[.ca] Vegetables Rock!: A Complete Guide for Teenage Vegetarians (ISBN 0553379240)

From Amazon.com:
Stephanie Pierson, mother of two, has met the emotional and nutritional challenges of raising a teenager. In Vegetables Rock! she aims to help both teens and parents survive the process, ideally with sanity and everyone's good health intact. To do this, Pierson both uses and councils others to indulge liberally in tolerance and light-hearted humor. To help the family understand the commitment to vegetarianism seriously, Pierson addresses its philosophical and ethical aspects as well as the nutritional ones. She explains that the origin of the word vegetarian has nothing to do with vegetables, but comes from the Latin verb that translates as "to enliven." Endorsing the choice to avoid eating meat as "positive and life-enhancing," she moves on to clearly and carefully outline what to eat and what to avoid. Talking about nutrition, she cautions teens against living on pizza and junk food, and advises athletic kids to pay attention to their protein, iron, and zinc intake. A table listing specific foods makes it easier for everyone to know the best choices for protein, calcium, and other key nutrients. There are strategies for dealing with miserable school lunches (eat pasta), and advice on questions to ask when eating out ("Is this vegetable soup made with chicken broth?"). Because teens can get emotional about their beliefs, Pierson suggests they be activists in letter writing and supporting vegetarian causes, but try to remember in conversations that their diet is a choice, not a crusade. One chapter of Vegetables Rock! talks about specific foods and how to prepare them, from asparagus to dried beans, grains, and sea vegetables. The 60 recipes come mostly from chefs, cookbook writers, and magazines. Identifying which are vegan, Pierson covers everything from what some consider the best the guacamole in New York City--from the restaurant Rosa Mexicana--to Creamy Peanut Butter and Banana Pudding, a dairy-free indulgence from Ken Haedrich's Feeding the Healthy Vegetarian Family. Everything is easy enough for teens to prepare in a college dorm mini-kitchen. Assessing why at least 11 percent of American teen girls are vegetarian, Pierson concludes, "It's healthy ... cool ... and has the potential to drive your parents nuts. Three times a day." --Dana Jacobi

only a beggining....if even that much:
teenage vegans and vegetarians aren't stupid people. if i had read this befor i had gone vegan, i probably wouldn't have... there are so many other great books out there with better information. try anne marie colbin's "food and healing."

VERY HELPFUL!:
I read this book and contrary to some others, found it extremely helpful! I'm fifteen and I have been a vegetarian for over a year (a lacto-ovo vegetarian, which I found out through this book). I sat and read this book straight through because although some parts are a little boring I'd say 95% of the book is actually fun to read, which isn't common in this type of book. It's filled with little quotes and anecdotes (sp?) that are really interesting. The only bad part about this book was not all of the 60 recipes were really that great (which is the only reason I didnt give it 5 stars), but there were still some that were. If you're looking for specific recipes, I wouldn't turn to this book, but I found other information very helpful. For example, I'm very athletic and I found that I wasn't getting all the correct nutrients and such that I needed, therefore, I was very tired all the time. This book showed me easily what I was lacking in my diet and through what foods I could get it from. Also, it mentions (not in the recipe section)some really great snacks that I found really useful for when I didn't feel like prepairing something big and was short on time. Overall, I found this book very helpful and I think its a good book to have for both teens (and preteens) and also parents.

Reread:
I first read this book when I fifteen and three years later I now see why I was attracted to the book in the first place. This book is a very quick and easy read, and answers the BASIC questions when trying to become a vegetarian. I would recommend this book only when someone is doing basic research into changing their lifestyle but if someone truly wants to become a vegan, there has to be much much more research, because there are a lot more information one must know that is not included in this book!

Recipes not great:
My vegetarian daughter finds in the text a wealth of informative nutrition facts, including the helpful vegetarian food pyramid. But we have tried several of the recipes and haven't found a winner yet! Better recipes (that teens REALLY love) are found in Deborah Madison's many vegetarian cookbooks.

Not That Good:
I recently decided to become vegetarian, so I got this book to read. I was very disapointed. I think this book provides good information about nutrional and meals, yet is written in a boring, scientific way. This book may appeal more to parents of vegetarians and vegans and adult vegetarians, than to teenagers. This book contains a lot of recipies, and some of them sound good, but most of them are far more complex than a teenager would be willing to cook. I would reccomend this book to parents of teenage vegetarians, but there are better books written for the teens themself. This book also has so many negative quotes including a whole page of someone making fun of vegetarian food and rambling about how they hate tofu. I don't think these are nessecary in a book for vegetarians, there is enough of that without reading about it. However, if you seriously want to research about being a vegetarian this book won't hurt, it is just a dissapointment.