Each year many people of the world celebrate meatless March Challenge. March is also the time of Lent, where in ancient times, fasting was way stricter than today and, in some places, all animal products were forbidden. In other countries, predominantly in the East, only vegan foods are consumed during Lent.

During March, on the 20th to be more specific, is also Meat-Out Day, and Royal Palm Hotel’s Executive Chef, Qhawe Tshabalala provides some tips on how to experiment with meatless meals. It’s important to have some flexibility in your food choices so you don’t end up despising the experience.

Use the month of March to clean up your diet. Some suggestions include:

• Track one of the key nutrients you to need to watch. Check in on your calcium levels, plan to boost your iron intake, or ramp up your Omega-3 levels.
• Take a cooking challenge. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to cook, take this month as a chance to get more comfortable in the kitchen.
• If you’re new to meatless meals, start small, with just one night a week, and work up to more meals on more days.
• If you’re someone who says you could never not eat meat, I’m not going to pressure you to give it up. That’s your decision. However, you could use this month as a chance to eat more vegetables and whole grains.

Below are some vegetarian options that will most certainly excite even the most hard-edged carnivore, and some lifesavers when you are away from home, and there’s no veg-friendly food in sight:

• Granola bars
• Cereal with soy or almond milk
• Nuts and dried fruit
• Fruit and nut butter (apples and almond butter are a favourite of mine!)
• Hummus and whole-grain crackers or veggies
• Salsa and baked chips
• Smoothies made with fruit and non-dairy milk
• Sorbet with fruit and granola
• Smoked tofu slices with crackers or fruit (my version of cheese and crackers)
• Regular oatmeal

So whether you want to make more healthy life choices by cutting down on your meat in-take, or you simply want to try and have one night a week meat-free, make March your trial month. Who knows what could happen!

For the past few years, the realm of conferencing has truly shifted, as corporates plan and evaluate their time spent on conference, not only just by what was achieved from a strategic point of view, but how their teams contributed to giving back, and that’s one thing that the team at Royal Palm Hotel can solve easily for you.

Noting this change in focus, the Hotel has restructured their conference offering to cater for the conscious conferencing corporate, and this is a key focus for new General Manager, James Theunissen.

Being one of the top centrally located venues, Theunissen strives to revise the manner in which conferences were run, allowing corporates to not only revive their enthusiasm and refocus their company goals, but allowing them to feel a greater sense of achievement by investing their time and effort into a community serviced initiative.

“Our Hotel is perfectly placed to offer our conference guests a host of green conferencing solutions. Whether they wish to partake in a beach clean-up on Umhlanga Beach, visit the Natal Sharks Board for an informative talk on our effects on the sea, or plant a vegetable garden at a local school, our team can assist with all of the necessary arrangements for this,” comments Theunissen.

If your company is truly looking to make a difference, then book your next conference at Royal Palm Hotel, and chat to their team about how you can give a little something back.