Newbie. I need some help. - Raw Food Chat

dingerness · 03-11-2008

My interest for raw foods was peaked a few days ago while watching a tv show about the benefits of a fruit and veggies diet. I am a comedy improv performer by night, so I am acutely affected by my bodies energy levels. For a while now, I've felt a cloudy, low energy clogging up my mind. I'm unable to process information as quickly and I feel much less sharp. This is a problem for someone who partly makes a living from thinking quickly.

I would like to begin integrating some raw foods into my diet, but I need some help as to where I should begin. When I look at recipes listed on almost every site, I feel overloaded with information. I am not a cook, so it makes my head spin. What are one or two easy changes I can make to my diet to begin feeling better throughout the day? What are some simple meals I can add to my regular diet?

Thanks for the help!

jroo · 03-11-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by dingerness

What are one or two easy changes I can make to my diet to begin feeling better throughout the day? What are some simple meals I can add to my regular diet?

Here are a few ideas:

Get a good blender and start making green smoothies.
30 minutes before a meal, eat all the fruit you want. Literally. It's okay to down several [INSERT FAVORITE FRUIT] at once. Then adjust the size of your meal, because you should be less hungry.
Eat a substantial salad before or with every cooked meal. Lettuce combines well with most foods and will aid in digestion.
Reduce your meals to only the cooked entree. Instead of cooked side dishes, start with that salad and use a pile of cut veggies for your side dish.
Replace your milk with nut or seed milk made in your blender.
Use the leftover nut/seed pulp to make a cheeze or pate for dipping veggies or putting on crackers (you just need to mix it with some herbs and spices).
Try two gourmet recipes a month (on days when you have the time). If a recipe is easy and you like it, eat it again next month and try two more.

RawFoodGrl · 03-11-2008

The easiest way to start transitioning is just add more fruit and raw salads to your meals.

It doesn't have to be complex - I was overwhelmed too, until I realized that most people feel great with 50% or so leafy greens in their diets, so having lots of salads is really easy.

You don't need a lot of equipment and there are lots of salad and salad dressing ideas.

Fruit (or green) smoothies, fruits for snacks, and you've got a good balance.

You can also make a lot of raw soups in your blender. It doesn't have to be complex!

healthyme · 03-12-2008

I agree with RawFoodGirl and Jroo, start simple. It's easy to throw a few fruits and some greens (whatever combo you have on hand) into the blender for smoothies. We started with a smoothie machine that we had gathering dust and now it's front and center on the counter. Then add raw foods gradually. It's easy to grab salads, minus cheese and heavy dressings, croutons and bacon bits. I eat fruit all morning, as much as my body tells me to eat then I eat salads or mixed veggies, veggie rolls with nori for lunch and dinner always has a salad, some sliced veggies with raw hummus or other raw sides. I found that if you start simply the harder recipes get easier to approach because you are ready to jump over to them. There is so much variety here, go for it!!!!

RawFoodGrl · 03-12-2008

I wanted to add also that one of the things I started with, even came here with, was what exactly do I eat to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins, minerals, protiens, fats, and other micro-nutrients to be full and healthy?

Mostly people here really talk about getting a wide variety (true) and listening to your body (true), but that knowledge tends to come in time. So where do you start?

I did a lot of trial and error, but I was exited to find this book called Rawsome! by Brigitte Mars. It has recipes, talks about a raw food diet, but it also lists all kinds of foods and what they're good for, what nutrients they have, and lists the nutrients and where you can get them.

I went through each category and realized I was getting most things covered but missed a few. So this was VERY helpful for me as I would prefer to get all of my nutrition through food rather than supplements, where possible.

For instance, I found out that I'm not getting much Vanadium which is needed for teeth and bones, reproduction and cellular metabolism. It's found in dill, olives, parsley, radishes, soy, string beans, and whole grains (especially buckwehat and oats). I eat hardly any of these foods, so now I know to be sure to add more of them.

I'm also getting hardly any of the many flavinoids, since I don't eat much fruit.

This is ALSO where you see the many benefits of eating a lot of leafy greens - because most of the nutrients listed can be found in leafy green vegetbables. It's quite amazing! So, "just making salads" has a lot to be said for it, besides being easy!

I haven't tried her recipes, but I HAVE tried the ones in the book Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine by Gabriel Cousens. I find his recipes to be a bit heavy on the salt and "spicy" spices like chili powder and cayenne pepper, but so far I've loved everything I've made (which I've not been able to say for other recipe books).

One reason I suggest this also is that he has a WIDE RANGE of leafy green salads, all of which are delicious, in addition to salad dressings and soups you can make in your blender.

(And he talks even MORE about the benefits of a raw food diet and provides a lot of fasinating information.)

I think with these two books you can get off to a great start.