Beginnings are Beautiful

[fireinferno911]

My name is Liz..........I would have to say that I am not new to raw food but more reborn. I have have attempted a raw food lifestyle once before. I am excited to be beginning my faw food journey. I am more prepared now then I have been in the past. I am glad to have found this site to make some new friends. I look forward to the upcoming changes in my life. Thank you for the support...........Nice to meet you all

[ulimana]

welcome, you've come to the right place!

[healthyforever]

Originally Posted by ulimana

welcome, you've come to the right place!

hi not sure where i am on this now.
just signed on extremely new at this . wat i am after is someone lovely person to fill me in on the basics of a raw healthy living life style.
what would be a menu i would use as a basic for starting. e.g breakfast, snack,lunch,snack, dinner snack.
just lost in all of this
would love some help in this area untill it becomes familiar to me.
thanks so much
love,peace and happiness

[RawFoodGrl]

I posted this on another thread, and though it might help:

Truth is eating raw can be VERY simple. You can have salads or smoothies all day long. You can make a more exotic recipe and have a salad on the side.

My typical day is either a smoothie (with spinach and superfoods like maca, pure synergy, cacao, and goji berries) or a spinach salad with arugula, tomatoes (sometimes avocado and onions) and either just a dash of salt and lime juice (if I have avocado) or a dash of salt, lemon juice, sunflower oil and cumin for breakfast.

Lunch is whatever is fresh in the garden, which is often a variety of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, Chinese pea pods, avocado, onion, bell pepper, broccoli, sprouts, and topped with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. I'll often change around salad dressings for different flavors.

Dinner is where I get a little more exotic, making nut pates for dehydrated "burgers" or "meatballs", fillings for Rawvioli, or simply using the pate in place of the traditional beans or meat in a taco. I use cabbage or lettuce as the tortilla, and top with fresh salsa and guacamole.

I like to still have a salad, so this is where I might make a small dandelion salad (dandelions, romaine lettuce, parsley, pine nuts and dressing of your choice - yummy & great for your liver), or perhaps a cole slaw, or cucumber salad.

For snacks I generally do nuts and seeds, but you could also do fruit.

So, there are a lot of great recipes out there, but you don't have to have every meal be complicated!

For an easy recipe, check out my Raw Sushi recipe. I think I posted it in the Quick and Easy section.


Some books I find extremely helpful and would be good for people new to it, where you can learn a lot, get good nutritional information and great recipes are Rawsome! by Brigitte Mars and Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine by Gabriel Cousens.

I am fairly new myself and have several raw food books, and right now these are VERY helpful for me to really learn about getting proper nutritional balance, and putting together great meals. I like my other ones too, but I think these are especially great for people getting started.

[healthyforever]

thankyou so much will go and look at new "cook" books.
just when i have spoken to people about what i would like to do reguarding my health they say that i "need" meat in my diet for protein. i say to them that all green vegis have protein and nuts as well
see how i go
love,peace and happiness

[RawFoodGrl]

I'm glad to help!

I felt intimidated as well until I heard someone say that she felt best on raw food with a diet at least 50% leafy greens. I thought, well heck, I can do that! Making mostly salads is pretty easy, and doesn't require a lot of equipment, either!

Rawmary asked about protein in this topic. I am pasting my response to her here, as I think it might help:

There is protein in all veggies. I was reading that eating raw food one only needs half the RDA of protein because it is more fully digested. So instead of 70g cooked that is recommended, most folks only need about 35 raw.

I was just reading a book which lists all the foods that have all 8 essential amino acids (complete proteins):

Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Clover blossoms, most fruit, Garbanzo beans, leafy green vegetables, Lentils, Millet, Mung Beans, Nuts (except hazelnuts or filberts) Pumpkin Seeds, Quinoa, Sesame Seeds, Soy Foods, and Sunflower Greens.

Other good sources are:

Apricots, Avocado, Bananas, Beans, Berries, Blue-Green Algae, Broccoli, Brussles sprouts, Cabbages, Carrots, Cauliflower, Cherries, Coconut. Corn, Cucumbers, Dates, Durians, Eggplant, Grapes, Hemp seeds, Melons, Okra, Oranges, Papaya, Parsley, Peaches, Pears, Peas, Peppers, Spirulina, Sprouts (including sprouted grains), String beans, Summer Squash, Sun-cured olives, Sweet Potatoes., Tomatoes, Turnip greens, Watercress, and Zucchini.



I focus a lot on getting a wide variety of leafy greens (including but especially spinach - dandelion greens and kale are great too), sprouts, and a few nuts and seeds. But I eat all kinds of things mentioned above.

I know I had a problem craving beef, but once I started eating at least 1 cup of spinach daily I no longer had that problem. I feel very nutritionally balanced.

(By the way, this protein information is from the Rawsome! book I recommended.)

[berylkohn]

i want more infor make raw smoothies something taste good

[Mattye Lee]

Welcome!! I wish you the best of rawesome health!!!

[RawFoodGrl]

You can search through raw books and the internet for raw smoothies.

One thing I've learned in my journey is:
Smoothie = primarily or solely fruit
Green Smoothie = primarily or soley leafy greens
Soup = primarily or solely vegetables (although there are fruit soups too).

Yet all of them are made in a blender!

My favorite green smoothie is 1 cup spinach, 1 cup water, and about 1/2 T agave (I don't like mixing fruit with veggies, but it definitely needs sweetner). Sometimes I'll also add a handful of cilantro or parsley.

My BF makes a smoothie with pineapple coconut juice, a banana, and strawberries. He also frequenty adds the leaf part (not the stem part) of kale as he wants to get it in his diet somewhere.

But there are lots of other good soups and smoothies out there!