The excuses… It’s too boring. It’s too difficult. It’s too cold. It takes too long. It’s antisocial. It’s fanatical It can’t be healthy. It’s too healthy. I won’t be full (or fulfilled). I’m too old. It’s too much effort…
These are the reasons we give ourselves for staying stuck. Staying stuck in what? What are we talking about here? We could be talking about anything. Re-read the list.
How many times have you used the above excuses to avoid achieving what you want in your life? But what is this article all about?
What’s too boring, too fanatical, too much effort and so on?
It sounds like a riddle I know:
1. What can’t be healthy but is also too healthy?
Or even better
2. What’s green, red, hasn’t been roasted and tastes delicious?
The answer to riddle 1 is raw foods. The answer to riddle 2 is — wait for it — gourmet raw food Mexican night (guacamole=green, salsa=red and enchiladas=raw, unroasted and delicious.
OK, enough riddles, here’s what we’re talking about: Peter and I are raw food chefs. What we do is take raw food and make it taste like cooked food so that you want to eat more of it.
Why? So that you can be happy AND healthy (of course).
I haven’t met anyone yet who doesn’t want to be happy and healthy. But, I have met A LOT of people who don’t want to eat their vegetables!
I grew up in a bakery and always had my finger in the chocolate buttercream tub. When I left home I learned how to cook, working in the French Alps baking cakes and serving up the creamiest, cheesiest four-course meals followed by the sugariest desserts and more cheese. Then I saw the light and the errors of my unhealthy ways and I un-learned how to cook, or, as I prefer to say it, I learnt how to un-cook my food.
Now, I teach four-week raw food preparation classes in the hope that more and more people will embrace this most simple and natural lifestyle of raw foods, health, vitality, clarity and boundless energy.
Biophile have kindly asked me to divulge to you a handful of raw food recipes with every issue. The truth of the matter is it’s very easy to embrace a raw food approach when you know how and when you know why.
First the “why?”
Why eat a RAW food diet, won’t just plain vegetarian do? Or how about vegans — they don’t eat any animal products — not even eggs or cheese, isn’t that fanatical enough?
First let me clarify, by raw food — I mean raw plant food. Sushi or your steak — “rare please” — don’t make the grade.
Let’s look at some facts
When you cook your food:
50% of the B vitamins are lost
70 – 80% of vitamin C is lost
The protein structures in the food are altered
The aging process speeds up
Good fats turn to bad fats
Mineral absorption is disrupted
But beyond all that is the fact that researchers have found that 50 to 80% of the nutritional value of food is lost through the cooking process. This means that over half of the food you put into your body is just putting strain on the system, because it serves no nutritional function. That is a lot of time and energy wasted not only on digestion but food preparation. A ‘good’ home-cooked meal can take hours to prepare!
Now let’s look at some of the arguments for the raw food approach
Nature presents raw plant food to us in abundance.
Raw plant foods are simple, easy to find, fun to eat and delicious.
Raw plant foods contain thousands of health-giving nutrients.
Raw plant foods conform to the biological design of the human digestive system.
Raw plant foods represent the purest form of transformed sun energy, with the sun being the source of all life on this planet
Eco-friendly living:
When one eats an orange, the wrapper (peel) becomes compost.
When one follows a raw-plant-food lifestyle, the amount of rubbish produced by that individual decreases to almost nothing.
Raw plant foods are cleansing and alkalizing
Raw plant foods do not create an immune system response when you eat them.
Raw plant foods regenerate the cells of the body
Raw plant foods add vitamins and minerals to the body.
Raw plant foods add protein to the body
Raw plant foods add enzymes to your enzyme bank account
“Life is designed raw. Out of trillions of organisms that were alive at the beginning of time, which are alive now and which will be alive at the end of time, only one tampers with its food. You do not want to bet against those kind of odds.” (excerpt from Sunfood Diet Success System)
So now that you know why, let’s show you how:
Here is a three-meal day plan – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast and lunch are 100% raw and dinner is a transitionary 80% raw 20% cooked meal to help you switch over gradually without feeling like you’ve lost anything (except maybe some extra weight you’ve been carrying).
Breakfast
Goji Berry Vanilla Nut Shake
1 handful of almonds
3 Brazil nuts
200ml water
1 banana
1 tsp raw honey
seeds from half a vanilla pod or a dash of vanilla extract (not vanilla essence)
1 small handful of organic Goji berries
Put into a blender and whiz until smooth.
Drink and enjoy.
Lunch
Sprout and Rocket salad
There are a few tricks to a good raw salad, but simply you must use good organic leaves – they always taste better. The darker and greener the leaves are the more chlorophyll and alkalizing minerals they have, so use those.
Once you’ve got a nice bed of leaves going add some fresh tomatoes and foods that are rich in good fats such as avocados, olives and olive oil and then add something different for variation.
Here goes:
Fill your plate with a mixture of fresh organic rocket, baby spinach and other salad greens
Dice 1 fresh tomato and sprinkle over
Chop up some fresh basil and coriander
Slice up ½ avocado (avocados are rich in good fats and contrary to any bad press they have received in the past, they will not make you fat!)
Top with hulled hemp seeds (available in some health shops)
Chop up and add approx 5 or 6 sundried tomatoes
Add olives
Drizzle with olive oil
Top with freshly grown sprouts (sunflower sprouts are best)
Sprinkle with rock salt
Tuck in and enjoy
Dinner
Red peppers stuffed with spinach and mushroom filling
Halve 1 red pepper and scoop out the seeds
Lightly fry (yes I said fry!) in COCONUT OIL (only ever fry anything in coconut oil) some mushrooms, onions, garlic and season with rock salt.
Set the mush-onion mixture aside
In a blender, blend:
½ bunch of spinach
3 Tbs of tahini
1 Tbs pinenuts
2 Tbs lemon juice
3 Tbs water
Sea salt
Stuff the peppers with the spinach mixture
Top with the mush onion mixture
Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with fresh olives and fresh coriander
Serve with on a bed of organic salad leaves.
These recipes will hopefully give you a nudge in the direction of how to put this crazy raw thing into practice. Alternatively book yourself onto one of the 4 week raw food prep classes for the full experience? Classes are 2 ½ hours once a week for 4 weeks.