Juice Fast Day 3

Woke up happy and energetic! I got out of bed at least an hour earlier than I normally do, and it felt so good. I was not hungry when I woke up, so I drank 8 oz of water and did my normal routine. I have lost about 4 lbs, but it is probably mostly waste and toxins. However, I did notice my belt was one notch tighter! After two days! Very nice.

I went grocery shopping this morning, and on the way home snuck one medjool date. I just cannot resist, especially when they are just sitting there in the seat next to me. But I did limit it to one. When I got home I was hungry, so I unloaded everything and made another amazing (but messy) juice:

2 beets

pineapple to taste

I then blended that with:

2 kale leaves

tons of spinach

frozen blueberries

This was so, so good. Beets are suprisingly very sweet! I remember when I was a kid my step mom tried to make us eat them once or twice, but I thought they were nasty. When I got the beets out, washed and cut them, they were such a gorgeous dark ruby red color. When I juiced them, I tasted it, wary. I couldn't believe how much I loved it. It was a little too sweet however, which is why I added the acidic pineapple. Perfect! You can't even taste the greens.

I then made a salad to take to work, and since I don't like most leaves I tried something different. I cut up 1/4 head red cabbage, cut a handful of spinach, cut a carrot using my peeler, then threw in sun dried tomatoes (not the kind in the can of oil! ick!), basil, and cilantro. It was divine. I put just a little basalmic vinegar on it.

About 4 pm I had a watermelon, blueberry, protein juice. It was a nice, sweet pick me up. I felt so energized today so I went on another run, but after the run I felt like I really did need something of substance. So at home I toasted some sprouted grain bread and topped it with an avocado. Not quite fasting, but just what I needed. Tomorrow I will be transitioning back into solid food.

Juice Fast Day 2

Day 2 was much harder than Day 1. I woke up and felt pretty good, did my morning routine, and had an amazing morning juice:

Several carrots

1 apple

1 lemon (yellow peel cut off, but not white pith)

1 cucumber (not peeled)

Ginger (not fresh, just ground)

I juiced everything, put it in a mason jar, added ginger and shook until combined. It was a beautiful orange color, and was one of the best juices I've ever had! I feel like I could drink this all day! This took me a couple hours to consume.

Just a little while later I was hungry, so I made my normal green smoothie (see Day 1). This also took me a little while to drink, but it didn't satisfy like normal. I was hungry.

Since it's Tyler and my only day off together we like to be just together and hang out. Today was the first time we haven't really had anything planned, so we walked around downtown, got Ty some breakfast (I had the tiniest bite of his bagel, seriously could barely taste it). This was probably a mistake. There are restaurants everywhere! Wherever we walked it smelled good! I started to get very hungry, lightheaded, irritated. I woke up with sinus pressure and that turned into a runny nose (which I also had the day before, a sign of detoxing). We finally went home, where I got my leftover gazpacho out, and added about 2 cups of sun dried tomatoes. It was amazing. I ate slowly and followed that with a cup of herbal tea.

We hung around the house for awhile, I was still hungry, so I made the same chocolate smoothie as the day before. We went back out and did more errands, and I was again very hungry when returning home. I caved and ate half a yellow bell pepper and a tiny piece of pineapple. I felt a little better, but what I really wanted was one of Tyler's sandwiches he kept eating.

Finally I called the doctor, desperate and starving. She said she thought we probably went on too severe a fast for keeping up with normal life. She said we should have a salad, adding whatever greens, and even an avocado if we needed it. It was wonderful to have her support and understanding, as she was experiencing the same symptoms I was.

This is a good example to show you probably do not want to embark on a cleanse or fast before consulting with a doctor (preferably a naturopath (ND) who has done this before). I'm very excited to be eating veggies again! I ate one and a half carrots before bed, and it felt wonderful.

Juice Fast Day 1

The good Doctor I work with and I decided to go on a juice fast. What is it? You might ask. Well, it's when you drink only fresh vegetable and fruit juices for a determined amount of time. People have done juice "feasts" where you drink 2-4 gallons of juices every day for 92 days or more! That's a little intense for both of us! We were just interested in "cleaning house" if you will, and the quick weight loss is just a bonus (though it's not usually any fat loss at the beginning, just waste). At first we both decided to do 10 days, however the timing isn't quite right for me. Sunday is Tyler's birthday (yay!) and next Friday I go to Anchorage with my mother and sister-in-law. Besides fasting for 10 days, you do need a couple days to reintroduce solid food back into your diet. So because of this I'm doing a 4-day cleanse with a day and a half to reintroduce solid food. You start by eating salads and raw veggies, then fruit, miso soup, cooked squash, yams, sweet potatoes and quinoa, then seeds and finally nuts.

On a juice fast you want to make sure that you are limiting your fruit to about 4 servings a day. Any more than that and you're likely to have sugar rushed and an upset stomach. You can have as many juices or smoothies as you want, while still adding protein, hemp seeds in small amounts (hemp seeds do not need to be sprouted to be easily digested), maca and things like that.

So here's what happened to me on Day 1 (which was actually yesterday, Tuesday):

I got lots of sleep the night before and almost sprang out of bed (literally!). I felt refreshed, energized, excited to start the fast. I started the day like any other day, a small glass of water, vitamin D, dry brushing, and my normal green smoothie:

Spinach and kale to fill most the Vitamix

One banana

Frozen blueberries

1 tsp maca

1 tsp blue green algae

1.5 scoops protein powder

Water

Blend and enjoy. Took me a couple hours to drink while I did some at-home billing work. I felt great!

I went about my day, cleaning house, doing laundry, doing more research on fasting, took Toby to Creamer's Field and walked around for about 45 minutes, visited Tyler at work. By about 3 I was very hungry, so I hurried home and made a gazpacho.

1 1/2 fresh tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

Tons of cilantro

Cayenne

1/2 yellow bell pepper

Water

Blend

This had amazing flavor, but I had added too much water. I drank a bit, then put a handful of chia seeds in it, stirred, and refrigerated. I also drank a lot of water.

At about 4.30 I went on a run with a friend. It was so wonderful! I felt light, amazing, like I could run for hours. When I finally went home, I was of course hungry so I made a chocolate smoothie:

One banana

Lots of spinach

1-2 Tbsp raw cocoa

2-3 frozen strawberries

Taste of maca

Little protein powder

This was amazing. It was thick and felt like I had something a little more substantial. Even though I knew I'm supposed to limit fruit (especially sweet ones like bananas), I really knew I needed it.

About 8pm Tyler and I visited his family who was in town. Of course when we got there they were still eating dinner--meat. It looked so good, but I was fine. I had drank a cup of herbal tea on the way over. After dinner they busted out the ice cream, and I sighed as everyone but me tucked into their treats. Normally I don't care, especially if I have my own raw treat, but I had nothing and obviously could not even eat fruit or anything. So I sat there and smiled and answered every one's many questions about raw food. When I got home I took a long, relaxing bath with Natural Calm bath salts and felt better.

Now the day was pretty easy, and I felt pretty good. However, as I got into bed I was starving. Real hunger pangs. But I just drank more water (I had over 80 oz yesterday!) and lay there, and after half hour or so I was fine.

So, that was the first day in a 4-day cleanse. The doctor told me she was also starving last night and had a buckwheat waffle with berries. She said after day 2 or 3 you will not feel hungry anymore, your body gets used to just liquids. And since you're getting all of your nutrients from the fresh, easily absorbed juices, you begin to notice your hair and skin will start to glow. Well, we'll see!

Chocolate milk, Pumpkin Pie, and Grawnola

I love chocolate milk. Ever since I was a little kid I've loved stirring Hershey's syrup into a tall, cool glass of milk. Obviously, being raw, I can have neither Hershey's syrup nor milk. But I can still have my raw chocolate milk, and in my opinion it's better than the original! There's a couple ways to make this.

Chocolate Almond Milk (all measurements are "to taste." I never measure with things like this)

Almond milk

Raw cocoa powder

Agave

Ice (if you like it really cold)

Put all these things in a blender, blend and enjoy!

Hemp Seed Chocolate "Mylk"

Water

Hemp seeds

Raw cocoa powder

Agave

Ice

Blend and think how amazing it is.

Hemp seeds are an amazing protein. I love them on salads, in soups, dips, and of course, mylk! We make this drink a lot at the clinic. The other day the doctor also added cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Oh. my. gosh. Like a milkgasm.

I made this Chocolate Almond Milk the other day. So good. With store bought almond milk it's super creamy; with homemade it's a little more watery, but still amazing.

Pumpkin Pie

I've been craving pumpkin pie. It is my absolute favorite dish on the Thanksgiving table. I think about it all year long, and figured I just couldn't wait! So yesterday was a busy day. Besides my lasagna, I made this "pumpkin" pie that was made with organic garnet yams (since I couldn't find pumpkin or sweet potatoes). It turned out ok. Not super smooth. I think maybe more coconut oil and avocados would have done the trick, but I have such a tiny food processor I had to do two batches as it was. I made an amazing pecan date crust that turned out excellent. I don't have much of a recipe but here it is:

Crust (taken from rawfoodswitch.com)

2 cups pecans

1/2 cup soaked dates or figs

Filling

2-3 yams, cubed (or 4-5 c of sweet potato or pumpkin when they're in season)

1.5 cup soaked dates or figs (only did one, but could have used .5 more)

2 avocados (only tried with one; it may need more)

Agave

2 tsp coconut oil

3 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Ginger

2 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp Vanilla

Water or almond milk to help get it moving

First process the yams in a food processor, then add everything and keep going until it's nice and smooth and creamy. All spices are to taste.

Mine was not super sweet, but with the crust it was just perfect! I add a little, blend, taste, then add a little more if necessary. If you guys make this or something similar please let me know what you did and if it turned out better!

Grawnola

My last thing for today will be grawnola! I love granola cereal and bars so much that I didn't think I could give them up. Luckily there's some smart cookies in the world that developed grawnola. There's tons of recipes out there, but this is one of the easiest I've found. I got it from a great blog, Raw Food Passion. April develops most of her own recipes. Very impressive.

Grawnola

2 cups of flax seeds
1 cup of water
3 cups of dried coconut
1 cup of dates
4 tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon of cinnamon

* First soak the flax seeds in one cup of water for about thirty minutes. Next put the dried coconut into the food processor and process until very fine. Cut up the dates fine and then add them to the food processor and process until fine. Mix the Flax seeds with the coconut and date combo and then stir in the honey and cinnamon making sure everything is mixed together very well. Finally spread the mixture out on the dehydrator trays (about 1/2 inch thickness) and set the dehydrator to 115 degrees. Leave the granola in the dehydrator for about 12 hours or until crisp. Then, just break pieces apart.

So good alone, but also great with almond (or any other nut) milk!

Fresh out of the dehydrator yesterday! I have to get my own Excalibur...

That's it for today, boys and girls. I have so many recipes stored up I need to start posting more of them, but I'd hate to overwhelm you all. Let me know if you have any questions!

Raw Lasagna!

Tonight I tried something very brave. My first truly "gourmet" raw meal: lasagna! I've made raw tacos in the past, but they were so easy I don't think they count. Now let me tell you this thing took me forever to make. Partly because I had to clean my "new" food processor I purchased at a garage sale for five bucks (yay!) and partly because I'm a very disorganized cook. Or uncook, whatever. I tend to glance over a recipe mainly for ingredients and think, "Yeah, ok, that sounds good." Next time I will definitely be more organized, and now I know what to expect. Mine isn't quite as pretty as the picture by the chef, but it was tasty. Tyler really enjoyed it too! The only thing is, I think it was a bit salty. Next time I'll cut the salt by half and see how that goes.

So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, my Raw Lasagna, recipe courtesy of acclaimed UK raw chef, Russell James!

Walnut Meat Layer

11⁄2 c walnuts, soaked 1 hour or more

1c sun-dried tomatoes, soaked for 1 hour or more

2T dark/brown miso

2t dried oregano

2t dried sage

5T nama shoyu

1⁄2t cayenne pepper

2T olive oil

1T agave nectar

1t sea salt

O Grind all ingredients in a food processor, leaving the mixture slightly chunky.

Tomato sauce

11⁄2 c sun dried tomatoes, soaked for 1 hour or more

2 soft dates

2 cloves garlic

2c tomato, seeded and chopped

11⁄2T dried oregano

1t salt or to taste (depending on how salty your s/d toms are)

3T olive oil

2T lemon juice

O Process in a food processor until smooth.

Green pesto

2c tightly packed basil leaves

3⁄4c pine nuts or walnuts

1⁄2c olive oil

1t salt

1 clove garlic

1T lemon juice

O Process all ingredients, leaving plenty of chunkiness!

Nut Cheese

2c macadamias

1c pine nuts

2T lemon juice

2T nutritional yeast

2 yellow peppers

2T fresh parsley

1T fresh thyme

2t salt

1⁄2c water as needed

O Process all ingredients together adding as little of the water as possible until a fluffy consistency is achieved.

Spinach Layer

6c torn spinach

3T olive oil

2t sea salt

O Place all ingredients in a bowl to marinade and wilt for 1 hour or longer, putting the covered bowl in a dehydrator will help this process but it’s not essential.

For the assembly

5 medium Courgettes (zucchini), cut lengthwise and marinated in 2T of salt and 3T olive oil for 10 minutes.

Black pepper

Method:

O Line the base of your dish with a layer of the courgette strips that slightly overlap O On top of this put down a layer of the walnut meat, then the cheese, then tomato sauce and finally the pesto on top. Finish this with another layer of slightly overlapping courgette strips.

O Repeat step 2 but before adding the final layer of courgette, take your wilted spinach and create an additional layer with that. O Placing the whole dish in the fridge for several hours will firm it all up slightly which will make it easier to cut into portions.

O Garnish individual portions with black pepper and a sprig of basil.

Tip: For slightly more impressive looking lasagna; build individual portions on the plate instead of assembling in a large dish. This is what I did to create the lasagna in the photo.

The noodles are zucchini, cut thin on the mandolin then marinated in olive oil and salt.

Then you have layers of walnut "meat," macadamia and pine nut cheeze, tomato sauce, pesto, and one layer of "wilted" spinach, which I mixed with olive oil and salt and put in the dehydrator for an hour or so. This was seriously the best pesto I've ever had in my life! I may try to make pesto flax crackers. mmmm....

Tyler and I both got about halfway done with our big pieces and were pretty much full! I found that interesting, as a normal piece of lasagna I could inhale and ask for seconds (I love pasta, cheese, tomatoes, everything!). So we thought about it and came up with a little theory that is probably correct.

When you're on the aptly named SAD (Standard American Diet), the more you eat the more you want it. I'm sure more people than I have eaten our fill of fast food or pizza or what have you, then a couple hours later you start thinking, "Man, I'm hungry again!" This is because most things we eat that are considered "normal" have very little to no nutritional value (think white, processed sugar and flour, sodas, etc). Your body knows it needs and wants something else so it tells the brain, "Feed me!" Now when you are eating raw, you don't need to eat as much. I find I'm rarely hungry most days. When you are eating an abundance of produce (including nuts and seeds), your body says, "Ok, stop, it's all good I've got what I need." Body is happy, brain is happy, everyone is happy!

I also made grawnola and a "pumpkin" pie with a pecan date crust. Ty and I will dig into that about...now! I will post pictures tomorrow.

Green Smoothie

Well I figured since this is the first recipe I'm posting it might as well be the thing I drink every single morning. The famous Green Smoothie! It is the staple of any raw and/or vegan diet.

The Green Smoothie is very personal. You just throw in any greens, a little fruit, water, protein if you want it, whatever! Here is a typical one for me:

I fill about half the VitaMix with spinach, kale, turnip greens, romaine, whatever I have on hand (but almost always spinach, my favorite)

One banana

Little frozen fruit, like mixed berries, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple

Mint (sometimes)

Maca Powder (more on that later)

Blue green Algae (more on that later)

Water

2 scoops Mediclear protein powder (more on that later, too)

Blend and drink!

This usually lasts me several hours. Sometimes I skip the green smoothie on Sundays because my Sunday morning is usually very busy and I'm always running late anyway. I always miss it. Every now and then I will only drink green juice or green smoothies. The goal is to have mostly greens and only about 20-30% fruit. The banana makes it creamy and I love frozen fruit because I like my smoothie very cold, and frozen fruit makes it tasty and cold.

For beginners I would suggest a very popular Green Smoothie:

Spinach

1 banana

Frozen or fresh pineapple

Mint

Water

Mediclear or other protein powder

Ice (if you didn't use frozen pineapple)

I would also highly suggest a VitaMix or other high speed blender. That way you can make a truly smooth, delicious Green Smoothie; otherwise you get a chunky smoothie. Yuck.

I love green smoothies because I can fit a lot of stuff in it. I have a hard time eating salads, and this way I don't have to. Everything that goes into a salad I love, but for some reason it's that lettuce that bothers me! Strange I know. Green smoothies are so important, especially first thing in the morning. The greens are already pulverized so we can process the deliciousness hidden inside the greens. You still get the fiber, it's just a little easier to get through your body, and you really do get more out of them. Also amazing are juices. Juices have all the enzymes, vitamins, minerals, but no fiber that your body spends energy breaking down. But one thing at a time!

Let me know if you guys have any questions or comments about Green Smoothies, and if you've tried making one.

All that yummy goodness about to be vitamixed!

The finished product. So, so good! This took me a couple hours to drink today.

Always in my favorite mason jar.

Why Raw??

Well here it is my friends! My very own raw food blog. I've been so excited to share my pictures of my raw food experiments with you on Facebook, and now by popular demand I am writing this blog, in which I will give you the recipes for all those yummy treats!

Many people have asked me, why raw? Am I now crazy? Am I vegan? Well, yes, I am a little crazy, and no I'm not vegan. I'm basically "raw till dinner." That means all day long I eat or drink only raw stuff (like my awesome Green Smoothies and whatnot), and at dinner I may have cooked food. I do still eat eggs every now and then, and I enjoy sprouted grain breads like Ezekiel 4:9. Quinoa is a perfect protein and goes well in stews and with lightly sauteed veggies over it (like a stir fry, only the quinoa is the rice replacement).

So, why raw? Well, lots of reasons I suppose. Health, weight loss, curiosity. I became very interested in raw food several months ago when I met a wonderful Christian lady who is raw vegan. She became raw after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Chemo and radiation did not work. So, with the help of God she became 80-100% very quickly. She is completely healed from cancer; she's in her 40's, has two kids, and looks amazing! Through her I tried many delicious raw treats. Also piquing my interest in raw is a naturopathic doctor I work with, who is vegan and about 80-90% raw. We often trade recipes and always have lots of food to eat at the clinic!

I have no qualms against eating animals. I don't think it's mean, I do believe they are an option God gave to us. However, I don't like the way I feel after I eat it. Usually sluggish and heavy and bloated. When I eat raw I feel alive and vibrant (most of the time!). I like that I'm getting a ton of fruit and veggies into my diet, and no dairy or meat whatsoever. Later on I will address questions like where do I get protein and calcium. This post is already too long. I'll close by saying God knew exactly what our bodies would need, as he created them. As I delve deeper into raw I'm so happy and amazed at what perfection can be found in nature without eating meat and dairy or cooked food!!