Eat Raw Live Long

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to school for nutrition. I know so much about food and am learning more about nutrition everyday. The only problem is there is so much information out there about what is healthy and nutritious. There are so many different ways of eating and so many different diets that I just get so overwhelmed and confused. I mean there is raw, vegan, vegetarian, south beach, abs diet, atkins diet, soy, no soy. It’s too much!!! There are so many different views about all these ways of living, and I can’t for the life of me figure it out. This is why I want to go back to school to learn. But then again, that idea doesn’t really fit into my lifestyle right now, so I am trying to read as much as I can and coming up with this one mantra: Eat Balanced meals, Eat everything in moderation, Eat mostly raw, organic, natural foods, and Eat mostly plants. This is something that probably works best for me since I can’t go with out meat forever, and I can’t go with out the occasional processed food. Anyways-what I’m trying to get at is this.

I have spent the last two days immersed in the book “Living Raw Food” by Sarma Melngailis. I know this is the second book that she wrote, and the first one is more of an introduction to raw food, but after reading this book it was like all my questions were answered. Everything I wanted to know about soy, chia seeds, greens, cilantro, goji berries, coconut oil vs butter, processed food, raw food…it’s all in this book. And on top of that I absolutely LOVE her writing style. Now of course I am sure she is a little biased and makes raw sound a lot better, but I just thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the different foods I always had questions about. How are they actually GOOD for me? What will they do for my health? She makes eating raw look appetizing and fun!

Now I’m not saying I am going completely raw or will ever make my own nut milks (although I would like to try that once), but the more raw foods I can eat, the better off I am. The more we eat foods that were not put through a plant, dyed, pasteurized, or messed with, the better off we are.

So with all that said, this morning I woke up to make a large green smoothie. I looked in her book for a recipe I had most ingredients for, but ended up just combining a few recipes together to make one Glorious, Raw, Fantastic, Delicious, Spicy and Sweet Green Goodness.

• 1/2 of a large organic cucumber peeled and cubed
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 orange peeled and cubed
• 1/2 of an organic banana
• 1 C filtered water (she explains the importance of filtered water in the book-luckily I already use filtered)
• 1 knob fresh ginger
• 2 big handfuls organic spinach
• big dash of organic cayenne pepper
• 1 packet stevia
• 4 ice cubes

I first blended the cucumber, orange, lemon juice, and water until smooth. Then added the spinach and ginger and blended again until smooth. Then I added the 1/2 banana, cayenne, stevia, ice, and blended again for about 2 or 3 minutes until everything was smooth and creamy. Here is out it turned out:

Looks great, but the true test is how it tasted.

It was DELICIOUS! I’m not making this up folks. I was so so surprised at how good this was. The stevia really made a difference, and it had a little kick from the cayenne and ginger. It was sweet and fruity at first and after you swallowed, it was spicy. I drank this smoothie slow, and it was refreshing, filling, and just down right awesome.

According to her book, cucumbers add filling, and volume to shakes with out adding calories. They are also soothing on the digestive system and very hydrating, which helps keep skin supple. I added the fruit to the smoothie for vitamin C and potassium. Spinach..well we all know how good spinach is for us. And if you don’t know then click here. And I added the cayenne pepper because (again according to her book) cayenne has been shown to help improve circulation and boost metabolism. I added the ginger because I happen to like the spiciness ginger offers.

I’m working from home again today, and I tend to get a little snacky. I munched on this mix with some tea in the late morning. In the mix: 1/4 C almonds, 1/4 C dried cherries, and 1/8 C raw cacao nibs.

This tea was called Spirits tea. No clue why, but it tasted like a black tea with lots of flavor, yet still very soft and easy to drink.

Later I had a SOYJOY bar that I was given to sample. I remember trying one of these a while ago and not liking it so I didn’t expect to like this one either. I thought the ingredient list was OK, but I didn’t like that it had Maltodextrin in the ingredient list. I don’t like ingredients in things I eat that I would not normally have in my pantry. There are a lot of conflicting theories about soy, and I still don’t know if it is good or bad for me. There are positives and negatives to this little bar.

POSITIVES:

• All Natural
• Fairly good flavor and consistency
• Readable and recognizeable ingredient list (except for maltodextrin)
• Whole soy
• Real Fruit
• Gluten Free
• 4g of Fiber and Protein

NEGATIVES:

• 6g of fat and 3 g Saturated fat
• Extremely thin and small bar. Much smaller than any other bar I’ve had
• 140 calories (for such a small bar is a lot)
• No real vitamins or nutrients
• Not organic
• Ingredient list has recognizable ingredients, but is way to long and involved too many powders and oils for such a small bar
• Pretty much goes against everything Sarma writes in her books: if you have to add things like maltodextrin, powders, and other ingredients to increase the nutritional value than you probably shouldn’t eat it. We should be getting these protein and nutrients from the original forms.

But all that is arguable. Overall the bar tasted good, had positives and negative, and I’ll probably try it again sometime.

In Other News- I received my prize package from Fitnessista today. I was so excited to try her raw cookies. Now that I am reading all about eating raw, I wanted to taste what a cookie that was dehydrated tasted like. But first look at all the amazing goods she sent! Thank you so much Gina-this was an awesome package!

This was such a fun package Gina put together for me! I love that I get to try things that she normally eats day to day. You are AWESOME!

Ok, so after trying one bite of this cookie I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Who the heck needs the nasty store brand cookies when these raw all natural cookies taste just as good if not better. I was absolutely 100% surprised. I thought they were going to be bland, crispy, and taste like cardboard (no offense Gina-I just have never had something like this before). But they were soft, flavorful, and really comforting. I am trying to use words that describe how good these cookies are, but none are really working. I think the word she uses describes it best…FOODGASM! Iif this is how all raw food tastes then I’m going raw. Raw cacao cookies…you are my new hero.

Ok, that is it for now. Notice how I didn’t even mention the snow today? Oops just did. See ya!

Tagged as: eating raw, fitnessista, green monster, living raw food, one lucky duck, raw cacao cookies, sarma melngailis, soyjoy