Project Raw

Closing up shop

2010-03-23T11:54:00.004-04:00

I am writing to you today from Bobolink Dairy in New Jersey, where the roosters are crowing and the cows starting to munch on the first small grasses of the spring. As of March I have taken a position as a farm intern/cheesemaking apprentice.

I am milking pasture-raised cows who live off a 100% grass-fed diet (that's Maria to the right), baking rustic breads made from organic flour in a wood-fired oven and generally partaking in the life of the new American family farm.

My Project Raw is officially over. The experiment has forever changed how I enjoy food, and has only fanned the flame in pursuit of good, whole, healthy, pure, delicious, fresh, local, real foods. Many thanks to those who have shared their green smoothie excitement over the past year--I will always love them, too!

Cheers and happiness to you all,
xoRebecca

Raw January: Day 28

2010-02-01T16:49:00.002-05:00

Today was a great one--the normal smoothie and salad kind of day. Are you guys bored when I don't make gourmet stuff? Because I usually prefer things that are essential fruits and veggies--pile on a salad with all that stuff and give it to me, and I am happy.

I also made sure to take my remaining bit of St. Johns Wort, which I usually dilute in water. It gives it a floral taste and supposedly promotes emotional wellbeing. Well, my emotions were quite even and positive today, so maybe it works!

10:00 am - 1:30 pm
Bare Bones Green Smoothie: water, collard greens, pineapple. 1 quart.

1:00 pm
Some crappy rice chips I thought looked semi-healthy but probably aren't.

4:30 pm
Salad! Red romaine, baby leaf spinach, red onion, carrot, avocado, mustard, green onion, cucumber, tiny bit of yogurt and bleu cheese

5:00 pm
Cinnamon Apple Tea, Celestial Seasonings style.

6:45 pm
Water with St. Johns Wort
Raw chocolate 78% with Cacao Nibs--the best ever.
8:00 pm
White tea, a Numi brand

Raw January: Day 24, Pudding!

2010-01-28T15:24:00.008-05:00

Woo, sorry about that blip. I have been making some really awesome stuff lately.

FOR EXAMPLE: Raw Chocolate Pudding.

I was never a pudding fan before I started eating more raw food, BUT there is something to be said for eating something raw that is made from 100% good-for-you whole foods and it tastes like the real thing. It's really hard sometimes to find raw desserts that don't use dates and nuts in them, so this was really refreshing and chocolatey.

I sort of made this up by taste so I'm not sure of the exact measurements.

Recipe: Rich Chocolate Pudding with Berries

Ingredients:
- 2 young Thai coconuts
- 1/2 cup leftover Raw Hot Chocolate
- 2 tbs raw cacao powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbs agave nectar or other sweetener
- 1/4 c pure water or coconut water
- Handful raspberries
- pinch salt

Directions:
The first hurdle is conquering your coconuts. There are many ways to open one up. I prefer to drain out all the coconut water through one punctured hole, and then open it up like this. It's really not very difficult; it just takes some persistence. Scoop out all the coconut meat and remove any of the wood-like bits.

Get out a blender and pour your pure water/coconut water and leftover Raw Hot Chocolate mixture in with all the coconut meat and mix it up for 1-2 minutes until it's smooth. Add your remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the berries and blend that on high. You're looking to get it as smooth as possible, and a little whipped/frothy. Taste it and add more agave if it's not sweet enough.

Chill for a half hour or so before serving with some berries of your choice, or some chopped mint leaves. Raspberries are a natural combo with chocolate. It's still good all alone though!

I also made a cauliflower mashed potato recipe that was really tasty and the PERFECT consistency. But I want to try a gravy of some kind and spiff up the spices a little better before I share it. Here's a photo!

Food today! I'm eating very little because I'm not doing much except sitting around doing things on the computer today. I did a half hour of Wii Fit and drove the car for 20 minutes, so I'm not at the pinnacle of energy use today. My sleep is totally normalizing now that I'm not eating after 8, which I will continue.

I'm trying to eat more greens, but the grocery stores are so pathetic it's hard for me to muster any desire to buy their wilty kale. I'm moving to Pittsburgh for a little while, so I'll certainly have my pick of grocery stores there.

11:00 am
Handful blueberries

4:00 pm
Green smoothie, water, baby spinach, collard greens, pineapple, and frozen peaches.

7:15 pm
Cesar salad (romaine, garlic, olive oil, cured anchovies (not mine), raw egg, salt)
Little bit of bread and butter and two broccoli-stuffed ravioli with homegrown red tomato sauce (not raw!)
Rich Chocolate Pudding! sogood

Raw January: Day 17

2010-01-22T23:34:00.003-05:00

Woo! I am completely swamped with work! I have been eating a lot of pomegranates (DELICIOUS) and smoothies.

I promise raw blog will return after next week!

We're making our own cured salmon...

Raw January: Day 16

2010-01-21T19:33:00.006-05:00

Today I made raw hot chocolate! Are you in disbelief?

"How can it be as creamy?"
"How can that be raw?"
"How is it HOT?"

Delectable, easy, delicious and chocolatey... I'm pleased to be able to present this recipe directly from Meredith's store of gourmet raw fixes. She never fails to delight me with her creativity in food.

Not only is it nourishing with cashew milk (only about 80 calories per cup and with all those good fats and nut proteins), raw cacao is just about my favorite thing. Not to mention that during winter, it's ever-so-desirable to have a warm mug in your hand.

Even when you're raw you can eat things that are hot. Well, maybe not HOT-hot, but warmed. A drink that's 110-115 degrees is still plenty warm to be satisfying after coming in from the snow!

Recipe: Hot Cocoa, courtesy of The Raw Seed

Ingredients:
32 ounces of cashew milk
4 heaping tbs of raw cacao
1/4 cup raw agave, raw honey, or other sweetener of your choice
1/2 tsp ground vanilla bean (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tbs vanilla extract

1. To make cashew milk, blend 1 cup of soaked cashews with 4 cups of pure water for 1-2 minutes. Pour mixture through a nutmilk bag or kneehigh pantyhose to remove all pulp, squeeze until the pulp is dry and you are left with delicious cashew milk.

2. Pour cashew milk back into a high-power blender, add remaining ingredients and blend for 15-30 seconds until mixed and frothy.

3. To heat the mixture, place in the dehydrator at a desired temperature or heat carefully on a stovetop while carefully monitoring the temperature. If you can comfortably place your finger in the drink then it is below 118 degrees.

4. Pour warm hot cocoa into your favorite mug and enjoy with your favorite person!

*tips for storing: nut milk can be stored in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to three days. Shake before each use. Hot cocoa can be made ahead of time and stored in a glass jar for 3 days in the fridge.
*experiment with new flavors of hot cocoa by using almond milk, adding mint leaves, or even blending in coconut, delicious!

I personally would love to use coconut next time, and slightly less cacao. And trust me, I am the type of person that put about three serving packets of Swiss Miss into my cup of cocoa! These ground up cacao nibs are STRONG.

Admittedly, everyone's palette is different, so taste before you commit! I ended up doubling the agave to about a 1/2 cup until it tasted right to me.

Here's something interesting:

My dad and mom both had some of the recipe. My dad immediately felt a rush from the cocoa, which he associated with caffeine. I also felt a rush, and it sort of felt like caffeine--but not with the twitching, the anxiety, or acidity in my stomach. I just felt my face--cheeks--rise red, and felt what I can only call (excuse the clinical term) stimulation.

Looking up details on the amount of caffeine in raw cacao is hard. Some people talk about raw cocoa, which isn't necessarily talking about the pure ground cacao nibs--the most pure form of chocolate, chopped up cocoa beans that have ironically been ROASTED (humans can't digest the cocoa bean without heat!). So I don't know who is talking about what most of the time.

I read that there is about 1/20th the amount of caffeine in raw cacao that there is in a cup of coffee (read: 8 oz). I'm getting this information from my cacao supplier, Gnosis, but I can't vouch for their sources.

The source of the "high" of raw cacao is generally accredited to Theobromine:

Theobromine has a similar effect to caffeine, but is about 10 times weaker. Theobromine has diuretic, stimulant and relaxing effects, and can lower the blood pressure by dilating the blood vessels. Theobromine has stimulant properties, similar to caffeine. However unlike caffeine, theobromine does not affect the central nervous system but instead stimulates the cardiovascular system. Theobromine can also relax bronchi muscles in the lungs and can be used as cough medicine - sudies indicate that theobromine acts on the vagus nerve, which runs from the lungs to the brain.

Interesting...

Meredith also has a recipe for raw marshmallows: check it out!

Raw January: Day 15, Cheese Tragedy

2010-01-20T12:30:00.003-05:00

Ugh, I spent all day in anticipation for my raw goat milk chevre cheese. Instead of pasteurizing the milk first, I decided to try a raw fresh milk cheese.

Unfortunately, it did not turn out. What remained after its allotted incubation time could never earn the right to be called curds and whey. I am so bummed I messed up that glorious fresh milk with a mistake I can't pin down. I think I had it incubating at the wrong temperature, since my current thermometer only goes down to 75 degrees. SAD NEWS.

I will try again tomorrow with store-bought, pasteurized cow milk instead. If I'm going to be experimenting and screwing up, it might as well not be on the quality stuff straight from the local goat. Details to come!

I bought some more Mason jars and have re-organized my cabinets! Nuts and flax and coconut all in its place--instead of in plastic.

Also tomorrow I cure some fresh salmon gravlax! Salt-curing is 100% raw, baby (though perhaps should be sparingly eaten in a regular raw diet--so much salt)! Once the whole process is completed, I'll be sure to write a detailed how-to, with brilliant photos.

8:30 am
Little amount of leftover Green Smoothie from yesterday.

10:00 am
Larabar, Lemon. On the go!

1:45 pm
1/2 cucumber, peeled

4:30 pm
Jocolat, Choclate, a new cocoa-filled form Larabar is making. For a quick bite on the go again...

6:00 pm
Caesar salad with romaine and a dressing of fresh lemon, garlic and olive oil with anchovies. I avoided the croutons (not quite raw)
Peas, frozen then boiled (not raw)
Walleye, from a friend who caught it in Lake Erie (no it didn't have three eyes), baked with pepper (not raw)

11:30 pm
A whole bunch of cooked crap at a BBQ place. So much for not eating after 8, right? They had a good raw broccoli slaw with cabbage and carrots. Yummy.
Also a Black Chocolate Stout beer.

Raw January: Day 14

2010-01-19T19:54:00.005-05:00

Halfway through the month almost. Can't believe it!

Though I fear this blog has become a horribly awful bore--my eating choices have lacked the wide-eyed novelty of last April's first foray into rawness--I promise to step it up. I've already gotten my hands on a super exciting recipe for DELICIOUS, RAW HOT CHOCOLATE. Coming soon, coming soon.

Having a green smoothie while sitting at a desk working is a great thing. No one really wants to be cooped in an office--or in my case, bedroom/cubicle--but if you are, you might as well be giving yourself some really good stuff. I get so hungry in the early afternoons, I just want to eat like a pile of bread. But the green smoothie is totally satisfying taking your time with it.

It's a quart of greens and fruit, so I often drink a lot of water with it, too. Just because it masquerades as a liquid doesn't mean it's a substitute for water! I read about this one woman once who thought because she's on a raw diet she didn't need to drink water--whoa!

I'm not sure why my smoothie was so "whipped" today. See the little separation marks between the froth and the liquid? I didn't put anything frozen into it, so maybe that's the answer. Still delicious though--and SO many greens in there today.

Despite mixing up the cooked and the raw during these past two weeks, I've lost about 9 pounds already--but I'm still 6 pounds away from what I was when I finished raw last year; Have no fear, I am not wasting away. I've been combining my raw-heavy diet with exercise on Wii Fit, stationary bike, and parading my ancient black lab up and down the road. I am really good at the Hula.

Also, because of my ridiculous sleeping habits the past couple weeks (I was up until 3 again last night), I've decided to try to get my body back on a normal routine. I've decided to stop eating anything after 8pm and trying to eat a little something immediately in the morning to kickstart the beginning of the day. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will.

I made nettle leaf infusion tonight to drink tomorrow. Check out that video above with Susun Weed. That woman is crazy in love with plants and it's awesome. I'm going to let it sit overnight. It tastes like chlorophyll, but it makes me feel super alert and energetic. Not a bad trade.

8:00 am
Water water, hydration. For some reason I've been so parched these past couple of weeks. I am clearly not getting enough water even though I seem to be lapping it up!

1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Green Smoothie attack!
Ingredients: Water, Kale, Dandelion, Pineapple, Banana, Carrot-Ginger Juice

5:45 pm
Red Delicious Apple (truly delicious)

6:30 pm
Dinner with the parents, out. They ran out of lettuce (what!). Boca burger with tomato and remaining kitchen's lettuce with ketchup and mustard, half the bun.

8:00 pm
Meredith's Raw Truffles & Cinnamon Apple tea

Raw January: Day 13

2010-01-18T23:35:00.005-05:00

Woo hoo, Monday!

Another green smoothie to save the day, the same as yesterday. And then I ate a huge dinner, mostly of leftovers:

Zucchini Noodles
Mediterranean Dolmas filling on top
Fresh Pomegranate Seeds, mmm
Avocado-Pomegranate Salsa
Rice Chips (not raw)

But oh so delicious.
This week is going to be awesome. On Wednesday I'm going to be making my own cured salmon lox and chevre cheese from fresh goat milk. Although dairy and fish are not usually part of a raw diet, I love the idea of making them myself--especially the local raw milk!

Raw January: Day 11 & 12 Weekend

2010-01-16T12:58:00.005-05:00

A delicious smoothie happened this weekend! I'm convinced that pineapple automatically makes whatever you throw in there taste awfully wonderful.

When I was in high school I used to like eating the canned version with cottage cheese sometimes. I never felt as though I needed a whole, real pineapple until I tried it. Same with orange juice. I will never buy it in the carton again. Now I can never go back.

I do have to say: I feel irresponsible choosing tropical fruits to be part of my daily diet. Things like bananas and pineapples are generally staples of the grocery store, but I have no idea of the process it took to get here: boat, air? Something gas-guzzling I presume. The fruits are picked early so they don't over-ripen. It doesn't seem that making the shopping choices with the larger environmental toll would align with my desire to make less of a footprint/puff of exhaust in the world. But I really can't live without a pineapple a week. Flaws, fibs and all, thank god for the modern grocery while attempting to eat raw food in winter.

Ode to Pineapple!
In addition to being delicious, sweet, tough-skinned and tart, pineapple also has its nutritional benefits. It has a huge amount of Vitamin C; one cup of the raw pineapple gives you more than 100% of your daily need (according to that standard 2,000 calorie diet)! It's low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium (obviously). You also get a good amount of Dietary Fiber, Thiamin, Vitamin B6 and Copper, and a high amount of Manganese, which we need in order to produce healthy bones and cartilage. Some say manganese even cuts down on the extremes of PMS and mood swings.

Today's Winter Smoothie Ingredients:
Water
Dandelion
Collard Greens
Kale
Banana
Carrot-Ginger Juice
Pineapple

Raw January: Day 10

2010-01-15T23:59:00.007-05:00

Yum yumm! Today was wonderful! And I made one of the most delicious salsa recipes I've ever had!

I also taught my friend Cara how to make a purist guacamole. The vital trick is to get the lime/salt combo right, so I wanted to see if I could help!

I remember when I first started making raw things that the concept of "tasting as you go" was very intimidating. I couldn't fathom how Meredith was doing it. Though it took several experiments gone wrong, I have become more familiar with ingredient-combining. Now, as opposed to following measurements to the increment, I can throw something together by judging the quality of the ingredients and using periodic taste-tests.

In the end, I'm not sure I really got the guac to the level she was looking for. I think I should have tried throwing in some mayonnaise or sour cream--the way the restaurants do it to keep it green--but we got so sidetracked by the brilliant salsa.

My friend Eugene shared this recipe with me. It's creamy, sweet with a little heat, and one hundred percent raw! I substituted tangerines for the clementines (lots of time slicing up sections and removing seeds however). It's absolutely delicious. Anyone and everyone would love it! Beware of getting unripe pomegranates, though: bitter, bitter, bitter!

Recipe: Eugene's Avocado-Pomegranate Salsa

Ingredients:
2 avocados, diced (about 1 1/3 cups)
1 fresh lime, juiced (about 3 tbs)
6 clementines, peeled into sections (about 2 cups)
1 pomegranate (1 cup seeds)
1 jalapeno, seeded & minced
1/2 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, minced
2 tbs raw honey
1/2 tsp salt

Combine avocado and juice in a medium bowl and mix well. Add clementine secions and remaining ingredients; toss gently to combine and enjoy.

You can't quite tell by the photo how beautiful this salsa is: with the orange citrus, green cilantro and onions and red pomegranate seeds confettied throughout, it is a total wow from plate to palette.

Happy weekend! Have a green smoothie with pineapple in it--you will love it! :)

Raw January: Day 9

2010-01-14T23:30:00.001-05:00

Not much excitement to report today--eating copious amounts of bananas and cacao things, delicious as they are.

I have been feeling ok, sleeping way too much. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't fall asleep, then I can't wake up. It's very strange. I haven't been exercising much at all recently. Maybe that, or stress?

I have noticed my avocados are getting super ripe, so tomorrow is going to be an avocado day. My friend Cara is coming over for guac-tastic times.

8:00 am
Raspberry leaf tea

1:00 pm
Banana
2 Raw truffles!
Half a bagel (totally not raw)

6:00 pm
Chocolate-covered banana

8:30 pm
Red delicious apple

Raw January: Day 8 & Feast!

2010-01-13T18:52:00.012-05:00

I made so much food tonight.

What started as a response to a paternal request for Zucchini Noodles & Marinara became side dishes and wrapping and soaking and marinating and freezing. I went a little nuts.

That said, everything I made (once I had the ingredients) took less than 2 hours, using only knives and the food processor. And it only took that long because I decided to make chocolate-covered bananas at the last minute.

The menu:
- Zucchini noodles
- Marinara sauce (Ani Phyo recipe)
- Mediterranean dolmas (Ani Phyo recipe)
- Kale Chips
- Miss Meredith's Chocolate Truffles
- Miss Meredith's Chocolate-Covered Bananas

I didn't eat much during the day today, which is weird. Maybe it's due to having some cooked food the night before? No idea. I felt very alert today, but not super energetic. My mind was racing!

I saw Ani Phyo on Man Vs. Food tonight. She seemed to be pulling out the stops: raw lasagna, mango cobbler, a raw "burger" and bun, a durian smoothie. He didn't seem that enthused with most of her dishes, which is possibly not surprising because he eats 15 p but loved the marinara sauce. It is quite a tasty recipe.

Enjoy the photos of food, yum!

Mediterranean Dolmas.

The filling is oil, pine nuts, raisins, sundried tomatoes and dill.

Then they're rolled up in fresh collard leaves!

7:30 am
Raspberry leaf infusion tea, cold

5:00 pm
Apple
Cinnamon apple tea

6:00 pm
Feast!
Zucchini noodles with marinara
2 Mediterranean Dolmas
Marinated mushrooms
1 Meredith's raw truffles
Glass white wine

9:00 pm
Chocolate covered banana

Raw January: Day 7, DAD CHALLENGE & Nettle Infusions

2010-01-12T23:00:00.006-05:00

I got all nervous last night from the DAD CHALLENGE: to prepare one raw meal for him to eat a day.

So I channeled the energy into making kale chips.

Now that I have access to a dehydrator it opens up the possibility for some experimentation. My cousin made them for me before and they were delicious. Hers had plenty of nutritional yeast, a nice healthy cheesy substitute (and staple of popcorn) and an ingredient I am currently lacking. It totally makes the chips. I was a little bummed. I might have to buy some off of the internet.

Kale is an excellent source of calcium and it belongs to the broccoli family, which makes it totally fine to eat all your chips in one sitting.

Unfortunately I made them too salty--whoops. But it seems like they'd be good combined with a dip or something. My mom likes them, but she eats anchovies out of the can. When I come up with a better recipe, I'll post it.

I spent most of the day eating my awesome liquid food, taking advantage of all the fresh juice I made yesterday.

I also made a raspberry leaf infusion. Usually I choose to make a nettle leaf infusion--one of the things I was introduced to this summer at the Women's Herbal Conference. Either way, it's basically a 4-10 hour steeped batch of tea, from the dried leaves of an herb--like linden, raspberry or stinging nettle plant. It is AWESOME.

According to herbalist Susun Weed who I met this summer:

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) builds energy, strengthens the adrenals, and is said to restore youthful flexibility to blood vessels. A cup of nettle infusion contains 500 milligrams of calcium plus generous amounts of bone-building magnesium, potassium, silicon, boron, and zinc. It is also an excellent source of vitamins A, D, E, and K. For flexible bones, a healthy heart, thick hair, beautiful skin, and lots of energy, make friends with sister stinging nettle. It may make you feel so good you'll jump up and exercise.

Making it is pretty easy, but if you've never done an "infusion" before here's what you need:

- 1 oz dried herb (I get my stinging nettle leaves from Mountain Rose Herbs--$8 per lb, which is a LOT for CHEAP)
- 1 quart water, hot hot hot
- 1 quart Mason jar and lid, or other easily sealed foodsave container

Bring water to a strong whistle in the teapot. Meanwhile, put some warm-hot water in your Mason jar to heat it up a bit so the glass doesn't crack when you add the boiling stuff. Measure out your herb and dump inside the jar. Pour boiling water all the way to the tippy-top, stir a tiny bit to get the leaves mixed up in there and let sit to infuse for 4-10 hours or overnight. Strain into a quart sized container and store in the refrigerator. Susun Weed compares the nettle tea to the shelf life of blood: after 48 hours it's no good. If it spoils, she suggests you use it as a hair rinse or to water your plants.

DAD CHALLENGE
Without pineapple, banana, or un-freezerburned fruit, making a good-tasting smoothie for my dad's first raw breakfast was difficult. I ended up making this horribly bitter-tasting attempt to repeat the Tout-Suite Smoothie from the other day, but the new pineapple I had gotten from Erie County Farms was wretched. Maybe I didn't let it ripen enough.

The only sweet thing I had around were some good apples, so I peeled one and put that in with the usual greens--along with some of the carrot ginger juice. I sent him off with a quart of the stuff. Although he referred to his green smoothie as "slime" when he came home from work, he labeled it "unoffensive" and said it kept him from his normal morning AND afternoon in-between meal snacking routine. Not a terrible review. I also got a request for zucchini noodles with marinara sauce for dinner tomorrow. Maybe I can try out a couple side dishes too! I'm thinking definitely marinated mushrooms.

Feelings! I'm kind of stressed in general, so it's hard to tell what's mentally induced and what's diet-driven. I will say I'm finding it hard to fall asleep at a decent hour, but who knows what that means. At least I'm getting hungry in the morning now.

8:30 am - 10 am
Green smoothie reject, 1 quart (waste not, want not)
Water, Collard Greens, Dandelion Weed, Cranberries, Pineapple, Frozen Peaches

2:00 pm
Carrot-ginger-lemon and beet juice--yum!
Handful raisins
Few kale chips

3:30 pm
Cinnamon Apple Tea

7:30 pm
Steamed cauliflower and thyme (not raw)
Kale chips
Tastes of local ham (from down the road!) and potatoes au gratin (totally not raw)
Rasberry leaf infusion tea, cold

9:00 pm
1/2 a Raw Chocolate bar with cacao nibs. By far the best raw chocolate bar I've had! LOVE <3

Raw January: Day 6 & JUICING

2010-01-11T17:39:00.008-05:00

Before I get into the details of the day, I have to share exciting news.

My dad just announced:
"Becca: I have to charge you with an important task."
"What's that?" I asked.
"I want you to make sure that every day I'm eating at least one raw meal. You make it, you plan it so all I have to do is eat it."

Now, this is a huge challenge for a number of reasons. You may remember when I introduced my parents to raw food this summer.

First, do you SEE what my dad cooks and eats? It's some fancy schmancy stuff man-- Caesar salad from scratch, homemade macaroons, Beef Wellington. That is a well-established palette I'm trying to please. Second, I'm so crunched for time right now! The New Year is kicking my butt and everyone wants their projects to go full-steam ahead.

I like a good challenge. Maybe this will push me to experiment more with the tastes of things rather than settling on a whole bunch of stuff thrown into a bowl (still a good choice I say). What should I make for tomorrow? Maybe a good green salad for him to take for work. Or a good smoothie for the morning. Eep!

I sit here plotting the menu, enjoying a delightful glass of ginger-carrot-beet juice. This afternoon I tried out my newly-acquired juicer courtesy of my cousin Erin. Because juicers are such a pain to clean, I decided to do all the juicing I could.

It started off badly. My parents bought a bushel of oranges for me weeks ago and sadly I waited until they were too far gone. Most were squishy and I had the pick out the moderately good ones for juicing.

My second mistake was that I threw the entire orange in, rind and all. I'm not sure where these oranges came from, but the juice came out bitter and tasting like chemicals. Although I'd juiced enough to fill more than two quart jars, I pitched it all.

Zippy Ginger Carrot Beet Drink: Recipe

This recipe is super simple if you have a decent juicer because you can basically do it all at once. The carrots, beets, and ginger are all roots so they process the same. No wonder it's a staple for juice fans!

Ingredients:
1 bag (2 lb), Fresh Carrots (organic tastes the best); yields about a quart of juice.
2 medium-size, Beets, washed and scrubbed of dirt; yields only about 8 oz juice, but it goes far.
1 root, Ginger, peeled; for flavoring I use a lot of ginger.
1 Lemon, rind sliced off.

Directions:
It really depends on the persnickety level of your own juicer. This was my maiden voyage with mine, which is a pass-me-down from a cousin. It's old, loud, smelled like melting plastic a few times--I rolled with it.

First I did the carrots. Wash them, cut off all the ends, and cut them into pieces that fit easily into the feeder. I made sure to clean out the pulp jar so I could keep some of the dry, fluffy carrot rind to add to a salad later. Juice the peeled ginger root and lemon halfway through the carrots so you don't lose any of the juice by adding it at the end. Once you're done with the carrots, put your fresh juice in a quart jar or other food-safe container, get another bowl under the juice spigot, turn it on and run a quart of water through to rough-rinse. Don't forget to empty the rind container (and save some of the carrot part for other recipes).

Then the beets! I know from experience I don't need a lot of beet juice to complement the carrot, so I only juiced two. Keep the beet mixture separate so you have more control over the carrot-to-beet ratio. Juice them up, put liquid in an 8oz jar and combine to your liking! If you let it sit for a couple of minutes, all the finer rind will fall to the bottom so you can avoid it--or you can run it through cheesecloth if it bothers you. If you want to eat more of the whole food, stir it all up before drinking.

And clean your juicer QUICK. Beets stain badly.

Today was a random day for food. I am working a lot and a little stressed by the deadlines I'm keeping so I worked myself into a tizzy this afternoon and then opted for some cooked food at lunch today because it was more familiar and ready to prepare. I'll try not to get myself in binds like that. Again I wasn't too hungry in the morning--very strange:

2:30 pm
Small green smoothie, left over from the Tout-Suite Smoothie I made yesterday
Quesadilla with zucchini and mozzarella (definitely not raw)
Quart room temp water

5:30 pm
Small glass of Zippy carrot-beet-ginger stuff. Yum!
Quart glass of room temp water, too. It may be delicious liquidy juice, but it's not so hydrating.

8:00 pm
Apple, the red delicious variety.
Cinnamon Apple tea, tsp raw honey

Tomorrow might be a liquid meal day.

Raw January: Day 4 & 5 Weekend!

2010-01-10T23:24:00.006-05:00

I went on a grocery binge on Saturday at Erie County Farms.

My first visit ever, it wasn't quite what I was expecting--I had the idea in my mind it was sort of an Erie version of a farmer's market, with lots of outdoorsy folks individually traipsing to the old Tops to vend their wares.

Instead, it was a free-for-all cheap grocer. The vibe was hurried (I got my heel kicked twice just upon entering). Suspecting a cart-klepto of eyeing up my pineapple, I scooted back to stake my claim tout suite. That's just how you have to do it at Erie County Farms--as if there weren't a pile of pineapples larger than most kitchens to feed us all.

Hosted in an old Tops grocery, with coordinating beige floors and fixtures, all the food is marked with handwritten signs in red advertising the price and location. Not surprisingly, lots of things were from Guatemala and Mexico.

I was delighted by the prices, freshness and diversity: I could not believe how inexpensively I could find avocados (89 cents each), dandelion greens (69 cents a pound), and more. Some exotic things too, like cactus fruit and tamarind.

Though I had to be choosy with most things to find fresh foods, the greens were astoundingly nice. I have never, ever gotten collard greens so perfect from a grocery store before, including the illustrious Whole Foods. I would love to make this place my first stop come grocery day from now forward!

I made a delicious green smoothie today, that was such a perfect Slimer green, I had to document. I love to experiment a little bit on the smoothies. You really can't do anything wrong once you have the basic idea!

The Tout-Suite Smoothie
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup, Water
- 3 leaves, Collard Greens
- 5 or 6 stalks, Dandelion Greens
- 1 banana
- Handful, Fresh Cranberries
- Couple chunks, Fresh Pineapple
- 1 cup, Frozen Peaches

Helpful hints:
Place water and greens in blender first, so that you successfully grind those thick greens to liquid. You may need to leave on high in the blender for 30-60 seconds. Then add fruits and frozen items, blend to liquid. Enjoy! This smoothie is delicious. I was expecting the dandelion greens to be bitter, like they are when I've had them cooked. But the whole smoothie was delicious and tasted of fruit. Awesome.

When I first started making green smoothies, I used agave nectar to sweeten them every morning. I soon realized it was unnecessary with the contribution of a little pineapple. It is a miracle, that fruit.

On Saturday my mother and I stopped for lunch in-between shopping goals. I definitely needed the lift, and although I wouldn't have expected such a winner from an old-school place known for their crab legs, I got this great Greek Salad from Colony Pub & Grill on 8th Street.

With the feta cheese removed and dressing off to the side I made good with this salad! Sometimes necessity requires you to take a chance on restaurant salads, and it can turn out well! However, eating out is often a sacrifice for your chosen company because all you get for your trouble is iceberg lettuce and poorly developed GMO tomatoes.

With so much stuff in my refrigerator, it's going to be a fun week. I have lots of plans for kale chips, a friend's recipe for Avocado-Pomegranate Salsa, and juicing some roots!

Raw January: Day 3

2010-01-08T23:15:00.006-05:00

Today I woke up early... and then succumbed to sleep again. Such is a life being snowed in. BUT, I woke up early, which is good. I haven't done that in a while. My Wii Fit tells me too much sleep is dangerous, so...

I'm ready for tomorrow. I promise to stick more to the raw regimen as soon as I have a chance to shop. I'm venturing for the first time to Erie County Farms--the supposed food mecca of the city. That may not be saying much, but I have optimistic expectations of the things I may find there.

It was not a good evening for raw. My parents decided to have fancy friends over and make the most gorgeous meal ever for their guests-- mushroom risotto, caesar salad, pineapple upsidedown cake... and porkchops and frozen lima beans, but I didn't so much care about those items. My dad's caesar is made from fresh anchovies and garlic, and it's amazing. I decided to have some and am very happy about it. Certainly not staying 100% raw for the day, but nonetheless attempting to keep my detox intentions pure.

I made my contribution to the cake, donating my own fresh pineapple to the cause--cored and all. I had a piece for dessert as a direct benefit of my generosity, and it was delicious.

2:00 pm
Bowl of chopped almonds, blueberries and sliced banana

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Random snacks-- roasted pumpkin seeds (not raw), 2 glasses wine (arguably not detox-worthy but too fine to turn away)

8:00 pm
Caesar salad from scratch, no croutons or cheese
Mushroom risotto (not raw), small bit
Delicious large bowl of salad similar to yesterdays--with added cabbage, tumeric, cayenne and lemon

9:30 pm
Pineapple upsidedown cake, generous piece (couldn't resist, not raw of course)
Rooibos tea, raw honey

End of story: My parents need to stop making such awesome food. I told them to stop it.

Lots of water again today. I felt TONS of energy/joy after eating dinner. I exploded, running around the living room and giggling. Yay!

Raw January: Day 2

2010-01-07T23:05:00.002-05:00

For some reason I haven't been wanting to eat in the mornings and I've been surprised by how little I've been needing to eat all day. I feel like I should eat breakfast, but I'm not getting hunger signals until the early afternoons. I'm not as active now as I was in Philly--mostly doing work by the computer with no commute by bike. Still exercising moderately daily, but it's not the same.

Today I tried putting some cranberries in my smoothie--yum! I love them! And drinking TONS of water, quarts.

I feel relatively good, kind of the same as last week except lighter and generally in good spirits. My hernia symptoms that I've had for the past three months are gone--such a relief. I've been super tired in the mornings, moderate energy level during the day, with a definite up-spike at night. I'm not sure what that means.

It should be duly noted that not a thing I ate today was locally sourced (except the apples and molasses, which isn't really raw). I am relying full-tilt on the kindness of grocers, and have to acknowledge what a blessing it is to have that privilege. In future weeks I'm going to try to focus more on foods that are in-season, but winters are so bleak here it's hard to imagine getting much variety from that.

I haven't been shopping lately, so dinner tonight was a veritable raw "garbage plate," full of items I had laying around thrown into a bowl. It turned out pretty nicely actually. Retrospectively, I would have liked something more to add a sour (lemon) or spicy (a little cayenne) layer to it. Overall, it was enjoyable--earthy with sweet pieces of apple and raisin--and avocado throughout is better than any salad dressing. Definitely a down-home this-is-what-was-in-my-cupboards-today supper.

Recipe: Ridiculous Raw 'Garbage Salad'

Ingredients:
- 1 handful, Baby spinach
- 2 Kale leaves, chopped
- 1/2 Avocado, ripe
- 1 Carrot
- 1 Apple
- 1 handful, Raisins
- 1 handful, Sunflower seeds
- 1 tbs, Black strap molasses (not raw, but unsulphered)
- 1 pinch, Salt

First, put all greens in a medium-sized bowl and scoop the avocado in. Mash avocado into the leaves with your hands, until spread throughout. Chop carrot and apple, and put into separate small bowl with raisins and mix together with the black strap molasses (you'll have more of this mixture leftover to save probably).

Add desired amount of molasses mixture to the salad greens, sprinkle with sunflower seeds and a pinch of salt. Enjoy!

2:30 pm
Green smoothie
Ingredients: Water, baby spinach, 1 banana, 1/4 cup fresh cranberries, frozen peaches

5:00 pm
Cinnamon Apple tea, with raw honey
1 handful, Blueberries

7:15 pm
Ridiculous Raw 'Garbage Salad'
Tastes of part of my parents' meal: mushrooms and onions cooked in the skillet (eh, I'm not perfect!)
1/2 of a Raw chocolate bar from Fine & Raw in Brooklyn for dessert

11:00 pm
Rooibos tea, no honey

Raw January: Day 1

2010-01-06T18:00:00.008-05:00

Ever wonder how people in snowy lands eat raw food in winter? Me too.

After spending most of my 2009 eating whatever I pleased, it's time for another challenge. And it's January, the time for body detox and renewal of annual vows.

So here we go again!

The vast majority of a raw diet is --not surprisingly-- fresh produce. Whenever possible, I choose to buy it local because I don't trust many grocery stores to deliver. After growing my own kale this summer, what could be better? I'm stumped I do now that I've moved to the country and my backyard currently looks like this?:

I certainly won't be growing anything myself in a blizzard.

I am going to have to depend on grocers.

In my very small town we have bleak grocery options: a stalwart Giant Eagle and a giant Super WalMart. A half hour's drive away, I have access to Wegmans, other Giant Eagles, Sam's Club (a division of WalMart), and Erie County Farms.

I was changed by my first initiation into a raw lifestyle last spring. Because of that I now know my desires and limits. I'm hoping it won't be as hard the second time around.

Rules of Raw January:
- I will eat primarily raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds for 30 days.
- Heated and boiling water will be allowed for teas, herbs and miso only.
- I will be allowed to eat fermented foods only if I make them from absolute scratch, to ensure the least amount of processing possible.*

*For example, I have some pickles pickling and sauerkraut souring--which I bought as raw ingredients from a Pittsburgh market. With this rule I am prioritizing the variety of food I'm eating while limiting the processing.

Today being the first day, and my dad's birthday, dinner was to be held out at a steakhouse. Not an easy task.

1:00 - 2:45 pm
Green smoothie, 1 qt
Ingredients: Water, baby leaf spinach, 1 banana, frozen peaches

3:00 pm
Lots more water alone, as well--don't forget hydration.

4:00 pm
Cinnamon apple spice tea, just the Celestial Seasonings variety. Tsp raw honey too!

7:00 pm
Dinner at Texas Steakhouse. Hm. I was starving by the time we ate, so I crunched open a handful of roasted peanuts. Not raw, admittedly, but a better alternative than rolls on the table. Caesar salad without dressing came with croutons and cheese, so I brushed it off and went to work on a double order of romaine. Not the best meal, but satisfying enough.

9:00 pm
Rooibos tea, with raw honey.

9:30 pm
Handful blueberries (blueberries in winter! it's true!)

I wonder if I will miss hot food...

Detox Shoutout: (Never Home) Maker

2010-01-06T14:44:00.004-05:00

My friend Ashley writes a delicious vegetarian/vegan and design blog over at (Never Home) Maker and I have been following her January detox.

Check out some of the things she's noticed by Day 10, eating many more fresh fruits and veggies:

I've maintained the 2 pound weight loss I reported on day 2 . . . and added (lost?) another since (yup -- 3 big ones!). I'm not really trying to shed sizes or anything, I'm happy at my current weight -- however, it's definitely an added perk, or I wouldn't have listed it first.
My energy level is stable and much higher than before. I'm not dipping into food comas as much during the day. And this is doing wonders for my after-work running.
I'm not craving the "bad stuff" as much anymore. I typically nagged Stephen to have "pizza night" every week. Usually on Wednesday. And now I'm looking forward to making my own healthy pizza sometime this weekend -- dough with added flaxseed nutrition and all -- because I don't want all the white bread and SO MUCH cheese. Also, I'm not forking over a daily $1.50 to my "dealer" (of candy bars) at work anymore. So long, vending machine!
I'm eating breakfast. Every. Single. Day. This one's important. Since I started slurping smoothies, I find I get excited for 'em . . . so I make the time each morning. Before, I was split between cereal, oatmeal, eggs, etc. And I never got my sh*t together and actually made anything. I'd wander through my mornings half-dazed, just waiting until lunch.
Because I'm not craving the "bad stuff" . . . we're spending less on going out to eat. This weekend I want to stay in and cook and million awesome meals/snacks/desserts. Not really feeling up to consuming that restaurant-sized pound-o-pasta I usually get at our favorite dinner joint.
I'm not eating EVERYTHING detox. Meaning, I have a beer every now and then (in fact, I had one on Monday night). I also eat a lot . . . and eat dessert quite frequently (as in . . . every day). But what this new way of eating has helped me to do is stay pumped about consuming gross amounts of fruits, veggies, and stop eating ONLY white bread, cheese, refined sugar, and repeat. Even without 100% commitment, I'm enjoying all these health benefits and more.

I worry about my experiment and trying to do everything 100% again--especially with the limited availability of fresh produce where I now live. Ashley is doing exactly what I would do: staying away from the more processed breads, sugars, and fried things.

Looks like you don't even have to go raw in order to feel the effects of more fresh foods and heartier home-made meals!

Readers' Pressing Questions

2010-01-05T14:24:00.005-05:00

Happy 2010! Project Raw will be reinvented in the New Year, so stay tuned for this year's challenge to be announced this week.

In the meantime, I thought I'd publish some of the most pressing questions from readers in the past couple months. Whether you are just looking for info, or starting a short- or long-term change in diet, I hope these answers assist.

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1. How important is it to be 100% raw?

My ultimate answer: No, it's not super important to be 100%.

To some, it's really important. They argue that even a little bit of cooked food a day prevents you from getting the full effect of the benefits that raw food can give you, and that any cooked food affects your digestion negatively. I know a few recovering overeaters who are using raw food to overcome their compulsions--and they have to stay strictly raw or they know they will start binging again. For some, 100% is what is comfortable and good.

To others, raw food must be taken in smaller doses because other cooked foods provide nourishment they cannot get from the raw stuff.

I'm of the school that says, the more raw food the better--especially if you are looking to try this out as more of a long-term diet change. If that means, for the time being, you just start eating breakfasts and lunches raw--I think that's great. You'll be healthier because you'll probably be eating a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables without added sugars or processed chemicals. Don't demand of yourself an all-or-nothing approach, because it may frustrate you from trying to eat more healthy foods.

Personally, I enjoyed doing my raw food project at 100% because it was a short-term experiment. If you are talking about doing the raw food thing for a cleanse period, like a couple weeks, I'd try to stay away from cooked food as much as possible. However, if you are aiming to do this more long term in order to incorporate more fresh foods, become more food, or just be more healthy in general with your eating, I wouldn't stress about doing 100% from the get-go. Work raw in a lot more often, try new recipes, have fun with it. Forcing yourself to adapt to a whole new diet and style of "cooking" is hard, and it might be psychologically unhealthy if you end up feeling deprived or unsatisfied.

2. Would I be able to maintain my weight within reason?

This I don't know for sure. I think it depends on your baseline. The more overweight you are and the more nasty your current diet is, the more weight you'll lose and the faster you'll lose it once you start eating all these whole foods that really clear out your system. If you are already really health-conscious and you're not overweight I don't think you will lose a lot--but one can never tell. It's important that you listen to your body really well, and know when you are hungry. You're going to need to eat constantly when you first start raw, and you shouldn't really hold back. There are less calories in a raw diet, so you can eat pretty much all day and still not make up the calories could eat with much less cooked food.

Because weight loss was a positive side effect of my experiment, it's worth noting that there are others to which this might be a concern. I have heard of some long-term raw foodists losing too much weight, or using raw to foster some unhealthy, bad habits (anorexic coupled with over-exercising). It is important to have a good sense of your body's needs. I found that long as I was eating a good balance of fruits (glucose), veggies, and fats (avocados, nuts)--the amount I chose to eat was just based on listening to my body's cues.

If I were you, I would just proceed with caution. If you sense you're losing too much weight, you have low energy and so forth--then the raw foods you're eating aren't nourishing you enough. After the initial period of detox/adaptation to the new food habits, you should feel like you have MORE energy, MORE vitality, BETTER moods. Just be aware. Every body is different.

3. What about coffee?

Always the questions about coffee! People love it, and I still do, too.

My personal belief is that coffee is awful. I have been where you are--I still love the taste of coffee (and had a little bit this morning actually), and in the past I drank it as part of my ritual for energy. But this amount of regular caffeine stimulant is so bad for your body. It's a false energy that you're getting. It dehydrates you and caffeine gives you as low a low at the end as it does an energy high at the beginning. Before I began eating better, I did need the caffeine jolt to get myself going in the morning, wake up my brain and sleepy eyes. Now, because of better overall habits, I have no problem waking up and I usually have great energy all day when I'm eating whole foods.

My advice is that you need to ween yourself off of coffee. And maybe this should be an initial project NOW, before you start the raw part. You know, do it slowly. Try one cup today, then back to two cups tomorrow, one cup the next day... start getting off that stuff. Try substituting black teas, finding ones you like that taste good--you can flavor it up with honey and sugar and spices to make it special and delicious to you. Drinking lots of water before your coffee is good too (cushions the blow of the acidity), etc etc. It's hard to get there if you love coffee, but I think you should try it out and see. Depending on how long you've been doing this much coffee as your normal ritual, it may take a few months of not drinking coffee to stop wanting it or finding your energy more balanced and generous through other means. But I highly recommend it.

That said, even if you continue to drink two cups of coffee a day, I think eating more raw food will still have a positive effect on you. But in a utopian world you should work to start drinking less with an eventual goal of it not being habitual anymore.

4. What are some good books or resources I can look into?

Where do you live? There might be a good raw food cafe/supply store near you--I got lots of resources from our local one outside of Philly. I still haven't found the ultimate resource for raw food guidance and maybe there isn't one. I'm kind of feeling around as I go. I started out by reading Alissa Cohen's book, which is also a cookbook. Her recipes are relatively hideous (at least to my palette), but I liked reading about her story (she's an athlete, a weight lifter). She has a more "real" story and talks about it really frankly.

For my project I had a raw food chef helping me along, and a lot of my resources came from her experience (what's raw, what's not, how you select a soy sauce, what the hell is agave nectar, etc.). Now I read a lot of blogs for recipe ideas. A good rule of thumb is that you should know all the ingredients in your food, and none of it should go through extensive processing or heated above 110-115 degrees.

As far as reading labels and finding good foods go--it depends on your area. And there are million of tiny things you'll discover along the way--that nuts in the bulk section will be labeled raw, but you never know if the sundried tomatoes were sun-dried or flash dried in an oven. I'm still learning about new ingredients and better ways to pick out unprocessed products all the time.

Armpits!

2009-11-02T10:03:00.004-05:00

I have found the best deodorant ever.

I was on the road in New Hampshire last week, and ran out of my old deodorant. After two days of wearing my friend Chris' Old Spice Swagger and reeking of an over-cologned Glade stick, I was getting desperate. We bounced over the border into Maine in search of some delicious food and local beer. On a lonely road in Bethel, we found our place in the Good Food Store.

It's always been difficult for me as a consumer to find deodorants that I want. I wish I didn't have to wear deodorant at all, and maybe I can find a more natural solution.

I've tried lots of "natural" deodorants: JASON, Tom's of Maine, a few others I don't remember the name of... Somehow, Tom's of Maine managed to make me smell worse.

I don't use antiperspirant. Sweat exists for a reason, and clogging it up or intentionally slowing its production hurts the natural way of cooling the body and releasing toxins. Our bodies constantly produce sweat, some more than others. I know it's never great to be sweaty, but it strikes me as reasonable that you could treat over-active sweat glands a more holistic way instead of just trying to stop the symptom. And if you are just a normal sweater, why keep applying solid antiperspirants? Antiperspirants are ALL made from an aluminum-based compound, which some say is linked to Alzheimers and breast cancer.

I found that aluminum-based deodorant/antiperspirants don't even work that well! I tried a lot of them. They dry my skin (it's pretty sensitive), contributed to irritating bumps and red rashes (also a result of shaving as well no doubt), the smell of B.O. you're trying to avoid is still there, but masked by the deodorant's perfume, and I often had to re-apply midday because I smelled especially sour. I also noticed that the antiperspirants discolored my clothing over time.

I base my decision not to use antiperspirant on common sense (intentionally clogging pores that keep toxins inside the body and swell sweat glands with water = bad idea). If you look at the ingredients list on an antiperspirant container, the aluminum-based compound is always the first ingredient listed, which means it's a MAIN ingredient. According to some internet research, it's commonly listed as:

Aluminum chloride
Aluminum zirconium tricholorohydrex glycine
Aluminum chlorohydrate
Aluminum hydroxybromide

When I looked up how antiperspirants work, another website says: "The aluminum ions are taken into the cells that line the eccrine-gland ducts at the opening of the epidermis, the top layer of the skin, says dermatologist Dr. Eric Hanson of the University of North Carolina's Department of Dermatology. When the aluminum ions are drawn into the cells, water passes in with them. As more water flows in, the cells begin to swell, squeezing the ducts closed so that sweat can't get out."

I understand why so many people use antiperspirants--being sweaty isn't the awesomest. AND it's really hard to find mainstream deodorants that work and ARE NOT antiperspirants. The last time I looked in my old grocery store, the Thriftway they only stocked antiperspirants in brands for women, and only one type of deodorant without antiperspirant for men. The one I previously used--made by Secret--went off the shelves two years ago, and until recently I'd been using JASON Aloe Deodorant. It was easy to find (they stock it at Whole Foods) and worked well enough.

But this Desert Essence deodorant I found is AMAZING. So many things to say...

1. It soothes my skin. This time of year is the worst for armpits. Irritated, red skin, flaking off no more! I think it must be the witch hazel and aloe that help with that, but I really don't know. All I can say is that it's hydrating, so I don't even have to worry about moisturizing anymore.

2. It works; I smell completely neutral. It works really really well. I have never had the experience of smelling neutral before. I apply it once, and all day I might get a little sweaty and whatnot, but the smell is NEUTRAL. Not like baby powder, not like cucumber-melon. I just smell myself. Weird.

3. It only has a few ingredients I don't understand. The ingredients are pretty straight forward. The ones in italics I didn't really know about, so here's some links. Propylene Glycol, Purified Water, Sodium Stearate, Cocamide DEA, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Melia Azadirachta (Neem) Seed Oil, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Calendula Officinalis (Marigold) Flower Extract, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Extract, Usnea Barbata (Lichen) Extract, Sodium Borate. It seems that the active ingredients in the deodorant are mostly organic extracts from plants. Pretty sweet.

4. It's 100% vegan, and cruelty-free. I don't think I knew until now that antiperspirants were NOT vegan, but yikes. They don't test on animals either.

5. No fragrance. Also no artificial colors or detergents.

6. It's clear. No worries about the white stuff getting all over my clothes.

Women's Herbal

2009-10-14T10:47:00.005-04:00

I've been M.I.A., I know, I know.

I've spent the summer traveling to Santa Fe, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, and New York... seeing friends and enjoying myself, but above all, evaluating the quality of my life and what is important to me.

I did decide to leave Philadelphia and am currently planning many exciting trips and projects. After working for a bit this summer at Greensgrow Farm near my old house in Philly, and then experiencing the life of an heirloom tomato farmer through a NYC Chef Tour promotion I helped to coordinate at Dine Indie, I've started to lunge heavily in the direction of learning about sustainable farms.

In fact, tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at using fresh goat's milk from a neighbor to make my own yogurt! Not raw, of course, but unprocessed for sure! What can be better than making your own food in this day and age where convenience has distanced us so much from all those skills?

During the summer I had some of the most amazing experiences--from pueblo dances in Jemez Springs to hurricane rains in Peterborough. All the while I've been exploring a wealth of other health universes which have included most prominently: herbalism.

So today I want to tell you a little about my experience at the New England Women's Herbal Conference in New Hampshire in August.

A purely women-centered event for the past 22 years, the conference gathers herbalist stars like Susun S. Weed and Rosemary Gladstar with novices like me all in one place to live and breathe and talk about health, plants, spirituality, the earth, food, life, and womanhood.

For all intents and purposes, this is a spiritual retreat.

But it's educational, communal, and fun too!

The workshops I went to were all special in their own way:
- Reading the Body, with Margi Flint
- Cooking Up an Erotic Evening with Herbs, with Isa Coffey
- Favorite Herbs for a High Energy Life, with Susun Weed
- Chocolate, with Larken Bunce
- Superfood Green Drinks, with Rachel Jean

Of course if you're reading this blog you probably already know a little bit about the chocolate and the green drinks--but I was absolutely thrilled to have so much more new information about each of them!

The photo to the right is from the superfood drink lecture--there were dozens of herbs to put together to make our own drinks, and it made me realize that the SuperFood powder stuff I buy from Whole Foods probably isn't as fresh as I want AND isn't tailored to me and the plants I respond to.

Just look at that alfalfa powder!

You'll be interested to know that Larken prescribed half a dark (dark, very dark) chocolate bar to all the women there. Just think of it as delicious, delicious medicine.

Here an excerpt from her handout about the properties of dark chocolate:

"Dark chocolate…

reduces blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease
improves brain function and mood
may help prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s disease
improves immunity
is packed with antioxidants (8 times as many as red wine)
is full of minerals like calcium, magnesium and potassium

Eating a dark chocolate bar everyday (50-100g) as part of an antioxidant rich diet will reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease by 76%! A 2004 article in the British Medical Journal proposed a “polymeal”--a daily recipe for CVD prevention as follows: 100 g dark chocolate, 150 ml red wine, 114 g fish (4 x/wk), 400 g fruits and vegetables, 68 g almonds, 2.7 g/day fresh garlic (= 900 mg dried). (Franco et al, 2004) "

There's more, but essentially chocolate is an anti-inflammatory which is great for your overall health, and I am convinced to eat a regular dosage. Larken was quick to recommend the chocolate bars in the grocery store with the highest cacao contents (more than 70), but I prefer raw chocolate bars with no milk and the least processed cocoa available. My favorite ones right now are Fine and Raw--but they are ridiculously expensive at about $8 a pop. Delicious though.

I also want to tell you more about herbs and Susun Weed's talk, too... because she has introduced me to herb infusions. I will save that for a future post.

In the end I have decided that fire and heat plays a very important part in human lives, and in our food. I have learned from eating raw how it feels to be getting full nutrition and eating purer foods--but the things I have learned through herbalists this summer is that heat can be a powerful tool in harnessing properties of plants and energy. As much as it has the ability to destroy enzymes, it has the ability to bring out medicinal and nutritious properties in plants.

I can't wait to share more of this with you as I move along!

Introducing "Raw" to the Family

2009-07-22T17:08:00.007-04:00

My family is full of food-particular people: my dad, an accomplished gourmet cook in the home with a penchant for baking and passion for wine; my mom an expert in pies; and my brother the ultimate king of fruit sorbet.

I knew it wouldn't be easy to introduce raw food to my family members, considering the norm of fried tempura nights, smoked turkeys and flourless chocolate cakes.

But, because I am one of the lucky ones in life blessed with accepting and curious parents, on a recent "Staycation" in my hometown of Edinboro, PA, I was given the opportunity to present a raw meal to my parents and younger brother.

I had spent a good part of a month brainstorming what to make for them. I felt a particular responsibility to not just give them what I would eat for lunch (probably like a carrot-beet juice and some flax crackers and I'm on my way), but something that would really wow them. Something that had a "meal" quality to it.

STARTER: Sweet Corn Chips & Guacamole

For the first meal, I used my parents' dehydrator to create my own corn chips from fresh sweet corn from local farmers. I spiced it up with some garlic, cumin, and other ingredients so it kind of had a "taco" feel to it.

It was my first time with the dehydrator, so it was a learning experience. I was able to set the heat to 110 degrees, which was good. However, this dehydrator did not have teflon sheets, so the mixture stuck to the plastic pieces and was a mess to clean. It needed a much longer time to dry than I had anticipated, but the chips turned out to be delicious and perfectly paired with some simple guacamole with garlic and red onion.

MAIN COURSE: Zucchini Angel Hair with Red Sauce

The main course was zucchini angel hair, with a marinara sauce based on a recipe by Ani Phyo. Ever since I bought a spiral slicer from Arnold's Way in June, I have loved making it.

I have never been a particular fan of zucchini, raw or cooked, but somehow when it's in noodle form it is so very satisfying and delicious. Plus, it is fun to make. One of these days I'll upload a demo video with the slicer. I didn't do anything with the zucchini noodles except sprinkle them with some fresh lemon juice.

The red sauce was spectacular! I used fresh herbs wherever I could--the oregano and basil gave it all the more lovely flavors.

However, the secret ingredient in the red sauce was a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato. Since tomatoes aren't in season yet due to the weather, I bought it at Wegmans, one of my favorite chain grocery stores. I was in love with this particular tomato, which was purple-pink when we cut into it. Gorgeous!

I also made an olive tapanade, very simply chopped green olives and red onion, to use as a "salty" flavor on top. I think I might have preferred just putting some green olives on the side, but thought it added a lot to it.
DESSERT: Chocolate Nice Cream Splits

For this I had hoped to make it a little more decked out, with a whipped cream made from nuts, a caramel made from agave nectar, and a cacao chocolate sauce--but I ran out of time!

I made the "nice" cream sandwiched in-between sliced bananas with coconut meat and coconut oil, macadamia, cashew and almond nuts, vanilla bean, agave and raw cacao. On top were fresh strawberries, sweet cherries, and pineapple.

It was a wonderful lunch! I hope you enjoy the photos!

Zero Environmental Impact!

2009-07-02T10:51:00.002-04:00

While not real news of course, I was amused by this video on the Onion News Network touting Taco Bell's "new green menu" which "takes no ingredients from nature."

"100% unnatural food!"

We know that comedy always borrows from themes in the real world--where whole foods are increasingly being processed or chemically changed into something else that makes them last longer on the shelves, taste better with salt or sugar, and so on. Take high-fructose corn syrup, for a prevalent example.

You can watch The Onion's video here.

Aforementioned rainbows

2009-07-01T00:44:00.004-04:00

I neglected to post the photos of the rainbow!

Sometimes the natural world just kind of blows you away. I was driving with my new friend Art out to Kutztown last weekend in the rain, when we come across the most beautiful rainbow, stretching in a complete arch.

My camera, my darling camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, has a wide-angle Leica lens. I still couldn't fit the whole rainbow into the frame.

Barely seen in the photos, you can make out a faint double rainbow. It was gorgeous.

Today was extremely busy, but at the end of my day I am content.

I ate an entire cantaloupe today. It was awesome.

Food projects, rainbows

2009-06-29T23:28:00.004-04:00

In my house, there is a lot of food lovin'.

My roommates, Dory (pictured right) and Helen, cook at home most evenings--even some lunches together, and we really treat it basically like family time.

Dory is presenting one of our most exciting and fun meals ever--bbq seitan, rosemary guacamole (from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen recipe book), homemade garlic pita chips, zucchini "pasta" made with a spiral slicer, and basil-pistachio pesto.

We eat the best food ever! I didn't eat the seitan at this meal--pure wheat gluten does not sit very well with me--but reveled in the making of it all anyway.

I have begun partaking in more of the family meals since figuring out I was kind of miserable forcing myself on a "diet." That has never been my way, a friend pointed out to me recently. She recalled, "You always do what you want."

Yes, I do! And I WANT to eat a lot of raw--just not all. Not yet, anyway. I also don't want to feel mentally BAD when I don't eat raw when I know it makes my body and mind feel better, so it's a balance.

I've made a lot of fun things in the past two weeks, including a variation of Matthew Kenney's recipe for a raw version of lasagna! Putting it together was actually more fun than eating it--which is never good. But the pictures are fabulous, and there'll be more to come on that.

Ah--and if you're wondering about this picture from Dr. Seuss-land--it's the "core" of a zucchini that I made into noodle form using a spiral slicer!

Even though I have been wanting to try to make my own zucchini pasta for some time, I thought the spiral slicer an indulgent purchase--$50 bucks for this thing that makes string stuff out of turnips and squash. BUT I love it. My desire for noodles is fulfilled.

Food today, waking up at 6AM.

9AM
Green smoothie: water, lots of fresh pineapple, swiss chard and baby red kale from the garden, mustard greens, 1/4 a cucumber--peeled, blueberries, SuperFood powder, maca powder. I really enjoyed a green drink without banana.

11AM
Handful blueberries, a bit of fresh pineapple.

12PM - 3PM
Pu-ehr tea, about three cups.

1PM
Larabar, ginger.

4PM
"Lunch" at Cosi (unfortunately--stuck at work). Signature salad with mixed greens, pistachios, dried cranberries, sweet dressing. Whole wheat bread, a lot of it.

7PM
Dinner out at Taco Riendo: 1/2 fish burrito that had rice and black beans, salsa, fried cornchips, guacamole, a sweet non-alcoholic sangria drink.

10PM
Half a chocolate-covered banana, Miss Meredith style! I made them myself using a variation on her recipe. They are really the best.

Lovage Bloody Marys

2009-06-21T22:30:00.006-04:00

This morning I feasted on a breakfast for locavore kings in Kutztown, PA--where I visited some friends this weekend.

Most of our breakfast came from within a 5-mile radius.

We made omelets from eggs fetched from a charming farm across town (some of the eggs were blue!), and collards, garlic scapes and beets from the backyard.

Homegrown food is wonderful. Not only is it more tender and tasty, it gives one a real sense of accomplishment and pleasure to see your food through its entire process--literally from seed to spoon.

My friend Robyn made Bloody Marys--definitively not raw, but delicious nonetheless with fresh-made horseradish.

As my ode to "fun with plants," I wanted to share these pictures of the lovage plant. I had previously never heard of this cousin to celery, which is extremely hearty and grows back every year.

The stems are hollow, as you can see above. They taste of celery and are hard as bamboo. We used them as straws! (Here is Robyn, demonstrating proper use of the lovage.)

Tabouleh from sprouted quinoa

2009-06-20T09:55:00.004-04:00

I was very happy to be greeted by a sunny day after several of rain and thunderstorms. I love being able to ride my new lovely bike, made by Chris Harne, around town without fear of rain-in-face.

Here is a sprouted quinoa dish, which I made from the basic idea of Matthew Kenney's "tabouleh" recipe in Everyday Raw. I'm really enjoying his recipe book--even though he leans heavily on cashew flour and Thai coconuts. I forgive him. So far the recipes have all been delicious--which is more than I can say for Alissa Cohen's. I think Matthew Kenney's tastes align with mine a bit more.

I'm not sure I loved quinoa sprouted. It still has a bit of a seedy texture, even though it's softer. That said, I would readily give it another try.

The ingredients in the dish here are:
- Quinoa (rinsed and sprouted 30 hours)
- Red onion
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumber
- Lemon
- Olive Oil
- Feta cheese (not raw--but optional! The taste would be served just as well with some olives)
- Himalayan salt
- Pepper

Cherry Choc-Chunk Ice Cream

2009-06-18T23:30:00.005-04:00

In honor of fresh, local cherries and amazing raw chocolate bars, tonight I made Cherry Chunk Ice Cream!

I based the recipe from Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw recipe for "cherry chip ice cream," but I improvised to my tastes and ingredient availability.

Here is the recipe I ended up using which yielded a pint of DELICIOUS coconut-cashew based ice cream!

Cherry Choco-Chunk Ice Cream
(like the a vegan, fresh ingredient version of Cherry Garcia!)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup cashews (soaked 1 hour)
- 1/2 cup young coconut meat
- 1/3 - 1/2 cup agave, to taste
- 1 cup water
- 1 1/2 tbs vanilla extract
- Pinch sea salt
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 3/4 cup fresh cherries (set aside another 1/3 cup, coarsely chopped, to add later)
- 1/2 cup combination cacao nibs and chunks of Gnosis Fleur de Sel cacao bar (any raw cacao bar will be great!)
- Heaping tbs of maca powder

Directions:
After cashews are soaked, blend well with water and vanilla extract until the nuts get smooth as your blender will permit!

Add remainder of ingredients, except the chocolate chunks and cherries. Blend until smooth, smooth smooth.

Pour ice cream into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions. Add chunks of chocolate and fresh cherries periodically through the freezing process.

Place finished ice cream into tupperware with clear wrap situated on the top of the mixture before you put on the lid, to reduce chances of freezer burn. Enjoy!!

Here is a list of food eating today:

10:00am
Pu-ehr tea (about 5 oz)

10:30am
Organic red delicious apple (unwaxed)

12:45pm
Pizza, two slices, with cheese, tomato, spinach and garlic. This was a terrible decision. Two was way too much, and my stomach felt really uncomfortable for the next few hours. I considered vomiting. If I would have eaten much less I would have been ok.

3:00pm
Green smoothie, in hopes of cleaning out my stomach. Water, adult spinach, red kale, frozen banana, frozen organic cherries, maca powder, SuperFood powder (chocolate flavor), agave.

5:00pm
Local sugar snap peas, handful.

7:30pm
Half quart of local blueberries

8:00pm
Rooibos tea, with local raw cinnamon honey

10:00pm
A bit of coconut and tastes of ice cream, while in prep!

Kombucha update, warning: gross

2009-06-18T22:19:00.009-04:00

I haven't been blogging lately. There is a reason: namely, busy-ness.

The other reason is that I haven't been eating 100% raw. Part of me feels bad about this, as I am still very committed to eating raw. (I bought two recipe books today, Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw and Ani Phyo's Ani's Raw Food Kitchen.)

In the past few weeks I've had days where cooked food completely kicked my ass--one in particular, I ate a ton of popcorn and ice cream and then wanted to vomit and die.

And I've had days that were pretty awesome--one in particular, I had toast and a roasted beet and goat cheese salad, among other raw things--and felt pretty good!

I keep going back to raw recipes, though, because I feel particularly drawn to the simplicity of eating that way, love the energy level I sustain, my digestion is so much better and easier, and can't get enough the awesome tastes of fresh fresh FRESH food. Processed stuff can't come close to comparing.

In all honesty I will not be eating 100% raw anytime soon. I do however, want to keep it between 80 and 99%. I will be honest on this blog about what I'm doing, how I'm eating, how I'm shopping, but am only sharing 100% raw recipes.

With that, I commence with a disgusting update about the state of my kombucha tea. You've been warned.

Let me begin by saying I kept very good care of the cleanliness of the original operation. I sterilized everything--the jar, the utensils, boiled the tea.

Unfortunately, I did not check the kombucha soon enough after wrapping the top with six layers of cheesecloth, sealed with a tight rubber band.

Fruit flies invaded.

Although there were only about four mature ones flying around in the jar when I discovered the sorry state of my culture on Monday or Tuesday--about 10 days after I started it--I noticed that tiny little fruit fly babies were hatching on the top of the mother culture, squiggling around the top and up the jar, and a handful of others had died with carcasses laying around. AWFUL.

Although I had the seal very tight, the flies must have found their way through the woven cheesecloth, even though I doubled it up several times. Other people have not had this issue with cheesecloth, says the internet-connected kombucha-makers.

I spent the next two days picking out fruit fly larvae here and there and cleaning up the mother. I also, of course, put a new piece of cloth overtop tightly. Now, about two days after, it appears everything is gone.

But I still don't know if my kombucha is safe... or if the mother culture should be tossed. Most websites tell me it should be tossed. Against my better judgment, I sampled the tea today, and it tasted pretty good. Yet it kind of made me want to hurl thinking about the creepy crawlies involved.

I should probably throw it away. Yet, I don't WANT to. My mother culture kind of seamlessly is integrated into the NEW culture, so I'd have to throw away the whole thing and find another one somewhere to brew a new batch. Yet, maybe I should...

Gagging yet? Great!

I'm going to do a follow-up post to talk about delicious ice cream.

Kombucha, lots of bread

2009-06-11T22:00:00.001-04:00

Okay, so the raw vegan thing didn't last long. It's ok. I will find my stride in this thing.

I went to a wedding, as mentioned in my last post, two weeks ago. I took some delicious raw things to eat, but ended up eating some baklava and wedding cupcakes. That was the start.

I've been eating a lot of cooked food, and just kind of going day by day. Some of it, like roasted beets, is GREAT, and some of it, like ice cream, is not so great.

I also went on a bread-eating binge for a couple of days--only one kind of bread, which was a flax and nut bread that was just dense and to-die-for homemade. I felt all right eating it, but not great. I do not regret it. It was sooo good.

This last Saturday was the mother of all bad ideas, Ethiopian food. The meal consisted mostly of stewed veggies and heavy injera sourdough bread. I thought I could handle it, but was surprised by my body's reaction. Immediately after eating, I got really tired. My eyes became fluttery and my head felt heavy, and all I could do after I got home was go to bed. I probably don't want to eat that again soon.

The other exciting thing I did this weekend was to make my own kombucha! I love to drink it and always buy it at Whole Foods. So I got a chance to get a mother culture and try my own!

I got the mother culture--the "scoby," hence referred to as "the mother"--from my cousin Lauren. I let it sit in a glass pitcher with some of the mature acidic kombucha from the original culture in my kitchen (not the refrigerator) for about four days before finding the right jar. It's a pickling jar from a kitchen store in the Italian Market in Philly. I disinfected it some professional solution my friend uses to brew beer. The jar is perfect: food safe, wide, with a large mouth. I anticipate pulling the kombucha out with a ladle... though I did search for a number of days for a food safe jar with a spigot. It does not exist. (Most spigots are made of plastic or metal, which can leach into the kombucha culture.)

Here is a video of getting the mother out from my cousin's jar. Not too exciting, but it provides an essential visual of what a mother culture looks like. It's kind of like a mushroom pancake that smells like apple cider vinegar.

Here is the recipe I followed, from a cookbook:
Timeframe: 7-10 days
Ingredients:
- 2 quarts water
- 1/2 cup sugar (avoid refined, if possible)
- 3 tbs tea (I used a combination of lady grey and hibiscus berry looseleaf tea)
- 1 cup mature acidic kombucha

Process:
1. Mix water + sugar and bring to a boil
2. Turn off heat, add tea, cover, and steep 15 minutes. I let mine steep much longer.
3. Strain tea into glass container (disinfected with boiling water or solution). Best to use a container that is wide. Allow the liquid to cool down to body temperature.
4. Add the mature acidic kombucha
5. Place the kombucha mother in liquid with the opaque side up
6. Cover with cloth + store in a warm spot (70-85 degrees)
7. After a few days to 1 week, skin will form on kombucha. Taste the liquid. It will probably be sweet. The longer it sits, the more acidic it becomes.
8. Once it reaches the acidity you like, start a new batch and store your kombucha in airtight containers in the fridge.

More pictures soon! I'm coming up on the 1 week mark for the kombucha, so I'll report on how it tastes.

Calling all pedants and inquisitors!

2009-06-02T01:07:00.003-04:00

I want to hear your questions about this blog, this lifestyle, raw food in general.

Seriously. Anything you want to know. I may not have the answer, but hey, I'll track it down for you!

What are you wondering?: Doesn't raw food get old? Can you make sauces? Does your ice cream have raw milk in it? ANYTHING.

I'm writing a more in-depth article this week, and I would love to have all you inquisitors grilling me (PUNZ).

If you don't want to post a comment, scrivimi un email: rebecca.troutman@gmail.com

<3

p.s. This dish to the left is from Quintessence. I treated myself on my way to a wedding in Tarrytown this past weekend. It's Avocado Florentine--with kamut bread, spinach, tomato, hollendaise sauce (a raw version of course), and crunchy French onions.

I ate it overlooking Washington Irving's grave in Sleepy Hollow. Pretty awesome time.

Day 4 Raw Vegan: Fruity. Rashy.

2009-05-28T11:30:00.011-04:00

I've been craving a lot more fruits than ever before.

Whereas early in raw, I thought the best food group to have was vegetables, I'm now leaning heavily on the fruits! Those cacao-chip cookies? Date balls? Content, stowed happily away in the back of the fridge.

Here's something else weird that happened to me today. I woke up with a weird blister-cluster rash on my right forearm. I've always had very smooth skin, no rashes really. This rash is very small, but some quick Googling got me thoroughly weirded out (scabies??).

I was worried from what I read online about them popping and then spreading like poison ivy, so I washed them with mild soap and let it air dry, then placed a loose bandaid over it for protection.

Your body does some weird crap when it's eating better food and feeling good.

I also wanted to let you know: I did sprouting for the first time this week! The flax seeds didn't turn out great, because they were goopy and I didn't have a dehydrator to make anything out of them. Instead of resorting to the oven, I opted just to throw them out.

The barley seeds though, sprouted brilliantly in about 24 hours. Here were the steps:

1) Soak 1 cup of raw barley in spring water for about 6 hours.
2) You can use a commercial sprout jar--or make your own like me from a pair of pantyhouse or cheese cloth and a rubber band.
3) Rinse sprouts with water 3-4 times a day, and pour out--to give them a drink.
4) After about 12-24 hours you'll have your sprouts!

Here's a picture of how I ate them. I made my own nut milk--which is basically just putting any nut you like in the blender with water. I used almonds and brazil nuts plus I added a little agave, then sifted the well-blended mixture through pantyhouse to filter out the liquid from the chunkier pieces. For my end result, I did a little barley-fruit bowl. The barley sprouts were a little spongy instead of crunchy like cereal, but it was really satisfying with fresh strawberries and banana on top.

I feel like I ate a lot today, but felt hungry a lot--so I kept eating!

10:00am
Grapefruit juice, from one grapefruit

11:00am
1/4 watermelon. Part of it was was kind of mushy actually, so I didn't eat all of that.

2:00pm
Couple handfuls of organic green grapes

3:00pm
One organic orange

5:00pm
Larabar, cherry (with almonds and dates).

6:00pm
A few bites of guac and flax-tomato crackers.

6:30pm
Rooibos tea

9:00pm
A few bites of raw cacao bar.
A cup of white wine.

10:30pm
Eating out at a diner! I got a spinach salad that was originally served with bacon bits, croutons, egg, and raw mushrooms. I held back the bacon bits in the kitchen and picked off the croutons and egg. Ate it with a vinaigrette, pretty tasty!
Green tea with lemon.

Day 1 Raw Vegan: Relax and deal

2009-05-25T23:12:00.004-04:00

I'm still recovering from aforementioned weird illness. Since today was a holiday, I took it easy. LOTS of water.

I spent a good part of the morning getting work done that I couldn't manage to concentrate on all weekend. But the afternoon was spent reading, being in the sun a bit, weeding our growing collection of swiss chard, kale, dill, and cilantro. That is going to be delicious in a few weeks! The blog of my friend Robyn Jasko, GrowIndie, has some great tips--particularly for growing lettuces and salad greens.

I realized afterward that I didn't really eat any greens today, but I still felt good. Not amazing. But good. I was just trying to follow what my body wanted, and at every turn it wanted water water water. Most of the foods I ate today nourished that, with the exception of my dinner meal which had a lot of salty tastes.

10:00am
Orange juice, from two organic oranges.

12:30pm
Stalk of celery. Sounds weird, but I was just craving fresh, hydrating things most of the day. Celery is one of the most hydrating vegetables when juiced, according to David Wolf.

3:00pm
Couple handfuls of organic green grapes

3:30pm
Half a cantaloupe, with a spoon!

6:00pm
- Guacamole with "living bread" used as chips. Probably only about 5 bites.
- Purple cabbage slaw, recipe ingredients generously shared by Chef Michelle. I added a little nut milk instead of cashew butter to give it a bit of creaminess.
- Half glass white wine.

9:00pm
- Couple spoonfuls of raw ginger ice cream, with coconut and macadamia/cashew base. I added a few bits of a raspberry and lucuma raw cacao bar from Brooklyn, made by Fine & Raw. It balanced out the super sweetness of the raw ice cream... total winning combo.

Day 45: Holy crap, I'm sick and starting over

2009-05-25T10:56:00.004-04:00

I'm coming to you now after about three days of weird illness.

Symptoms:
- constant headache over top of head, temples
- dizziness
- confusion/lack of focus
- loss of appetite
- sore throat
- mild fever
- extreme lethargy (could not get out of bed more than a few times Saturday)

First of all, do you know what real lethargy is? Because I didn't. HOLY CRAP it sucks. It goes beyond laziness--which is when an able-bodied person chooses inaction. You are basically so out of it the most simple and banal of things--like reading or watching a movie--take so much effort as to be impossible. You just have to lay there.

Mostly I am confused about getting sick. I am a generally really healthy person who has never been in the hospital, has only had a few mild colds in the past 5 years, etc. etc.

I highly doubt this illness was due to detox or the adjustment to my eating more cooked foods (as a friend pointed out, sore throat usually points to viral infection), though eating less nutrient-rich foods may have influenced the ability of a virus to get to me.

I'm starting over. Cooked food and alcohol experimentation period is done.

I have resolved to stop partaking in tastes of cooked food and limit my alcohol intake to wine, and only occasionally (maybe one or two drinks a week max).

Additionally, I think I've decided to cut out the dairy for a period to see how I feel: Raw Veganism. I can change my mind later, but for the next month I'm doing this.

To hell with feeling bad. For real.

Day 40: Love and green things

2009-05-20T09:53:00.006-04:00

Nothing could really upset me today. Sun was shining, I ate a chunk of watermelon last night. These are the happy things we wish made up every day.

I even dropped pineapple all over the floor at 11:00 last night and didn't get pissed off at myself. Is raw food mind-altering me??!

In the spirit of honesty for this blog, cataloguing what it is actually like to aspire to a raw/nude/pure/whole food lifestyle, I've got to let you know I'm actually not technically "raw" anymore after today. I gave in and went out to sushi (even all that talk about how not-that-healthy it was, in my last post, couldn't stop me). Even though I've had some beer and cheese in relative moderation in the past, this was the first time I went to restaurant that I knew I was not going to eat totally raw.

I feel good about the decision. I think that (1) my meal was delicious; (2) I am back on raw today without hesitation; (3) I think testing the waters is going to be part of my natural process toward making a decision about what food feels right to me.

Though I am striving to eat as a vegan raw foodist, and I know that I've felt better than I have in ages, in the back of my mind I wonder if I wouldn't get the same result if I were just eating all unprocessed foods--even if some of them were cooked.

How do I feel after the sushi-binge? Well, adding beer-tasting to it, all-in-all not fantastic, but not terrible either. I felt a little heavier, though nothing majorly bad. My hernia was not bothered. And for some reason, my cheekbones are a little achy--part of a headache related to booze? Ah well. I will detox with some juice, water, and lots of greens and fresh whole foods tomorrow and flush out and feel good.

Woke up 7:00am 8:30am
Half a pineapple, fresh chunks.

10:30am
Green smoothie: water, swiss chard, collard greens, fresh banana, frozen organic mixed fruit (bananas, strawberries, pineapple), big spoonful of maca powder, spirulina, SuperFood powder, agave sweetener.

2:00pm
Apple, organic.

4:00pm
Larabar, "cashew cookie." I didn't like that flavor.

6:30pm
Banana whip! There are a few places in Philly that had them, but this was at 23rd and Oregon in South Philly and totally unassuming. Called Dati's, which looks just like a normal soft-serve place.

8:30pm
Sushi time:
Small amount of fresh salad with ginger dressing
Small amount seaweed salad
Pickled ginger (which was definitely processed; it was pink)
Yellowtail and salmon nigiri (one each)
Small roll: cucumber and plum
Small roll: spicy tuna
Small roll: eel (cooked of course) with avocado
Two beers over the course of the meal.

Day 38: Debunk that raw sushi myth + restaurant visit

2009-05-18T00:17:00.009-04:00

Whenever I mention to people that I'm trying a raw food diet, their wide-eyed reaction beams the following images to mind: oysters (raw bar), carrot sticks (roughage), and sushi (raw fish).

Look: The diet, at its core, is not about being anti-cooking. Sometimes I think calling it "raw and living" food is just a poorly branded label hindering a relatively straightforward priority about eating.

How about nude food (n00d food, heh)? That's sexy right? Power food, sounds too "energy-bar." Living food, kind of creepy (who wants to think about eating something knowing it's alive as it shoots down your throat?) but getting closer. Pure food.

The real idea behind the raw-pure-nude food lifestyle is to acknowledge that most of the food Americans eat, even in recipes passed down for generations, is now widely comes pre-packaged, manipulated, processed, worn down, pumped up, preserved, artificed.

Even if the foods we love haven't been processed or canned or fried or cooked down--take a raw tomato, for example--your raw fruit has possibly been grown in soil lacking nutrients, pumped up genetically, or sprayed with a bunch of pesticides.

Even if it is organic, how fresh is that tomato? Did it come from Chile or New Jersey?

All of these questions kind of rattle around my mind as I'm shopping at the grocery store. I think raw foodists also need to be proponents of local food. I'll write more on that in the coming weeks, perhaps a celebratory blog entry when I get my first basket of local, fresh summer CSA food next weekend.

The basic goals from where I stand on my raw food priorities are:
- take in less toxins
- take in more nutrition
- avoid processed foods that our bodies don't digest well

And who doesn't love a nude-food policy that allows you to eat an entire cacao bar as a meal and feel pretty freaking great about it?

Today my dad visited me and we went to lunch. I have been avoiding restaurants for the most part during my foray into raw food, mostly because anything I could theoretically ingest at normal restaurants is completely unappealing.

I considered taking him to a sushi restaurant.

You might think--"Oh, of course! Raw fish! Perfect for this lifestyle!"

Yet despite what you may think, sushi is not generally accepted as good food by raw foodists. The rice is white (bleached) and cooked (starchy), the nori (seaweed) is processed and usually does not have its nutrients intact (you can buy raw nori), and many of the types of raw fish available are high in toxins and pollutants (you New Yorkers know about the mercury in the tuna deal).

To tell the truth, I was about to do eat it anyway... come on. Sushi is delicious. But the sushi restaurant wasn't open. We went to another place in Philly, Honey's Sit-n-Eat, where I knew I could at the very least get a giant glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

That I did, along with a big bowl of fruit--strawberries, banana, grapes, and blueberries with a slice of orange on top. Not terrible at all!

As a side note, but important, I felt like crap later in the day today. My stomach was uneasy and tight, the old hernia feelings. I had a sense I didn't eat well today, lots of nuts, not nearly enough greens... tomorrow I will do better.

Woke up: 10am

11:30am
Large glass fresh squeezed orange juice. Bowl of fresh fruit.

1:30pm
Leftovers from Quintessence (I was in New York this past weekend): endive salad--walnuts, apples, celery, olives and capers; sprouted kamut bread; half a slice of pecan pie and coconut cream.

6:00pm
Beet-celery-carrot juice from Essene.

8:00pm
Portobella mushroom cap stuffed with avocado-onion-sundried tomato, with a bit of Bragg's Liquid Aminos (which tastes like soy sauce basically) drizzled overtop. Some flax crackers (from Awesome Foods; I still don't have a dehydrator) and unprocessed cheese. A couple squares of Gnosis chocolate, which is freaking delicious.

Sleep 12:00am

Day 35: Going nuts

2009-05-15T14:37:00.008-04:00

The past couple of days I've been growing a bit unsatisfied by what I've been eating. The primary problems: similar tastes repeating themselves and too many freakin' nuts.

I tried a few new recipes from Alissa's book:
- Stuffed portobella mushrooms (with an avocado mixture)
- Italian salad dressing
- Pecan pie

The stuffed mushrooms were the best of the bunch; the pecan pie recipe was less than satisfying (it tasted overwhelmingly like honey to me... definitely needs a revision); and the Italian salad dressing tasted just like a cucumber dressing Meredith and I made my first week raw. I was craving eating more diverse salads and looking for something less creamy in a dressing. I thought that oil and water and a bunch of herbs would be light--but I was wrong.

All the trial and error of new recipes can be REALLY annoying, when all I want is for my food to be delicious and to love it. Sadly, I've been throwing out a lot. (Remember that broccoli soup? I totally didn't eat it.)

The eats today:

Woke up 8:00am

9:00am
Grapefruit juice, from one grapefruit.

10:30am
Green smoothie: water, adult spinach, swiss chard, one ripe banana, mango (frozen organic), mixed fruit (frozen organic), maca, spirulina, SuperFood powder, agave sweetener.

2:00pm
Larabar, of the lemon variety.

4:00pm
Small kale salad with: marinated mushrooms, diced tomato, LOTS of nutritional yeast, 1/2 avocado, olive oil.

8:00-11:00pm
Alcohol. Mostly a weird potion of strawberries and rum, and whiskey. You know.

Day 33: Cheese, beer, you know.

2009-05-13T13:06:00.009-04:00

It wasn't the FIRST thing I did on Monday (it was my first official day free from the rules of Project Raw, to take my food habits now on my own terms, knowing what I know now) but rather respectably later in the evening... I had a beer. Two, actually.

I was surprised when I stepped up to the bar to find that I had to force myself to order it. I had set a time to meet a friend at the bar. I met him there punctually. When it came time to order, in that moment, I strongly felt I didn't want any beer. I considered getting something different, maybe whiskey to sip, maybe just water. At the last second, I just got the damn beer on the principle of the thing.

How did I feel? I got drunk really fast, one. That goes without saying. Not overly drunk of course, but tipsy. My hernia/stomach was ever-so-slightly irritated that evening, but nothing that isn't similar to eating too many nut-based foods on other days. All in all, it seemed that over the past month my body had gotten stronger, and was able to expel the alcohol faster and more efficiently. As fast as I got drunk, I sobered up.

I have decided not to expect myself to completely forgo alcohol. While it would be nice if I wanted to, I haven't reached that point. Alissa Cohen notes in her book that eventually raw foodists "lose your taste" for alcohol. Could be, could be.

Speaking of Alissa, I've been trying out a bunch of recipes in her book every week. So far I've made her kale salad and crunchy carrot salad (pictured) recipes. The carrot salad is delicious and sweet, but I halved the recipe because I can't possibly eat something with six cups of carrots in it within a week.

I am still eating entirely raw. It feels like a natural decision going forward, considering that I'm healthier, look better, and feel more energetic and happy.

I haven't decided if I am going to allow cooked foods back into my diet.

I think it might be a natural thing to "slip-up" or be tempted by a bite of Lorenzo's or nice meal eating out at Little Fish, for example. What I know for sure is that I'm not returning to my old eating habits (Indian food for dinner, coffee for breakfast, cheap Chinese food from the outdoor cart at lunch) ever again.

Here is a list of today's eat-scapades:

9:00am
A handful of Buckwheat Crunchies by Kaia Foods. I get it pre-packaged from Essene, and expect that most health stores would have it. There are a couple flavors; I had raisin cinnamon, which tastes like an unsweetened granola to me. I could make my own, but since I haven't tried sprouting seeds yet and don't have a dehydrator, I've been taking to buying the pre-packaged stuff.

10:00am
Fresh-squeezed orange juice from three oranges. There is nothing better in the morning. Ok, I confess that mangoes are better.

12:30pm
Small green smoothie: water, spinach, swiss chard, fresh ginger, spirulina, maca, SuperFood supplement powder. Today was a little different addition with the fresh ginger. I love the taste of ginger, but for some reason it tends to make consistencies taste a little chalky to me. Could be my blender.

1:30pm
I grabbed a homemade raw cacao-chip cookie, made primarily from dates, coconut oil and walnuts. It's pretty tasty, but they turned out really oily. If I make that recipe again I will probably half the coconut oil.

2:00pm
I had a meeting at a local coffeeshop, so opted for some ginger-lemon-honey iced tea. I'm sure they added sugar to it, which bummed me out, but it was tasty.

4:00pm
I snacked on more Buckwheat Crunchies at work. Drank lots of water.

7:00pm
Fuji apple, organic.

9:30pm
I wasn't really hungry, but had just bought some unprocessed cheese from grass-fed New Jersey cows that is HICKORY SMOKED CHEDDAR. I almost imploded when I saw that, I wanted it so badly. I don't care if smoked flavor doesn't make it raw, it was unprocessed which is a happy medium for me. It is not the most flavorful cheese in all of the world, but extremely satisfying. I ate wayyy too much of it.

The cheese thing was huge when I first started raw. It was really important to me I kept being able to eat dairy from time to time and not feel like a jerk about it. As I went through week three and four, I really didn't eat any cheese and didn't think anything of it.

All unprocessed cheeses will say so on the label, as you can see here from mine. The first ingredient should say "unpasteurized." On this one you can also see that the other ingredients are "vegetable enzymes" and "salt."

Day 30: It's the end of the world as we know it

2009-05-10T23:00:00.003-04:00

Today was the last of my 30 days living a (more or less) 100% raw and living food lifestyle--complete with detox, colonics, raw foodist festivals, and visits to gourmet restaurateurs!

It may have been the best experiment I've ever done in terms of its effects on my life, wellbeing, standards for food as well as revelations about life choices and desires.

A ton of you have gotten in touch with me this month and said that because of this blog you've started whipping up your own green smoothies in the morning. Or are contemplating a healthier diet. Or just were interested in what the hell this raw thing is and what it would be like to try it out! I think that is totally rad. I'd love to hear what you think about them! There are lots of different kinds of green smoothies out there, too. I load in the greens because that's how I like it, but there are endless options.

I have no real words of wisdom, as this isn't really the "end" for me.

But I will tell you I think this is one of the best things I've ever done. To be open to a completely new way of eating, thinking about health, and nourishing my body.

I believe that when you're sticking to all raw and living foods, the major benefit is instant gratification--which is great for our generation! Losing weight, sleeping less, curing illnesses and going off meds... is possibly only the start. It sells itself.

My last day was fairly unceremonious as far as the eating is concerned, but here it is, the last meal of the 30-day PROJECT RAW.
-------------------------------------------------------------
9:00am
Little bit of leftover green smoothie from yesterday

9:30am
Green tea

11:00am
Pu-ehr tea, one of my favorites I haven't had in a long while. It is dark and has a very earthy, mushroomy taste. Not much caffeine, but you can steep the same leaves all day long and get a very mellow, even-keeled pick-me-up from it. In that way, it's a stimulant. But isn't all food a stimulant, making your mind and body feel better and function well?

2:00pm
Eatin' out at Essene. I bought an avocado, Awesome Foods' Quinoa Chips and a Coconut cacao bar. I ate the whole avo, part of the chips, and a bit of the cacao.

2:30pm
I was full, but it was sunny and I wanted a banana whip--which is essentially running a frozen banana through a juicer to get a great ice-cream consistency. I got it with coconut on top, but would have preferred it without, honestly.

7:00pm
A few bites from a mango I was cutting up for tomorrow.

8:00pm
Red kale salad, with a little oil, cayenne, chopped tomato, onion, and couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Mmmm. Ate the last 1/4th of the cacao-coconut bar from earlier.

Day 29: Scavenging

2009-05-09T22:32:00.003-04:00

I'm going to diverge from the normal format of listing my food etc., etc. Today I mostly scavenged and ate unappetizing things anyway (I desperately needed a visit to the grocer), so you're not missing out on anything.

With the end of 30 days nearing for PROJECT RAW, I am beginning to reflect on the month, the changes I see in myself, and where it may lead.

I will say this about the experiment, whether I eat kale salad or a cheeseburger on Monday: it has completely changed how I think of food and how I enjoy it. It has increased the quality I expect from my food. For instance, I don't think I'll ever again be content with Tropicana; seitan; Dove dark chocolate.

When I started this experiment, I expected to reach the end of 30 days and be salivating for sushi or sea scallops or mashed potatoes. Not to say I haven't dreamed about Santucci's pizza for about two days now, but I know I don't really want to eat it and ruin what I have going for me.

What I'm talking about here is... going raw. For real. Not just temporary.

I exchanged a few emails with Chef Michelle at Arnold's Way, and I told her some of the great things I've noticed about my body. I also told her why I'm worried the diet might not be for me in the long-term:

Essentially, right now I feel really healthy and energetic. I sleep way less, can hardly turn myself off to go to bed at night, and then wake up easily in the morning--whereas before I was one of those people who kept hitting the snooze.

When I'm not eating a lot of nuts and fats, my hernia symptoms all but disappear. It's amazing. I've been living with it for 12 years as a fact of life and annoyance that I thought I'd never be rid of. Seems like I figured it out, from the inside-out.

Lifestyle wise, eating raw is hard on many levels. I'm worried that, even though I think this diet is best for my body, that my social life will override it and I'll lose willpower to keep on raw.
(1) My friends are all young and single and my social life includes going to bars, drinking, having cookouts, etc. I'm going to need to strike some balance there, and may allow myself a few tastes of cooked food now and then, and a few drinks a week (I've been trying to stick to wine when I do). I have found I really do not feel good after drinking though. Usually hernia symptoms return for a bit the next day. Eventually I will probably lose my taste for it because of this.

(2) Part of my job, and one of my old interests, are indie restaurants. I work for DineIndie.com, and it's hard not to be able to go out and enjoy restaurant food the way I used to. One one hand, not doing so offsets the cost of buying a lot of fun raw grocery products (like raw cacao or expensive supplements and things); on the other hand, I feel like I'm not able to partake in something I saw as one of my main interests before discovering raw food.

(3) It's lonely. I'm extremely social, and associate meals with friendship and human community. My roommates are considering a change of diet because of my experience, but essentially I eat alone all the time--whereas before we used to have family dinners daily. Even when eating with others, I'm eating something different which makes it not as communal or socially nourishing for me. One of the great things about the festival was to be able to come to a place where everyone's eating the same stuff and be social, what a luxury!! Through Arnold's I saw there's a new raw food group that's meeting in south philly at Essene, so I'm going to go to that. Maybe I can find social nourishment through group meals there and get some resolve from others who are practicing raw/living eaters too.

Going forward, the novelty has worn off and the fact is that it's nearly impossible to keep doing what you used to do and successfully become a raw foodist. But I have to be able to strike a balance in the transition.

I'm sure I will eat some cooked food meals in the coming weeks. And have a BEER.

But I want to continue this blog going forward to share my experience as I try to remain on the diet without the help of a personal chef or guide. I have already been given ample tools to be able to figure out what I can do, what I want to do, and what my body needs fom me.

Day 28: Organic Mangoes

2009-05-08T16:29:00.005-04:00

I am loving organic mangoes today. Holy crap. They are leaps and BOUNDS better than the ones I get at my grocery store.

I picked up the particular mango I ate today at Shadybook Farm in Yardley, which was on our way to the colon hydrotherapy yesterday.

While I was at the farm, I was attracted to a basil plant with normal green and other deep purple leaves. Despite the fact we're growing an entire crop of basil in our backyard right now, I decided to buy it. How can you ever have enough basil, really?

Woke up 7:00am

12:00pm
Green smoothie: water, adult spinach, papaya (frozen), pineapple (frozen), half banana (frozen), maca powder, spirulina, SuperFood powder, a little agave sweetener.

2:00pm
Small salad: romaine, marinated mushrooms, cilantro.

4:00pm
Mango: the best thing ever.

7:00pm
Half an avocado

Day 27: Poop

2009-05-07T20:06:00.005-04:00

It's a funny thing that human beings willingly ask, and pay for, nurse practitioners to slide a speculum up our anuses to watch our poop come out. I proudly say, I DID IT TODAY.

More accurately than merely clearing out our bowels, we pay to have them wash all the old-ass (really!) feces from the colon and secum on and out, supposedly flushing the body of toxins from processed foods, pesticides, and... the occasional Barbie high heel from age 5 or parasite of epic length. All this and more have come out of those inner-nether regions, according to my colon hydro therapy nurse this morning.

My colon therapy today, however, was less eventful than those poor folks with quarters, worms, childhood rubbish etc. down there.

Here's how it goes on a first visit, which is about 45 minutes of hydrotherapy:
1. Fill out paperwork about diet and medical history
2. Talk with your RN/hydrotherapist about your "goals" for colon cleanse & introduction to the machine.
3. In private restroom, remove all clothes from the waist down and drape a cloth around you
4. Hop up on the table, lay on your side for the speculum. (She offered it to me to do myself but I deferred to the expert)
5. Lay on your back and try to relax as the water enters 6 feet of winding bowels
6. Give notice to "empty" as soon as you feel like you need to explode (haha.)
7. Watch your poo retreat from your body through a clear hose into the machine, fun.
8. Repeat process, including brief "soaks," several times up to 45 minutes.
9. Once completed, retreat to the bathroom for as long as you need in order to stop pooping water.
10. Spend a day, or more, detoxing. This is for real.

My experience/results:
I must have been a good-case scenario, having been mostly vegetarian/pescetarian for the past 7 years. Although there was an expected amount of feces and chunks what-have-you, and some yellowish liquid after a few rounds of cleansing that signified a bunch of toxins leaving my system, I didn't have any worms or huge impacted gunk to work out. By the end it was flushing clear, which is either a good or a bad thing (aka it's so stuck in there it wasn't breaking down, or I'm pretty clear in general).

All in all, the procedure was uncomfortable--which is acknowledged from the start. It doesn't feel great to have a speculum in your butt, it doesn't feel that good to be filled up with water and then feel like you have to explode it out of you (though the release on command can be satisfying), it doesn't feel good getting the speculum out, and I was convinced I didn't feel much better afterward. Also, it cost $125 for this first one, FYI. Follow-ups cost $100.

Immediately afterwards I did feel lighter, and tired. But a few hours later, detox took over my life. Despite flushing everything out with lots of water and eating simple foods for the most part, I had major ups and downs. At two I abandoned work to clean my house for three hours, major energy boost. At five I was so whooped I took a nap, which I haven't done since the earliest part of this entire experiment (the detox part).

A final note about foreign bathroom equipment: It was advised that I use a footrest like this when I used the toilet. Many people use it for daily normal use because it apparently eases bowel movements, proper function of the colon, etc. I noticed that they had one aside the toilet at Arnold's Way, but thought it was something weird I didn't want to take part in. Wrong! Fake squatting is the way to go.

---------------------------
Woke up at 7:00am

7:30am
Part of a green smoothie with dates, water, dandelion greens, papaya, mixed berries (frozen), spirulina, maca powder, SuperFood powder.

Because I was not allowed to eat two hours before my appointment, I only had about half the green smoothie in the morning.

12:30pm
Remaining green smoothie, which I had kept in the fridge.

4:00pm
Mango, cut into slices. Date ball. Some "potato chips" which are actually not that satisfying because they are dehydrated and very hard, not crispy.

7:00pm
A snack-spoonful of ginger ice-cream, which I made about a month ago from coconut and macadamia/cashews and it's still good! Just a little hard-frozen. Still delicious.

10:00pm
A small salad with marinated mushrooms. The marinade had: olive oil, onion, salt, Braggs Liquid Aminos, chipotle seasoning, and sundried tomatoes. Very salty, as you might imagine, but worked with the mushrooms.

Sleep at midnight

Day 26:

2009-05-06T19:10:00.005-04:00

I woke up at 7:00am. Today was a day at the office, so I had to pack most things ahead of time.

9:30am
Fresh pineapple, which I cut the evening before. It was almost a whole pineapple, save the little bit I ate last night.

11:00am
Pre-packaged Raw Revolution bar, Coco & Agave Nectar. Not the best thing ever to eat, it's 85% raw but 100% organic. I was stuck in a meeting and it didn't seem a good time to be whipping out my spoon and avocado. It's been good to have those on hand, just in case. They are kind of like power bars for the raw foodist.

1:00pm
Half an avocado

3:00pm
Golden Delicious apple

6:00pm
Green smoothie with the usual suspects: water, collards, swiss chard, dandelion greens, papaya (frozen), half a banana (frozen), mixed organic berries (frozen), SuperFood powder, maca powder, spirulina algae.

Tomorrow Meredith and I are... colon cleansing. Beware, there may be poop pics in your future.

Day 25: Back to the grind, with fruit on top

2009-05-05T20:03:00.003-04:00

I've decided to begin eating more fruit. It didn't hurt that I met a cute boy in the produce section today, either, even if he cheated me out of the best papaya.

For whatever reason I wasn't very hungry today until later in the afternoon. I felt pretty tired this morning, but we had also tramped around in the rain all day yesterday, so I'm assuming that's natural. I am aware it also might be vaguely related to how much I ate yesterday, and that most of it was nuts and fats. OH WELL, it was delicious!

It feels like I don't even have a hernia anymore. The area around my stomach isn't tense, I can take deep breaths, my stomach isn't popping or moving around, and I don't become winded easily. It's really wonderful to feel free from all of that.

I'm also supposed to stay away from wearing tight clothes and belts around my middle to keep the irritation of the hernia at bay, which totally ruins my "fashion belt" styles. So I never really do that.

Woke up: 9 am

2:00pm
Leftover from Quintessence, I had some curried cauliflower and kamut bread

6:00pm
I cut up into slices and ate a mango. It was good, but not as good as the mangoes I had in Italy. Perhaps if I went organic they would be better, because this one was definitely ripe.

7:00pm
I cut up some pineapple for tomorrow and had 10 or so chunks of it. Mmm.

Day 24: New York romp, so much eating

2009-05-04T23:00:00.008-04:00

Today Meredith and I traveled up to New York City to visit Quintessence, a raw a living food restaurant, and head chef Dan Hoyt.

We chatted about becoming raw, how other people think you're nuts, the health benefits (Chef Dan hasn't had so much as a cold in 10 years), what he likes to eat, vaccines and health care in the U.S., and so on.

I'll be posting an interview with Chef Dan on Dine Indie in June, but until then, check out some of the pictures of what we ate!

Indian Platter. The dish on the bottom was my favorite, a curried cauliflower. The "bread" on the side with sesame seeds was also AMAZING, sort of the consistency of a dense tortilla. I couldn't finish all of mine, but it will make for some tantalizing leftovers!

I even ordered some more of the bread as a side to-go, it was that good.

Zucchini fettucine. Nice and fresh tastes with a satisfying "noodle" made of veggies and tossed in a fresh tomato sauce.

One of the favorite raw dishes to make at home or order in a restaurant is an angel hair "pasta" made from zucchini or squash, but these thick slices really resembled the texture of cooked fettucine. It was delicious.

Fresh garden salad, with a killer dressing. Enough said.

And of course, dessert. We couldn't resist. We tried a dessert platter for $20 with pecan pie, coconut creme pie, strawberry ice-cream and a fudge brownie. We loved all of them, but my favorite was the pecan. Meredith and I are already plotting a day next week to try making one of our own!

Day 23: Big week ahead

2009-05-03T22:46:00.003-04:00

There is truly a lot we have planned this coming week, so today I rested up like a lazy-face for it.

Meredith and I are headed to New York tomorrow for some serious exploration of restaurants, markets and hopefully chocolate makers! There will be fun interviews with chefs on an inside peek into raw kitchens and some great photo and video by the time we return.

10:00am
In the morning I squeezed up two oranges and drank o.j. It tasted fantastic. Fresh-squeezed is truly the best, and I don't think I'll ever think of it as a "luxury" anymore. I threw in a date ball for added measure, but wasn't really that into it. I don't really like the date-raisin balls I made for the second batch. Best to leave the dates alone next time, note-to-self.

6:00pm
I finally decided I was hungry and made a green smoothie. I put dandelion greens, adult spinach, water, spirulina, maca, SuperFood powder, and frozen pineapple with a tad bit of agave sweetener to counteract the bitterness of those dandelion greens.

Day 22: Feast

2009-05-02T21:46:00.004-04:00

Today was Arnold's Way's first Live Food & Music Festival in Lansdale, PA. Arnold's is the only raw food place in the entire state of Pennsylvania, and it's just a 45 minute drive from Philly. I felt pretty much at home there, considering it had a similar vibe to the commons on literally any Saturday in Ithaca, New York--where I went to college.

I felt really good today, and my stomach felt relaxed--as opposed to the usual hiatal hernia symptoms. I can take deep breaths today, don't get winded immediately.

It's been about three weeks now, and I've lost about 6-7 pounds. I find that amazing, and it wasn't necessarily the goal of this experiment, but it makes me happy nonetheless because of how effortless it is to lose weight while not really changing anything about my exercise regimen. And by exercise regimen I mean I ride my bike around the city and that's all I do to "work out."

Nothing to report really! The flatulence from the first week or so is nonexistent. I pretty clearly eat whatever I want at this point because I'm still trying to feel things out. I'm very satisfied with the food I'm eating and have found myself taking taste-nibbles of cheese and not wanting the rest. That is truly a miracle, coming from a cheese enthusiast.

At Arnold's Way there was a LOT of stuff going on. Here are some highlights:

- Food demo by Matthew Kenney, who has written a host of raw food books, owns a couple restaurants in New York, and is starting up the very first raw culinary school in Oklahoma! At this demo he made his restaurant's version of raw lasagna, with zucchini strips standing in for the pasta, a freshly made marinara sauce with sundried tomatoes, and pine nut ricotta. He happens to be a very tan, very attractive man, so just about every woman in the audience had her tongue rolling out at him. It was fantastic.

- A lot of raw foodists I met today eat more fruit than vegetables and nuts/fats. This surprised me, as I have been trying to eat a lot more vegetables than whole fruits on this diet. Apparently 80/10/10 is the newest raw foodist sub-culture attitude, believing that fruits' glucose gives you great energy. I've generally stayed away from lots of fruits, believing the sugar in it is better left alone! But I'm not Popeye, eating spinach to grow instant energy! Maybe I will try more fruits for a week and see how it goes.

- I heard a LOT of stories from raw foodists about how conditions cleared up mere weeks after eating 100% raw diets. Especially diabetes. That is incredible to me. This really is the diet for our generation, who loooves more than anything instant gratification. It's so awesome to know that a very simple diet can promote near-immediate healing in your body! Especially for conditions for which people had been taking meds for decades or longer, in some cases.

There was so much more, but it was nice to be in a social atmosphere where we could all eat food and not be self-conscious, which is hard to come by!

I ate a ton today. It was awesome.

Woke up 8:30am

9:30 am
I made a green smoothie at home before the big day when I knew we'd be eating eating eating. It was a very rewarding color of green.

11:00am
Chocolate-covered frozen banana. One of Meredith's best treats, I couldn't resist having one immediately. Plus, we marketed them at the festival. Mine was covered in a special raw cacao and nut coating that Meredith has perfected.

2:00pm
Green smoothie, a small one. I had just finished a sink full of dishes, and was presented with a small green smoothie with kale, coconut, and other things. Arnold Way's green smoothie is a lot less dense than mine because I like packing mine with greens. This one was lighter and really refreshing!

3:00pm
Main meal, kale salad,"cheddar cheese," and "Chili con ARNIE" on a bed of mixed greens served with "living bread" made from nuts, seeds, carrot and other spices dehydrated. Delicious. We were working as volunteers in the kitchen, so it was satisfying when we finally got our chance to eat!

9:00pm
I was not hungry at this point, just excited about food. I had another chocolate-covered banana at some point, too. I really didn't need to eat this, and was honestly craving melon or mango or something. But instead I ate ANOTHER meal: zucchini salad, "cheddar cheese," and cabbage salad.

Sleep, 10:00pm

All in all, I was glad I went. Time flew, and I met a lot of interesting people who all have their own reasons for eating raw, or wanting to try it out.

By and large, we were some of the youngest ones there. It seems a lot of people turn to raw food too late, when they have diseases they are trying to cure. I feel kind of fortunate for finding out about it early in my life and knowing that good nutrition can really make your body do amazing things.

Day 21: It's rainy but I'm happy?

2009-05-01T09:15:00.009-04:00

Curious.

Usually a day like today would have bummed me out: couldn't ride my bike to work; forgot my umbrella; faced looming deadlines for work. I would usually spend the day being mopey and extremely negative.

Not today! I actually felt good, like the insurmountable hurdles of the day were only temporary and totally conquerable. I can't remember the last time I've felt that calm in the face of so much negativity.

One of my friends who has been keeping up with this blog asked me yesterday if I would share how I'm incorporating the foods into my day. So from now on I will try to do that more often, giving you frames of reference of when I wake up, sleep and so forth.

Waking time, 7:00am

8:00am
Food: Green smoothie: spinach, collards, rainbow swiss chard, half a frozen banana, water, a little agave syrup, frozen pineapple
Prep: The smoothie only takes about 10 minutes to make because all I do is whip stuff out of the refrigerator and throw it into the blender on "puree." I usually make it right before I head out the door, put it in a jar (with some plastic wrap over the top before I put on the lid so it doesn't leak), throw it in my bag and then drink it once I get settled into work.

1:00pm
Food: Date ball (raisins, dates, tsp agave coated with cacao nibs, walnuts, almonds and coconut)
Prep: Besides waiting for the dates to soften soaking in water for a little bit, this takes no time to make at all. Whip the dates and raisins in the food processor, then smash up nuts and whatever else you want for the coating and roll them in it. You're good to go. Since I made these last night, all I did was grab one out of the fridge and go.

3:00pm
Food: About 6 slices of cucumber and some of the Indian Spice Dip. This picture looks gross, but whatever. It's tupperware style.

6:00pm
Food: Date ball. At this point the food was more about convenience than it was that I wanted to eat it. I was running out the door and grabbed it.

7:00pm
Food: 1/4 a cucumber. My roommates decided to eat out and I ate a cucumber. Eh!

Sleeping time, 11:30pm
(That's right, I'm lame on Friday night. BUT I need my rest before a crazy raw food gathering tomorrow!)

Day 20: Stressed but ok

2009-04-30T20:30:00.001-04:00

This morning was awful. Even though I went to sleep pretty early and was feeling good last night, this morning I was just a blob. I couldn't get out of bed until 10, even though I was set to be up by 7.

I had a huge craving for fruit, so I decided to eat an apple and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. Felt fine after that. I don't know what my issue is. I am usually stressed at the end of the month because of work deadlines, so that could be it. Not eating enough? Not enough water?

10:00am
Apple slices, juice from one grapefruit.

12:30pm
Two date balls

2:30pm
A few slices of cucumber with Indian Spinach Dip

5:00pm
Huge red kale salad with 1 cup tomato, 1 cup avocado, a little oil and Bragg Liquid Aminos. I actually didn't finish it, saved the rest for later.

8:00pm
Made more date-raisin balls, so I had to eat one to test them out! I don't think the dates I got from Whole Foods are as good as the ones I got from Arnold's Way, but they were ok. Ate the rest of the huge salad.

Day 19: Feeling foggy

2009-04-29T22:00:00.004-04:00

I do give the raw diet credit for the fact I can even detect this, but I felt foggy this morning. I woke up tired, was fumbling with my work and making mistakes, and generally couldn't get my shit together.

To make it worse, my hernia was really uncomfortable in the morning. It was really tight and making breathing uneasy.

I really didn't feel that great until the very end of my 2 hours of green smoothie time. From then on all day I felt really awake and energetic.

I think it might be a combination of continuing detox and/or a bodily reaction to eating weird yesterday and probably eating too many fats. Just an off day. It's strange having these almost euphoric highs and then numbing lows within days of each other.

I have read the entirety of Alissa Cohen's recipe book, which spends a lengthy time discussing the raw food diet that she promotes and what she's seen it do to people. It's probably the most "mainstream" raw cookbook out there, so it's a good place to start for me or anyone new.

Additionally, I wanted to share this link to a Wired article that discusses cooking and its evolutionary context. Namely:

"The fundamental importance of cooking is that it provides increased sources of energy," ... And that boost may be what facilitated the leap in size between Homo erectus and modern Homo sapiens. But, cooking may also have helped some modern humans into an obesity epidemic.

I made a couple sweet recipes today, but my favorite was an Indian Spinach Dip. This picture is how I ate it today. I was REALLY happy about this one. One of my favorite things in the world is Saag Paneer and other curry-flavored Indian foods that are terrible for you because the base of every dish is ghee, or Indian clarified butter. No butter in this guy though. Just avocado, spinach, spices, etc etc. I added cardamom seeds (freed from dehydrated pods) and extra ginger, and ended up putting some mushrooms in to see if they helped to substitute for blocks of cooked amazing paneer. It's not the same. But the dish was really fast, totally satisfying and I will eat all of it.

I have decided to change how I organize my daily food lists. There isn't going to be a typical day of eating and "three square meals a day" mentality that works to organize this. I eat whenever I want and whenever I'm hungry, and it's usually much smaller than a "meal." From now on I'm just going to list the time I ate and the food consumed.

10:00am
Green smoothie with the last of the carrot-beet juice, water, collards, spinach, dates, spirulina, maca, SuperFood powder, frozen pineapple and papaya. I've decided to stop putting banana in my green drink in the morning for a little while. I'm just tired of how it tastes. I think I will instead try putting celery (for some natural sodium) and cucumber (with silica to promote healthier skin and hair).

2:00pm
Indian Spinach Dip (above) with mushrooms spread onto Meredith's dehydrated carrot-nut bread. I ate it with some cucumber slices, which I've been craving a whole lot lately. I love eating cucumbers every day.

6:00pm
Date ball! So good.

8:00pm
A few spoonfuls of a broccoli soup I made from the Alissa Cohen book. I wasn't really into it because I wasn't very hungry, so I saved the rest for another day. It was tasty, but I would like it more if it were creamier instead of still a little chunky. Obviously this would work if I had a VitaMix, but I was using a blender.

Day 18: Spreading the good word

2009-04-28T21:00:00.005-04:00

I feel a little like a hypocrite.

I have been feeling an incredible urgency to push raw food on everyone. This feeling is not unlike the emotional urgency that I imagine some of my friends who grew up to be extremely faithful in Christianity feel when urgently engaging me in conversations about coming to church.

I am a complete and utter novice at raw foodism, but am feeling so good that it is hard not to try to convince others to try it too. I have to bite my tongue when my roommate eats pasta and cooked collards and then talks about how tired she is. I buy a bottle of Excedrin and a bottle of Coke, as requested, for my friend with migraines, when I really think there is a possibility she could look and feel better within a month just by eating more fresh food.

Am I being indoctrinated a little bit by crunchy granola raw foodists, I ask myself?

No. My urgency to share this diet with everyone I love has little to do with what other raw foodists are telling me and everything to do with my own willingness to accept that this food is great for me based on how I'm feeling while eating it. I'm experiencing a sweeping change to both my body and clarity of mind, which has been nearly instantaneous, and doing it to and for myself. How much more convincing could that be?

That said, my nutritionist (which I had over two years ago, who also was helping me solve my hiatal hernia issue) put some doubts in my head today. I got in touch with her to update her on this new diet I'm trying.

She suggested I wasn't getting protein in this diet that wasn't from nuts--which are higher in fat and she believes bad for my hernia and stomach health/digestion. I told her I am eating supplements, including spirulina which has about 50 grams of protein and amino acids in it...

I don't want to be eating a diet that's unbalanced, and really wanted a clinical, medical opinon to say: "YES. WHAT YOU ARE EATING IS AWESOME. KEEP IT UP, SLUGGER." I definitely did not get that reponse, and am not sure what to think given the benefits I'm seeing in my body versus the disapproval of a clinical nutritionist who clearly knows her shit.

Part of me verates the knowledge that doctors have, and part of me distrusts it when it goes against evidence that's right in front of my face.

Today was hectic and stupid.

First "meal," 9:00am
I ran out of the house after shoving a date ball in my face. Go breakfast.

Snack/lunch, 1:00pm
When I was at Arnold's Way I bought some packaged organic foods (this one was about 93% raw or something). It happened to come in handy since I had thrown it in my back en lieu of having the forsight to make my food the night before, dumb. I was kind of surprised I wasn't agonizingly hungry by the time I got home, though. So it worked. This time.

Afternoon meal, 4:00pm
After I got home I made my Green Smoothie, with tons of kale, collards and dandelion greens. I added spirulina blue-green algae, maca powder, SuperFood powder, a bit of frozen banana, pineapple and papaya.

Evening snacks, 7-8pm
While I was playing in the backyard I intermittently, absent-mindedly ate little bits of: roqueford cheese, almonds, dehydrated potato chips, cucumber, peach. Kind of random, but I was satisfied by it. That's all that matters.

I kind of have a slight headache now. I don't think I ate very well today, and didn't drink enough water for how hot it was. Regardless, I am very focused mentally and my hernia feels better than yesterday when it was popping in and out.

Day 17: Over the detox hurdle, making delicious drinks!

2009-04-27T19:46:00.007-04:00

Today I bolted out of bed at 6am and now am only starting to get tired at 11:30pm. This is so not my style. I'm usually late getting out of bed, tired by 3:30pm and mentally checked out by 9. But here I am still pretty clear and motivated and focused. I might even read my raw cookbook for a while before sleeping. Could be I'm just having a good day. But if this is going to be a continual thing (Meredith has suggested that her raw diet makes her feel more energetic and clear-headed), I could get used to it.

Today was unexpectedly hot--but not too bad for Philadelphia, where 90+ degree weather is usually coupled with unbearably high humidity. Not so today!

That said, all I wanted was a cold tropical drink. I made one in the evening, but I didn't really like it. It's called Angel Cake Smoothie, and I got it here. I even bought a papaya just for this. It was still worth it (check out this amazing papaya!). It could have something to do with the fact that I was winging the recipe with no exact ingredient measurements, but I would definitely cut out the nuts and the banana if I were you. I guess what I really wanted was a pure pina colada.

I also tried an experiment with dehydrated potato slices I bought at Arnold's Way yesterday. They are certainly crunchy, but kind of in a "uncooked pasta" kind of way. They also lack salt, which is a MUST for potato chips, obviously!

Disclaimer: I had no idea what I'm doing. But since I have no dehydrator I attempted the experiment in the bright 90-degree afternoon sun. I took some of the chips and spread salt-garlic oil on them and set them out to "dry." Then I soaked another bit of chips in water, salt and pepper to soften them a tad. Then I drained the water, added some Himalayan sea salt (it's pink!) and also set those out in the sun to dehydrate.

Maybe I just didn't wait enough, but the bottom line is that neither experiment really made this chips better. The oily ones remained oily. And I used too much salt. And the soaked ones weren't any better.

It occurred to me maybe I ought to borrow the use of Meredith's dehydrator and try it for real later this week.

Those Date Dessert balls with almond, walnut and coconut on the outside... are AMAZING. I definitely will make them again. They are really easy. And I bet they'd be a great thing to bring to someone's house for a potluck or something.

First Meal, 7:30am
Green smoothie, featuring pureed collards, kale, spirulina powder, maca powder, water, beet-carrot juice, frozen banana, frozen pineapple, a little agave sweetener. The new powders, spirulina and maca, made the smoothie taste pretty good, surprisingly.

Second Meal, 1:00pm
Cut up Pink Lady apples and just a small slice of raw cheddar cheese.

Afternoon ridiculously amazing chocolate sustenance, 3:00 & 6:00pm
I got this incredibly good, refrigerated, dense fudge-brownie tasting chocolate torte from Arnold's Way yesterday. I wasn't going to eat the whole thing today, but after I ate half when I got home from work, I ate the rest later in the afternoon. It was awesome and really filling because cacao is actually full of nutrients. I need to buy like two more the next time I go there.

Dinner, 9pm
Kale and collards salad with cucumber, asian dressing and a spoonful of hummus. I didn't really eat all the hummus, just the greens.

I have discovered I really like eating greens for my later-evening meal. I feel cleansed and more energetic and balanced.

I also never thought until this experiment I would ever, ever eat collards or kale without cooking them. They are so tough! But it turns out, it is not so. They are very satisfying to eat, particularly if you get product that is really fresh and tender and cut it into slices so it's manageable to eat.

The salads are simple, but I thrive on how easy they are to put together.

Day 16: Expanding my recipes

2009-04-26T13:27:00.008-04:00

Today I bought my first ever raw "cookbook" with many straightforward recipes I thought I could follow.

Meredith and I went to Arnold's Way, and I spent way too much money. It's extracurricular, but I bought spirulina (blue-green algae that is a nutritional supplement), maca and a bunch of chocolatey-munchy things to take around with me so if I need a snack and am caught without food I won't be in a crunch (yeah puns).

When I got home I made some Date Desserts!

I bought dried dates from Arnold's, and when I got home I soaked them in water for about a half hour. They still had the pits, so after they softened, I cut them open, removed the pits and then chopped them up well in the food processor with a little bit of agave sweetener.

I pounded out some nuts the old-fashioned way--with the edge of a rolling pin. My final coating mixture consisted of dried coconut flakes, crushed almonds and walnuts.

With my hands (very satisfying) I molded the date-agave mixture into balls and simply rolled them into the nut-coconut mixture and popped them in the fridge to await glorious consumption. I haven't tasted one yet because I ate a ton of food today... but I have a feeling they're going to be pretty tasty.

First meal, 9am
Green smoothie with dandelion greens, collards, spinach, water, carrot-beet juice, banana and strawberries, agave sweetener.

Second meal, 1:30pm
Kale Salad, pictured here, with a tomato-garlic-onion relish and nutritional yeast.

More food! 3:00pm
Meredith and I went to Arnold's Way, which has a selection of groceries (dried fruit, fresh produce, powders and sweeteners, dehydrated "bread," banana chocolate chips and beyond), great books on raw and health for sale, and a cafe with fresh food. From the cafe I decided to get Spaghetti, with "Finely Cut pieces of Zucchini, Carrot, and Beet make up the freshest angel hair you’ll ever have. Served with our Red Sauce (Tomato, Beet, Olive Oil, Green Olives)." The red sauce was killer good. The zucchini "noodles" were made with a spiral slicer, so they were really thin and delicious. It was just as satisfying as pasta, a perfect taste without all the heaviness.

More more food! 5:00pm
Meredith and I loaded up on groceries, and then decided we couldn't leave without a slice of Chef Brandon's chocolate pie. With a light crust of dates and coconut, and a filling of raw chocolate and avocado, it was AMAZING. If it weren't super rich, I could eat it all day.

Day 15: Weekend respite

2009-04-25T15:35:00.009-04:00

It's gorgeous out, and I have enough time these next two days to adequately make food and try some new things.

I have a trip planned with Meredith tomorrow to go to Arnold's Way, where I'm hoping to get these tasty-looking crunchy things and make a raw "cookies & cream" ice cream with raw vanilla bean!

I was extremely tempted by my roommates' breakfast this morning. On my regular diet, eggs over easy are like my favorite thing ever for breakfast, and we got some fresh farm eggs in our CSA this morning.

My roommates served some "Vrapple" on the side, whatever the hell that's made out of. Probably soy and spices, meant to resemble scrapple.

Oh, and coffee. And espresso-chocolate biscotti, which I bet I could figure out how to make a kickass raw version of (it was just have to be dehydrated within an inch of its life).

Anyway, I kind of wanted it, but was still content to be eating my food too. Now if they had had toast with it, the meal may have been irresistible (I love toast and eggs so much).

First meal, 10 am
As is a great weekend enjoyment for me, the Kombucha Mimosa from fresh squeezed oranges.
I also diversified my greens in my Green Smoothie today: Beet-carrot juice, water, kale, dandelion greens, collard greens, SuperFood powder, frozen bananas & strawberries, agave sweetener, straw, sip, gone.

Snack, 2pm
Orange, in sections, in the park, in the sun. Very nice.

Second snack, 4pm
I was a busybee, and didn't feel like making food proper. So I whipped out the raw hummus and ate some with a couple stalks of celery.

Third meal, 7pm
Meredith's recipe for kale salad, which I'm trying for the first time today. I bought two separate kinds at the store yesterday--regular organic kale and red kale--so I used both.
Ate a little bit of ginger ice cream, too!

Day 14: Feeling good in the neighborhood

2009-04-24T11:31:00.010-04:00

I spent last night hanging out with Meredith and her husband Dustin. They gave me a great (silly obvious) idea, so I have decided to put some lime, cucumber, and carrot slices into my water. It looks great, tastes great!

We definitely all love food, and eating it, but talked about other subsets of raw foodists--like breatharians, sun gazers and others who claim to get their energy from other parts of the earth.

I approached the conversation open-mindedly, but couldn't help thinking how absolutely amazing it would be if it were true that people could harness other energy to sustain their bodies.

I posted a little thing about it on facebook, and one of my good friends commented:
"This is the perfect example of misguided faith that attracts and harms everything it touches. These ideas need to be erased from the history books because even if they all die (which they will), someone will end up reading and buying into its ludicrous lies and will tell others. There is no special energy enhancing process (besides the production of vitamin D) or spiritual enhancement occurring here. These are dangerous lies."

I prodded him a little further, saying that people claim to be able to stare at the sun a few seconds to a few minutes every day and sustain their bodies without food. Not to say that all these stories are true, but is there something valuable to take away from it? Additionally, I was reminded of a George Saunders essay in Braindead Megaphone in which he visits the "Bhudda Boy" in Nepal, who claims meditation feeds his soul and body, not food.

My friend responded:
"Yes, [the stories] are fake. There are also stories of Chinese scholars who rode fireworks to the moon... I know that you can survive for quite some time (I've only seen a week) without food. If the diet explained itself to be minimalist in nature, I would buy it (but by no means support it)...Basically, I see it as people living and eating very very very little and claiming that they don't eat; in addition, no one ever sees them eat, so their story is backed up by eyewitnesses. I just hate the fact that they tag on some sort of spiritual benefit to it which leads people to believe this is somehow good for you. If you want to fast, bang goats, or eat nails....by all means ...Darwinism will show itself, but DO NOT lead other people to believe that what you are dong is in fact physically benefiting you. That's just cruel and shows lack of care towards other humans."

I have barely been introduced to the idea of sustaining energy from other sources than food, but it seems like some people do it. Is it fake or is it not? Or doesn't it matter? I hope to learn more about this. It's powerful to think of energy in different ways than the conventional.

ANYWAY.

I went shopping today. Meredith bought me a market basket from Ghana, which is beautiful. She suggested it become a tradition to give one to everyone you teach about raw food. Here is a picture of how many groceries it can hold! (Plus it makes me happy to carry a basket instead of the plastic ones supplied by groceries.)

First meal, 8:30am
Green smoothie, of course. I try to drink this every day. It's easy and it's delicious--so that's a no-brainer. Today's smoothie was: water, beet-carrot juice, pineapple, mixed fruit (bananas and strawberries), and a ton of adult spinach. Also a scoop of my mixed berry flavored SuperFood powder, too.

Second meal, 3:30pm
I was fairly famished by the time I got around to eating. I ate a huge kale and beet greens salad, with a bunch of crap in it that made me happy: sweet pea pods, garlic-pine nut pesto, cilantro, cucumbers, asian ginger dressing. In this picture you can see one of our stupid cats is checking it out.

Third meal, 7:00pm
Meredith made a Fried Crawb Cake, which has seaweed in it to re-create the crab feeling. With some raw tartar sauce made from cashews, lemon and apple cider vinegar, it is a pretty tasty thing. I also ate about 1/4 of a raw chocolate bar with raw cacao, raw cocoa butter, agave sweetener, and native pecans.

Day 13: I'm not raw anymore!! (kidding)

2009-04-23T10:46:00.007-04:00

Technically speaking, I did eat a little taste of non-raw chocolate yesterday.

That was an eye-opening experiment. I compared my typical dark chocolate Easter bunny to the raw cacao/cocoa butter/pecan bar. I was amazed that I could actually taste the malty-milk and over-sugared palette of the dark chocolate. The raw bar tastes so much richer. I couldn't believe I actually preferred it. I expected to taste the familiar chocolate and love it and want more.

We're coming up on two weeks and the more I learn, the more doors are being opened. I see new possibilities with food preparation. I am inspired by what Meredith creates, but also came upon this blog through my friend Ashley, who was trying to find me a raw cupcake recipe. She has some incredible recipes and it made me think, "I could do that! And it would be delicious!"

I feel pretty good, and feel lighter. Literally and figuratively. I weighed myself this morning and was kind of awesomely excited to have lost about 5 pounds! It seems like a lot for only two weeks, but I think it's healthy. I've been eating constantly, I am not hungry. I am pretty content with the amount of food I've been eating actually. I think it's been relatively diverse and healthy.

What I'm now going to talk about may sound crunchy-granola silly. But I need to talk about food and energy for a moment. A lot of raw foodists exclaim that raw food is "living food." That your body takes in the energy from its food, which creates (controversial opinion) a lot of nutritional benefits. But it also means you're eating things that are alive, as opposed to dead.

BEFORE RAW
I never really had an energy jolt from food. It was tasty and pleasurable, but usually I would get what my roommates affectionately call "food coma."

Generally, in a normal day, my energy level would bottom out around 3:30pm (especially if I drank coffee that morning). Around that time of day, my brain was not really that alert or focused, mind chatter took over, and I just generally felt tired. This was the usual routine. I wouldn't really make up the energy level again until around 6pm.

NOW, ON RAW
I have noticed the past couple of days that I am actually letting my body become hungry before eating again, and that after eating I truly gain energy in my body. A jolt, even. I recall eating my old diet of cooked food, and the energy I felt afterward, if any, seems dull in comparison.

First Meal, 9:30am
My green smoothie today was actually quite purple (pictured above), with a combination of frozen mixed berries including blueberries and some of the beet-carrot juice. I also included dates, pineapple, and SuperFood powder.

Second Meal, 3:00pm
I had a taco! It was a small one. I put raw hummus, avocado, other nut-based things in it. Delicious. I also drank the remaining half of a "Guava Goodness" Kombucha. I was going to eat the pictured orange, but I didn't.

Third Meal, 8:30pm
I went over to Meredith's house tonight, and she had me try out a new recipe for "Crawb Cakes." I had two, with a little tartar sauce made from cashews, water, lemon, and some pickle relish (yes you can get raw pickles).

Day 12: Seeing Green

2009-04-22T17:18:00.005-04:00

Well, if we weren't comfortable talking about poop by this point, now's the time to find out! This weekend a friend of mine, upon hearing about my 30-days raw, told me a horrendous story about a colon cleanse she once did. I won't tell you the details, but she did divulge that she once took a picture of one of her poops because she couldn't believe it. She said a WORM came out of one of them. Ugh. I told her I'd publish the picture but she said it was gone forever on a dead computer (RIP). Too bad.

My poop is is green. And I do it more often. That's about all I have to report. I have no weird gastro-intestinal things going on... which might be departing from the typical experience? I'm not sure. Either way, I'm pretty happy about it.

Speaking of poop, Meredith and I have been talking about getting colon cleansing as part of Project Raw. I've never had one before, but apparently it helps that I've been eating raw, as it tends to soften the colon in preparation for a cleanse like that. There is no medical proof that a colonic helps to improve health according to Wikipedia, but it sounds like an experience. And I am down for that.

Today's food, sticking to the greens as I mentioned earlier. Sorry I don't have many good pictures this time around.

I ate nothing in the morning, which I'm sure is not good. It's not intentional. Sometimes when I work from home I get in a zone and just don't think about what I need to be eating until it's already noon. I should try to get better at that.

First meal, 12:30pm
Arriving at work, I started on a green smoothie. Again with beet-carrot juice, water, banana, spinach, mixed berries and pineapple. Pineapple is a great sweetener, I don't need to add any dates or agave to make it taste good.

Second meal, 4:30pm
Still at work, I popped a salad and some asian dressing in front of me. The salad was primarily made of beet greens and kale, but I added some cilantro, cucumber and mushroom for tastiness. I've never eaten kale in salad before now, but it's very satisfying.

Snack-dinner, 7:00pm
I figured I might need something else to last the rest of the evening, so I had apple slices and a little bit of raw cheese. I ended up eating part of a pear too.
I also conducted a little experiment with raw chocolate. To me, the raw chocolate bar from Oasis with raw pecans tastes exactly like dark chocolate. So I decided to test my tastebuds. I had a dark chocolate bunny the parents sent me at Easter. As a test, I took a chip off of that and tasted it after the raw chocolate. It was amazing the difference. The dark chocolate bunny tasted like malted milk and really really sugary. It was still pleasant, but not nearly as potent and good as the raw stuff. It was strange to compare the tastes, because in the past I had never really detected the milk and sugar in the chocolate.

Day 11: Are raw foodists crazy, or are we?

2009-04-21T22:00:00.001-04:00

Meredith's post about the "FoodMATTERS" documentary got me thinking about the healing industry.

I sometimes think about food as medicine, but only select foods that I would eat--like kale, garlic, cinnamon, tumeric, ginger. It makes a lot of sense that food can have cleansing and healing abilities. I do believe that our bodies want to heal themselves, and given the opportunity... they do!

Yet some of the stories I've been healing have been seeming too miraculous to be honest.

I spent a good amount of time on YouTube last night--a lot of people have opinions on their own raw food diets and have done experiments much longer than 30 days. Some even say they cured serious illnesses by using food as their medicine. I'm talking AIDS, cancers, heart disease. It's all very hard to believe when all doctors tell you is that these conditions are largely "incurable" or even when staid, are "in remission" or "controlled."

I must admit, I was approaching this Project Raw experiment having the attitude, "Yeah yeah, after 30 days I'll go back to cooked food and it'll be AWESOME." But today was the first day I thought: I'm not sure I want to.

Today I ate:
Breakfast, 11am
Green smoothie. I put in some of the beet-carrot juice, water, frozen pineapple, a banana, a handful of kale, a handful of adult spinach, SuperFood powder, and a couple frozen strawberries. It had a horrible look to it, a very dark forest green. But it was tasty

Lunch/Snack, 4 pm
I wasn't feeling that hungry, so I squeezed an organic orange and put some Guava Kombucha in it. It was delicious. I also ate a small handful of raw almonds.

Dinner, 7pm
I prepped a fresh salsa, but my roommates and I ate it all before I could take a picture! I put in on-the-vine tomatoes, sweet onion, cilantro, lime juice, half a jalapeno and two pinches of salt. I ate it with some sticks of green pepper and some of Meredith's dehydrated corn chips with cumin. I also made some pineapple salsa, but it failed miserably.
In keeping with my promise to eat more greens, I also made a salad of beet leaves, kale, and a little baby spinach. I used an asian dressing Meredith and I had made together and put cucumbers on top.

Day 10: Big Whoops

2009-04-20T21:42:00.005-04:00

Last week I did pretty well timing out when I'd need snacks and lunches. I brought the appropriate amount of food and was never stuck without food.

Today I only expected to be at work until 1:00, but then had to stay until 5. Of course, I brought no food with me. A very big mistake.

Starving around 4:00, I went to a food market a few blocks away with fresh produce, and they sold me a tasteless apple-pear and navel orange. It was not a good scene. I won't be going there again!

The good news is that I'm feeling prepared to evolve the diet a bit this week. Meredith thinks, and I agree, that I've been eating too many high-fat foods. All the coconut, avocado, and nuts have good fats, but I'm not eating enough greens to balance my body out. In addition to the smoothie, I'm committed to eating a substantial salad or other greens in order to right that. Just because it's raw doesn't mean it's automatically good for you in a nutritional context! better than Doritos I guess... but not ideal.

At the store today I bought a whole bunch of stuff, including kale and organic beets with brilliantly delicious leaves.

I decided to try making a juice out of carrots, ginger, lime and beets. Although I made WAYY too much, it tastes good. The process was ridiculously laborious, though--I cut everything all up, then diced it in the food processor, THEN pureed the mixture in the blender. It was worth it though. I have like fifty bzillion years' worth of juice right now.

Breakfast, 9 am
This morning I had a green smoothie, still with the SuperFood powder.

I also drank some caffeine-free tea at work, which was satisfying on a rainy day. Although yes, the hot water from my office water cooler is probably above 110 degrees, I'm not rolling so hardcore that I'm going to go without some well-seeped tea.

Afternoon nightmare but-I'm-starving snack, 4 pm
In the afternoon I had the aforementioned terrible fruit. When I got home I ate a piece of "bread" with a spoonful of raw hummus and handful of sweet pea pods.

Dinner, 8 pm
After I made the huge batch of carrot-beet-ginger juice, I fixed myself some beet-leaf burritos. I made two different kinds: one a pesto and fresh tomato and mushroom and the other taco-ingredient themed. It was a little bit more food that I actually needed (one burrito would have done just fine) but I was mad about my stupid food day so I wanted to make something fun and eat it. I win.

Day 9: Everything's a mess

2009-04-19T21:29:00.006-04:00

The one day of the week I decide to dedicate to another project, namely gardening, everything else goes to shit. Including raw.

My house is dirty, my clothes are not washed, I haven't scooped the cat box.

And this is what my kitchen looks like right now:

Maybe it doesn't look as messy as I know it is (you can't see the kitchen sink from this view), but I am a disaster.

I was up early this morning and took my smoothie on the go, which has been a glorious thing for me. I love the green smoothies. (Even my mom wants to try one!)

But I am still finding my footing when it comes to tastes I like on this diet. While Meredith has given me a wealth of knowledge, and even provided for me things that I can't make myself, I'm finding it hard to diversify the tastes. I am one who doesn't like to eat the same thing really more than once or twice a week. Almost all the salad dressings and nut-based things are just undesirable, and I'm finding a need to be inventive.

Tonight for dinner I put soy sauce on everything. I wanted salt so bad I poured the rest of the soy sauce I didn't eat with my hummus-cucumber nori rolls on top of my spinach-tomato-cucumber salad (see picture on right).

I also made a pesto that doesn't suck too bad. I was transplanting some herbs to bigger pots today, and had to cut them back, so I had some fresh basil, sage, and oregano on hand. The pesto was a learning process. I am trying to make everything by taste, but maybe my sense of taste is not very keen. I put in: fresh basil, pine nuts, fresh oregano, garlic (wayy too much garlic), cilantro, lemon juice, agave sweetener, cayenne, salt and pepper. I love garlic, but man, this stuff burns. If I'd had more basil to use, I would have just doubled it and not added any extra garlic.

Day 8: Kombucha mimosa!

2009-04-18T11:11:00.005-04:00

Today I was awakened by at least five young children playing basketball outside the front of my house. It was glorious in the sun, and they were squealing, yelling, and... cursing at each other. "F***, pass me the ball d***head." It was horrifying. They were like eight years old.

Regardless, they had the right idea. Today is one of those days in spring you never get back once the steep of summer is here. Full sun, 77 degrees, no humidity. It's my favorite.

To celebrate I made a Kombucha mimosa this morning and sat outside drinking it listing to Fleet Foxes. Much more tasty than champagne, Kombucha promotes a healthy immune system and has a satisfying naturally fermented carbonation that mimics the tart of champagne. I used the citrus flavor for my mimosa, though there are other choices for flavors if you feel like experimenting. Kombucha can be expensive, but I'm told it's good for me. Plus it was on sale yesterday.

Because it was portable, I took my green smoothie for the midday meal, around in my friend's car while we shopped for bikes. It worked well!

I decided to buy Green SuperFood powder to amp up my smoothies. It comes in chocolate or berry or no flavor... so I got berry. I can taste the vitamins in the powder when I drink it, but think it will promote the health of the smoothies since I've been having them every day.

I'm not really feeling much differently than I was when I was eating cooked food, which surprises me. I don't know what I expected... magic?

I've been eating a lot of nut-based stuff and chocolate (like tacos on corn chips and delicious truffles) so this week I'm going to make a more concerted effort to eat more greens. Although I get a lot in my smoothies, I don't think it's quite enough. And it's mostly been spinach--without much diversity.

Going into week two I feel pretty good, but the time raw food takes to prepare every day is wearing on my schedule. Grabbing food wherever I am, out of convenience, is basically a non-option. I am always thinking about what to take when I go, and what I to prepare in advance. It can be fun to think about food a lot, but on my busier days it kind of stresses me out. Maybe I will find a balance this week.

Day 7: Taco flavored kisses

2009-04-17T16:14:00.003-04:00

This morning I didn't really eat or drink anything (oops). I was engrossed in some work on the computer (and a particularly wrenching episode of Hell's Kitchen).

With Meredith supplying me various interesting things a few times a week, I'm finding it pretty easy to incorporate all raw into my diet. Although I miss some cooked foods, it's not for any lack of satisfaction with the tastes of the raw food I'm eating.

Hernia update: it actually didn't feel very good today. There are times when I can actually feel my stomach popping in and out as a breathe that are really annoying, and today was one of those.

Breakfast (sorta), 12 noon
When I did finally make it downstairs to eat, I whipped up some guac without garlic (hoping it will last longer and not oxidize) and then just kind of ate whatever crap was laying around:
- Apple slices and a slice of 2-year aged (non-pasteurized) cheddar cheese
- One of Meredith's truffles
- Two little taco chips made from corn and spices with a pile of stuff on top: sundried tomato hummus, walnut "meat," a cashew "sour cream," guac, and a bit of cilantro on top.

Lunch, 3:00pm
I made a different variation of green smoothie today, with coconut water instead of regular water, and fresh pineapple I cut up this morning. It gave it a brilliant Slimer green color that made me pretty happy!

I was feeling generally tired today, but not lethargic like earlier in the week. Otherwise, I feel I have the same energy level as I normally did before raw food! We'll have to see if by the end of the 30 days I feel very differently than I did eating cooked food.

For dinner, Meredith, her husband, Dustin, and I plan to go to All the Way Live in East Falls! Woo eating out! A post on that forthcoming.

Day 6: It's sunny and life is amazing

2009-04-16T21:30:00.006-04:00

Today was a frantic day at work--an early morning and high-energy coordination of people throughout most of the day.

Pre-breakfast (a.k.a. what ended up being breakfast because I was too busy to eat)
Before I left the house this morning I snuck a bite of one of the truffles that Meredith had given me. It was delicious, but too sweet and chocolatey for food at the crack of dawn. Bad idea!

Lunch, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
I drank the usual green smoothie. No kale, just spinach this time. The usual sweeteners and frozen fruit. I have been considering buying this powder that promotes the nutritional content of the smoothie, from Whole Foods.

Afternoon Snack/More Lunch, 2pm
Leftover guacamole with real corn chips (dehydrated). While I was eating them, my co-worker Natasha came in to speak with me and I offered her a bite. Her eyes got wide and she said, "WOW, that's GOOD." I felt vindicated. PS, she ate MORE THAN ONE.

I also had a few bites of a leftover pear, which was kind of old at this point, and then gave me bloated feelings for the rest of work.

Pre-Dinner, 6pm
When I got home, my roommates decided they wanted to go out to a Mexican restaurant in Northern Liberties. I ate an ice cream ball and made a seriously amazing lemonade, with agave sweetener, lemon juice and water. It was sunny out, and we chatted, but I could only stomach half of the lemonade. It was powerful! I wanted to go out with my friends. So I decided I would go, would not eat, and just drink water. I can do that right? WRONG. I had a glass of wine... oh, cheerio. It was not organic. But it made me really happy, and I didn't feel bad after drinking it. I am at peace with it.

Dinner, 9pm
Home from the restaurant, I made a raw taco from the ingredients that Meredith made for me. It was great. I layered raw hummus, "sour cream," guac, nut meat, more "sour cream" and a little more hummus. I really wasn't feeling that decorous, just hungry. It was perfect. Drank the rest of the lemonade.

Day 5: My hernia, and why it is doing awesome right now

2009-04-15T20:53:00.006-04:00

One very important thing which I've shared with Meredith but not everyone else yet concerns a medical condition.

Apologies for the long backstory... in case you don't want to read all this crap, the basic gist is that eating in small amounts seems to be doing good things for my health!

BACKSTORY, IT GOES FOREVER OMG:
I have a hiatus hernia, which basically means that a bit of my stomach pops up into my chest through the diaphragm. In my family it is hereditary (both my maternal grandfather and aunt have/had it). I started having symptoms as early as 13-years-old--which doctors were unwilling to acknowledge because it generally happens in obese, older people.

It continually bothers me. Though not as bad as the initial discovery when I was a teen (which included intense acid reflux and corresponding heartburn, as well as difficulty catching a breath), it lingers. I still have shortness of breath and awkward tightness just below my sternum.

When I was younger, and then periodically, I was going to a doctor to treat it. He was trained as a chiropractor, then mentored under the guy who invented Directional Non-Force Technique (or, DNFT). Dr. Chris John is a miracle worker. (If you want to know more about this... I have stories about ballet dancers with sprained knees that left his office walking, oh, and the fact my hernia is imperceptible for months after 15 minutes with him.) But he lives in L.A. That's not what you would call regularly accessible treatment.

Last spring I became a little desperate, so I sought out a referral for a doctor in New York. She happened to also be a nutritionist and put me on a diet to promote digestion and stomach health. She believed that I was irritating my hernia by mistreating my stomach with high-sugar and fatty foods, coffee/high caffeine, mint, and suspected I might have a mild allergy to wheat gluten. Indeed, at that point I had been eating coffee (with plenty of sugar and half-and-half) for breakfast, Indian food for lunch and who knows what other crap. I acknowleged she might be onto something.

I followed the diet for about 2 months before faltering. I really didn't commit to it long enough to see the results, but was frustrated. It's all about immediate returns!! Plus, I didn't know what the hell I could eat. No bread? wtf!

Of course now I'm not eating bread and it doesn't feel like such a big deal.

I've noticed during the past few days that eating smaller portions has alleviated a lot of the tightness I was feeling. I am a little worried that eating some of the foods on a raw diet (nuts, coconut, avocados) with high fat will irritate it. But time will tell.

So far it seems to be promoting healing, and I will give more updates as I go along about this aspect of my health!

In keeping with a commentor's request that I post exactly what I am eating every day, I will do just that. I'll also keep closer tabs on pictures of each meal.

Breakfast, 10am
Basically I shoved a couple bites of guacamole--with avocado, garlic, tomato, lime juice, salt--into my face before rushing out of the house. For chips I used this bread Meredith had dehydrated for me.

Lunch, 12pm-4pm
Seriously, the green smoothie takes forever for me to drink! I made one before I left the house and threw the jar and a straw into my bag--which is perfect for meals at work on the go. I have been preferring to drink them while at work then worry about all the prep work to take a salad and extra tupperware for dressing and other add-ons. The mixture today was: water, lots of kale and adult spinach, about four dates, touch of agave sweetener, a whole frozen banana, handful frozen mixed berries.

Dinner, 7pm
Tonight was special because Meredith was showing me some new recipes. She made me PIZZA. Awesome. It sounds weird, but it was crazy good. Of course it had no real cheese, wasn't cooked or greasy, but it was damn satisfying. It must have been the fennel. The layers: first, a crust dehydrated; basil pesto; cashew and nutritional yeast "cheese"; spicy tomato sauce; sliced onion and mushrooms; slice of tomato; a little more pesto as decoration! [this photo is courtesy Meredith Frantz]

All day
I drank water. So much water. More water than I ever have.

Day 4: Hey, detox sucks!

2009-04-14T22:06:00.007-04:00

I want potato chips real bad. Just saying.

I had sort of a horrible morning. I woke up, as usual at 7am, to my alarm.

My arms felt really heavy, my body stiff. Especially around my cheekbones. Lethargy would best describe it--an inability to muster even 30% of the normal energy in my body.

I decided to drink some water, and then hit the snooze. EXCEPT I DIDN'T WAKE UP AGAIN UNTIL NOON.

I must have needed that rest, because I made it through the rest of the day. I never really fully recovered, but I got lots more energy in the evening.

In addition to the energy, I felt pretty relaxed even though I was making a lot of food, doing dishes, and other chores. The relaxation, I realized, wasn't really bodily so much as it was in my brain.

I am one of those people with constant "mind chatter," reminding me of all the tasks I need to do or all the things that sucked in the day, or all the dreams I feel urgency to act upon. At the end of the day, home alone listing to Buddy Holly, I did feel fairly content. The chatter level decreased a bit, and I was more able to live in the present instead of always thinking about the past and future.

In addition to lethargy, another fun part of the first week of starting a raw diet is: Farts! Though it isn't nearly as often or terrible as it may seem (a friend recently asked how many "porcelain gods and goddesses" I was praying to daily), they are part of the process.

Re: flatulence, Meredith says, "For the first few days there isn't much you can do about [the intestinal issues] because your stomach is learning to produce different enzymes, enzymes that break down raw food vs. cooked food. This is your body's way of clearing out the old system and getting the new, efficient system rolling. Once this transition period passes, you can eliminate gassiness by paying attention to food combining and making sure your food digests before eating more."

The food combining rule, as explained to me, generally means:
When you eat fruits, eat only fruits together--with the exception of green smoothies.
Leave some time before eating vegetables and nuts. They have different digestion times and the combination could be EXPLOSIVE (sorry for puns).

Day 3: KRABBY

2009-04-13T21:52:00.005-04:00

I got a little crabby today. By that I mean, I was gassy, irritable, and just wanted to eat Cheez-Its really bad.

I haven't wanted to eat Cheez-Its I don't think ever in my entire life.

To be fair, today marked the day I went back to work after a long, lovely holiday and that could have had direct impact on krabby-levels. It's chemical.

Same as yesterday, other cooked foods are still oh so desirable.

I came home to my roommate, with one hand in a bag of French Onion potato chips and the other gripping a delicious, cool beer.

I went to the kitchen, drank two huge glasses of water with lime slices, watched a TED video and then made some simple guacamole with garlic, sweet onion and tomato. I am happy now.

Day 2: Tempted by holiday goodies

2009-04-12T23:19:00.005-04:00

My willpower is not so great. That is why I have always assumed New Year's Day mottos like "I do what I want" so I don't have to worry about discipline.

However, the Project Raw experiment requires that I stay strictly within the raw lifestyle, no cheating.

I was invited to my roommate Dory's family's house for their traditional Easter meal. After shuffling around the backyard on a frantic egg hunt with Dory, her sister, and our friend Stephen, I had become pretty hungry.

I'm finding that I'm eating in small amounts nearly constantly (or every few hours) during the day. It feels very satisfying to be eating so often and to feel full... but not weighted down. Earlier in the day I had made my first green smoothie, which is a LOT of liquid. It takes me a few hours to consume it, but it has tons of greens (I used kale and adult spinach), and frozen and fresh fruits. I put it in a jar (this one still has the label for Vegenaise, which is kind of gross) and sip with a straw.

My friend Sarah Louise came over Easter morning bearing armfulls of fresh fruit.

For their traditional dinner Dory's mom brought out baked ham, vegetarian sushi, steamed asparagus, kale and quinoa, fresh cherry tomatoes and cheese... angel food cake with homemade brandy whipped cream.

It was a little bit torturous.

But I had packed up a nice salad with the fresh cucumber-dill dressing we made on Saturday, threw some raw cheese bits on there with tomatoes and it was very nice.

I didn't cheat! But oh, how I wanted that steamed asparagus.

When I got home I read Meredith's latest entry, and it was about how after a matter of time on a raw diet, she would smell familiar foods that used to make her salivate, but no longer really wished to eat them.

After two days I am not at this point (clearly).

The one concession I did make for the holiday was: a glass of wine. I grappled with the decision for a several minutes. Though wine is not "cooked" or "processed," most wines are not organic. Additionally, alcohol is necessary to avoid while detoxing. However, I do realize that enjoyment of alcohol is one of my pleasures in life. I decided that the glass of wine made me happy, I was not going to get drunk, and that it was a holiday (rationalization much?). I plan to generally avoid alcohol for the rest of my 28 days. But it is hard.

This is what I ate tonight

2009-04-12T00:17:00.004-04:00

I took a piece of "bread" in half, put red pepper salad on it along with sliced cherry tomatoes and avocado slices. Very simple.

On the side were fresh sweet pea pods.

For a drink, I had water. Meredith has me on bottled spring water to avoid messing up my detox with Philly tap.

It was really really good. Seriously.

Perhaps Meredith's enthusiasm is to blame, but there is something very freeing creatively about making your own raw stuff to eat.

During our session today, we made all the recipes by taste. I might really get into this.

Day 1: First shop, chop and blend

2009-04-11T22:59:00.008-04:00

I have made it through my first day, and hey--the food is good. Surprised?

So far (yeah yeah, after one day) I don't feel restricted at all. Yet although I'm confident that raw food is delicious, it is Saturday night and I've begun this commitment to detox from alcohol among many other delicious cooked foods. I went to a friend's birthday party in the evening, and she happens to be an excellent cook. I was a little sad I couldn't partake. It is my expectation, however, that the benefits of eating raw will eventually outweigh those immediate, nostalgic cravings for familiar cooked foods. Time will tell.

I met Meredith around 11:30 this morning (not before having one last coffee) at Whole Foods on South Street. The plan was:
1. Shop. Stock up on a lot of ingredients I will need, highlights below. Meredith also took the time to show me what labels the proper oils, nuts and fruits should have.
2. Eat. Ok, so that wasn't necessarily part of the plan. But we pretty much ate our faces off for the next 5 hours.
3. Prepare. In addition to the foods Meredith had kindly fixed for me in advance (especially those that were dehydrated), we went to her kitchen to learn a few basic recipes to start me off this week. And I made her show me how to make raw ice cream (number one priority of course).
4. Deliver. I typically get around Philly on public transport, bike or foot. But with all the stuff I had to carry, I needed a ride home!

When it came to our first shopping trip, Meredith warned me that the bill might be high. I prepared myself for $200, and came in under that. We started in the produce section focusing on ingredients to make my own raw salad dressings and vegetable marinades. Among some of the more notable stuff we bought:
- whole coconuts... which we hacked up later.
- apple cider vinegar
- cold pressed organic olive oil
- raw soy sauce
- Kombucha, a liquid live culture with active enzymes that create a bubbly carbonation--people swear by its power
- raw nori, or dehydrated seaweed used commonly in sushi rolls
- a whole lot of greens, including herbs
- frozen berries (for smoothies)
- Himalayan salt (it's from Pakistan/Nepal...)
- a whole lot of raw nuts: macadamia, almond, walnut, pine
- dehydrated unprocessed dates (which we soak in a jar in water as a sweetener)
- agave nectar (also a sweetener, the consistency of maple syrup, taste like honey)
- raw cheddar cheese (unpasteurized from raw cow's milk! yes it's legal to sell.)

After we had our Kombucha and orange juice Mimosas (soo tasty) we got to fixin!
We made:
- Green smoothies
- Two salad dressings, cucumber dill and asian ginger
- One veggie marinade
- Nori rolls with Chickun Salad (from a top secret recipe)
- Ginger almond "ice cream"

Meredith sent me home with:
- "Bread," or dehydrated mixture that resembles a rustic cracker or thin toast
- Chickun Salad
- Red Pepper Salad
- Frozen Banana treats
- Mint Chocolate cake

Needless to say, my refrigerator is stocked up, for at least the next 3 days. As soon as I got home and unpacked, I got kind of into this organizing/nesting moment. I made a nook for myself, separate from roommates' things. It will do nicely. I am very content.

My Last Meal: 1-Day on the Countdown

2009-04-11T19:32:00.004-04:00

My last meal was actually scrambled eggs this morning.

BUT--I'm going to feature the sushi extravaganza in Jersey last night with my family as my last official meal. The photo here is of an appetizer (what? so much fish), Trio of Tuna, with a ginger sauce. Yes, that is a bed of asparagus.

The flower was edible (presumably)!

Although a brilliant sendoff, I am pretty much totally excited about starting raw today. w00t

My Last Meal: 2-Days on the Countdown

2009-04-09T23:59:00.004-04:00

Food habits are a bit mysterious in that they're hard to be self-aware of--that is, until you attempt to change them.

They seem particularly rigid in the routine of your workday.

Lunch is equivalent to the break in the day, which is (or should be) equivalent to pleasure. Some anticipate that 10am coffee run, or the satisfaction of chowing a bagel in their hands while reading email. Some people love being able to walk out in the sun to the burrito place and people watch in the park. Without that walk, without the break, the food doesn't seem as nourishing.

I know I have my own food habits, but I'm not sure what they are yet. Gotta break them first to find them.

But I do know I am very busy and often buy lunch when I'm at work, having not dedicated any foresight to set aside time to shop for ingredients, fix a meal, and pack it. That is all going to change this month, and may be one of the hardest parts of this whole experiment: setting aside the time to prepare the food.

This week I tried to visit my favorite falafel truck, which I wrote about in Not For Tourists last year. However, he wasn't there, so I had to settle for the half-falafel at Mama's Vegetarian, a Kosher place not far away. It's good, but not nearly as good as the so-called "falafel nazi" food truck at 20th and Market Streets. I was a little sad.

Concerning Kitchen Equipment

2009-04-09T15:40:00.006-04:00

Until I visited Meredith's kitchen I assumed the only tools I needed were just some cutting boards, measuring cups and a knife right? It's just raw food!

The fact is, a lot of the more satisfying foods are going to require some more muscle to create the sort of textures and mixtures we want to achieve. A lonely chef's knife just won't cut it.

I came to the realization that I don't own all the right tools in my current kitchen to execute this diet. Though I certainly won't be needing an oven or microwave over the next 30 days, I will be using:

1. food processor
2. blender
3. dehydrator
4. ice cream maker (optional, but that raw ice cream is oh so desirable)

Though I am not at the point yet where I'd like to invest in a dehydrator of my own, I decided I should own the other three. If I'm going to be crunching up a lot of nuts and slicing turnips and so forth, I'd appreciate the ease of not having to do it all by hand.

One of my roommates currently owns a blender. Check.

Today I set out for Target to find a food processor and ice cream maker.

I succeeded in finding both, and they were $30 each for middle-of-the-road models, pictured here. Target users give them crappy reviews on the website, but I don't usually trust that. They both seem relatively small, easy to clean and user-friendly. I have no idea about the ice cream maker brand, but I have a Hamilton Beach stand mixer and it's great!

I briefly consulted Consumer Reports but in the end my priority was to keep the price low (though I was momentarily covetous of the KitchenAid 7-cup dealie that cost $100 bucks. I put it back).

I wonder if I'll be able to use my oven as a dehydrator for some things? Would that be particularly inefficient energy-wise? A question for the expert!

The first thing I want to make is raw ice cream. For serious. It is so delicious.

Project Overview! THE RULES

2009-04-09T10:21:00.004-04:00

Project Raw is an experiment. Our mission with this blog is to provide a comprehensive primer to those interested in trying a raw food lifestyle. Although everyone's bodies and tastes are different, I'm hoping the content I provide here gives you a realistic idea of what it's like to eat truly imaginative raw food recipes. I also think the information we provide will be very easy to try and alleviate some of the difficulty with the learning curve of a raw food diet.

By collaborating with Meredith Frantz, I now have a very knowledgeable guide!

We have set strict rules for this project, as follows:

1. I will weigh myself weekly and post before and after photos.
Although not everyone who switches to a raw food diet experiences perceptible changes in their bodies (aka losing weight), it is very common. We will track it just in case.

2. I will complete a worksheet of my medical history and lifetime of food habits.
Meredith and I have already started this process. She led me in a questionnaire where she learned everything from food allergies (I have none) to the regularity of my bowel movements. We will be sure to share the blank questionnaire with you to try on your own!

3. I am committed to eating only raw food--no cheating!
Although Meredith believes that you should always follow your tastes and be satisfied by the diet you choose, for the purposes of Project Raw I will not be eating anything over the next 30 days that isn't raw.

4. I provide Meredith with challenging requests for imaginative raw takes on some of my cravings.
In order to show that raw cuisine adapts far beyond spinach salads and carrotsticks, Meredith will let me put in 2-3 requests per week for whatever I want--be it Indian food or pecan pie!

5. I will partake in every part of the raw food lifestyle, from shopping to dining out.
We will go on several field trips--to raw food restaurants, shopping for raw ingredients at Whole Foods, and more!

My Last Meal: 3-Days on the Countdown

2009-04-09T09:40:00.005-04:00

Featured today as one of my "last meals" is the ever-loving standby, beer and pizza.

Admittedly, I am a bit of a foodie. Not just any beer and pizza will do!

The other day I had Ithaca Apricot Wheat--which is from a New York brewer from the Finger Lakes region. A ridiculously fruity beer, it reminds me of summers in Ithaca (where I went to college) dangling my legs in some creek or another.

Accompanying this fine brew is Santucci's Square Pizza. A north Philly staple, this fine-crust pizza is made with cheese on the bottom, sauce on top.

My Last Meal: 4-Days on the Countdown

2009-04-07T21:09:00.003-04:00

Hi! And welcome to PROJECT RAW.

It is my job as I blog over the next month to be as frank as possible about the experience of eating completely raw food. I am expecting some of it to suck--like feeling completely left out at some of those pre-summer barbeques! But I do expect most of it to be delicious. I will share it all here.

I have always been health conscious and have toyed around with various diets--vegetarian, vegan, pescetarian, digestion-friendly, detox and plain old American carnivore. I never set upon raw food as a good idea--it seemed way out of my league and much too hard.

Last month I interviewed Meredith Frantz for a feature article on DineIndie.com. (Shameless plug: Dine Indie advocates skipping the chains to dine at independent eateries.) She is a true renaissance woman who makes designer cakes, handmade dolls, and delicious raw food for her and her husband. Her energy is incredibly infectious, and I couldn't help being intrigued! We set upon the idea of a 30 days raw collaboration, and here we are!

It is my hope, if you are at the point where you are open to experiment, that this blog will give you all the resources you need to know:
- what is raw?
- why do people do this diet?
- where do I find the non-traditional ingredient suppliers (the ones with the bee pollen and spirulina)
- are raw food restaurants good?
- does it cost more?
- can raw food really satisfy me with delicious recipes?
- is raw food really that much more nutritional?
- more more more!

I will not wax poetic about how great everything is or try to "sell" the raw food lifestyle. I am as much an outsider to this as anyone--but I just happened to get the privilege of my very own raw food chef to help me along. Assuming you probably do not have this luxury, I am willing to share everything I learn.

Too often lacking in alternative food blogs, in my opinion, is some brutal honesty. Coming from a mainstream American diet, yes, I know gluten-free pizza dough tastes like cardboard. Vegan cheese slices are gritty on your tongue. Someone should have told you that from the beginning.

In the spirit of the last four days of my normal food-eating awesomeness, I'm going to spend this week posting some of my favorite foods.

I spent this past weekend at my grandmother's--where I get all my wholesomeness. Here are some pictures of some very nostalgic family meal items, including:
- Green Bean Casserole
- Frizzled Ham on buttered Wonderbread