Benefits of Raw & Eating a Plant Based Diet

I saw the trailer for this movie earlier in the week and I thought it was worth sharing. It is for the movie "Forks Over Knives" which seeks to explain why a plant based vegan diet is the best way to prevent disease and further, how consuming animal protein is a leading cause of most of the illnesses plaguing our western civilazations. It's a short two minute trailer:

In case you're looking for some validation of the benefits of a raw diet, I also stumbled upon this article which was a footnote in a blog post I read earlier this week. I thought article was really useful and helped validate for me why I embarked on this raw journey more than 43 days ago.

The article is a quick read:

http://www.iowasource.com/food/lenkastudy_0806.html

I was busy in the kitchen today making zucchini pasta (with gray squash), fudge balls and cheesy onions. I've got an early morning tomorrow so I'll post more about that tomorrow, including my review of my spiral slicer vs. a julienne peeler.

So Excited!!!

I am so excited because last night I booked a stay at the Raw Vegan B&B run by the lovely Eva of Uncooking101.com in Martha's Vineyard!

I'm going May 31st-June 3rd. I've never been to Martha's Vineyard before. I am so excited. Here's some info about it:

http://uncooking101.com/site/raw-vegan-bed-and-breakfast/extended-fun/

Notice the days I am going includes the raw chef certification. I am so psyched! I'm not planning to quit my day job to become a raw chef, but this certification will be great to have so I can have the skills to keep my own diet interesting and also help others do the same.

Martha's Vineyard is a little bit of a hike from the NYC area (5 hours-ish + the ferry over to the island), but I think flying would take just as long, and lots of sitting and waiting. I dislike long car rides, but I'll just get out and stop frequently and make sure I have an awesome playlist ready on my iPod!!

I can't wait. Today is day 43 of me being raw. (so hard to believe!). At the moment, staying raw is pretty much a no-brainer for me. I definitely know it is making me feel a lot better, so I have no desire to mess with what's working.

Next Monday (in just a little over a week!!) my company is having a group cleanse. It's optional, but I signed up. I did it a couple years ago. This year is for 5 days and the first two days are a citrus cleanse, then you buy juices from a company that prepares juice cleanses. Normally we get from Blue Print Cleanse, but this years I found an AWESOME deal on GiltCity.com for 40% off of their competitor, Cooler Cleanse. I'm going to do Cooler Cleanse this year because the cleanses are very comparable and the price difference is huge - I just paid $104 plus shipping for my 3 day cleanse. Blueprint Cleanse is $195 + shipping.

I'm both scared and excited about next week's juice cleanse. But I'm super excited about the raw B&B!!!

Speaking of raw "cooking" - I've been keeping it simple this week but today I plan to make some Zuccini wraps, zucchini pasta and some fudge balls. I've got a dog walk tomorrow to raise money for cancer research so I thought the fudge balls would be fun to share with my team mates. (we'll be super careful though as dogs & chocolate do not mix!).

Yummy Desserts - Fudge Balls & Oatmeal Cookies

I took off work today to give myself a three day holiday.  When I finished with the various errands that inevitably fill a "day off" I came home and the mail man rang my door bell to deliver me with a box of delicious raw oat flakes and oat flour from Sunrise Flour Mill.

So I couldn't wait to make some oatmeal cookies.  I found the recipe on Rawmazing.com.   I urge you to click the link and try it out.   They are still in the dehydrator, but I have to confess to eating one raw ... I mean "wet" ... they're still going to be raw even when they get out of the dehydratror!  They're really delicious, but next time I'd probably add a little more agave (or use sweeter apples) and also add some shaved almonds for added crunch.

Here's what they look like right now ...

The recipe made about two dozen cookies.  I can't wait until they are done and I can taste a finished cookie.   Other than macaroons, these are the first cookies I've made.

This week has been all about deserts.  Yesterday was one of my coworkers last day at our office.  She's moving on to another job.  Everyone loves her and she'll be very missed so we had a little party for her in the office to send her off in style.   I stumbled upon this recipe for fudge balls and decided to give them a try and bring them to her party.  They are super simple and literally take just about 5 minutes and three simple ingredients - cashews, dates & cacao. 

Since the recipe is on my computer I usually jot down the recipe to take to the kitchen.  Well, this time I should have read a little more closely.  Instead of grinding the cashews to a fine powder before adding the dates I put everything in the vitamix at once.   I ended up with these crunch fudge balls:

Even if they didn't follow the recipe, they turned out amazing.  Everyone loved them - no one could believe they were raw.  They didn't take long to disappear. 

I'm looking forward to making this recipe again.  There are so many things you could do with this recipe ... adding coconut for example ... how delicious would that be!

This weekend, I've decided to give Kelp noodles another try.  I have them soaking right now and later tonight or tomorrow morning I'm planning to make a simple pad thai type sauce for them.   Looking forward to trying pad thai with kelp noodles.

Enter to win a FREE Raw Getaway - Amazing Opportunity

I am so excited today because one of my favorite websites, Uncooking101.com is giving away an absolutely FREE vacation for a full week at a B&B in Martha's Vineyard.

And it's not just any vacation - it's a RAW vacation the week of May 1-8, 2011.  The vacation includes raw meals and several classes - even a class on building your own business around raw foods.

If you are into raw food or even have an interest and want to find out more this is an amazing opportunity.  Click here to find out more and how to enter to win:

http://uncooking101.com/site/raw-food-retreats/raw-vegan-bed-and-breakfast-win-a-week-stay-in-marthas-vineyard-may-1-8/

Please hurry if you are interested - this opportunity was announced earlier this afternoon and it's only valid for 24 hours.

I've entered - I'd absolutely love to win, meet the wonderful women behind http://www.uncooking101/, learn some new recipes and find out more about how to build a business around raw food to share what I've learned and help others become and stay healthy with raw food.

Good luck!

BLTA's and Raw Chocolate Ice Cream

Yesterday I made raw "bacon," lettuce and tomato sandwiches.  They were delicious.  I used avocado instead of the mayo.  I'm sure you could make them with a raw mayonaisse as well, but the avocado was simple and tasted great.   

I made the eggplant bacon on Saturday.  I used a combination of Ani Phyo's and Alissa Cohen's recipes.  I basically used Alissa's technique of using a vegetable peeler to get the thin bacon strips, and Ani's marinade.

This is what they looked like at the start of the dehydrating time:

And here's what the bacon looks like finished:

The bacon is not really all the amazing on it's own . I thought it was just extremely salty.  That said, on the sandwich with the lettuce, tomato and avocado, the bacon doesn't taste as salty and has a very texture very similar ot bacon.  It was delicious.

The wraps are zucchini wraps - I googled and found them online at this site:
http://www.choosingraw.com/desk-lunch-zucchini-wraps/

The wraps were really simple to make!!  Mine look a little different than those posted on the website because I peeled the zucchini.  They were actually pretty dry right out of the dehyrator.  There seemed to be no middle ground, they either were sticky/wet or crispy.  But today I had them for lunch and they were a lot more flexible and were actually usable as a "wrap."   So my advice on these is to try to make them a day ahead if you can - the wraps may work out better.

I shared them with my coworker who is also raw.  She gave them my best review yet.  She emailed me after lunch and said:  "The sandwich was delicious!!!!  You are an amazing raw cook...seriously everything you have made has been much better than anything i have ordered from the so called Raw Food Chefs!!!"

Okay, I am bragging and blushing all at the same time.  Because really, all I am doing is finding recipes online and making them.  I think raw food preparation is really pretty easy once you have the equipment - it's just not something we were trained to do growing up so it's a bit of a foreign concept to put foods together and combine flavors in their raw state.

I was thinking about it when I was starting out on raw.  I remember how when I was in seventh grade and took a home-economics class, the things they teach you how to cook are not healthy at all.  I can't remember what all we cooked - except cookies!  But I do know none of it was really all that healthy.   Imagine if schools taught kids how to make healthy raw food ... now that would be amazing!

Changing topics a bit, last night I also decided to try this One Minute chocolate ice cream that was posted on Raw Food Talk.  It is made of just frozen bananas and cacao.  It was very simple to make in the Vita-Mix and has the consistency of soft-serve ice cream:

My review ... delicious!!

If you want to give it a try, you can find the recipe here:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=64727

Day 30!!! Thoughts

Today is day 30!  It's hard to believe. It went really fast. 

So what are my observations?

1. I've not really lost any weight - but that is probably my fault for getting my dehydrator so early on - the dehydrator makes it much easier for fats from nuts to sneak into my diet.  
2. I feel like I've lost weight regardless what the scale says - my pants are definitely a lot looser
3. I haven't gained any weight!
4. I feel better. I have so much more energy.  I cannot believe it's just around 2:00 on Sunday and I've already accomplished so much.   I have a lot more I want to accomplish and I don't feel like just sitting around ... I want to get up and get it done. 
5. I'm less achy.  Before I went on raw I could not believe I could be so ache-y already at 43 ... it was a reality check for me because I'm NOT old.  If I felt like that at this age, how will I feel when I'm 50 or 60 or 70 ...  That said, I'm less achy, but do still have some aches and looking forward to those disappearing in the future.
6. Being 100% raw was a lot easier than I expected it would be

It's sort of odd, initially, I thought I'd do this 30 days and then go ahead and allow myself some indulgences after the 30 days ... maybe just do 90% raw. 

I think I will still allow myself the chance to eat out and have some foods that are not raw, but I'm going to stay Vegan/Gluten-free and try to eat as much raw as I can.  I think that makes a huge difference too.  So going forward, 95% raw, but that 5% will be a rare occassion where I'm eating out or an emergency when I don't have any raw food with me.

So all in all, I think this experiment was a great success!

Kelp Mac 'n Cheese

I opened the Kelp Noodles today.

I opened the bag, rinsed them, and let them soak for 30 minutes in water, sea salt and the juice of one lemon.

I took a taste of one of the noodles before adding any sauce to them.  They were interesting.  The look a lot like plastic, but when you taste them they have no taste at all.  When you bite into them, they are crunchy.  Sort of like if you could make a noodle out of jicama how I'd expect it to crunch.

I decided to use some of my cashew cheese sauce to make Kelp Mac 'n Cheese.  The noodles really don't have any taste to them, and very few calories as well.  They are pretty filling.  In fact, I could not finish my whole dish:

The jury is still out on them.

The were "okay" ... I guess in a pinch if I really wanted to have noodles and didn't want to bother making them from zucchini, then I might buy them again, but I think I prefer the zucchini noodles.

That said, my bag was a 1kg bag ... so I'll put the left overs in the fridge (I had a lot of leftovers!), and I'll give them another try this weekend.  Maybe I'll try them in a pad thai sauce - I hear they are really good for pad thai.