Why I’m Rawing It Up
Well, we all learn in grade school that getting our veggies is an important part of eating right. Some people go one direction and go vegetarian, then go vegan, then go raw. At first, I thought raw was essentially just an extreme form of being a vegan. But instead it’s just a very souped up version of living super duper healthy. And yeah you can still eat meat (and it can be cooked! No thank you, raw chicken.)
When I was in college, a book that I thought looked amazing by the cover was one in the Jamba Juice of The Block (the outdoor mall I worked at/frequented.) It was a book on Raw cuisine, and while the idea of of going raw intrigued me even more than 2 years ago, I didn’t buy the book. (Of course part of that can be attributed to the fact that in college with money being scarce, 25-30 dollars was hard to scare up.
When I got my new Blendtec blender (bought because Eric & I had wanted one forEVER to make awesome soups, smoothies, and the most to-DIE-for milkshakes), I bought two books that were recommended by Amazon, Green For Life and Green Smoothie Revolution.
Victoria Boutenko relayed her amazing, amazing recovery from her and her husband being practically near death due to various illnesses. Both of her kids also had sicknesses that are hard to grow up with – her son had diabeties, and her daughter had asthma.
After switching to an all raw food lifestyle – and then additionally, later, adding in green smoothies – the WHOLE family got better. Literally. The son doesn’t have diabeties, the husband who had been told he had 2 months to live is healthy, the daughter no longer has asthma, and Miss Victoria herself, aside from the health benefits of losing over 100 pounds, also gained (pardon the cheez, folks) a second chance of living, free from her ailments.
Honestly I won’t lie, part of me is in it for the weight loss. Just from a brief foray onto Chat Roulette (I’ll write another post about THAT hilarious beast later) it’s obvious that the average person still feel’s it’s okay to make fun of, belittle, and generally be disgusted by a fat person. While I myself am not disgusted by myself, quite the opposite (I’ve gotten past my sad self-loathing days-a-thank-yew), there are physical things that I just cannot DO because I feel physically trapped by the body I’m in. I manage to make do for Joshua Tree rock climbing, the main thing I’m DYING to do is parkour.
My fiance is pretty thin, but he isn’t really strong enough to do parkour things as well, hence why as I switch myself over to this lifestyle, when he’s at home I work towards making him healthy as well. While I do have the strength to do it, I don’t have the stamina, nor the sleek physique to squeeze through tiny spots. The strength is limited when I have to deal with an extra 100 pounds more than the average person does.
At first I had planned on just making green smoothies, which I tend to drink mostly daily. (I’ve skipped a day or two here and there, but overall drinking them for just more than a week has made me feel better and I plan on drinking more of these.) But the more I look into eating raw, and the more I learn about the health benefits, I eventually had to ask myself this question.
If, in 20 years, I had cancer and was going to die prematurely… and I found out that I could have prevented all of it by simply learning how to properly eat right, what would my future self think of my current self?
What if I was told that I could have skipped having all these diseases? I don’t think at this point enough long term studies have been done in a scientific setting to make complete scientific proof that we should all live this way for perfect optimum health, but I think that between all the people who have switched to this method of eating (and by switch I mean go somewhere between 80% and 100% raw), not only do they get healthy, they also manage to stave off other sicknesses as well.
The main trend I see with raw food is “first I started it for a whim/to be healthy for a detox period/just to test it for 30 days (or) 100 days” but then it turns to “and it made me just feel so healthy that I just kept doing it.” This is what I am striving for as well. My main thing right now is, if I can replace it with something made in a raw food method, than I might as well because it’ll be better for me overall. Of course, provided it can be eaten raw. (No raw rhubarb or raw kidney beans. Cause, you know. Poisonous.)
Parsnip rice, teriyaki shiitake marinated mushrooms, this is my new favorite recipe.
Honestly I made that between last night and tonight. The mushrooms marinated for 24 hours (Eric and I meant to eat this last night but we filled up on salad), and made the parsnip (slash pine nut slash macadamia nut “rice”) last night as well. Tonight was feeling peckish and remembered I had the ingredients for this. And omg this is GOOD. This is actually my second round of it because the first one was a wee bit loose and not picture worthy (although I nommed it down anyways.)
Cool things: If you want meat, you can have meat. Just pair it with other meat, not with a starch, or else it makes the digestion process longer (also don’t pair with nuts or fruits). Also try to get the grass fed kind when you can, if you can, because it has better nutrients from the chlorophyll from the grass versus the sugar/fats/blahs from cooked over processed corn. If you want starch, pair it with another starch. Have a sweet potato (I have a pretty decent looking recipe for maple sweet mashed potatoes that are raw, going to have to make that soon), and some bread. You can also eat veggies with most groups just not with fruit. Fruit, when starting out, is best by itself, and you’ll want to try to wait 30 minutes before you eat something else. Actually, I’m gonna let you go check it out for yourself – The Raw Food Detox is Natalia Rose’s book on basic way to move yourself towards eating raw-er and healthier. Some people do go all the way raw, I’m going to ride this out myself and see if I like it, and where I want it to take me. Can’t wait to make some dehydrated sprouted grain cacao crepes.
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