Simply Fresh Living

Before I get into detailed accounts of the good, bad, and ugly of our 30 day raw adventure I am going to post a collection of things we discovered along the way that made it easier for us, were interesting, or we just really liked. As always, its important to understand that nobody’s experiences are the same, even mine and my husbands were extremely different and we were basically eating the exact same food. Different things work for different people but a lot of these tips are easy and universal.

• The Power of the Green Smoothie: seriously, they are something to live by. There are tons of accounts out there of just 4 days of drinking green smoothies people had less wrinkles, looked ten years younger, hair started growing back.. honestly I have nothing like that to share. And although I do not have noticeable miraculous changes yet, I am a HUGE advocate for these drinks. There is a lot of research/debate out there of juicing vs. smoothies but I will share what has worked best for me. I work full time, leaving my house about 7:30/8 and getting home around 6 so as most of you, I definitely do not have oodles of time for juicing, smoothing, etc. To make two full glasses of juice for my husband and I it would take me f o r e v e r. On occasion I am craving juice, a smoothie just sounds too heavy, and I will take the time. But definitely not everyday. So I opt for a juice/smoothie combo or solo smoothie. I juice things like apples, pears, cucumbers, and celery and add the juice to a blender with my greens (chard, kale, romaine, leafy, spinach, etc.) I often throw in bananas, coconut, and various supplements depending on the day. Look for tons of my experimental green smoothie recipes coming soon to my recipes page! This way I am not waiting forever to juice TONS of produce (also not throwing out as much because as hard as I try I am really bad about using the leftover juicer “mush”) If you do not have a juicer, no worries! The solo smoothie recipes require blender only and I add things like agave, dates, or raw honey to sweeten them up

• EQUIPMENT: once you start reading about raw food, raw food blogs, recipes, advocates, etc. you can very quickly become overwhelmed by all of the equipment, equipment, equipment. Before I started on this adventure I did have a juicer, my husband got it for me for Valentines Day last year so I was lucky! It was $100 at Costco, its a centrifugal juicer, and while not the best it has totally sufficed for now. There are even cheaper models out there for less than 50$, yes they will be harder to clean up and won’t produce as much juice but if you’re on a budget and don’t mind it, grab one of those while you save up for something better. Besides my juicer the only other piece of equipment I have is a Cuisinart blender. It was a wedding gift, so yes again lucky I did not have to buy one. It was also $100 so definitely not the cheapest but  not the best by any means. If you are thinking of trying out some raw recipes, are interested in making more vegan food at home, or just want killer smoothies in the morning the blender is definitely the most important in terms of priority and dollars. Save up and spend the extra money if you can, it will make your life SO much easier. I am currently saving up for this guy, and let me tell you I can not wait! I do not have a dehydrator yet and we are doing just fine without-although I may get one someday they are definitely not necessary to be successful and often the recipes sound like a lot of work anyways.

• Salads: Salads were a lunchtime staple in my diet for a long time. Trying to think of new meals to not get bored can get tiring, so for lunch I stick with a salad everyday. Honestly after awhile, you will look forward to that salad I promise. I keep mine super simple

Leafy Lettuce & Spinach

Cherry Tomatoes cut in half

Avocado (the good fat really helps digestion of the veggies and is super important for me (as you will find out)

Carrots (sometimes if I have time I attack a carrot with my peeler and add some shredded on top)

Pinenuts (if your stomach isn’t super sensitive throwing on some pine nuts is delicious too)

Dressing: this is my FAVORITE dressing and its soo simple and gives the salad what it needs

Olive oil

1/2 of a lime juice

Raw Honey to taste

This salad takes about 10 minutes total preparation time, I often make mine at night before I go to bed in a transportable container and then its already to pack in my lunch bag in the morning, if not its not a big deal to make it before I leave because like I said, it doesn’t take that long!

• Desserts:

You WILL get sweet cravings. And yes you may be able to take your mind off of them but usually, its best just to give in! Keep some dates, cacao powder (available at Natural Grocery Stores, I use this brand) and dried fruit or peanut butter on hand. Place 1 cup of dates, 1-2 Tablespoons raw cacao powder & peanut butter/nuts/dried fruit in the food processor and you immediately have something chocolately, chewy, and DELICIOUS. Shape into bars, balls, or just eat straight out of the processor. Make a batch and store in your fridge so you have something quick and easy to grab if you need a quick and healthy naturally occurring sugar pick me up!

Have any of you made a transition to raw foods? What were you experiences like? Anybody interested in learning how to easily incorporate more raw foods into your regular diet? Share in the comments or shoot me an email!

While at the farmer’s market one Sunday I picked up a free copy of a local paper magazine, Natural Awakenings, and flipped through it on our way home. It had so much great information from local CSA’s to yoga classes, and a section about raw foods and their benefits. I read through it and it seemed interesting. I went to a website it mentioned and read a lot of exciting testimonials about people that ate raw foods complete with before and after pictures that were astonishing! Clicking through I found a smoothie recipe that really caught my eye. It was vanilla chocolate and claimed to keep your energy up all day while helping you focus at work (having just recently rejoined the 8-5 world this really enticed me) with nutrients to support brain function, memory, clarity, and more. I definitely wanted to try it! So at Whole Foods later that day I picked up all of the ingredients. It included tons of things I had never heard of: aloe vera gel, maca powder, vanilla bean, raw cacao powder, raw cacao nibs, hemp seeds, and more. I didn’t know where to find them or what most of them looked like so we asked someone to help us. As the girl was directing us around the store she asked, “oh are you guys going raw?” and I said no, just trying to make this smoothie recipe I found. When she walked away my husband asked me, “going raw? What does that mean?” So from the preliminary research I had done that brought me to the smoothie recipe I took a stab at an amateur explanation. I told him about the before and after pictures and how it was really cool to see what these people had to say. I also told him how a couple of the articles suggested going raw one day a week to try it out, it was so good for you, the environment, etc.

Part 2: Going “Raw”

We decided it would be fun! Since I still really wanted to lose the now 15 extra pounds I had put on over the course of some pre-vegan very unhealthy eating we thought that one day of nothing but fruits and veggies would really help with that too. We decided Wednesday would be the best day for us, it was the middle of the week, my husband had class after work until about 9pm and since we weren’t together for dinner we usually didn’t really cook for ourselves and kept it light anyways. We both  were asking each other though, “What do we eat?” We decided a smoothie/Vega shake for breakfast (we already LOVED the Vega Whole Food Optimizer and after looking further on the label realized it was raw! The Chai flavor is my favorite) fruit as a snack, salad for lunch, more fruit, and another salad for dinner. And some LaraBars if we were still hungry (again, another bar we were already addicted to being vegan only to realize it was also raw!). This was honestly all we could think of to eat that was “raw.” As Wednesday approached we realized we didn’t have enough fruits and vegetables on hand to keep both of us satisfied throughout the day. Same with the next Wednesday and even a third week after that. We kept bringing it up, but were just not super motivated to get everything we needed and make it happen. I decided to do more research, I turn to the internet for EVERYTHING. If I am unsure, unaware, curious, or just want another opinion, perspective, etc. I research. It makes me feel better, kind of like compulsive cleaning when you are stressed, but compulsive researching. And trust me, its not like a house with a finite amount of space and limit to how much you can clean, research is endless often accounting for many hours upon hours of what some would consider “wasted” but to me, its just a never ending stress reliever. I also picked up Victoria Boutenko’s book 12 Steps to Raw Food. This book is awesome. The testimonials of this family are truly unbelievable-it was all the inspiration my husband and I needed to commit to trying out this raw food thing. It also introduced me to the fabulous world of green smoothies, they are truly amazing! During my internet research I found tons of information (all of which I will be continuously sharing on this blog ) recipes, radio shows, etc. and throughout all of it I really loved Gena’s Choosing Raw Blog The recipes were simple, straightforward, there were pictures of all of the dishes and her site was so aesthetically pleasing (a serious issue if I was going to be looking at it daily!) I wrote down a few recipes from there and from my 12 Steps book and after all of my research my husband and I decided we would challenge ourselves to “go raw” for 30 days. And that is how it all began.. This was the easy part oddly enough, and most of the real challenges lie ahead

When my husband and I started on this “adventure” we had absolutely NO idea what we were getting ourselves into. I will start with some background in hope of inspiring and providing guidance as we were probably as “normal” as they come-in addition to being complete foodies and entirely obsessed with cooking, eating out, new restaurants, and all other food inspired gatherings/events.

Part 1: Going Vegan

How we got here was not life changing, altering or painful in any way. In April I decided to stop eating meat. No reason really. I had worked at a “vegetarian” restaurant since I was 15 and working with a lot of different people that were vegetarian and vegan I never really thought any more about it. I tried being vegan once, I ended up just stuffing myself with pasta and “accidental” vegan snacks like pop tarts. It didn’t last and I felt a lot more healthy going back to my norm. But in April I had a conversation with a coworker that was a pescatarian, a fancy label that means he doesn’t eat meat, but eats fish. He didn’t really have anything that convincing to say, but I looked at it more of a personal challenge, could I really go with no meat? It was fun for me honestly! I liked trying out different things instead of meat and found that I was actually eating more veggies. I was also eating a lot more pasta and cheese though (in conjunction with less exercise) an inevitably in about 2 months I had gained 12 pounds. In July I decided to read Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. I had heard some hype from various people and heard something about vegetarianism, I thought it might have some good alternatives to meat.

That book changed my life. My ideas of healthy have certainly evolved A LOT since reading it, but it will change yours too. After reading the book (in a day-I couldn’t put it down) I was a die hard-never looking back vegan.

This is honestly where almost all of my problems were solved.

I was a compulsive eater. Although I was always pretty healthy and maintained a very average healthy weight I was never happy with my body. I have had stomach problems since before I could remember. They would get so bad a certain times I wouldn’t want to eat just thinking about how I would feel after. I went to tons of doctors, colon hydro-therapists, specialists, etc. and nobody ever really gave me any certain answer or solution. I always wanted sweets and I had no self control. Honestly, none. I would give up bread/pasta for awhile and then fall off that wagon. My weight was constantly up and down 10-15 pounds as I tried my hardest to “diet” and make it through holidays, vacations, birthdays, etc.

Skinny Bitch not only made me so aware of what I was putting into my body and how it was affecting it but it made me so entirely disgusted by meat and animal products in general I honestly can not even think about taking a sip of milk without being completely overwhelmed. That day and every time after that my husband and I went shopping for entirely vegan options. We also checked the labels on EVERYTHING, we didn’t buy anything that didn’t have whole natural ingredients. If we didn’t know what one ingredient was we didn’t buy it. We still splurged on things like vegan ice cream and cookies, although they were definitely not all natural, but with the progress we had already made, we liked to treat ourselves once in awhile!

I did a quick search online looking for farmers markets near us. We found one that was open during the summer and was only 20-30 minutes from our home. We LOVED Ahwatukee Farmers Market from the first time we went. Everybody was super nice and friendly and there was such a wide variety of fruits, veggies, and tons of fresh jams, salsas, etc. Up until this point my husband had not even been vegetarian, he stayed away from red meat but that was it. After me pouring out all of the research and ideas I had about veganism he decided he was going to try it too. We had so much fun! It forced us to cook more and eat out a ton less which was great as our battle with our budget was the same battle with my bad food addictions. Before we had always tried really hard not to go out to eat, but we always ended up giving in, justifying, etc. By eating in most of the time we came up with creative meal ideas like my absolute FAVORITE veggie fajitas, and even found vegan tamales at the farmers market. When we wanted to splurge Whole Foods has awesome vegan paninis and pizzas and we even found a couple vegan restaurants in the Phoenix Area.

It made us completely aware of everything we were eating, we checked labels diligently but I still indulged in my vegan sweets. There are tons of vegan brownies, ice creams, etc. on the market as well as tons more baking recipes.

And then we started discussing soy. There was conflicting research out there and basically decided to make up our own mind. Soy in the United States is very highly processed, even GMO soy and the fact that our whole point was to stay away from “processed” foods, we decided to do without. We tried to focus more on veggies than on faux meats, and replacing our favorite foods like chili with no meat/no soy alternatives as well as soy free desserts (coconut ice cream) and soy free burger patties. We ate SO much good food through our first few weeks being vegan and we loved it! We cooked together, we shopped together on the weekends, it forced us to think outside the box and we were completely satisfied.Anything that I craved: pizza, cookies, yogurt, there was a vegan alternative.

Most of all, it really helped with my compulsive eating and lack of will power. Extra large muffins at work breakfasts, I already ate at home, I wasn’t really hungry, but I would totally snack on one just because it was there. Same with free pizza, packaged snacks, you get the picture. I didn’t feel deprived in these situations either, I felt great about my choices. Not only because the choices were way better for my body but I was also choosing not to support the ongoing harsh realities that so many animals lived through in order for that muffin to be in front of me. It is a lot easier when the decision is not just a product of self will power but of something bigger than that, bigger than you. It really makes a huge difference!

Here are some of my favorite vegan sites:

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/

http://www.vegan.org/about_veganism/index.html

Vegan Fashion:

www.mattandnat.com

http://www.cri-de-coeur.com/2009/spring2009.html

http://www.veganqueen.com/intro.html

http://www.tomsshoes.com/content.asp?tid=356