New to Raw and this forum

[nothinkingbehind]

Hi, I am new here and to Raw foods. I've always been a natural foodie kinda girl, but recently I was diagonosed with fibromyalgia and my chiropractor said I really need to work on at least a mostly vegan diet. I went looking for a new cookbook (since I am always looking for an excuse to buy a new cookbook) and found Raw Food. My eyes were really opened, and so now I'm trying to implement as much raw food as I can. I was fortunate that I already had a decent blender, food processor, sprouting trays, and a dehydrator. Oh, and a juicer. I'm sprouting quinoa for the first time, and it's looking good. I'll try buckwheat next.

I know I really need to work on greens, I don't get enough of them. And it's getting cold here in New England and so I think I'll probably find it a bit of a struggle to work with cold foods when I've been programmed for hot foods in the winter. I know it's just a matter of reprogramming.

Thanks for listening. Hope to get to know you all!

[greenbunny]

Welcome,

It's not a question of reprogramming! If you continue to eat only cold and cooling foods through the fall and winter you might get sick. Basic principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine warn us to modify our diets to be more warming in winter. Here are some basic tenants of adapting raw food to cold environments:

Take your fruit and veggies out of the fridge and let them warm up to room temperature before eating them.

Eat more nuts, seeds, legumes and grains in the winter

Warm your foods!!!! Use that dehydrator to warm up foods before eating. Have warm soups made with a thermometer so as not to heat too much.

Eat less cooling fruits like watermelon - which is extremely cooling.

Eat warming herbs and not cooling herbs. For instance hibiscus is extremely cooling.

Warming herbs are very useful. They will keep your digestive fire up and your body warm. Examples are ginger and cayenne.

Eat grounding, winter root vegetables like onions, carrots, parsnips etc. And winter squashes too.

Miso is a very warming and grounding food for cool weather. Get unpasteurized miso made with celtic sea salt.

Wear enough clothing and keep out of cool breezes.

If you are not a full vegan raw fish and eggs ans sometimes raw cheeses are particular strengthening and grounding in winter. Is it really that you need to be vegan or is it that you need to be raw???? You don't need much fish or egg, it's just that in winter I find them exceptionally helpful for keeping balanced. If you are going vegan and you aren't 100% raw, the times you do eat cooked food, make sure that the foods are very warming and grounding and have protein. I guess what I am trying to say, that if you are cheating don't cheat on sweets, cheat on cooked parsnips and heavy grains with tempeh for proteing and weight. See what I mean? And if you are gong to go all raw through the winter and are a vegan, make sure you do all the rest of the warming things for sure each time you eat and eat more oil, nuts, grains, seeds and legumes. You also might want to eat more dehydrated foods for density and perhaps to get more protein as many live foods made in th dehydrator use soaked nuts and seeds. Oh, and of course, remember to always soak your nuts and seeds!!!!

Well, that's the outline version of my tools to stay raw through winter.

Good Luck,
Greenbunny

[SnowBunny]

Hi nothinkingbehind!

Let me know how you like the sprouted quinoa, I haven't tried that yet.

I've sprouted buckwheat and I make a granola out of it. It's very filling and yummy, helped when I was first raw to give me that full feeling that you get from cooked foods. I make it with chopped apples, raisins and some seasonings like cinnamon.

[rawhippie]

hey, i'm in new england, too, as you can see!
a good trick i learned for soups: just let them run a bit longer in the blender to utilize the heat of the motor. that has come in handy on cold winter days.

hey snowbunny, do you dehydrate the buckwheat (or anything else for that matter) after sprouting? just curious how to make it a "dry" granola if it has been soaked and sprouted.

peace
hippie

[SnowBunny]

Yes, I do dehydrate. But I leave it moist so that I can eat it by itself

[greenbunny]

That sounds like a wonderful recipe Snowbunny. I buy a premade granola made out of buckwheat but it's real hard. I'd love to make some when I get my dehydrator. Do you have an exacting recipe, or is it different each time?

Greenbunny

[SnowBunny]

It's different each time because I experiment but I'll post my basic recipe later this week

[nothinkingbehind]

Thanks for all the great info. Greenbunny, what you mentioned makes a lot of sense, I should probably clarify that the goal first is to be vegan, then to be raw (from a medical standpoint anyway) as meat and dairy are terrible inflammatories. Once I can get the fibro under control then we'll see about adding anything else back in. There are things i miss, and things I don't miss. But soy is also an inflammatory and allergen, so I'm done with that for the moment too. So I guess i bought a raw book by default, but now the more i read and the more I eat raw foods and feel better, the more i want to continue it. I am about 50% raw right now, I would guess. Either breakfast or lunch is raw, as well as snacks (although I really eat several mini-meals a day) and then dinner is usually some raw, and some cooked. I also find that I am still craving meat, so I eat lean poultry or lamb (both are local and fairly close to organic) for dinner.

The quinoa was good. I am not completely impressed with the recipe I used it in, I think it would have been better had I picked something else to use it in. I used to make cooked quinoa in carrot juice, then made a salad with almonds and oranges and I think some chick peas, green onions. Next time I'll adapt that recipe.

I made some granola the other day too, but just with nuts and seeds and fruit, no grains. I think the buckwheat would be good.

Last night I made some gardenburgers with pulp from the carrots that I've juiced. They are pretty good, I think I'll have one for lunch with guacamole and salsa on it.

Any other ideas as to what to do with the pulp from veges when you juice them? Usually i end up with carrot pulp that i don't know what to do with.

Thanks!

[greenbunny]

Not being completely raw right away until you get yourself more stabilized and some cleansing done sounds like smart thinking to me. That way you can make sure you have some heavier sources for your protein in order to keep your blood sugars balanced for a long enough time in order to be able to make the transition and wean off of such intense protein at a slow enough pace not to aggravate your condition.

Sounds like you are making great choices for yourself and that it's just a matter of keeping on moving along in the direction that you are going.

It's funny how we sometimes get ourselves to something wonderful just by "default". Your fibromyalgia might have given you a very special gift.

Greenbunny

[rawhippie]

you can make a raw carrot cake from that pulp....
just in case you'd like to try it when you're ready.
i know how you feel about all the pulp!!! there's so much and i feel so guilty throwing it away