Bread is a vital ingredient in the diet of millions of people on a day by day basis. However, there are as many kinds of bread as there are peoples’ eating it and most countries have in excess of one sort of bread too. In it’s most fundamental kind, bread is made by cooking a dough of flour and water. However, it rarely rests there except in children’s scout camps.

The flour can be made from almost anything that can be dried and pulverized, so in Europe and America, flour is most normally made from wheat, rye or corn, whereas in India it is often made from gram and in Thailand it can be manufactured from rice and there are numerous other types of flour too, besides all the possible combinations obtained by mixing the different flours.

Frequently, whole grains or rough-ground material will become added into fine flour to improve texture, taste, roughage or / and aesthetics. Also, in the same vein, occasionally the dough will get rolled in seeds such as sesame, poppy or other kinds of crop like rolled oats. The second ingredient is water, but not always. You can use water, milk or even beer or yoghurt or a mixture of a few of them.

Then there are additives. No, not the E-numbers or chemicals such as flavour-enhancers or preservatives, they are entirely unnecessary, unless you are using poor quality ingredients or you would like the loaf to have a long shelf life. No, I am talking about natural additives. Yeast is the first additive. It makes the bread rise and so makes it light. Bread without yeast is more like cake. Sugar, honey or molasses is added to help the yeast increase in size.

Salt is the first real additive. Salt is added to inhibit the action of the yeast and as a flavour-enhancer, but you could add celery salt (garlic or any other salt) instead or table salt. However, you do not actually have to use it if you do not use yeast. After that, the world is your oyster, you can put what you want.

Some people add an egg to give the bread more body or fruit such as raisins. Or you can add bananas instead or as well. Nuts are good in home made bread too but so are dried plums and apricots. I used to like to add a handful of rolled oats for extra fibre.

A little oil (olive or other) or butter will help the bread’s elasticity and it will also keep longer as well, not that that was ever an issue in our household. Herbs and garlic is lovely in homemade bread yet so is ginger or onions. In fact, one of the best breads I ever made was made with the left overs from my Sunday lunch. I could not eat it but it was not enough to put in the fridge so I put it in the bread mix.

I put in French green beans, a little potato, some cabbage, a bit of chicken, kidney beans and the gravy – only a little of |each. It was the best bread I ever made, but I have spent the last ten years trying to replicate the loaf in vain, because I did not write down precisely what I did.

Those who are not vegetarians almost certainly wonder how a vegetarian cook can make vegetarian meals exciting with just vegetables at his disposal. This same thought may be stopping or at least deterring some meat-eaters from giving up meat and trying vegetarianism. The fact is, that vegetarian meals are not just ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat, although forty years ago there were numerous vegetarians who began like that.

However, a lifestyle of ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat is not sustainable. A person who eats meals such as these will soon become sick, especially if there is no fish, dairy or eggs in the diets either. Many vegetarians choose to eat a small amount to dairy, fish or eggs to help supply much needed protein, which can be difficult to replace in a met-free diet.

Vegetarians have to plan their meals far more than meat-eaters in order to eat everything that a body needs to grow, repair itself and defend itself from disease. It will obviously take some time for the newcomer to vegetarianism to learn new recipes and how to cook them so in the beginning, lots of vegetarians do indeed cook meals which are of the ‘meat and two veg’ without the meat type.

This is all OK if you know what to substitute for the meat. There are several items in the shops, and one of the most helpful is soya in all its numerous forms. Tempeh is a soya bean meat substitute and so is tofu. Both these can be used to replace meat for a dose of protein.

The good thing about these substances is that they can be cooked to taste of anything you like – they take on flavours quite easily. They can also be made to resemble the texture of meat.

Seitan (wheat gluten) is a similarly adaptable and helpful product, but you have to be certain that you are not allergic to gluten first, because this allergy seems to be spreading. Soya bean products and seitan can be easily bought at health food stores and Oriental shops.

As you become more capable at cooking vegetarian meals, you will almost certainly rely less heavily on these things. Beans and nuts are also useful substitutes, but you will probably have to learn how to use them first. Take a look at chickpeas, lentils yet kidney beans.

Soya by-products like soya milk and soya yoghurt and even soya margarine can be used to take the place of regular dairy products. You can also make a type of healthy milk from rice water or / and blended nuts. Apart from making milk and casseroles from nuts, some nuts are fantastic in salads. Have a go with walnuts, cashews and almonds and eat seeds too like sesame and poppy. Sunflower seeds and others are great for snacks.

Bread and sandwiches are good vegetarian fast foods. Experiment with different types of flour. Buy yourself a bread-making machine and bake your own bread. Preparation time is minutes and you can set the timer to cook the bread for when you like. Seven in the morning is better than any alarm clock.

Lifestyle changes are the most difficult ones to make and one of the toughest lifestyle changes that anyone can attempt voluntarily is to become a vegetarian. Often people find it easier to become part of a support group while attempting lifestyle alterations; think of Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers or giving up smoking. Joining a support group can help the novice vegetarian too.

The benefits of being a member of such a support group are many, but some of them are encouragement, advice and friendship. You might not require the friendship, but you might like to socialize with other vegetarians so that you can see how they cope with eating out and basically simply fitting into a society designed by and for meat-eaters.

However, whether you propose giving up your old friends or not, you may find yourself moving away from them after a time quite naturally. Remember the old expression: ‘Birds of a feather flock together’? This is quite standard.

You will have problems substituting something else for meat; you will be worried that your diet is deficient in some nutrient; you will be wondering which restaurants serve truly vegetarian food and plenty more.

Your newly discovered support group friends will be a immense source of encouragement and advice in this field. You may not like the notion of a ‘vegetarian support group’, yet you could just as easily join a vegetarian dining club or vegetarian cookery group, the effect will work out the same – you will learn and you will make new friends.

If you have trouble locating such a group by the normal methods of your local Yellow Pages and an Internet search, try going to the local community centre, where there might be yoga groups – a couple of the attendees will be vegetarians that you can ask. Or go to you local health food shop and ask there Similarly you could ask at a martial arts club or a Hindu Indian restaurant. If all else fails, you could begin your own club.

If you set up your own club, find a sympathetic bar or restaurant that will cook your meal suggestions for that night at a reasonable cost. After a time, I am sure you could build up a lovely little club of twenty people and the landlord may let you have your own room to dine in once a month like the Masons.

If you think that this is too much in the early days, you could just set up a blog. A blog is an interactive web site, where you and others can post relevant information. If you keep the name of the blog relevant to your town and vegetarianism, you should find that other people looking as you once did will find you, whereas you discovered no one. Once you have built up a group of local, on line vegetarian sympathizers, you could suggest meeting once a month in the flesh and take the dining notion from there. An advertisement in the local paper would help as well.