Vegetable Korma with an array of different vegetables included.

I would definitely use the  JUST EAT Takeaway service again. Actually, I think the fact that it is so easy to use could be a big temptation on the nights that I really just don't fancy cooking. The ease of use and service provided is a big bonus.  I would definitely recommend trying out the service in your area and seeing what you think.

Disclosure: We received a complimentary credit to review the service. 

Vegan Hearty Bean Chilli

Following on with Veganuary, this week I raided the cupboards in the hope of using up the vast piles of food in the house. Craving something hearty and warming, I decided to dust off the slow cooker and make a Chilli, using as many different beans as I could find. Slow cooking is great, as yesterday I was working in the daytime and the evening, and so it meant that I could leave it to cook all day, rush in to serve, and then get out to my next job for the evening. Here is the finished result. This recipe is fantastic for a wintry night and got a big thumbs up from my hubby - so it's perfect as an alternative for those who like their meat, as well as those who prefer to avoid a meaty diet.

Ingredients

400g Can Chickpeas, drained

400g Can Butter Beans, drained

400g Can Kidney Beans, drained

400g Can Baked Beans

400g Can Chopped Tomatoes 

140g Tomato Paste/Puree 

2tsp fresh Red Chilli

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Coriander

2tsp fresh Garlic 

1tsp Oregano 

1tsp Cayenne Pepper

Salt and Pepper

2 tsp Vegan Soy Sauce

2 Onions, chopped

1 Red Pepper, chopped

Olive Oil

Directions

1. Gently cook the onions and pepper in some olive oil, until the onions are soft and golden, and drain. Add the onions and Pepper to the slow cooker. 
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the slow cooker, and give everything a good stir so that they are distributed evenly. 
3. Heat on low for around eight hours, or high for four to five hours.
4. Serve immediately, with white rice and some corn tortillas. Alternatively, allow to cool and refrigerate or freeze.

Print This Recipe

Veganuary Recipe: Parsnip Soup

I must admit, I'm a bit late to Veganuary - partly because cutting dairy out of my life is nigh on impossible, and we have had a mountain of cheese and cream which we had to use up over Christmas, and partly because finding time to blog about food has been hard over the holidays whilst the kids have been around.

Veganuary encourages people to go Vegan throughout January, to cut meat, fish and dairy from their diet, in order to reduce factory farming and the amount of animals being consumed. Veganuary has calculated that the average carnivore consumes 126.9 animals per year - over 10k in their lifetime - that's a pretty substantial amount!

As a vegetarian, I do typically eat dairy, but there are some great vegan alternatives for cheese, milk, butter etc - such as soya milk and vegan cheese and butter, and so I am trying to avoid dairy in January for Veganuary.

This month is also a bit of a mission for us to use up all of our leftovers from the glut of food we still have from Christmas, rather than waste food and start buying more.

Today I am featuring a fantastic roast Parsnip Soup. Using up the excess parsnips from Christmas, I roasted them with an onion in some oil and spices, before liquidising the roasted vegetables with some vegetable stock to make a soup. The spices are really bought out by roasting the vegetables first and I love the tiny particles of flavour bursting around your mouth as you swallow the soup.

This Parsnip Soup is full of flavour and is a great winter warmer. You should give it a go as it is so simple to make and promises maximum taste. It is also Vegan which is a bonus too! You can find the recipe below.

How is your Veganuary going?

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 kg parsnips, chopped

1/2 tsp cumin 

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 tsp coriander 

1/2 tsp mustard powder

1 large onion, cut into eighths

2 tsp garlic 

1 litre vegetable stock

1 tbsp lemon juice

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 220 degrees centigrade. 
2. Combine the oil in a bowl with the coriander, mustard, turmeric cumin and garlic. Mix together well. 
3. Add the vegetables to the bowl and cover them in the oil and spices.
4. Place the vegetables, oil and spices over a roasting tray and cook in the oven for around thirty minutes. 
5. Meanwhile, make the vegetable stock and set aside.
6. Once cooked, place the roasted vegetables into a liquidiser, and process with half of the vegetable stock. Keep adding the vegetable stock until the mixture is smooth. 
7. At this point, you can either store and re-heat later, or pour into a pan and cook until hot. Stir in the lemon juice to serve and garnish. 

Funny Food Faces for Lunch

I am a firm believer in a buffet style offering for lunch and allowing the girls to choose what they put in their plate. I think it leads to better eating habits and more sensible portion sizing. The girls love to choose the food that they will put on their plate during meal times. This lunchtime, they chose pitta bread, roule, quorn slices, and onion rings.

It started with the onion rings. The four year old who has a rather impressive imagination exclaimed that the onion rings looked like eyes. Before I knew it, she had created a creative food masterpiece on her plate, centered around the onion ring eyes. Youngest made an alien and an elephant and eldest made a little girl with bunches.

Today we are still trying to use up Christmas leftovers before the next shop, so our lunch was a little devoid in the vegetable department, which are typically great for making food faces, but I am going to get them to create some vegetable shaped ones soon

It was lovely to see them getting creative with their food and making pictures out of them. Funnily enough, they ate every scrap of their creations. When you give the control of the food over to them, I really do think it encourages them to think more about what they are putting in their mouths!