Fish or no fish

Haven't been here for a while, busy weekend. I was supposed to post this on Thursday, but the blogger didn't work at my workplace, so here it comes:

This week has been great! (I know, there are still some days left) I haven’t eaten bread, hard cheese and meat since last week, and I must say I feel great. I haven’t had any major energy boost yet, but I guess it comes with the time. I do try to think more consciously how I feel; can I already reap the health benefits of raw food? It’s not easy, but I think I feel lighter, not in a physical way, but like inside my body there is more space, no more heaviness like you feel after huge rich meaty meal.

This morning my hair felt very soft and shiny though, this being due to high raw food intake or my new and incredibly expensive shampoo and conditioner kit – who knows. http://www.ojon.co.uk/volumizing.html

I’ve discovered my new favourite raw snack from Raw Intent: Mediterranean Flax Crackers with fresh basil and tomato. These are absolutely delicious with a bit of sauerkraut on top of them! Since I started the raw lifestyle, I’ve been pondering over if I should have midmorning and mid afternoon snacks. I do feel quite hungry around 10ish, as the fruit salads I eat in the morning are digested quickly. So now I can eat something really tasty that is also very healthy – flax seeds are rich is omega oils and are good source of protein and sauerkraut is great immune booster and digestive aid. Only downside is the price – crackers cost over £1 each…

For lunch today I had huge avocado, Romanian lettuce and red onion salad with some leftover baked salmon. I have decided not to give up fish, not only because I love fish, but also I think that there is still some goodness in fish. There are huge amounts of studies done into the health benefits of fish, most seemed to agree that eating few portions of fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel is good for you – the health benefits outweigh the risks. There have been concerns about the pollution toxins in fish such as mercury, PCB’s and dioxins, but it has now been concluded that the levels of these toxins are too low in an average fish to cause any health issues in adults. Then there is wild or farmed fish – here I believe that wild salmon is better, apparently farmed salmon is being fed with feed high in PCB’s which is stored in fat cells and farmed salmon being the fatter ones means more PCB’s. Organic is of course to prefer, if price is not an issue.

So while I had my delicious spinach, roasted butternut squash and feta salad yesterday for dinner, my own recipe fish casserole was cooking away on the stove. As I get home quite late at evenings, I either have to prepare something quick, or if doing cooked food, I prepare it day before. My fish casserole has mixed fish, parsnips, 1 potato (for texture) and loads of cauliflower, spiced with fennel seeds, saffron and dill. It’s incredibly tasty, I hope that Maya will eat it as well; she’s not keen in fish, even though I’m trying it over and over again. One evening we had salmon with steamed veggies, and she would not eat it, so I decided not to give her anything else and off she went to bed without dinner. Didn’t seem to do much harm, she had the same food for lunch day after and ate the lot!