I Am About To Begin My Raw Food Journey, But... - Page 2 - Raw Food Chat

RawFoodGrl · 03-26-2008

I do not have expensive kitchen equipment and it's working just fine. I think you can do well starting off with inexpensive items and get a lot of great results.

I bought at $20 6 cup blender about 7 years ago and have been using it a lot, mostly for smoothies, and now that I've gone raw, for soups, and salad dressings too. A really expensive blender is NOT required, although I can see the value in it.

Mine has several settings which comes in handy, things like Blend, Liquify, Grind. Using the different settings at different times helps, I think. For instance making nut-based creams or sauces (or somthing hard like broccoli) I Grind it first, then Blend it, then Liquifiy it. But don't forget, you need some liquid in there, or you'll burn out the motor.

Frankly, if I waited to get expensive equipment, I still wouldn't have gotten started on raw because we'd still be trying to find the money to buy everything.

Also, I bought a food processor for about $35, a Hamilton Beach. I don't know how much it holds, but it's about 8" in diameter, about as tall (the bowl only, not including the lid or base) I got it about 5 years ago and it's working great. At the time, I didn't know what to get, needed it urgently for medical reasons, and got the only one Wal-Mart had. I love it!

I also wanted to mention that getting a salad spinner would be a good investment. I eat a lot of salads and end up wtih a lot of water in my salad bowl (and the dressing doesn't stick as well) because it's hard to get all the water off after washing the produce. That's next on our list!!

For the arugula cumin salad, I got the recipe from Rainbow Green Live Food Cusine by Gabriel Cousens:

1 cup spinach
2 cups arugula
1/4 cup diced tomato or cherry tomatoes, halved
2T fresh squeezed lemon juice
2T sunflower oil
1 tsp ground cumin
salt to taste (he recommends 1tsp Celtic Sea Salt but I find that a bit too salty)

Mix it all up, and enjoy!

(I wanted to mention also that if you hit Post a Reply or Quick Reply you can simply respond without extra text, while Quote Reply quotes all the text from the last reply. I generally just click on Post a Reply as the text box to write in is bigger than the Quick Reply.)

Double Helix · 03-27-2008

Late in responding, but just want to add that you don't need a lot of equipment if you are into simple eating.

Fruits and greens can take you a long way.

Some people get bored with that and want variety or are used to more complicated eating so that is when the machines and the (so called but really not) packaged superfoods and seasonings start coming in handy but it's certainly not necessary and not natural.

If you truly yearn to eat from the earth, your best bet is eating your fruits and greens as they come, but as it may take a while to change your palette, doing the recipes and using the equipment might help you out in the beginning.

It's all about what your style and comfort level is.

RawFoodGrl · 03-28-2008

You might also want to think about getting a food thermometer that goes as low as 100 degrees.

That way if you want to make some warm soup, or a stew, something like that, you can be sure you're keeping the temperature below 118 degrees.

I have read if you have the right size and appropriate bowl you can use it to contain liquidy foods in the Excalibur, but it seems like having a thermometer would be handy.