According to a 2009 Vegetarian Resource Group/Harris Interactive survey, about 3% of the U.S. adult population is vegetarian. If you’ve invited a vegetarian to enjoy your turkey dinner, plan ahead with these tips from nutrition expert Gary Null.

A vegetarian does not eat any type of animal flesh, whether from fish, fowl or other animals, although some individuals choose to eat dairy and/or egg products. This includes lard, chicken and beef stock and some prepared salad dressings.

With the vegan Celebration Roast, you still
get leftovers for sandwiches the next day. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

A vegan (pronounced VEE-gun) eats no animal-derived products, including honey, gelatin (used in desserts and marshmallows) and red food dyes derived from cochineal. If there is an animal-derived ingredient in a dish, no matter how small the amount, be certain to let your guest know.

Most importantly, the Thanksgiving dinner table is not the time to discuss why someone is a vegetarian. Some choose this diet for ethical or animal rights reasons. Others may be motivated by religious, environmental and/or health considerations. Some simply don’t like meat. If you really want to know why your guest has made this choice, ask another day—and if anyone else brings up the topic, steer the conversation to reasons everyone should be thankful!

There’s a new flower in the garden of Ayala’s Herbal Water. Lemon Verbena Germanium smells and tastes just like geraniums accented with lemon verbena (which some will recall as Ellen O’Hara’s—mother of Scarlett—favorite scent). Like the rest of the flavors, it’s refreshing, delightful and wonderfully different.

Ayala’s infuses organic garden herbs, blended with spices and citrus peel, into purified water to create innovative flavor profiles. We love this line; it complements food so much better than other flavored waters. The rest of the line includes Cinnamon Orange Peel, Clove Cardamom Cinnamon, Ginger Lemon Peel, Lavender Mint Lemongrass Thyme and Lemongrass Mint Vanilla. The first three are wonderful Thanksgiving flavors, especially welcomed by guests who don’t drink.

Ayala’s Herbal Water has zero calories and is certified USDA Organic and OU kosher. It is available at HerbalWater.com and at retailers nationwide, including Central Market, Food Emporium, Giant, HEB, Raley’s, Safeway, Wegmans, Whole Foods Market and many natural food and specialty food stores.

It’s different and it’s delicious! Photo courtesy of Ayala’s.

America loves hummus, as can be seen by the proliferation of brands and flavors in the refrigerator case of almost every supermarket and deli. It’s nutritious, gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan.

But what about dessert hummus? Dessert from chickpeas? That breakthrough concept is now available, healthy and actually delicious! Flavors include:

Read our full review, including all the ways you can serve Dessert Hummus.

Serve a trio of Dessert Hummus flavors for
dessert. Above: Caramel Apple, Maple
Walnut and Pumpkin. Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

In honor of National Fair Trade Month, this week’s Gourmet Giveaway prize is not only socially conscious, but also smooth and satisfying.

Six winners will enjoy Brazilian coffees from National Geographic’s Terra Firma coffee brand. All Terra Firma coffees are Fair Trade Certified™, which guarantees fair prices to farm families, environmental stewardship and investment in farming communities.

We know many people will love Terra Firma coffee (it was on our Father’s Day gift list in June). The single-origin, specialty-grade coffee is sourced from six of the world’s finest growing regions: Brazil, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Sumatra and Kenya. If you don’t win, you can purchase it on Amazon.com in light, medium and dark roast, ground or whole bean. The handsome bag makes it a nice gift, too.

It’s effortless to make the world a better place, simply by buying Fair Trade coffee.

It’s effortless to save the world by drinking
organic, Fair Trade coffee. Photo by
Ermek | IST.

With coffee emporia nearly everywhere you look—cafés and shops that sell beans—you’d think that coffee was a hot growth category. Yet the annual growth rate of conventional coffee between 2000 and 2008 was just 1.5%. Organic coffee imports experienced a 29% annual average growth rate during the same period, and Fair Trade® coffee, 35%. Last year, the amount of organic coffee imported into the United States increased 12%, and Fair Trade coffee increased 30%, despite the worst economy in 70 years and the premium prices that both command.

You’d think this would be great news, but just 0.6% of the coffee sold in the major consuming countries is organic certified, and even less is Fair Trade certified.

In honor of National Fair Trade Month, we’ve reviewed some of our favorite organic and Fair Trade coffees. Agricultural products can be organic and Fair Trade, organic or Fair Trade (obviously, the vast majority of foods are neither). What do these terms mean? In brief:

Yet of the $18 billion spent on coffee in the U.S. last year, the tiniest fraction went to organic and Fair Trade coffee. You can make a difference while enjoying an excellent cup of java.

Annie Chun’s has introduced new flavors in its Noodle Bowl and Soup Bowl lines. Both products can offer a good fast food fix when we’re hankering for something Chinese right away and don’t want to order from our nearby Chinese restaurant—we end up over-ordering and paying four or five times the price of a bowl of Annie Chun’s along with lots of non-biodegradable take-out packaging. Annie Chun is green: The bowls are made of biodegradable cornstarch and the cardboard sleeve is made from recycled paperboard. They mini-meals are 100% natural and no preservatives, no MSG (but a reasonable amount of sodium).

The bowls products use Hokkien noodles, round egg noodles of medium thickness—think fat spaghetti. (Hokkien is a Chinese dialect spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, and throughout Southeast Asia.) In less than two minutes, you can microwave:

Have microwave, will feast: Annie Chun’s
Noodle Bowls provide an almost-instant Asian
food fix at home or at work. Photo by Erika
Meller | THE NIBBLE.

Brad’s makes attractive, gluten-free chips from raw food: organic flax seeds, organic buckwheat groats, carrots, scallions and other veggies (depending on the flavor), garlic, Himalayan sea salt and olive oil. Fans of raw food and others who enjoy strong vegetable tastes will enjoy them.

Bags of chips, good for snacking, dipping and garnishing, are $4.00 for 2.2 ounces, $6.00 for 3.5-ounces and $8.00 for 6 ounces at BradsRawChips.com (1.215.534.1112).

Tasty chips for fans of raw, vegan and gluten-free foods and others looking for something
new and different. Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

Parents who insist on the best for their children have two new choices in the popular all-natural Mac & Cheese from Annie’s Homegrown.

Our investigative adult palates preferred the slightly more sophisticated taste of the 5-Grain variety, but we’re betting the nuances will be lost on kids. They’ll only note that the 5-Grain is white, not orange. Try the tip from Annie’s Homegrown to substitute yogurt for the milk for a tangier taste.

Annie’s Homegrown has also launched new Organic Cheddar Snack Mix Bunnies: crunchy Cheddar bunny crackers, buttery bunny crackers and pretzels, with a light seasoning of Organic Valley Cheddar cheese. Visit Annies.com to learn more.

Save some for the kids! A favorite snack mix, USDA-certified organic. Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

We have something to introduce today that may seem out-of-the-box for THE NIBBLE. Let us assure you: It’s so delicious we keep buying more and more. If you’re looking for a healthy hot dog solution, a delicious vegan dish or a way to help the planet reduce greenhouse gases (more about that in the main review), Field Roast Grain Meat is it!

If you’re not a vegetarian or vegan, you may have enjoyed a few jokes about Tofurkey or Veat vegetarian meat substitutes. Even some vegetarians we know turn their noses up at “fake meat” on principle. But at THE NIBBLE, we’re only in it for food, glorious food.

We’ve tried our fair share of vegetarian meats. Some we hope will never cross our plate again. Others, like the tempeh bacon served in a “TLT” sandwich (tempeh bacon, lettuce and tomato) with Nasoya’s Nayonaise (delicious!) at a local eatery, are a delight (“I can’t believe it isn’t bacon!”). We’re not vegetarian; we’re an omnivore. We eat anything that tastes good.

This meatloaf is 100% meatless comfort food. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

So when we first tasted a variety of products from the Field Roast Grain Meat Co., we couldn’t believe it wasn’t meat. Not knowing what “grain meat” was, we thought it might be a mixture of grain and meat. Whatever it was, we loved it. When we found out it was 100% vegetarian and vegan, we knew we’d found our next favorite culinary magician.

Whether you’re vegetarian, looking to give up meat a day or two a week to help the environment or your health, or simply looking for a new and delicious food, meet this great “new meat,” Field Roast grain meat.

If you’re thinking of serving a high-
cholesterol cheese fondue, contemplate a
veggie stir-fry instead. Photo courtesy
of iGourmet.com.

Cheese, ice cream, beef, butter, mayonnaise—just a few of our staple foods that are high in cholesterol. According to the National Institutes For Health (NIH), the foods that make one’s bad cholesterol rise (the LDL, low density lipoprotein) are saturated fats which largely come from animals. With our national wealth and ability to buy all the meat we want, plus bad dietary habits (fast food, saturated fats, mayo and butter with everything), Americans have one of the worst diets in the world. Our challenge: eat well, decrease the foods that have raise bad cholesterol levels and eat foods that raise good cholesterol.

September is National Cholesterol Education Month: Heart disease is our number one killer. The NIH counts more than 65 million Americans who have high cholesterol. In addition to adopting a regular exercise routine (ouch!), it may be less painful to switch to the right foods. This benefits everyone in the household: adults who are closer to developing health problems and younger folks who can learn early how to avoid them. What you need to do isn’t so painful—in fact, it’s quite tasty. Every day, consider:

As you can see, taking steps to lower cholesterol isn’t a chore—it’s delicious.