Vegetarian Star

“I wish for everyone to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

—-Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, in a speech at the 2010 TED: Ideas Worth Spreading conference.

Oliver thinks every child should learn to cook 10 meals before they graduate high school.

That’s real cooking, ladies and gentlemen. Emptying a dehydrated packet into dried ramen noodles doesn’t count.

If you have a high school senior heading off to college, start the 10 meal goal tonight by making Oliver’s Vegetable Jalfrezi Recipe.

Watch the clip to hear Jamie’s thoughts on what’s happened to milk–it doesn’t sound pretty.

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Looking for a crash course on what foods to load up on during your next grocery visit?

Then look no further than to Christina Pirello‘s Top 10 Ingredients for a Healthy Life at the Huffington Post.

Healthy oils, soy foods and lean proteins such as beans are included with Christina’s advice on why you should grab these while they’re hot (or cold, frozen, canned, bulk…)

Take a canned tomato, for instance. It’s may actually be better for you than served fresh.

“Unlike a lot of canned foods, canned tomatoes contain most of their nutrients. That means that you still benefit from most of the antioxidants like beta-carotene, vitamins C and E and the ever popular lycopene, essential to reproductive health, which is actually more efficiently absorbed by the body when the tomatoes are canned or cooked. All this adds up to a fruit that can help prevent heart disease and some cancers. Plus, the luscious tomato is high in potassium, but low in sodium, so it can be helpful in fighting high blood pressure and fluid retention.”

“Just be sure to buy canned tomatoes without salt. You can season them yourself. And skip the brands that add sugar. It’s not needed; tomatoes have an inherent sweetness that needs no enhancement. Do I need to tell you that organic tomatoes are best?”

Not really, but Christina definitely needs to tell you what the other top healthy ingredients are. Find out at the Huffington Post.

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Valentine’s Day is over, but if you share the love of all things vegetarian with your partner, the passion lasts 365 meals a year. There are several great vegetarian couples in the media eye.

Here are a few favorites.

Dennis Kucinich and Elizabeth Kucinich. Dennis is one of the few vegan politicians (or at least the few who come clean about it) and has been open about how switching to a vegan diet alleviated several health problems. Wife Elizabeth is the public affairs director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates a vegan diet.

Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard

Zooey Deschanel’s vegetarian platter is a little harder than average to create. As the contestants of Top Chef learned, Zooey not only does vegetarian, but needs gluten-free and no soy.  Ben better study up on the cookbooks when he’s not on tour with Death Cab for Cutie.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

The couple decided to go veg together after a dinner date discussion of the ethics of animals in fashion.
The two were honored by the Humane Society for publicly advocating better treatment of animals.

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Not even 30 years old and she’s already a crazy cat lady.

Amy Winehouse has opened her home to several cats over the past months.

Now that she’s leaving her home in London, she’s decided to dump the kitties at the local shelter.

“Amy was pretty upset about it because she loved them dearly, but she had to give them up,” a source told The Sun. “They were climbing all over the place, breeding and generally getting out of control.”

But isn’t “breeding,” and “out of control” usually what takes place at the Winehouse residence?

Thumbs up for Amy making the decision to invite animals into her life.

Thumbs down for not realizing the amount of time required to care for one, let alone multiple cats.

Thumbs up for taking the animals to the shelter instead of letting them run loose.

Thumbs…oh, never mind. Too much Amy Winehouse analyzing and you’ll have yourself in rehab.

Hopefully, Amy at least got the animals spayed or neutered and they all will find loving homes.

Cause there’s just not enough room for all of them in that beehive.

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Bernadette Peters (who’s due for a slice of vegan birthday cake this month) will appear on The View Friday February 19 as part of the show’s 2nd annual special to encourage adoption.

Peters is reportedly bringing her dog along with her as well.

As a spinoff to the Westminster Dog Show, The View will present their version of a dog show, the Mutt Show.

Five mutts up for adoption will be competing and one lucky four legged friend will be awarded the Pedigree Dogs Rule award.

According to Broadway World, Peters will also promote her second children’s book, Stella is a Star. Proceeds from the book are said to go towards Broadway Barks, an organization Peters co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, that helps find homes for shelter animals.

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Bollywood beauty and ex Miss Universe Lara Dutta has been a vegetarian for 5 years and says she eats 5-6 small meals a day to stay healthy.

She gave Mid-Day an example of how she might start the day before filming scenes for the upcoming film Housefull, and high protein nuts are a big part of her day.

“Breakfast usually depends on the kind of day I’m going to have. If I’m looking forward to a relaxed day at home then I stick to eating raw food, say a bowl of papaya and maybe an apple, till about noon. If I’m shooting, then I have a big bowl of porridge with some nuts sprinkled on top, or maybe an omelette made from egg whites with whole-wheat toast. I do have one rule though — the first thing that goes into my system should not be caffeine.”

Lunch consists of more nuts–but never mixed with fruit!

“I usually eat a small cube of cheese and a few nuts like badams, pistas and walnuts. I never mix nuts with dried fruits, as it doesn’t suit me. I might even eat some low-fat yoghurt.”

Dutta tries to restrain herself at dinner time, but admits she loves her pasta too!

Read Dutta’s tips for great skin and more at Mid-Day.

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Jessica Alba is extremely careful of what she puts in her daughter’s body.

Even though she had a bad experience with the icing, last Easter she made Honor Marie organic, vegan cupcakes.

And when it comes to milk, it’s non-dairy for baby as well.

“All of her pasta is spelt or quinoa,” she told hlifemedia. “It’s been a way to introduce protein in her diet, and she only drinks almond milk that has no sugar in it. And everything is organic.”

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