--- title: "Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books: IVU News Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books An Interview with Alka Mehta IVU News 2-97 It is no secret that large areas of India are traditional spiritual and religious strongholds where meeting a vegetarian would be" url: "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5461:news-2-97-mehta&catid=223" date: "2026-11-06T00:08:18+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books **IVU News** **Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books** An Interview with Alka Mehta [**IVU News 2-97**](https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5455:news-2-97-index&catid=223) ![photo](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/news/2-97/11-ahoto.jpg)It is no secret that large areas of India are traditional spiritual and religious strongholds where meeting a vegetarian would be considered the rule rather than the exception, just as it is equally short of revolutionary for Indian vegetarians to adopt a dairy-free vegan lifestyle. Alka Mehta, however, is treading new ground with her range of salt-free, sugar-free, oil-free, cooking-free and milk-product-free recipes. Born a vegetarian, Alka Mehta is the author of several books of natural recipes for adults and children written in her native Gujarati, including Natural Taste, Taste of Living Food, Eat Salads, Reduce Weight, etc. There are also English versions of Make and Relish, her first children's recipe book, and her latest collection, Just Natural, containing 101 no-cook dairy-free recipes. Alka developed a keen interest in natural recipes while experimenting in the kitchen as a child. What finally motivated her to publish her recipes, however, were the positive comments of a doctor friend, writing for a women's magazine, who encouraged her to publish her recipes and books after sampling one of her tempting salads. ![book](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/news/2-97/11a-book.gif)As a student, Alka had tried to follow the family tradition and studied law to become a criminal lawyer while also taking a course on Montessori teaching for pre-school children. However, she subsequently found working with children more rewarding than with criminals and decided to drop her law practice and start her own nursery. Following [Henry David Thoreau](https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=2828:history-usa19-thoreau&catid=78)'s vital message to humanity to "Simplify!", Alka has put together hundreds of delicious, easy to prepare eats and drinks for the under-tens and their parents and indeed for everyone else to enjoy, avoiding the complicated and time-consuming high fat dishes that are such an unnecessary health risk. *\[Based on an interview with Alka Mehta, a committee member of the Vegetarian Society (Reverence for Life) and a speaker at the [Regional Conference in Mahabaleshwar](https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=5456:news-2-97-india&catid=223).\]* --- Contributions to IVU News are welcomed. Material published does not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or the policy of the International Vegetarian Union. A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 1485 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-asia97-index.html?view=article&id=5461:news-2-97-mehta&catid=223","url":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-asia97-index.html?view=article&id=5461:news-2-97-mehta&catid=223","name":"Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-asia97-index.html"}],"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"},"description":"IVU News Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books An Interview with Alka Mehta IVU News 2-97 It is no secret that large areas of India are traditional spiritual and religious strongholds where…"}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "History of IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=46" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "news", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=221" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "2-97", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=223" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, "headline": "Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books", "description": "Vegetarian News - Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books: IVU News Indian Vegetarian Author's No-cook Recipe Books An Interview with Alka Mehta IVU News 2-97 It is no secret that large areas of India are traditional spiritual and religious strongholds where meeting a vegetarian would be", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/logos/logo-ivu-tranparent-background.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alex Fernandes", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-council.html" }, "datePublished": "2026-06-30T23:44:37+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-06-25T01:39:35+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-10-08T00:54:47+00:00" } ```