My name is Lauren Schoepke, and I am a proud Vegetarian. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and study Spanish and International Political Economy at Carthage College. For the past four months I have been living with a Senora in Sevilla, Spain taking International Business courses.
When I turned 16 I decided to make a major change in my lifestyle. No one in my family was a vegetarian, and I guess you could say I saw it as an opportunity to rebel. However, the more I researched the nutritional benefits and a more green way of living, the more I realized this was the path I was meant to choose. The past 6 years, I have been enthralled by new and creative options for meals. I especially enjoy that being a vegetarian is a constant learning process.
I am thrilled to be a new team member at DiscoverVeggie and look forward to sharing my vegetarian experiences abroad and at college. In the future, I hope to provide useful and innovative information to vegetarians of all ages, especially college students. My current obsession is being surrounded by the Mediterranean-Vegetarian style of cooking.
While the fad diets continue to flood our everyday lives, we frequently ignore the cuisines that historically were not created on the basis of losing the extra weight. One of the most taken-for-granted diets is that of the Mediterranean cuisine. As true Veggie supporters, it can be promised that this cuisine will easily provide us with nutrition and great simplicity.
Photo by Lauren Schoepke
It does not take a highly-paid and notarized chef to create these beautiful dishes. No, I have encountered this style of cooking in the comfort of my home in Sevilla, Spain. There are three main components to this diet: olive oil, white wine, and garlic. Any desirable vegetable sauteed with these ingredients will yield wonderful and creative dishes. Mushrooms, spinach, and garbanzos work flawlessly with the Mediterranean components. Other contents include plant-based foods such as vegetables and fruits, wheat and whole grains, and nuts.
Photo by Lauren Schoepke
This diet generates an immense amount of health benefits that greatly compliment the minimal effort needed to create these dishes. Antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients are all found in Mediterranean recipes which provide protection against heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer. The simple substitution of olive oil can improve protection against obesity, as well as type 2 diabetes.Being asked “chicken or beef” on the flight over to Spain I can honestly say I was quite nervous about my vegetarian options abroad. However, my host mother was happy to think outside of the box utilizing the Mediterranean characteristics in her recipes. This only reinstated my happiness with my lifestyle and meal choices. The vegetarian way of living is not only about making environmentally friendly meal choices, but it is about thinking creatively about the types of food we put into our systems. This is my favorite part about my food choices, the innovation and different cultural experiences. The mellow Mediterranean cuisine is always a great option for vegetarians, vegans, and pescetarians both in terms of health and the comfort of knowing how easy it is to create or encounter this cuisine in nearly every city around the world.