Satisfying Dinner

I had an awesome but pretty simple dinner tonight. I guess not THAT simple but relatively so. I made a raw "taco salad" and a RBG smoothie.

For my Taco Salad I set down a bed of mixed greens with romaine, chard, and green leaf lettuce, I topped it with guacamole I made yesterday with avo, red onion, lime juice, sea salt, cilantro, and grape tomato's. I also picked up some fresh salsa today on my shopping trip. So I put a big scoop of that on too. Finally a chance to use the dehydrated corn chips I made from everyday raw for their intended purpose!

My Red Blue Green Smoothie was 1 small sized banana, a handful of blue berries (frozen), a handful of strawberries, and a couple of raspberries (frozen), 2 ice cubes of my young coconut water/meat mix, and 1/2 t of spirulina. I added a tiny bit of water to get it moving, then blended it until smooth.

For being just greens, salsa, and guac, my salad was very tasty and satisfying. The chips were very good in it and a nice filling addition. I drank my smoothie first... At juliano's restaurant the nice and cute server girl told us that they serve desert and smoothies first, soups next, and entrees last. They do it because the sweet pureed stuff is the easiest to digest and they get your stomach and pancreas moving, so you are better able to digest the more fibrous foods/dehydrated foods in your entree. I like this philosophy, more so because I can't wait to eat dessert, but the fact that it makes sense helps.

For my real dessert tonight I am going to have some watermelon I cut up earlier and marinated in lime juice and agave. YUM!

young coconuts

I had my very first brush with a young coconut today, I think I am in LOVE...

I scraped the meat out and put the juice and the meat in the blender and when it was combined I threw it into an ice cube tray in the freezer to save for smoothies. It is so delicious. 

YOUNG COCONUT:
Nutritional Benefits
Young coconuts are considered highly nutritious. One whole coconut has only 140 calories and provides 17% of the RDA for calcium. The total fat content is 3 grams, all saturated. With a zero content of cholesterol, the young coconut has 50 mg sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrate, 2 grams of fiber,15 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein. 

Young coconuts are sold still in the husk. You can recognize a young coconut by its pale, almost ivory color and by its conical shape at the top. Look for these in the refrigerated section or produce section of some health food and Asian markets. If you're surprised at how heavy they are, try pouring the coconut juice into a measuring cup--just make sure it's a large measuring cup.

Young coconuts are valued for their juice, but the coconut meat inside, which is often sweeter than that of the mature coconut, is completely edible and has a softer, more delicate consistency than a mature coconut. The very young coconut meat is almost jelly-like and can be eaten with a spoon.

Store young coconuts in the refrigerator.

More info here: http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch58.html

on retraining myself to eat..

I DO love food. So it comes as no surprise that I have recently determined that I take BIG bites and don't chew my food. One of the most mentioned tenants of a raw food diet that I have read is that one must CHEW THEIR FOOD. The enzymes in your saliva mix with the food and begin to break it down, easing digestion and converting sugars, before you swallow. Now maybe for some this isn't a big shock. Well, and really it isn't a shock for me either, I just wasn't doing a very good job of it. I tend to bolt my food and eat as much as I possibly can before I get full. Really I think it is more to satisfy my hunger than to get full, but sometimes I eat SO fast that I become full and I eat a huge plate of food and I still FEEL hungry. I don't enjoy my food because its gone before I even tasted it. 

My new raw diet has really opened my eyes to some of my food issues. I am sensitive to sugar, even in fruits, if I'm eating too much of it. I knew that before (excema, athletes foot, food cravings) but I never saw such obvious and pin-pointable results. I started incorporating more fruit into my diet to get more calories and quickly began getting my nightly sugar cravings and needing to get up and have something sweet before I could sleep again.

Since starting this diet I have also had less cravings overall and feelings of ravenous huger, while still feeling like I can eat whenever I want and until I am full. I only started having cravings again when I was eating a ton of sweet fruit. I checked out a glycemic index chart on fruit and am trying to keep in mind what the lower sugar fruits are and incorporating more of those into my diet, and keeping the high sugar fruits in the slight minority.

Greens are the key. I need to eat tons of greens and start throwing them into my smoothies.

So back to my big bites. Since I have started focusing on chewing my food I have come to realize that I take such large mouthfuls of food that there is no way I can chew it without swallowing some. Like it is such a big bite I can't really move it around in my mouth without some going down the drain. Americans! ha

So I am working on smaller bites, chewing my food, and eating my greens. 

dehydrator

so, the big news in my life... I got a dehydrator! which is awesome because it gives me the option of gently "cooking" food. I can make breads, and crackers, and soften my vegetables like broccoli which are hard for me to digest. I am trying to take it a little easy with eating the dehydrated foods because I know if I go overboard it wont be healthy and will probably give me a tummy ache, buuut it sure is nice to have a pizza crust. So far I have made corn chips from everyday raw, which are good but I think could be better, I may tweak it a little bit next time... And I made pizza crusts from juliano's RAW: the uncook book. They turned out great. I made a pizza with sundried tomato and carrot juice, used the spring onion cheese recipe from goneraw.com, which rules... and added marinated mushrooms, olives (not really raw ones, eek! I cheated), and parsley on top. Yum! If anyone is interested in any of the recipes I used for my pizza let me know :)

The BAAAAAD List...

So, as you probably can't help but to realize I am currently what one could consider to be a Raw Foodist. I haven't really laid that out yet on my blog, but since it IS all about what I eat maybe it's time for some details. I have a very close relationship with food... some may call it an obsession... I find it more healthy to think of food as my hobby. You know, I am a baker by profession, but in my free time I play viola, hang out with my dog and my boyfriend, and obsess over food. That makes it sound better right? 

I have been vegan for about 10 years and very recently have leaped into the world of raw food. Being vegan has not helped to reduce the time I spend thinking about food, on the contrary. Have you ever notice that if you are at a mixed-ivore party (as in herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) you will see all the vegans hovering in the near vicinity of the food if there is anything they can eat available? Well I have. We like to eat, ok? Being Raw has increased my food preoccupation by at least double.

I have to learn all this new stuff about how to combine foods and how to prepare them... Not to mention having to eat ALL THE TIME to get enough calories. That is really my dream come true. I can eat AS MUCH AS I WANT and I am still slowly shedding extra weight.

It wasn't really about weight though. I mean, I ain't gonna lie, I don't mind if I loose a couple pounds of my donut weight; but I really had better reasons. I was SO addicted to refined sugar, I would sit awake at night in bed and have to get up for something sweet before I could fall asleep. Like most typical Americans, and really a lot of vegans too, I had a massive refined sugar and wheat problem and it was totally messing with my body. I have always had problems with allergies and athletes foot, but in the last two years I also started getting hives and mild eczema on my hands. I know that my allergies are caused by pollens, grasses, dust, mold, and my dog; I was also thinking that reducing the things that were adding to my bodies dis-ease and causing inflamation and mucus production couldn't hurt. My thought was that by ridding myself of the common causes of mucus production like soy and wheat I may help my immune system to do a better job. The sugar, well I have always been sensitive to sugar. I know it is the cause of my athletes foot, probably the eczema, and it makes me feel sluggish and tired to top it all off. I have done some raw fooding in the past and I have always noticed a difference in the way I feel when I increase my percentage of raw food. 

So I decided to go for it. 

I am now at almost a month of being around 95% (as close as I can figure) raw.

Here's what I have noticed:

Athletes foot gone in 3 days

Eczema gone in 3 days

Allergies and hives, still hanging around but I am gonna give it a little more time and try to sort it out

Energy is up

Sleep required is down

My skin looks great and feels softer

There are a couple of things I have discovered at this point in my rawness that I would like to note so that in the future I can look back at this and say "this is where I was at one month in..."

- Eating the following "cooked foods" (aka the BAAAAAD list)

• Raw Cacao?
• Nutritional Yeast
• Raw Cashews?
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Very rarely: Fermented Soy products like Namu Shoya and Miso (still trying to determine if soy affects my allergies)

-Using the following guidelines

• Trying to stick to a caloric breakdown around 15% protein, 35% fat, 50% carbohydrates, this is where I seem to have the most success, and hit at least 1200 calories. I have lost 5-7lbs and don't want to loose weight too quickly, definitely not muscle.
• If I want to try a small bite of a cooked vegan food I do. I am doing raw food because that's what I want to eat, not to deprave myself. Trying a small bite of a good smelling cooked food has helped me to avoid urges to binge
• Eating mostly fruit in the morning and at least one BIG green salad during the day.

It will be interesting to see where I am on this journey in 6 months...

Chocolate Protein Shake

My new favorite source of Chocolate and Protein!

Recipe:

2 Bananas Frozen

2 Medjool Dates

a Splash of Vanilla or a Smidge of Vanilla Bean

3 T Hemp Protein

1 T Raw Cacao powder

Blend and add water as needed to achieve desired texture

Nutrition Facts
Total amounts per meal
Calories 515
Calories From Fat 69
Total Fat 8g
Saturated Fat 3g 
Cholesterol 0mg 
Sodium 4mg 
Total Carbohydrate 105g
Dietary Fiber 16g
Sugars 63g 
Protein 14g 
Vitamin A 5% Vitamin C 37%
Calcium 11% Iron 41%

Caloric Percentages:

Carbohydrate 77%

Protein 10%

Fat 13%

Not too bad! Since some days I have a hard time getting my calories and my protein this is a good one...

I know there are many debates over raw cacao, like is it REALLY raw? is it toxic? I just think it is delicious...

my first video blog!

So this is my first video blog, as I say several times and we will call it a practice run. I did figure out how to sync it up so next time will be better. If you feel like watching an unsync'd video of me making raw mac and cheese, here it is! It turned out really well and exemplifies the reason I end up with days where I eat 45% of my calories from fat ;)

Here is the recipe:
1/4 c Pine Nuts (soaked 2 hours)
1/4 c Cashews (soaked 2 hours)
1/8 c Filtered Water (plus or minus)
1 T Lemon Juice
1 T Nutritional Yeast
1/2 T Tahini
3/4 t Sea Salt
1 t Onion

Blend and serve over RAW veggie pasta