Problems getting started

[RawFoodGrl]

I've wanted to do raw food for years, but I'm having some problems.

My biggest one is I just can't stand a lot of the recipes I've tried! Some of the salads and soups are fine, but a lot are terrible, and some of the main courses ... pizza, nut loaves, seed pates - ICK!!

I'd love some help with this ...

Thanks

[SnowBunny]

Yea... RawGirl, I gotta agree that I haven't liked a lot of those seed pates and nut loaves either!

When I started I made a lot of sweet things. Pretty much added dates or raisins to everything and that helped because I had a sugar addiction.

Have you tried a tomato sauce? I love that stuff now! I put it over zuchini slices, carrots, cucumber, you name it! Sometimes I make it tangy, sometimes sweet, sometimes salty, all depending on what I feel like. It's quick and easy to make too.

Do you have any more specific questions?

[greenbunny]

You sound like my husband. He says that maybe when we finish our kitchen and I start making things again he'll eat more raw - but right now we go to the deli at Whole Foods and he says that most of the stuff tastes just foul - and I'd have to agree. I'd say that three quarters of all the recipes that I've tried have been simply foul. It's not you. They just suck. But not all raw food does! There are some great tasting things out there and things that you can come up with for yourself. Don't give up hope. Just keep trying things.

Do you like sushi type rolls? There are some very nice ways to make raw rolls using pates that taste very good. You get raw horseradish and ginger and grate them and use nama shoyu (raw soysauce, nori and lots of avocado with other veggies rolled up. There are some wonderful deserts that you can start with. It is best to start with the deserts even if you don't have that big of a sugar addiction because they tend to come out better than a lot of the other stuff. Also some basic trail mix is a nice thing. You might want to start with your snacks and deserts and build from there. Smoothies are very easy and very yummy. Fresh juice is delicious too. Add a little at a time of the easier stuff and it will give you time to find the good recipes.

What's your favorite cooked food? Maybe we can find a recipe that would use your taste preferences.

Greenbunny

[RawFoodGrl]

I'm so relieved to hear that!!! I've wanted to be raw for YEARS, over a decade, but the recipes really put me off. I have been trying more lately, and like a few, but it's less than 50%, and not enough to make a full meal or diet.

I find it interesting that you bring up sugar. I actually have a problem with that as I'm so sugar sensitive. I don't eat fruit, and there are a few vegetables I don't eat either as they affect me just like sugar.

I've been struggling to find green smoothies and other meals that I enjoy that don't have those kinds of sugars, and that I like.

I especially want to figure out a smoothie, as it's hard for me to always make a salad and I'm not getting enough greens, but I know I could do it easily with a smoothie - IF I could do it without fruits or things like honey and IF I could find one I liked.

[RawFoodGrl]

For food I like, well, if I'm going for everything I like, even stuff I don't eat often (like tortillas), I like tacos, burritos, lasagne, pizza, different kinds of vegi burgers, stir fry, sushi, and some African and Afghan recipes (spiced cooked pumpkin, spinach, cauliflower, that kind of thing).

Lately we've been going vegan, and have found some cooked recipes I like a lot. One is a walnut & oat burger, and a BBQ (it's really a sautee of onions, bell peppers, summer squash and seitan in a spicy home-made sauce), a "fake" crab patty with just veggies & cheese, a tofu scramble with fresh veggies, and we've been making various flavors and styles of tacos and burritos, sometimes with tortillas, sometimes with raw wraps. I have a mexican cookbook which has a surprising number of vegan recipes, or recipes that can be converted to vegan.

I'm getting to really like seitan and Veat, and coming up with my own recipes, or modifying existing or new recipes to incorporate them. I want to experiment more with tofu and tempeh.

We're doing pretty good and spiraling through vegetarian to primarily vegan, but mostly raw is proving more of a challenge.

We've found a few recipes we like, but honestly they're more side dish things. I am trying to make more raw side dishes to eat before our cooked meals, though.

[greenbunny]

Ya know Rawgirl, I would say that you are on the right track. Making the transition to vegan and healthier food really is a good next step, especially if you add raw snacks and side dishes. It's a good way to get your body and taste buds more used to what I call "cleaner" foods. It's a process. You might want to add a salad before each meal as well just like they do in restaurants.

May I ask more about your "sugar sensitivity"? Even diabetics and hypoglycemics react differently to fruits than concentrated sugars (which includes honey btw). You might just need to get a bit healthier before fruit doesn't affect you so much. I find it so sad when people say they can't eat fruit. That does limit you and it's such great food. But there are other dishes that don't use fruit that are good. You really might want to find a good raw nori roll recipe. They are easy and quite yummy.

Raw foods do taste differently than cooked foods. When you have eaten raw long enough all cooked food starts to taste like cardboard, but until you make the transition, you are used to cooked food and it takes an adaptation phase.

Smoothies usually contain fruit. What you really might like are soups which are made from veggies.

Once again, I personally think you are right on track. Find more and more raw foods that you like over time and get healed up with your sugar issues and it will be much easier on you. Making the transition to healthfood and veganism is a big switch in and of itself. Good going.

Greenbunny

[SnowBunny]

I'm making raw burger patties tonight for the first time... I'll let you know how it goes

As for tacos, I make lettuce wraps with veggies cut up with some raw hummus as the sauce.

mmm... and I make yummy lasagne! It's basically zucchini as the pasta, I slice it with a peeler so it's thin or run it through the food processor. Make a tomato sauce, slices of portobello mushrooms and shredded carrots that have been marinated in nama shoyu, and a nut cheese. Layer is all up on your dehydrator, doesn't need too long as you just want to warm it a bit, not actually dry it out. You can experiment with the toppings. Now I just eat the zucchini and pasta sauce. yum!

[nothinkingbehind]

I have tried some recipes that are just BAD. And then there are a lot that are GOOD! I have the easiest time with smoothies and salad. I can pretty much put anything in a smoothie and it tastes ok. I've ventured into a few other things. like sprouted quinoa (just ok) and these cracker things that just never seemed to work. That was the dehydrator disaster thing, for those of you that were in on that thread. It just never worked, and I threw it out. But I will try again with something else and keep trying until I come up with recipes that I like and are good for me!

I'm still trasitioning too, RawGirl, and it's been the best way for me to go. I still drink heated tea, vegan hot foods, and even animal protein a couple of times a week. I've found that my desire for animal protein has decreased as I have learned to love raw foods. I'm not putting a great deal of pressure on myself about how long this should take or what it will look like in a year even. I'm feeling better, losing weight, my skin is better, and the fibro seems to be a bit better, although not significant yet.

Melissa

[RawFoodGrl]

I cannot TELL you what a RELIEF it is to hear from all of you and get such AWESOME support!

Until I started hearing from all of you here that a lot of you feel the same way, I was feeling quite bad and wondering if I would ever be able to transition. I also did not realize how much the distress of that (because I really do want to be much more a raw foodie) was adding a weight, that lifted when I read your posts.

That has given me the confidence to try more recipes in the hopes we can find a bunch we like.

I really also would like to find a green smoothie I can do, because that'll let me get leafy greens every day, and open room for other raw veggies and salads. I'd like to do one green smoothie a day, and then have 2 raw salads.

I have been reading about yeast / candida issues and have been learning that my sugar sensitivity might be related to a yeast imbalance. We plan to do a full cleanse in a few months, and in the meantime, find acceptable recipes we like so we can be joyfully and completely on the cleanse.

I also got some agave, and know I can use that in my smoothies for a sweetner. Agave and stevia are acceptable for diabetics, and I've not noticed a negative effect from them.

Anyway, I really appreciate all the comments and support, and it feels good to have others thinking that the way we are choosing to transition makes sense. It's a bit challenging to go right from cooked meats and fish to total raw food. But making a gradual transition seems to be working well, overall.

It's nice to not feel "bad" around people doing raw food because we're still eating cooked (vegi) food.


On a whole separate note, we got a food dehydrator, but it doesn't have a temperature control. I know I have to control for temperature by opening upper and lower vents, and that I'll have to rotate the trays ... but does anyone know how to translate recipes, that, say, for instance "dehydrate for 10 hours at 95 degrees" for the kind of dehydrator I have?

I've been searching on the web, reading the manual, talking to other people, and haven't been able to figure it out.

Eventually we want to get an Excalibur, but this what we have for now, and we'd really like to be able to use it (and I'd like to figure it out without wasting gobs of food).