Daily food intake

What a weather it's been this weekend, 30 C today! Yesterday we went to Hyde Park with couple of friends to celebrate Scandinavian Midsummer, never seen so many people there before, must've been around 700! Was great day though.

Just had a quick look at my blog and it's full of text and no pictures! Must admit haven't really taken many pictures lately, will try more next week. As a compensation I'll put up some recipes.

Here is what my typical day's (Monday to Friday) food intake looks like:

I start my day with a large glass of water to flush out my system. Then I have large glass of green lemonade.

1 head of Romaine lettuce

100-200 ml spinach, kale or broccoli

1 unpeeled, organic lemon (if non-organic, then peeled)

1-2 green apples (Granny Smiths)

1-2 cm piece of ginger (optional)

I usually have my breakfast at work. I have 2 slices of organic sprouted bread with mashed avocado (if I have time, I make guacamole) and slice of tomato. To add additional fibre for this I eat 2-3 sticks of celery with the meal.

                                           

Here in UK I have found that only Sunnyvale Organic sprouted bread is easily available in most whole food shops. They use different grains to make the bread, one of my favourites is Carrot and Raisin one. So why sprouted bread? Sprouted bread is made with grains and legumes that are sprouted before grinding into flour. Sprouted grains have increased vitamin and nutrient content because the seed is first sprouted, making it alive and active in its growth process. It often tastes sweet as sprouting changes starches into sugars in some grains, which is also much more digestible. It contains no dairy, eggs and yeast and is usually baked in low temperatures to preserve to nutrients.

For lunch I have big raw salad, I try to have different ones every day, or if I make a bigger batch, 2 days in a row. My current favourite is Rose's Ambrosia salad.

                                          

Ambrosia salad

2 large servings

1 carrot

1 small beet root

1 medium courgette

1 smallish apple

1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced

2-3 Jerusalem artichokes (optional)

1-2 garlic gloves, finely chopped (depending how much you love garlic)

1-2 tps of minced or finely chopped ginger

3-5 tbls of dried cranberries

1/2 - 1 dl of walnuts, finely chopped

1-2 tbls of red or green jalapeño peppers, finely chopped

handful of fresh mint, coriander and basil

Use match stick slicer on your mandoline for carrot, beet, courgette, apple and artichokes. Mix everything together and serve with Liquid Gold Elixir or any other healthy dressing.

There are so many healthy salad dressing out there, at the moment my favourite is Rose's Liquid Gold Elixir.

1dl fresh lemon juice

1-2 garlic gloves

1-2 tbls fresh ginger, cut into small pieces

1-2 tbls Nama Shoyu or Tamarin soya sauce

1-2 tbls raw honey

3/4 dl of cold pressed olive oil

Place all ingredients except olive oil into food processor or hand mixer bowl. Blend until smooth, then start to add slowly olive oil as it's blending. The dressing lasts over a week in fridge. Delicious!

If I feel peckish in the afternoon, I have either fruit or raw snacks. Then for dinner I have another glass of green juice (at least 20 minutes before food) and then I eat either fish and vegetables or some vegetarian meal or more salad.

At weekends I'm eating mostly my "old type of food", as I often find it more difficult to stick to raw food diet then, and I've also decided not to be too strict. The transformation should be slow, and I know if I try to do too much too soon, I'll probably find it much harder. I'm hoping to be able to eat at weekends same food as at weekdays within a year, and maybe in couple of years be in a place where I feel I can eat very high raw food diet all the time. 

Now, it's time for BBQ - pork for my husband and daughter, and halloumi for me! =)

Bite that apple

Eating lot's of fresh fruits and vegetables sooner or later brings up the question: organic or not? Up to now it has been often a cost issue, if the non-organic produce is cheaper, I'd take it. But then again my consumption of fresh plant food was not as high, so eating some pesticides and other chemicals now and then maybe didn't do much harm. Maybe.

But now I consume huge amounts of vegetables in my juices, and I have had to reconsider my choices. I now ALWAYS buy organic carrots, cucumber, celery, beet root and spinach which are the main ingredients in my green juices and which I don't peel before juicing. Most of the nutrition is in or just under the skin of vegetables, but so are pesticides and herbicides. So you either peel it or get organic.

I've also started to buy organic lemons (again for juicing it's best not to peel it), organic tomatoes, cheese (if and when I eat it, might as well be organic) and my new found love - sprouted bread is always organic. I try to get as much organic non-peel fruit as possible as Maya eats them a lot and I definitely don't want any pesticides in her little body. Of course our food bill has been creeping up, but is there a cost on your health?

Here are the main differences between conventional and organic farmers (source: Mayoclinic):

Conventional farmers	Organic farmers
Apply chemical fertilizers to promote plant growth.	Apply natural fertilizers, such as manure or compost, to feed soil and plants.
Spray insecticides to reduce pests and disease.	Use beneficial insects and birds, mating disruption or traps to reduce pests and disease.
Use chemical herbicides to manage weeds.	Rotate crops, till, hand weed or mulch to manage weeds.
Give animals antibiotics, growth hormones and medications to prevent disease and spur growth.	Give animals organic feed and allow them access to the outdoors. Use preventive measures — such as rotational grazing, a balanced diet and clean housing — to help minimize disease.

So it's quite obvious why organic produce is more expensive - crop rotations, higher animal welfare standards and restricted use of chemicals which leads to smaller yield - all this means that organic food costs more to produce. Add to this that government subsidies mainly go to conventional farmers so they can keep the prices low, what can a poor organic farmer do? Well, at least we can help - the more organic food we buy, the cheaper it gets.

Below is a non-organic apple my husband bought for his lunch box. I always wash all my fruits when I buy them, dry thoroughly and put them in Debby Meyers green bags. So when I tried to wash this apple, the horrible, sticky wax would not come off. Yack! Wax is used to prolong the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, and is often of same composition as those waxes used to shine floors, furniture, shoes and cars. That apple went to bin then...

Bon apetite! Not!

The bodyworks

Some days I really feel like I have information overload, my brain goes blank and cannot process any more information. Big part of this is because of my work, but I was thinking that I do read a lot and I try to remember all things I read, which is quite difficult if you don’t have photogenic memory or super intelligence.

Anyway, since I have been reading a lot about nutrition and raw food and how our bodies work, I thought I might as well share this – for me to remember and for you to learn. Obviously not all I’ve been reading is so called “scientifically proven” but it’s not made-up facts either so there must be at least a grain of truth.

What I want to share is what I’ve learned about how our bodies work and what is the best way to nourish and nurture them and what is not good. Many of the tips are also useful for weight loss, so if that’s your main reason you might consider raw food diet, then you might find it worth of reading.

Waste = Weight

According to Natalia Rose waste matter in your body is the fundamental cause for excess weight and for many physical and mental illnesses. Get rid of the waste and you get rid of the pounds and feel well. So what is the waste? It’s anything that your digestive system cannot fully utilise or eliminate and gets stored in your body, some of it stays there for years. Here is the list of foods that our bodies have difficult to break down and should be avoided:

• All fat-free yoghurts
• Sugar-free flavoured yoghurts
• Packaged processed cold meat (ham, salami etc)
• All manufactured low-carb weightloss items
• All diet sodas
• Milk – including skimmed
• Frozen and/or processed microwave foods
• Sugar-free desserts and cacao
• White bread, pasta and rice
• Red meat

You might think that fat-free sugar-free products will help you loose weight, but it’s not so. These products are full of unnatural chemicals such as aspartame and cannot be broken down by your body and hence will be stored as waste. Stop looking at calories on packages, instead look at ingredients. If there is anything with E-numbers or you cannot pronounce or looks like chemical, don’t eat it. If you really want to have that yoghurt, get a full-fat, organic one, preferable sweetened with fruit juices and without artificial flavourings and colourings.

To get rid of the waste, you need to (as you might have guessed) adopt high raw food life style. Eating at least 70-90 % raw food will help your body to get rid of the waste and renew your cells, speed up metabolism and if that’s what you want – loose weight. Or gain weight for that matter, raw food helps your body to find the best weight it needs for optimal function.

So what more can you do to get rid of the waste? Waste is directed to your five major eliminative organs for discarding: skin, kidneys, colon, spleen and liver. Once you start to eat more raw foods, these organs start to release the waste and toxins, so it’s important to transform to raw food diet gradually not to give your body a toxic shock. Other ways to help your body to get rid of waste and toxins are colonic, enema, dry brushing and massage, exercise (increase of blood flow for organs and sweating for skin) and deep breathing (for lungs). Did you know that emptying your bowels in squatting position is more effective than sitting? Use something to lift your feet up the floor, so your knees are higher than your hips! =)

Food combination

For maximum health (and for weight loss) it's best to practice food combination. In simple terms food combination means that you should not eat carbohydrates and proteins at the same time. In more detailed terms, there are 4 basic categories of foods: 1 - starches (carbohydrates), 2 - fleshes (proteins), 3 - nuts, seeds and dried fruit and 4 - fresh fruit. Starches should not mix with fleshes, fleshes should not mix with nuts/seeds/dried fruit, and nuts/seeds/dried fruit should not mix with starches. The first 3 categories can be mixed with unlimited amount of vegetables, fruits should always be eaten by itself. Never eat fruit after a meal!

Ideally, these 4 groups should never be in stomach at the same time. Why? When you eat fleshes (meat, fish, egg, shellfish, cheese), then stomach releases acidic digesting enzyme pepsin for easier protein digestion. When you eat concentrated carbohydrate such as starches (pasta, rice, white and sweet potato, legumes, breads) the stomach releases alkaline enzyme to digest it. The acidic and alkaline enzymes neutralise each other, so when eating carbs and meat protein together, digestion is hindered, causing fermentation. Besides bloating, gases, cramps and burping, it might cause diarrhoea and/or constipation. To simplify: eat carbs with vegetables; eat fish and meat with vegetables; eat fruit 20 minutes before or 3 hours after main meal (best as first thing in morning); if you are hungry, eat more of the same type of food; nuts/seeds/dried food mixed better with raw vegetables than cooked; if you "mis-combine" your food, do it at dinner so your body has plenty of time to move it through your body before next meal.

Hydration

If you eat high raw fruit/vegetable diet and juice, there is no need to drink masses of water as you'll get plenty and more nutritious hydration through your diet. Of course it's good to drink as much as you can, but only between your meals. Don't drink any fluids 20 minutes before your meal and 1 hour after. Why? To help effective digestion of the food. If you drink too much during your meal, you'll dilute the stomach acid and the enzymes will not do effective job in digesting your food. Poorly digested food stays longer in your digestive system and starts to ferment and putrify, leaving waste matter in your body (remember: waste=weight). That's a hard habit to beat, I'm so used to drink something after a meal, so I have to consciously think not to drink with and directly after meal.

Chew, chew and chew

Chew your food! It might sound silly, we all chew our food when we eat. What I mean is to chew it until it's like purée. The more you work your food in your mouth, the quicker it's digested in your stomach, and the quicker it comes out! Most people chew their food only few times, so it's small enough to swallow it, but still in big pieces. Next time you eat your meal, concentrate only on your food (no TV or other stimulants) and chew your food consciously at least 25 times. Put you cutlery down and think of the flavours, the texture and how chewing makes it easier to swallow. Not only it aids digestion, it helps against overeating. It takes some time before your brain can registry that you're full, so if you eat slowly, you feel full much earlier than when you'd scuffle down your food in hurry. Give it a try!

Oh dear, it seems to turn into one of those mega-long posts again, so I better stop now. I'll add more info as I go along, otherwise you'll lose the will to read! =)

The tools of trade

Eating more raw food doesn't have to mean spending heaps on expensive kitchen appliances. You can easily get carried away with all the enthusiasm, but there are really only few essentials you need.

Juicer

This is a must if you want to include green juices in your raw food journey. There are 2 main types of juicers: masticating and centrifugal. Masticating juicers "chew" slowly fruits and vegetables, releasing more nutrients and juice will contain less oxygen, giving it longer shelf life. Centrifugal juicers work by using cutting blade on the bottom of rapidly spinning basket, centrifugal force forces the juice out from the cut pieces. The juice is less nutritious, and contains more oxygen, which means more frothy juices and short shelf life. Centrifugal juicers also struggle with juicing of leafy green vegetables and cannot juice wheat grass. So it's worth to invest into a good masticating juices, mine is called Oscar 900.

Blender

Most households already have blenders, these range from inexpensive to extravagance and is a must for smoothies. It's good to invest into one that can break ice as chilled smoothies are much better! When my old blender broke, I needed something quickly and bought Philips blender from Argos. It has 5 star serrated blade which is good for icy smoothies, but motor is not the most powerful one. On the other side of the price scale are Blendtec and Vitamix blenders, which are highly valued amongst many raw foodists, but not affordable for everybody. Definitely worth the investment as these will last forever and are very durable, so one of these will be on my birthday wish list!

Food processor

There are so many food processors out there so I don't even know what to recommend. I'm still doing some research to find one that appeals to me, so any suggestions are welcome. Blendtec and Vitamix blenders can be used as food processors, so I might try to combine these. At the moment I'm using an inexpensive hand held mixer and it does the job for small patches of nut cheeses, dressings and pates. But I'm definitely looking into getting something bigger and more powerful which will be needed if I want to experiment with more raw food recipes.

Mandolin and spiral slicer

It's not a necessity, but it helps you to create good looking salads and slices fruit and veggies very thinly. There is a variety of  mandolins out there, just take your pick! If you start to get really into raw food, then a spiral slicer is a great buy, as it allows you to make raw courgette spaghetti.

Knife

A good and sharp knife is a must in any kitchen but absolutely essential in raw food kitchen. Chopping, cutting and slicing of raw fruits and vegetables calls for an investment of at least one high-end kitchen knife and good sharpener. I invested years ago into a good Japanese kitchen knife set which also includes a cleaver (great for opening of coconuts).

Dehydrator

Absolutely not an essential, more of a luxury item but great to make convenience foods such as raw crackers, cookies, bars and breads amongst many other things. Excalibur is most popular dehydrator and apparently very easy to use.  Apart from preserving food for later use, dehydrating using a food dehydrator can also preserve the nutritional value of the produce due to the low temperature they can operate at. Cooking food at temperatures above 118ºF (48ºC) destroys the enzymes and essential nutrients contained in the food.  I don't have a dehydrator yet, and don't plan to get any in near future, if I fancy a raw snack then I have Planet Organic whole food shop just around the corner of the work, and there is an array of raw food snacks to choose from.

Need some sleep now, my eyelids are drooping and are hitting my lower lip any minute, so I better go to bed before I fall asleep here at the sofa. I promise to write more soon!

Food for soul

I've received some comments that I should post more recipes, here are few lunch and dinner ideas plus juice and smoothie recepies.

Kale salad - punch of kale massaged with 1/2 avocado, 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp lemon juice, added are few tomatoes, 1/2 carrot, some radish, olives and handful of sauerkraut.

Green smoothie - 2-3 green apples, juice of 1/2 of lemon and handful of kale, add water if too thick.

Smoked mackerel fillet with bean mix - can of black beans fried in coconut oil with 1 small onion and 1 garlic glove, add 1 pok choi and 1/2 courgette, sea salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli powder

Delicious honey mango smoothie - 1/2 honeydew melon, 1 mango, 2 tbsp raw honey, pinch of cinnamon

Green lemonade (courtesy of Natalia Rose - The Raw Food Detox Diet) - 1 head of Romaine lettuce, 1 whole lemon (if not organic, peel it), punch of kale, spinach or broccoli, 2 green apples and piece of optional ginger. Great beginner greenie as the lemon takes off the veggie flavour.

Roasted butternut squash and feta cheese with pumpkin seeds, mixed salad and tomatoes dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper.

Power lunch - I bought Chinese cabbage salad with green pepper, celery and marinated tofu and I added cherry tomatoes, sprouts, avocado, hemp seeds and dressed with Nama Shoyu (unpasteurised soya sauce).

Simple dinner - roasted sweet potatoes with salad and sun-dried tomato tapenade - 1/2 cup (125 ml) sun-dried tomatoes, 1 garlic glove, bunch of basil leaves, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, 2 tbsp of olive oil, sea salt and pinch of cayenne pepper.

Last but not least - raw chocolate mousse! I found great dessert recipe on Gina's Choosing Raw blog, she calls it Chocomole and it can fool the biggest sweet tooth into thinking they eat the "real" mousse. I blended 1 ripe avocado with 8 dates, 3 tbsp of raw cacao, 1 tsp of vanilla essence and a bit of water if needed. If not sweet enough add some maple syrup. It's delicious AND healthy!

Hemp seeds are full of amino acids and great protein source, I sprinkle mine on salads.

I found 2 more raw chocolates - one with maca and wild blue-green algae and lucuma bar. I loved the first one, but wasn't overly keen on lucuma bar. Lucuma is sweet fruit native in Latin America, used as natural sweetener, can substitute vanilla and chocolate flavours. Rich in iron, niacin and beta-carotene. 

Black olive and onion sprouted buckwheat biscuits - great to dip into hummus or eat with cashew cheese. Healthy-healthy snack!

First visit to a gourmet raw food restaurant

Goshhh, it's been awhile again, I've been off from work and my self-prediction of updating my blog a lot during this time has proved to be wrong. It's been so good weather this week and 2 of my best friends have been visiting us so the time has been passing by like a blink of an eye, and before I realised, it was Sunday...

So what have I been up to? My plan of having one-day juice fast didn't go very well, on Tuesday I had 3 large glasses of vegetable juice but I also had salad for lunch and lovely salad and tuna steak dinner. It was just too busy for me to chill and sip greenies, I need to plan this into a life span when I have nothing to do, so I can just relax and enjoy my new-found love for freshly squeezed vegetable juices, mixing into this long hot essential oil baths, body brushing and hot&cold showers. Somehow this seems like a distant dream, me being a full-time working mum for 18-months old super-active toddler and a wife to a husband with no cooking skills whatsoever... I promise I will try again though.

Rest of the week has been mixed rawish and less rawish food, the weekend breakfasts have consisted of freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juices with organic sprouted bread or rye bread with sheep or goat cheese. I did try a bit of smoothie and it didn't cause belly ache this time, so I'll have a go again next week with my smoothie breakkies.

Great thing is that I finally managed to go to one the best raw food restaurants in London. Saf in Shoreditch is a great place to spend a night with a couple of good friends. The food was great and we were all incredibly full after our starters and only managed to eat about half of the mains! Some reviews I've read said that the portions were small, which might have looked like that on those huge plates, but the food was really filling and we had no space for desserts even though we were dying to try the raw blueberry cheese cake. Next time I'll have just a main so I can taste some delicious desserts.

Pesto au Poivre - cashew cheese, sage pesto and pink peppercorns served with pepper flax crackers and reduced balsamic vinegar - incredibly delicious and something I'll try to re-create as soon as possible. Cashew cheese is now often in my fridge, I absolutely love it.

Cannelloni - courgette (zucchini in U.S), herbed cashew cheese, puttanesca sauce and basil - great flavours.

Sea vegetable salad - beetroot, carrot, daikon and avocado with ginger-sesame vinaigrette - love it!

My main course was Lasagne - raw bolognaise, sage pesto, olives, mushrooms and macadamia ricotta served with dehydrated tomato slices and courgette. Not best food choice for beginner raw foodist, I struggled with the mix of strong flavours and even though it tasted good, I couldn't finish it all - whether it was due to the richness of flavours or that I was full-up after starter, not sure.

Another main course was Spring Risotto - asparagus, radicchio and thyme. Rice was cooked but no cream nor parmesan. Seriously good!

And the third main we tried was Baked Tofu - miso marinated tofu, brown rice cake (cooked), asparagus and mange trout (steamed) - great mix of flavours, again very filling and would have been enough on it's own. I definitely recommend the restaurant if you're curious about raw, vegan food, they also serve great fresh cocktails and organic wines.