Whether you are a vegetarian by choice outside of religion or within religion, it is definitely a choice to celebrate. While people might have their own reasons for going green in their eating habits, the benefits of being a vegetarian accrue in equal measure to everyone. This World Vegetarian Day, which falls on October 1, join us in celebrating the brilliance that comes with picking out a green plate! Whether you’re vegetarian or non-vegetarian, here are a couple of things you can do to celebrate the day!

                                                       

1. Encourage your family and friends to take on a vegetarian diet. There are so many advantages to going vegetarian – lower cholesterol, your body is not put through hormones and unnecessary chemicals that can add to heart disease and blood pressure related issues, and you wind up sustaining longstanding good health.

                                                     

2. Take a pledge to turn vegetarian and encourage your friends to go meat free all month long, in October. Skipping meat, pork, fish and poultry can really keep your heart health and cholesterol in order.

                                                      
3. Throw a veggie party! Get your friends together and host a cook-out, or a pot luck dinner, or even a no-host dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. You’ll be surprised to find how creative and delicious vegetarian cooking can be!

                                                     
4. Throw open an environmental awareness rally that centres around how great going vegetarian actually is, for the ecology. Vegetarian diets work really well for the environment, especially since the production of meat is a polluting process. Furthermore, the injection of hormones into animals to create robust meat products results in a lot of imbalance in the body, and by extension, in the environment.

                                                      
5.  Adapt a non-vegetarian dish in vegetarian style! Take a non-vegetarian recipe and find a way to twist it into a purely vegetarian style – soya chunks go where meat went, paneer goes in place of chicken – get creative, and get cooking!

                                                     
6. Found or create a veggies club! Find like minded individuals who are either already vegetarians, or are hoping to become vegetarians, and form a club – you could share recipes, restaurant reviews, find ways to influence policy around healthy eating and vegetarianism, and host cook off events, too! If you find it hard to network with vegetarians or vegetarians to be around where you live, look online – Facebook and Twitter are very comfortable networking hubs that can help you find like-minded individuals with ease.

References:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/7-meaningful-ways-to-celebrate-world-vegetarian-day.html

http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/12-reasons-vegetarian-diet-good-idea

http://www.indiatimes.com/health/healthyliving/its-actually-possible-to-build-muscle-on-nothing-but-a-vegetarian-diet-244992.html

PC: Wikipedia & Pixabay