The Farmer’s Market in Summer

If you live in Canada like I do, or any other climate that has definite seasons, then you know ALL about looking forward to fresh produce at this time of year. It has been quite EASY to be vegan and raw over the last bit because of the bounty.

So here’s the update…. ALL vegan and ALMOST entirely raw now for 48 hours. AND I feel quite amazingly well. I’m not starving today either…. I have a theory about the whole hunger thing… I’ll tell you about that in a minute!

So back to my day yesterday…. my raw oatmeal and raisin breakfast, a smoothie with some fresh made green juice from my juicer (cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, celery, spinach) mixed with whole blended fruits, some flax seed oil… delicious. A huge garden fresh salad topped with home-made salsa, and I did have a tomato soup that I will also add the recipe for that was so very good!  I also drank some Waiora detox tea, and lots of clean ionized alkaline water.

II am so proud of myself…. it seems like such a little thing, and yet it has become very important to me, and journalling all of this has made it somehow easier!

So now… let me tell you my theory about hunger. I was watching a youtube video about healthy eating versus unhealthy eating, and the gal said something that OF COURSE I remembered, and made so much sense and everything kind of went … click click click… I mentioned the other day that I was really hungry. That with all the raw food I ws eating I was still finding myself hungry again. This video reminded me that hunger pangs are a sensation we feel because we require a certain nutrient. That nutrient may be water, or it may be vitamin C or A or whatever. It may be a combination of vitamins. So her suggestion was to first drink a big glass of water. There is no sense eating if your body is really asking for a drink.

She also went on to explain that when you are hungry and you eat a Big Mac meal… say a 1500 calorie meal that has lots of calories but they are low on nutritional value, so even though you have met your calorie requirement for the day, your body still needs more nutrient value, so it will signal again that you are hungry in a few short hours, and send ;craving’ signals. If you continue to make poor choices, you can see how you can become overweight can’t you and yet still always be "hungry".

So anyway… up until this morning I’ve been starving… Instead of reaching for empty calories I have just continued to eat fresh fruits and vegetable, and a few nuts. A couple of days I feel like I just ate from morning until night. I didn’t count calories. I just ate when I felt hungry and that was often, and I fed myself nothing but pure whole food nutrition. Today I am quite a bit less hungry. My theory….. my body is getting used to all the fresh wholefood goodness and just totally stocked up on all of that goodness. I am pretty certain that my choices over the past few years have left my body lacking. (Imagine the shock!!) LOL

Anyway, tonight I am going to have some ocean perch (YES cooked) but the rest of my meal will be raw, and I am just going to enjoy the good feeling of putting wonderful, nourishing goodness into this body. I am finally beginning to understand how the people of  North America can be both overweight and undernourished at the same time!

I’m off to cook my fish! I’ll be back later, Happy Saturday my friends! :-)

Chili (adapted slightly from Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen)

3 cups sprouted whole wheat or whole (hulled, not pearled) barley (Wait, wait, stick with me here. If you are put off by the idea of sprouting anything, I suggest you just go ahead and cook your whole grains, then stick 'em in the fridge to chill before using in this recipe)

1/2 tsp. curry
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne
2 Tbl. chili powder
1 Tbl. italian seasoning
2 Tbl. Braggs Liquid Aminos (or just use some salt)
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 ear of corn, shaved (I used frozen corn, sue me)
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1 orange
5 large tomatoes, diced
1 cup dates, pitted and soaked
1 cup sundried tomatoes, soaked

1. In a big bowl combine everything except dates and sundried tomatoes
2. In a food processor, blend dates and sundried tomatoes into a paste
3. Add paste to everything else, stir well. Easy peasey!

Faux Sour Cream and Onion Topping
2 cups macadamia nuts, soaked
1/2-1 cup water
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup onions, leeks or scallions

1. In a food processor, blend macadamia nuts, water and salt until smooth and creamy. Add water a little as a time, just enough to help the nuts blend.
2. I went ahead and cooked my onions because I REALLY don't like smelling onion breath for 2 days after eating them raw. So, your choice.
3. Combine onions with creamy mixture and chill. Use a dollop on top of the chili when serving.

Shred the zucchini length-wise to make long strings (I used the big holes on my cheese grater). Throw everything together into a pot and heat on low just until warm. Take care to keep temp below 105 degrees or it won't be raw any more.

It was good cold too, but I liked it warmed up a wee bit. Note that mothers will not miss hot food. Since their babies were born, they haven't had a hot meal anyway! 

An Angel Saved My Life!

When I wake up in the morning now I am quite hungry. It’s a good kind of hunger. It isn’t a gnawing, dizzy, angry "my blood sugar just crashed" kind of hunger. Rather it is an "I can hardly wait to fuel up" kind of hunger. I don’t know if I can really describe it. It’s like my body knows it’s going to get something good and useful, and is letting me know it is ready to accept and utilize that fuel!

This is a HUGE change for me. Before I started this journey 10 days ago, I would never be hungry in the morning. In fact the thought of eating before 11 would make me nauseous.

Now if you read yesterday, then you heard about my raw breakfast follies and laughed along with me, but this could be serious. Raw fruit in the morning is not enough to keep the hunger at bay!

Well last night, an angel visited my blog, left her link on the "Add My Blog" page on this website, and left me a raw breakfast recipe which I am going to repost over in the recipe section! Althea Hughes Wills is The Raw Mocha Angel. Here is a bit about Althea from her website…

Althea is the author of the forthcoming book Mocha Angels: 365 Days of Angelic Wisdom & Affirmations and the award-winning novel Walking The Line. She has studied raw food preparation with Lynda Carter of Alive and Raw. This blog is about Althea’s journey toward becoming a 100% live and raw vegan.

You know I find when people write "about me" kinds of statements you never really get a sense of who they are from that. You really need to read some of their entries, and some of the comments in order to get a feel for that person. Althea is someone I would love to meet some day. I found out that she is a caring woman whose family comes first. She speaks to her readers instead of speaking ‘at’ them and she shares her journey without hiding the difficult parts. In other words… she is REAL! 

Her Mission Statement:

"I am raw vegan so that I can live to my highest potential and be mentally, spiritually, and emotionally present with my family and friends."

Take the time to visit Althea. You’ll be glad you did!

Getting Healthy Can Keep You Busy!

WOW I went the entire day before I got to my update post! I went to the farmer’s market again and just inhaled! LOL I just filled my fridge yesterday so I really didn’t need anymore fresh produce!

I also got a new page put up on my blog for people with wellness related blogs to add their site. See up in the menu there where it says "Add Your Blog"? It’s real easy… all you have to do is add your link and then grab one of the banners or the text link to put on your site. We’ll have our own little network of wellness sites all joined together in this community. FUN!

So how did I do yesterday?? OOOO I am so glad you asked! I made the most beautiful salad I’ve ever seen and it was delicious. It gave me the idea that when I make up something that I really like I should write it down here, so that led me to think that I need a recipe section as well. So that is what I am going to do. … And if YOU have a vegetarian, vegan, raw or just plain ole healthy recipe you want to share you can put it in the comments section.

So I kind of got lost searching for yoga info and didn’t really get to actually doing anything in the way of exercises yesterday, so today it was the first thing I did when I got my carcass out of bed! 40 minutes on the bike and then 20 minutes of long slow stretching while I lost myself in thought. It was delightful!

And Boy oh Boy you should see the bounty I came home with yesterday. Zucchini, cucumber, green onion, garlic, yam, carrots, yellow and green beans, peas in the pod, romaine, mushrooms, tomatoes, grape tomatoes, new potatoes, grapes, strawberries, mango, black plums, nectarines, lemons, limes, avocado, apples, tangerines, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, and thyme, and a bunch of whole grains…. Oh MY!!

Oh and I have to tell you my amusing "breakfast" story! If you’ve been reading along, you know that I’ve been quite fascinated with the whole "eat everything raw" idea. So when I was searching the other day I came across a site that talked about raw grains for breakfast, so I thought, "Self, that is something you should try!" I like to have something substantial in my stomach for breakfats, and apples and oranges don’t seem to be doing it. SO this guy said to get a variety of raw whole grains and seeds, (he listed about 14 different ones) and then grind them in a coffee grinder…. well when I was at the grocery store, in the organic section, I found some "Bob’s Red Mill" 10 grain hot cereal. It had most of the grains the website talked about, and had the added benefit of being already ground, and mixed.

So take 1/3 to 1/2 (I took 1/3) cup of grain mix, add about the same amount of water and soak overnight. I decided that I would add raisins to soak with it, so I added the raisins and water and popped it in the fridge. The next morning I could hardly WAIT to have breakfast! YAY no apples for me! So I grabbed my cereal, popped off the lid, gave it a stir, and put a big spoonful into my mouth.

Well the first think that happened was that the moisture that was in the cereal immediately soaked into my mucous membranes. What was left in my mouth felt like sand. I couldn’t chew, swallow… I could barely move it around off my cheeks and the roof of my mouth! So I immediately got out a pot and spooned the rest in with a bit more water and turned on the burner! That kind of grain is NOT meant to be eaten raw and don’t let anyone trick you into thinking it is!

Anyway, I think I am starting to experience a bit of detox…. today (and yesterday afternoon) my lower abdomen is acting up a bit and churning. I’m also less energetic today. HOWEVER I am STILL a hundred times better than I have been for the last few years so I can handle it!

So now I am going to go write up that salad recipe before I forget, and YES I am going to get to the article on juicing! (*nag nag* )

Could the Vegetarian Lifestyle be for me?

I find myself increasingly drawn to vegetarianism. I am very fascinated with the whole idea of eating nothing but nourishing, nutrition packed fruits and vegetables interspersed with whole grains. Today I had absolutely nothing to eat EXCEPT raw fruits and vegetables, a few pieces of my yummy healthy chocolate, and a piece of cheddar cheese this evening, only because I was a little hungry, and had a craving for salt.

It’s not that I have anything against meat eaters, or meat for myself. I eat meat, but I am enjoying it less and less, only because I am immersing myself in vegan and vegetarian research. I mean… LOOK at that picture over there. I feel healthier just LOOKING at a picture of food like that. First of all, it is visually appealing, second of all, a bounty like that smeels really great, and you know smell is the FIRST taste you get of your food. I see mostly fruits in that picture, but vegetables have the same visual and olfactory appeal.

I found myself ALL DAY researching vegetarianism, and raw foodism. I signed up for a bunch of newsletters and the more I read the more excited I got. It seems kind of a silly thing to be excited about. But why not… whenever you make a drastic lifestyle change like I have been making, you pretty much think about it all the time. At least that’s been my experience. So if I need to be obsessed about anything, and I need to lose weight, it seems that fruits and vegetables are a good thing to be excited about!

So what about the vegetarian lifestyle. I won’t call myself a vegetarian, because to me that denotes a certain attitude. Yes that’s it… vegetarianism seems like an attitude. So I’m not a vegetarian. I think I am just going to choose fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible. That feels right to me for now.

if I am presented with a chunk of cow or pig (hehe) well I may or may not eat it. Vegetarianism (for health) doesn’t need to be a religion. It will be a meal by meal choice. I do think that just for the first 30 days or so (maybe 6 weeks? to form a habit) I will try to be strict with myself, and make a conscious decision with every bite to stay with the vegetarian choices. I think it needs to be that way for the first while because habit always wants to pull us back in, and refined food withdrawal is likely.

So first I have some whole food, raw organic vegan powdered drinks and protein shakes on the way. (well I don’t know if the shakes are raw or not but I do know the drinks are. I am going to talk about those a bit later as well, because I have already had some samples and they are TRULY amazing and very yummy! But I think I will save that discussion for my next post on ‘juicing’. You know, vegetarianism is so easy, and SO appealing right now, being that it is summer time in Canada, and the bounty of fresh is plentiful, but what will it be like in November through to June? I guess I will wait and see. It’s not like we can’t get produce here. it’s just that it isn’t as fresh, and it is very expensive. With the cost of gas going through the ceiling, and the flooding all through the farmer’s fields in Canada, and mid-west USA, I dread the food costs this winter.

Oh well…. aren’t you laughing at me worrying about that already?? I just realized what I am doing… did you recognize it? I just gave myself an escape hatch in case the whole vegetarian thing doesn’t work out for me. I’ve created a perfect scape-goat in case of failure! That is so typical and GOOD FOR ME for recognizing it! You know, here is going to be the best thing ever about writing down my thoughts every day…. I will be able to recognize bahaviours that are designed to take me and hopefully stop them before they manifest a s a reality!

So back to vegetarianism…. it will be important to make sure I am getting all of the nutrients I need. I have see it said that B12 may need to be supplemented. B12 is mostly in organ meats, although wild rainbow trout and salmon have decent levels of B12, and I do love fish!

I have a number of supplements I take that I will talk about in another post as well, but one thing I know and that is that protein is NOT an issue like some people believe. Plants in variety will give us all of the amino acid complexes that we need to live.  At any rate I do have my back up protein shakes on the way, and I will probably have those frequently in smoothies and alone as part of a meal, so I am unconcerned about that.

So overall I think I have convinced myself that fresh organic fruits and veggies, leafy greens and sprouts are going to be a popular way to eat. I’m kind of excited about it!

I would love to know what you all think!