How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Personal Chef Business by Carla Rowley

Author:Carla Rowley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: personal chef, meal preparation, custom menu, grocery shopping, cooking, kitchen management, food safety
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group Inc.
Published: 2014-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Vegetarian and Vegan Diets

With many Americans becoming more health conscious, vegetarian and vegan diets are becoming more popular. However, do not assume that if you have a vegetarian or vegan client, that he or she necessarily wants low calorie, low fat meals – there are a variety of reasons that people choose these diets. Some choose to adopt vegetarian and vegan diets because it makes them feel healthier and better; others choose vegetarian or vegan diets for spiritual or cultural reasons – many Buddhists, for example, adhere to a strict vegetarian diet. Other vegetarians and vegans choose not to eat or use animal products because they perceive such use to be cruel or unfair to animals.

Strict vegetarians do not eat any type of meat. Luckily, there are many tasty replacements for meat available, such as tofu, which is made from soy, and seitan, which is made from wheat. These meat replacements are filling and tasty. You will want to experiment with these meat substitutes if you are not used to using them – some meat substitutes are rather bland when eaten by themselves, so you might find that tofu and seitan based dishes need to be more heavily spiced than other types of dishes. It is also common for tofu to be marinated in a spicy sauce for several hours before being used in meal preparation.

Ask your client if they include any meat at all. This might seem like an odd question to ask a vegetarian, but some people who refer to themselves as vegetarians will eat fish or certain types of poultry, so be sure to have your client specify what their preferences are.

If you have a vegetarian client, find out what meat replacements they prefer. Also ask them what some of their favorite meatless dishes are. Many dishes that typically contain meat can be modified and made vegetarian relatively easily. For ideas, purchase a vegetarian cookbook and modify the recipes to suit your client’s preferences, while adding your own flair as a chef.

Vegan diets are a bit more challenging. Vegans do not eat any animal products at all, including dairy or eggs. Luckily, soy products are available to replace dairy products, and some of the same meat replacements used for vegetarian clients can also be used.

One of the biggest challenges with a vegan diet is that so many store-bought foods now contain foods that are made from animal products, and sometimes we do not even realize it. If you are working with a vegan client, you must get into the habit of reading labels and being able to spot foods that contain animal products.

If you are a vegetarian or vegan yourself, this is an excellent area of specialization for you. Foods can be high in flavor without containing meat or animal products. As a chef, it is also fun to use and bring out the natural flavors of foods.

Most metropolitan areas have a vegetarian and vegan population and have natural, organic, and health food stores where you can find a variety of foods to use in cooking for this population.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.