Cooking For Vegetarians

Cooking for Vegetarians


If you can cook, you can cater to a niche market - vegetarians. Offer classes on how to cook great meatless dishes. It should take about six lessons and you could charge about $100 per student. Even if you are not a vegetarian, you can still teach this class to those that are.

This might take some research on your part but there are more and more people converting to some form of vegetarian diets now. The reason that you will need to do research is that there are many different types of vegetarians, some will eat eggs or dairy products and some don't, this can effect a recipe drastically.

Find some fantastic recipes that can work as a foundation for many different recipes with variations. Help them become more aware of all the options held out to them that they are not familiar with, such as different substitutes, sauces, and such, from Japanese, Indian, Afghani, African, Caribbean, Latin, Thai dishes, and more. Several different cultures around the earth have exclusive vegetarian diets, so introduce them to all of the different uses of beans, fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, and more used in their dishes.

There has been quite a movement within our younger population turning to vegetarian diets. They are making the decision mostly as a way of controlling their weight, but also for ethical reasons too. Now that there is more emphasis put on the types of foods consumed by previous generations and the abuse of animals to feed such large populations, many have decided to change the cultural eating decisions of their parents. People are also greatly affected by the habits of their favorite entertainment idols that are practicing these different eating choices too.

When meats are not the foundation of most meals it takes a real change of thought and conviction that humans can survive without the consumption of meats and sometimes even dairy products. Help them see that there are many other natural protein choices with beans, nuts, and whole grains.

Check with your local community centers or schools and see if you can offer these cooking classes to adults and young adults, in your local community centers or schools. Offer a 6-part class to them for about $100 per student. It is important in a class like this to emphasize the basic requirements of nutrition for good health. You should also stress how to go about eating a well-rounded variety of the different foods available to vegetarians.

You might advertise your classes in local newspapers and at your local grocery or health food stores. If your home and kitchen are large enough, you might even be able to offer smaller classes from your home, if you are comfortable inviting strangers into your home. If not, you could also offer to teach small classes of friends at one of their homes, much like the typical container or candle parties that we have all been invited to over the years. These would be much less formal, but enjoyable just the same.

You should make sure that you have a professional looking business card with your teaching specialties shown on it. It might even be a good idea to have a picture of you on it too. Leave them with all types of people you may encounter that express an interest in cooking classes, especially vegetarian meals.

A renewed interest that is growing quickly with many famous people now is the 'raw food diet', a little different spin of food preparation for a popular way of eating. Safe preparation of only raw food dishes, as opposed to 'cooking', is most typically vegetarian types of foods, but not always. People are willing to pay even more for these types of classes, if you are interested in teaching these classes, you might look into this to teach too.

Resources:

http://vegetariancuisine.suite101.com/article.cfm/cooking_for_vegetarians

http://vegetarian.about.com/