Archive for the ‘Raw Food Prep’ Category

Found the Holy Grail in raw food. The 80/10/10 low fat raw vegan information from Dr. Doug Graham.

Every page I read I wanted to bookmark.  Its informative and backed with tons of research. It’s all about the natural way we are meant to nourish our bodies… and you can find it all at your grocery produce department. You don’t have to order exotic supplements and powders and other fancy raw crap that is being peddled online — know I know why that peddled crap and the way it was marketed always bothered me. It’s because it’s just not natural. It’s not needed. (And OMG someone is actually selling “raw water” now).

When I read that the medical industry has published studies that say diabetics need to eat fruit and stay off the fat – it blew my mind. There are doctors out there telling people to not eat fruit because of the sugar content! When you eat fruit, the body sucks up that awesome juicy nutrition and uses the glucose for energy and the insulin receptors do their job and attach to the sugar and use it and move it out of the system. BUT when you have fat in your system taking forever to digest and get out of the system, the poor little receptors can’t do their job because the fat is blocking them. They are like little fat bouncers standing out front of a tough biker bar shaking their head no. So the sugar floats around wondering what to do. If diabetics stayed off fat, they could get off their meds.

The unusual title of the book refers to getting 80% of calories from carbs (fruit) 10% of our calories from protein (greens) and 10% of our calorie from fat (nuts, avo, seed). See NutritionData.com and NutriDiary.com to check the nutrients from your food. For example here is the nutrient data from my usual green papaya smoothie: 

Papaya Green Smoothie
200 grams papaya (a good full cup cubed)
100 grams banana (one medium about 7″ long)
100 grams romaine (5 or 6 leaves)
1-2 dates (soaked first)
2 cups water

Nutrition Data:
Calories – 253
Fat – 1 g
Sodium – 15 mg
Carbs – 65 g
Fiber – 10 g
Sugars – 42 g
Protein – 4 g

Here is the nutrition data on the individual ingredients:

I think this is the way our bodies were biologically designed to eat. Perhaps it’s not for everyone – but if you are a raw foodist that is having difficulty sticking to raw because of cooked food cravings – try low fat raw vegan, read the book. You will see that just eating more fruit obliterates the cooked food craving. And if you are eating 811 and still craving – you aren’t eating enough fruit, get those calories in! When you’re used to always trying to eat low cal, 2000 plus calories a day is hard to wrap your head around.

With all the calories you need to increase your activity – but the cool thing is…you are so full of energy that you just get up and move! You’re body wants to move. And have a total blast when you are consuming so much fruit, people are going to notice. When they see that and say the typical “where do you get your protein?” You can be straight and say “from fruits and vegetables.” Or you can have fun with them and say “How much protein do we need?” They never know. Never once has someone who has asked me that ever has an answer. There is 4 grams of protein in that green smoothie  – and that’s just one meal or a snack. Well, the issue of protein is one for another post another time.

Sometimes, when I’m paying attention, I am mesmerized when I slice open some beautiful raw fruits or vegetables. It is all so amazing. I wanted to write about how beautiful it was but the word beautiful just wasn’t enough. I found the word “resplendent” in my Thesauraus: shining brightly; full of splendor; dazzling; splendid. It’s a good word.

There is no question in my mind that fruits, vegetables and greens were created to be resplendent so that we would be attracted to it and and want to eat our fill. It couldn’t be any simpler! Resplendent colors – (open a papaya!); incredible designs -(check out a cauliflower up close); amazing aroma (the list is too long!)

What about nuts and seeds? Look at the regal sunflower with its bright yellow petals. Almond shells hanging on a tree are covered by a thin layer of bright green meat that tastes like a Granny Smith apple. Look at dark green beautifully curly kale, so rich. Now think about that which we shouldn’t be eating… (I started to write some examples, but they weren’t resplendent and I didn’t feel resplendent writing the words.)

Mother Nature gave us a big clue what to eat: it will be resplendent! It can be so simple.

I love interesting salads. I get tired of salads that are made with lettuce as a base – at salad bars the lettuce is usually cut too big to fit in your mouth and it takes forever to chew them. This is a colorful and very flavorful salad – great to bring to a raw potluck or serve your cooked friends and family. Pecans or walnuts can be used, but the raw pistachios flavor really fits this combination of flavors. If you don’t have access to green papaya, you may use jicama, zucchini (soak zucchini the same as papaya), or experiment with hard squashes like butternut or carnival or for a more tart version use a Granny Smith apple as the base.  (Full recipe on recipe page.)

My papaya tree is full of papaya that have yet to ripen. But the temps have been falling and I think I’ve got all the fruit I’ll get from it this season. Then this week we had snow and a hard freeze and so in preparation I covered some of my more tropical plants with plant blankets. I cut 3 of the largest green papaya from the tree to see if they would ripen indoors.

I really don’t think they were old enough to ripen indoors so I thought I’d see what I could make with the green papaya. There are other fruits that have “2 lives.” Green mangos are used as a relish and in salsas. Green plantain are used to make several cooked side dishes (patacones, chips…).  

When you cut a green papaya it has a sticky sap that oozes and when dry it is waxy. (The papayas that were left on the tree were covered in dots of the waxy substance the next morning after the freeze.) I cut open the papaya, cut off the peeling, used a mandoline to make a pile of julianne strips. I soaked the strips in a bowl of water, salt and juice of one lime.

Soak for at least 30 minutes. Drain and then toss with sliced purple cabbage, julianned cucumber, chopped or julianned apple, chopped cilantro, chopped pistachios and orange zest. Drizzle cranberry dressing over the salad and top with a couple of sliced soaked dates per serving.

A really cool thing about preparing raw food is that you can keep working with the finished product. I really don’t know what to call it – for example if you cooked a lasagna – you probably couldn’t puree it and re-cook it to create a new meal.

But raw food, for example raw soups you can dehydrate, or add more raw ingredients and dehydrate into a raw cracker. Raw food never needs to go to waste.

I made a few special recipes to take to Thanksgiving with my family, (they were eating cooked). I made a green salad to share that turned out really good.
Chopped romain with pecans, diced tomatoes, diced yellow bell pepper, soaked goji berries, strawberries, cucumbers. With a light balsamic vinegar/olive oil/honey/cinnamon cranberry dressing.

My side dish was Bartlet Pears with Cinnamon Cranberry Sauce and Spiced Ginger Cream. Found the recipe on Gliving.com – this sauce had an amazing flavor!

 I also had a slice of carnival squash topped with raw dressing. Just a few bites of that and I was stuffed! Guess all those nuts fill you up. I soaked the squash in salt water, drained it, dehydrated it for a couple hours which softened it a bit. Then I rubbed it with cumin. The dressing was a handful each of pecans, walnuts, almonds. Processed with a little squash, celery, sage, onion, parsley, salt, pepper. Pretty tasty!

For dessert I had a Mango Cream Tart (also from GLiving.com)

What to do with the leftovers? The squash and stuffing I turned into a savory raw bread! I ran the squash and nut stuffing through my Omega auger juicer to turn it into a paste, adding some left over red and yellow bell pepper. Then I stirred in fresh ground flax seed, the leftover cinnamon cranberry sauce, dulse, kelp, chopped raw olives, sunflower seeds and a little coconut oil. Spread out on 2 teflex sheets and dried at 110 for a few hours.

 I cut it into little squares that remind me of those little “coctail rye” bread loaves. Probably high in calories with all the nuts. So I’ll make them last! Should be good with lettuce and tomato!

The mango tart was only a 6″ tart, but was so filling I only had a sliver. And everyone else was chowing down on 3 different kinds of cooked pies and didn’t try mine…so I had lots left over.

I put the entire tart in a food processor with 2 bananas, a little fresh ground flax seed, vanilla and cinnamon. Spread it on one teflex sheet about 1/2 in thick or less. Dried it at 110 for a few hours. When it was dried enough to handle, I cut it in small squares – spreading honey on some and adding coconut just for fun, (then dried some more).

These turned out good. Probably could have added something to sweeten it more – but I think they will be good as a side to a green salad with pears I think!

The weather has turned cooler here and I was craving some soup.

Using my Vitamix I pureed up some soup – kept it on high for a little longer to warm it up a bit. Being a high speed blender you can do that!

This was adapted from an Elaina Love  recipe – I blended up a red bell pepper, half an avocado I had left in the frige, one small organic carrot, handful of cilantro, dash salt (I use Real Salt available from WholeFoods), dash of cumin. It made way too much for one serving so I refrigerated the rest.

Taking a tip from Ann Wigmore I dehydrated the leftover soup. I added a half cup of sprouted buckwheat (which I turned into “nut butter” by running it though the auger juicer).

I also added 2 chopped green onions, minced about 4″ of fresh rosemary, added more salt and cumin.

I poured this mixture out on a teflex dehydrator sheet and dried it at 105 degrees for about 2 or 3 hours.

I used a spatula to spread it around evenly and even shook the tray to even it out. It dried really fast, I flipped it over onto the screen in about an hour. It was too thin to actually be crackers. I broke them up and put them in a jar. If I can keep out of them, I will use them to sprinkle over salads! Really tasty, made the house smell great!