A Day in the Life of a Raw Foodist
April 25, 2010 at 5:09 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentMy friend Paige had a great idea for a blog post: what does one day of eating raw look like, in terms of breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks? So, I’m going to share what I eat during a 100%-raw-day.
Quick note: You don’t have to eat 100% raw to enjoy the benefits of raw food. It’s great to eat raw for even one meal out of the day. I don’t even eat 100% raw all of the time; I average about 80%. It is pretty overwhelming to try to start eating this way immediately, so if you are intrigued by raw foods, then I recommend introducing these types of meals gradually into your lifestyle, and you’ll naturally want to eat more raw foods as time goes on.
BREAKFAST
Whole fruit, or fresh orange juice, or a raw bar if I’m in a hurry.
2 quarts of Kangen water — one of my priorities in the morning is to drink as much water as possible, which is one reason why I like to eat very light breakfast foods.
A tall glass of Berry Green — this is a probiotic and nutritional drink that comes highly recommended. If you think you may try it someday, use coupon HOS413 for $5 off.
FAVORITE LUNCHES
Tree of Life sandwich.
A large bowl of cabbage salad.
Veggie wraps using Ezekiel sprouted grain tortilla wraps.
A couple hours after I finish lunch, I drink another 2 quarts of Kangen water.
FAVORITE DINNERS
Zucchini or squash “pasta” with basil pesto, sun-dried tomato sauce, or olive oil and lemon.
A large salad — lettuce-based salads are easy, but lately I’ve been enjoying broccoli, beet, cauliflower, or cucumber-based salads.
Stuffed mushrooms with nute pâté.
Seed crackers with guacamole and tomatoes.
Tomato-and-sprouted-seed chili.
Garden patties with salad greens.
SNACKS
Any whole fruit.
Carrots and celery with a raw dip.
Soaked and/or sprouted seeds.
Almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, or pecans.
Mom’s raw granola bars — recipe coming soon!
Ezekiel bread with coconut oil and agave nectar.
I wanted to mention that, even though it may not be obvious from the above list of foods, I try to eat fruit only the morning. This is because it’s easier on your digestive system if fruits are eaten separately from other foods. I find that fruits are very satisfying in the morning and they give me a lot of good energy to start the day.
One of the reasons that I drink so much Kangen water (at least a gallon a day) is that the water has a ton of antioxidants and is alkaline-forming. Today’s water supply is way acidic, even when purified, distilled or bottled, so if I didn’t drink the Kangen water I would probably start juicing a lot of vegetables or fruits in an effort to alkalize my diet.
Many people wonder if the raw food diet actually fills me up at mealtimes. The answer is: yes yes yes! When I eat 100% raw I am satisfied at meals and I don’t even get hungry periodically throughout the day, as usually happened before I went raw.
Teaser for the next post: a recipe for raw veggie dip, or carrot-cabbage-crunch salad! I haven’t decided yet…
The Red Peppers Are On Sale Salad
April 16, 2010 at 4:06 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 CommentsTags: braggs, broccoli, ginger, mother vinegar, nama shoyu, quick recipe, red peppers, salad
This recipe was inspired by the introduction of several beautiful organic red peppers to our kitchen, which we had found on sale for an astonishingly low price at our local grocery store. This yummy vegetable is usually prohibitively expensive, so it had been real treat to heap the cheap peppers into our shopping basket.
The excitement of owning a Heap o’ Red Peppers was momentarily diminished when I got home and realized that I didn’t know what to do with so many red peppers. However, the problem was easily solved with this impromptu salad creation.
“Salad” usually conjures up images of boring iceburg lettuce, but in fact most salads I eat these days don’t involve lettuce at all. This one certainly doesn’t: it’s just red peppers and broccoli. (I used broccoli because I had recently read my friend’s blog post about organic gardening, and I had been wanting broccoli ever since.)
INGREDIENTS
2-3 red peppers
1 large head of broccoli
My husband sportingly agreed to pose for this blog post. I guess that photo shoots in the produce section aren’t typical, because a nearby Whole Foods employee kept giving us funny looks.
DRESSING
3 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce — preferably Nama Shoyu
1 teaspoon minced ginger (increase this amount if you’re a big ginger fan)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar — preferably with the “mother”
Crushed red pepper flakes or chili powder, to taste
Cut off the broccoli stem from the florets, then break the florets into bite-sized pieces. Dice the red pepper and combine with the broccoli. Blend the dressing ingredients together. Add enough dressing to slightly glaze all the vegetables when mixed. (Depending on the size of your veggies, you may or may not need the entire amount of dressing.) Let the salad sit for an hour or so.
When I ate this salad at work (in the midst of a luncheon pizza party, no less) I received comments on how pretty and colorful it was! In addition to being a beautiful dish, it’s delicious.
Tree of Life Sandwich
April 7, 2010 at 4:56 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 CommentsTags: avocado, Ezekiel bread, live nutrients, sprouted grains, sprouts, vegetable sandwich
I am in love with Tree of Life sandwiches. After I first discovered the recipe, I ate a Tree of Life sandwich every lunchtime for a month. It’s satisfying, flavorful, and full of whole nutrition and living energy from the sprouts and avocado.
NOTE: This meal uses Ezekiel bread. Ezekiel bread is — gasp — NOT 100% raw, but it’s still on my “good” list because it is made out of sprouted grains. (Sprouting the grains instead of processing them into white flour releases enzymes that, among other things, makes the grain more digestible and increases absorbable vitamin content; the result is more real, usable energy for our bodies.) Luckily, Ezekiel bread also tastes good.
It’s surprising how many grocery stores carry Ezekiel bread. I’ve seen it in Publix, Bloom, Trader Joes, EarthFare, Whole Foods, Hannaford, Food Lion, and nearly every small natural food store I’ve visited. You can find it in the frozen section (the bread should always be stored in a freezer). There may be other brands of sprouted-grain bread, but if there are, I haven’t seen them yet.
INGREDIENTS
Thanks to Kimah cafe, a natural foods cafe that operated for a short time in Greenville
2 slices of Ezekiel bread (original or sesame)
1/2 Avocado
Handful of sprouts
2-3 tablespoons of your favorite homemade salad dressing
First, thaw two pieces of Ezekiel bread. To do this, you can set the pieces on the counter for ten minutes, or toast them on a “light” setting, or put them in a pan on a low-heat stovetop for about a minute. I don’t recommend using a microwave. Get the pieces of bread just hot enough so that they’re not frozen anymore — avoid browning them.
Next, pour a tablespoon or so of dressing on one of the slices of bread.
Now it’s time to deal with the avocado. Start by slicing the avocado into halves.
If you’ve never opened an avocado, here’s how you do it: press your knife into the fruit so that the blade touches the big pit in the center. Bring the knife all the way around the horizontal “equator” of the avocado, slicing the skin as you go. Twist both halves until they come apart.
Remove the pit by whacking it with your knife blade. The pit will stick to the blade and come out without messing up the avocado meat.
Slice the meat as shown, then spoon it out carefully so that the slices stay more or less intact.
Place the avocado slices on the bread and arrange them so that the bread is completely covered.
Next, add as many sprouts as you can fit on the bread. Pile ‘em up high because they’ll squish down when you add the second piece of bread. Pour another tablespoon of dressing on top of the sprouts.
Finally, cut the sandwich diagonally. This is a very important step. To me, it’s just not a Tree of Life sandwich unless it’s cut diagonally.
And THAT is an oh-so-tasty Tree of Life Sandwich!
Basic Salad Dressing
April 3, 2010 at 4:29 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentSalads can be delicious without dressing, but I like drizzling a little bit over my veggies for variety. Unfortunately, most mainstream salad dressings use hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and/or dairy. None of these ingredients will make a body happy! So, Greg and I make our own. After several months of raw dressing-making, here is our favorite basic recipe.
INGREDIENTS
3 parts olive oil – preferably cold-pressed Extra-Virgin olive oil
2 parts fresh lemon juice
1 part agave nectar
1 part favorite spices/herbs
This recipe is great because you can use any spices to create completely different dressings. Our current favorite spice mix to add is Mrs. Dash Caribbean Citrus, although I also love adding red pepper flakes, Celtic sea salt and black pepper, ginger, fresh basil and parsley, garlic powder, or cumin and turmeric.
The ratios above are merely guidelines; if you don’t like the sourness of lemon, scale back the lemon juice, etc. Personally, I like add as much lemon as possible because lemons are a very alkaline-forming fruit. (Interestingly, I never used to like lemons very much, but after eating raw for nearly a year I’ve developed a strong appetite for them. I can now practically eat them plain!) If you want a sweeter, less sour lemon flavor, try using Meyer lemons.
The directions are simple: pour all the ingredients into an old salad dressing bottle or any ol’ jar, then shake it like crazy!
There you have it: salad dressing you can feel good about eating.
You can enjoy this dressing in moderation on dishes like lettuce-based salads, cabbage or broccoli salads, or the always-delicious Tree of Life sandwiches. (Recipe coming soon!)
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