Raw Food Haven

Recently the Raw Foods movement has been getting attention for it’s ability to help you look younger, feel more energetic, loose weight, and live longer. Some even claim it can reverse diabetes and other degenerative diseases. Whether you agree with the claims or not you may be curious about the diet. A healthy curiosity is what brought me to raw foods, well that and a gorgeous book.

I was drawn to the raw foods movement by the book RAW by Roxanne Klein and Charlie Trotter. It’s beautiful cover beckoned to me from it’s well merchandised shelf. The forward and the introduction made the concept of eating raw foods sound positively enlightened. The section on local, sustainable farming and eating seasonally sealed the deal and I was ready to dive deep into raw cuisine. It seemed like the dietary path most aligned with what I wanted for myself and the planet. Then came the practical application of the concept, the recipes. The ingredient lists and the instructions (which called for a batch of something else on some other page, which in turn called for a half batch of yet another recipe) were overwhelming. The time and organization required to make the majority of the dishes was nothing less than shocking. My romance with raw food ended abruptly after a few ego-crushing attempts to make dishes that tasted, at best, mediocre.

Luckily during my enthusiastic first days of infatuation, my supportive husband loaded up our library card with books, new and old, on raw cuisine. Turns out the concept need not be as glamorous or challenging as keeping up with Trotter and Klein. It was really simple, eat whole, raw foods in their natural state. Easy. A quick review of how I was already eating, lots of salads, fresh veggies and fruits, had me thinking, “I’m half way there. A few changes and I can go raw- no problem.” I embarked on a two week raw adventure and, since I’m the only cook in our house, I took my family along for the ride. The raw cleanse was fantastic, we all loved the food. My husband thought we were “eating like kings”. My daughter was showing off our raw crackers and nut cheeses at school. I was feeling energetic and clear headed without coffee. A beautiful side effect of the cleanse was that the pesky little bit of cellulite on the back of my thighs that somehow hangs on despite regular exercise disappeared. That was it, I was sold.

Although I love my raw food results, I’m not going 100% raw. I’m not a believer in exclusive, restrictive diets and raw can definitely be both if you let it. Truth be told, roasted garlic and sautéed onions are just too delicious to exclude from my diet in the name of adhering to an absolute protocol. I love broccoli steamed, sweet potatoes baked, and a host of other cooked foods. Instead of being a purist, I see raw foods as a significant source of healthy dishes in my diet, a new culinary frontier that challenges my creativity, and a delicious way to eat more vegetables than I ever have. The pious can judge me for failing to go fully raw, and while they do pass me their portion of pan seared ahi. That’s right, I’m not even a vegetarian. Judge away! The bottom line is raw foods is not the path to health, it’s a path to health. Take from it what works with your body and carve your own dietary path through this life.

There is no doubt in my mind that raw foods are beneficial, that they are worth the trouble, time and expense. Raw Food Recipes perfect the art of getting more vegetables in our diets in more delicious ways than I ever thought possible. The most amusing part of my raw foods experience is seeing veggie-haters gobble up “neat balls” or BLTs made with eggplant bacon and ask for seconds without even knowing their whole meal is composed of all raw foods. Give raw foods a shot. If you want the full experience, try a week long or fourteen day raw cleanse. If you have a social life, a job, and a family that you cannot (and why would you want to) put on hold during your adventures in raw food, here are some tips.

The real key to a successful raw diet is to keep it simple. Save the challenging recipes for special occasions and learn how to make everyday meals special with easy, time saving tricks.

If done well, you will spend less time and money on your raw meals than you do on a Standard American Diet (which raw foodists refer to as SAD). Processed foods, meat and dairy are expensive compared to in-season vegetables and fruits.

You will need to spend more time planning meals and be more organized, unless of course you outsource that to menu plans, which are fabulous for saving time, money and trips to the store. If you are serious about going raw you can even hire a raw foods coach.

You won’t need to eat as much as you normally do. At first we overate and felt uncomfortably full. Be aware that the food is more nutrient dense, you’ll need less to feel full. Eat, chill out and chat a while, then eat more if you are still hungry.

Try new things! Before our adventures in raw food we never ate beets, kale, chard, and a host of other nutrient rich foods that we now enjoy on an almost daily basis. Raw recipes boast delicious ways of incorporating foods that are generally unpopular. If you discount recipes whenever you see a vegetable that you normally don’t enjoy, you will miss out on massive dietary benefits.

Don’t feel pressure to go raw and stay raw. Try it out and see what works for your body. After our raw adventure we stuck with about an 80% raw plan with great results in energy level, appearance and over-all health.

Joy Houston is author of The Delicious Revolution, and a life long student of healthy cooking.

Her books http://www.healthyfoodscookbook.com and website http://www.thedeliciousrevolution.com, offer recipes for the practical application of current health news. It’s not enough to know what foods are good for you, you need delicious ways to prepare them so you consume them regularly.

Her recipes are quick, easy and presented in a very entertaining style. She offers time and money saving meal plans and easy-to-follow instructional videos.

Have you bought the idea that a completely raw food diet is the ultimate, most logical, best diet for all humankind, no matter where they live in the world? (Like eskimos eating watermelon…)

It seems to me that it’s the implied idea transmitted by many raw-foodists, raw food website, books and seminars.

The idea is:

Raw Food is Good, Cooked Food is Evil, and the World Would Be a Better Place If Everyone Ate Only Raw Foods

OK, I may be exaggerating, but often that’s the general tone of many of the raw food gurus’ message.

Is it actually true?

Would it be possible that the resources required to transport those foods would actually make the Raw Food diet fairly unecological, considering the fact that eating a diet of bananas and mangoes in Northern Canada isn’t the most natural choice?

How much food do you need as a 100% raw food eater?

It’s fairly well-known that anyone deciding to eat only raw foods in a sustainable way (for health) needs to eat a tremendous quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables.

In order to get enough calories from fruits and vegetables, without using too much raw fat (which would be detrimental for health), here’s the average amount of food that’s necessary:

For a 2000 calorie diet: 10 pounds a day (with peels and all)
For a 3000 calorie diet: 15 pounds a day (with peels and all)

I based those numbers on average consumption most 100% raw foodists go through in a typical day (those who are not on a detox program!).

So basically, 70 to over 100 pounds of food per week!

That’s a lot.

Where does your food come from?

If we would want to get a more accurate picture on the ecological impact that eating a large quantity of imported fruits would have versus a smaller quantity of local cooked, animal or grain foods, we would need to analyze a lot of variables. I haven’t been able to get an accurate estimate from the data that’s available.

But just knowing that most imported fruits come from fairly far away, and that large quantities are necessary on a completely Raw Food Diet, I can draw the obvious conclusion that eating this way is not necessarily the most logical, natural and ecological choice.

Consider that:

- Grapes from Chile travel a minimum of 4000 miles to get to you

- Bananas from Costa Rica travel about 2000 miles or more to get to you

- Mangoes from Mexico at least 1000 miles to get to you

- And so on…

All of the fossil fuels used to transport all of these foods leave an impact, which may offset or even counter-balance the possible environmental benefits of choosing a raw vegan diet (which requires less resources when produced locally), versus a local diet that would contain both raw, cooked, plant and possibly even animal foods.

It’s always been obvious to me that a diet of all raw foods in Canada makes less sense on many levels that one that includes some cooked foods, more local foods and fewer imported fruits.

There’s also the fact that these fruits are picked unripe in many cases, the acidity level is too high and the nutrient level too low.

So is the solution for all raw-food enthusiasts to move to the tropics? Certainly not!

My point is:

- There’s no need to demonize cooked food – A diet that includes both raw and cooked food makes a lot of sense on many levels. You don’t have to eat 100% raw. This is really an individual choice based on your health, your location, and your preference.

- A raw food diet can be unnatural – Eating 100% raw foods in the north can be unnatural and unsustainable. And for many more reasons that I can expand on in future articles, it’s certainly not a solution that can be proposed to the entire world!

- If you live in the north, follow the seasons – Many people, as summer approaches, have the desire to include more raw food in their diet. But in the winter, instead of freezing to death, they choose to incorporate more raw, cooked foods. That is perfectly fine, natural and even desirable for most people.

Here’s a list of some additional tips to enable you to eat more ecologically and sustainably, while incorporating more raw fruits and vegetables in your diet, no matter where you live:

1- Freeze Berries and other Fruits in Season – Berries are some of the most nutritious and antioxidant-packed foods you can eat. To avoid the consumption of too much imported foods in the winter, I encourage you to freeze a huge quantity of ripe, local, organically grown (or wild) fresh berries when they are in season. I personally freeze a lot of wild blueberries, which are local. Then, use them throughout the winter in your recipes. You can thaw them in advance to avoid the negative effect of consuming cold foods.

2- Grow Sprouts – Grow some fresh, toxin-free sprouts such as clover and sunflower greens, to get a supply of cheap, fresh, local vegetables in the winter!

3- Avoid out of Season Fruits – Some fruits may be available in your store, but may actually be out of season in your hemisphere of the world. If you live in North America, the season for grapes usually ends in September or October. Grapes during the winter are imported from countries situated in the opposite hemisphere, such as Chile, where the seasons are reversed. Avoid that! Learn the seasons of different fruits and vegetables and choose to avoid foods imported from such far-away places.

4- Make Different Salads and Vegetable Dishes in the Winter – In one of my recipe books, I give different kinds of salads and dressings depending on the season. In the winter, I recommend salads made with cabbage, carrots and other root vegetables. In the summer, I incorporate more lettuce, tomatoes and fresh vegetables. You should do the same.

5- Shun Exotic Fruits – Exotic fruits such as durian, Thai coconuts and litchis can be great to try, but they inevitably come from faraway countries such as Thailand. In addition to leaving a huge ecological impact for being imported from so far, they are also heavily sprayed with toxic chemicals. Durians are particularly notorious for that. Try them for fun, but stick to fruits and vegetables as local as possible – at least from somewhere you could drive to.

Finally, I would like to encourage you to continue making the best choices for your health. Sometimes, that may sometimes mean:

- Eating fresher, locally grown commercial foods instead of less fresh, imported organic foods

- Eating ripe, local commercial food instead of unripe, imported organic foods

- And eating some cooked, warm “local” food instead of just cold imported fruits

Lookt at true consequences of your own choices, and realize that there’s not one size that fits all.

Frederic Patenaude is the author of the book “The Raw Secrets” and offers a free subscription to his ezine “Outrageous Health & Success” — available at http://www.FredericPatenaude.com