The ups and downs

What a yoyo week it has been! In food wise. Monday I started the day with green smoothie, and continued the day fairly well - huge sprout salad for lunch and baked salmon with veggie and couscous mix for dinner. Then on Tuesday I had no desire for smoothie at all, so I had toast for breakfast. I then ended up having vegetarian sandwich for lunch and as I got home late, I didn't have time to cook any proper dinner. I threw a pie and few chips into oven for my hubby, and ended up having huge salad with couple of chips (couple=10). Naughty, I know. But it proves the theory that if you start day healthily, you're more likely to stay on track of healthy food rest of the day. 

So yesterday to "balance" the naughtiness, I started the day with 1.5 litres of green juice (recipe below), continued with 1 litre of green smoothie and for lunch I had sprout and seaweed salad with salmon sashimi (I only managed to eat couple of pieces as that particular salmon tasted extremely raw fishy and not very pleasant!). I didn't choose sashimi because it had raw salmon in it (I'm not THAT dedicated raw foodist yet), I just fancied sushi, and wanted to opt out the usual rice that's in most of the sushi. For dinner I had rice noodle and tempeh stir fry with loads of veggies. It was my first encounter with tempeh, and I must say I like it (not keen on tofu though). This particular one was organic marinated tempeh from Planet Organic. Like tofu, tempeh is made from soybeans, but tempeh is a whole soybean product with different nutritional characteristics and textural qualities. Tempeh's fermentation process and its retention of the whole bean give it a higher content of protein,dietary fiber, and vitamins. Guess who spat it out at dinner table?

This morning I was in hurry so had to skip the green juice, but had lovely protein green smoothie. Roasted halloumi and quinoa salad for lunch from my favourite salad bar - Tossed. When thinking what to have for dinner, I just felt I had to have mashed potato! Don't ask me why. It was so good. I tried to ignore the accusing stares from Kate Wood, Victoria Boutenko, Natalie Rose and other raw food author's books from my book shelf while enjoying my mash, but they seemed to shout at me: that is not raw! Get those organic carrots out from fridge instead and dip into raw almond butter NOW! :-)  But I did have over 1 litre of green smoothie this morning, so I wasn't phased. 

Wednesday's Green Juice

1 smallish or half of large head of romaine lettuce
5-7 leaves or large handful of kale (I used purple kale as it's in season now and easily available)
1 unwaxed, organic lemon, skin on (if waxed and not organic, then peel it)
2 apples (organic if you have, I didn't so I scrubbed them hard)
2 organic carrots (easily available and cheap)
1/2 organic cucumber
1 stalk of organic celery

This yields 1,5 litres of delicious green juice.

Blackcurrant Green Smoothie

250 g Blackcurrants
Handful of frozen mango chunks (or use fresh mango and ice)
Juice of 2 large oranges
Handful of organic spinach
Couple of dates for sweetness
1 Tbsp of maca powder (optional)
1/2 Tbsp of bee pollen (optional)

The verdict? Still quite tangy and sour, could've done with more dates or maybe a splash of agave syrup. It was also quite thick, almost like a pudding, so more orange juice or maybe water would've been nice. Otherwise a great smoothie, no trace of spinach neither in taste or colour (gourgeous purple colour!), so excellent for those who gringe when hearing the words Green Smoothie.

Peachy Protein Smoothie

3-4 peaches

2 smallish frozen bananas (or fresh ones and ice)

4-5 kale leaves, stalks removed

1 Tbsp of hemp protein powder

1 Tsp of raw cacao powder

200-300 ml water

Happy blending!

Oh, nearly forgot: our little angel has been in monster mode again this week, I start to see pattern- one week nice, one week not so. Tomorrow is my last day at work before 2 weeks leave, so it will be nice spending some time with Maya, complete my to-do list for which I never have time for and then go for a short beach holiday with K, K and K. Can't wait!

Good morning routine

I recently read that good morning routine sets your day - if you have healthy breakfast you're more likely to eat healthily rest of the day. I think it's probably true, during the week when I have my green smoothies for breakfast I find it much easier to stick to raw or vegan diet, than the day's I have a toast or similar. It's especially noticeable at weekends as I tend to have "normal" breakfast with my family - Marmite toast with cheese or scrambled eggs on Sunday's - I'm then more likely to eat cooked food, this weekend I even had chicken. I still try to have my green juices, usually before dinner, so at least I don't miss out on my "greens" completely. 

Haven't been at gym this week as I sprained my ankle last Friday, I fell down the stairs. My ankle is still swollen, not as painful any more, but definitely not ready for any form of exercise yet. It's a shame as I just started to get into the whole going to gym thing.

As for our little angel, that's exactly how she's been this week. It's unbelievable how the mood swings with toddlers, one minute a tantrum throwing monster, another minute a giggly adorable cute little person. She's so trying to speak now, and can string 3-4 words together: Mummy sit here! =) And the mixing of 2 languages, which was of course expected (we are doing OPOL - one parent one language, I speak Estonian with Maya), but still interesting to hear. Only 2 more months and she'll be 2 years old!

I haven't managed to take any food pix again, and I haven't tried any new recipes, so that's a bit boring. But I have been shopping a bit, here are few goodies:

Shazzie's Raw Cacao and Almond Spread

My new hair care range - John Masters Organics. I got Zinc and Sage Shampoo, Rosemary and Peppermint Detangler. Love it!

Just some thoughts

I can't believe, my carb cravings are almost gone! If it's green smoothies or added hemp protein, not sure. Maybe both. I'm starting to love my green smoothies now, it took some days to get used to them. I've had 3 large glasses of green smoothie every morning this week. I finally got my Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko (I've tried to order it twice and delivery company failed to deliver) and I'm looking forward trying some of her receipes. Maybe this:

1 mango

1 kiwi

1 cup collard greens

2 strawberries

1 sprig of basil

1 cup of water

or

2 ripe peaches

1 grapefruit, juiced

1 cup kale

3/4 cup water

or if you can get ingredients, this one sounds interesting. Makes 2 litres.

1 cup dandelion leaves

1 cup spinach

2 cups strawberries

3 mangoes

1/4 pine needles

2 cups water

So what have I been eating lately? As said, I have over a litre green smoothie after my morning glass of water. Then around 9.30ish I've been having bowl of organic cinnamon blueberry flaxseed cereal with hazelnut milk -  so delicious. Hazelnut milk is my favourite nut milk at the moment, it goes really well with coffee too. For lunch I usually have a salad with piece of sprouted bread. One day I had a vegetarian ciabatta as I thought I needed some carbs because I was planning to go to gym in the evening. It didn't give me the energy I thought it would, so I will not do that again. Then in the evening I usually have a cooked vegetarian meal. I did try a savoury green smoothie (or cold soup?) for dinner one night, but didn't like it. Green smoothie for me has to have fruit in it, at least for now. 

On Wednesday I finally got out my bike. It's been in shed for 2.5 years, since I moved from London. I used to bike to work, but since the move I haven't had chance to use it. But now I have no excuse, instead of taking the car to gym I can use my bike. 

On another note, it's been lately a bit mentally exhausting at home. Maya is in a some sort of terrible two's at the moment, and everything needs to be challenged. And the screams and the tantrums are never ending. Latest thing is complete refusal to eat sitting in her chair. Only way she eats her dinner is either on my or daddy's lap. And the sucking of thumb that started last week, at the age of 21 months? Why?

I've started to take camera with me to work again so I can take food pix again, and I promise to be better on updating more often here. My next goal is to be 100% raw 1 day a week, haven't set a date yet, but hopefully soon.

My greenies and a thought about cravings

I haven't forgotten my blog, it's just been one of those weeks when you just do not want to open your laptop at evenings after long day at work, spent behind a computer.

Anyway, the past week or so has been ok on food wise. I've been drinking loads of green smoothies, over a litre every morning. I've started to find my own favourites now, some recipes below. It hasn't taken off my hunger for breakfast completely, but I'm having much less as the smoothie does keep me full for much longer than green juice used to. I still try to have my green juices in the afternoon before dinner, if I have time.

I have been craving though. Yes, this irresistible feeling when you just have to have something now! I have been craving for carbs - wholemeal toast, mashed potato and wholemeal pasta. One evening my dinner consisted of just mashed potato and nothing else. So weird! I have been trying to find more information about cravings, and there seem to be two main theories about cravings - one is that cravings are an emotional and hormonal imbalance and other is that we get cravings due to mineral/nutritional deficiencies. I think it's probably both. Cravings for sugar is a sign of deficiency of chromium, cravings for chocolate might be magnesium deficiency and carbohydrate cravings is funnily enough  protein deficiency!  I've been thinking for a while to buy raw, vegan protein powder to add to my smoothies, so I guess I have even more reason for this now.

My favourite green smoothies at the moment:

Pine-kale

1/2 pineapple
1 banana
handful of kale
200-300 ml of ice cold water (or add some ice)

Calcium blast

100-150 ml raspberries (can also be frozen)
1 banana
1 head of pok choi
200-300 ml water (and ice if desired)

Blueberry pudding

100-150 ml blueberries
1 banana
large handful of spinach
200-300 ml water (and ice if desired)

Happy smoothie making!

Now, need to order some organic shampoo from So Organic.

Green smoothies

When I started to blog I knew it was going to be difficult to find time to update regularly, but this has been the longest blog post draught so far! I just feel exhausted when I get home after long day at work, and many days I don't even open the laptop. When I get home, my evening is filled with juicing, making dinner and Maya's food for next day, playing with Maya and by the time she's gone to bed and I have a chance to sit down and take a breath, I just want to go to bed myself with a good book. And of course I fall asleep within 5 minutes instead of reading that book... 

As for my food intake, it's been up and down again. I'm failing to find a method that really works for me, Rose's levels 5 raw transition diet worked for a while, but somehow it didn't appeal to me for longer than a month. It seems to be same with any changes I try to make to my diet, it lasts about 6-8 weeks after which I really need help to stay on track. So I'm now going to try something else to help my journey towards raw food - green smoothies. I had my first one today - green smoothie with romaine lettuce and watermelon. It wasn't as good as it could be as the watermelon I had was one of those pale ones without seeds, probably genetically modified to become seedless and therefore also tasteless. Have you noticed that only watermelons with lots of dark brown seeds have rich, red flesh with lots of flavour? So note to myself - check that the watermelon I buy is NOT seedless. Or any other fruit for that matter. 

Anyway, my latest plan is to add green smoothies to my fairly healthy, semi-vegetarian diet and see if this helps me to switch more towards raw food. Victoria Bountenko says in her book Green for Life that adding a litre of green smoothie to your diet will help with various health problems and also helps to curb your cravings. I've been having bad cheese toast cravings, I hope to get rid of these with help of green smoothies. 

Here are some recipes:

Blend well following:

8 leaves romaine lettuce leaves

1/3 of watermelon

200-250 ml water and some ice

Blend well following:

2 handfuls of kale

1/2 ripe pineapple

200-250 ml water and some ice 

Blend well following:

6-8 romain lettuce leaves 

1/2 medium honeydew melon

300-400 ml water and some ice

Many raw food books originate from USA and one problem for me has been their different measurements they use in their cook books. One of the most common measurement is a cup. What is 1 cup? If a recipe says 2 cups of water, do you know how much it is? I didn't before but my friend Google helped me:

1 cup = 240 ml = 8 fl oz = 1/2 pint (liq) = 16 tbsp = 48 tsp

Another one is a quart, which I've never heard of before. It's almost 1 litre (0.95 l), so luckily easy to remember. 

I'm now going to look into various greens I can get hold of here in UK (selection seems tiny, at least in supermarkets). Besides the "usual suspects" spinach, kale, broccoli, pok choi, celery and romaine lettuce Victoria mentions greens I've never heard of: arugula, escarole, mizuna, lambsquaters (wild weed) and so on. From now on I'm also going to use beet and carrot tops, mustard greens, collard greens, radicchio and green herbs such as dill, basil, coriander (cilantro in US), fennel, mint and parsley in my green smoothies. Amongst more unusual greens are the wild weeds such as chickweed, clover, dandelion and stinging nettles. On my next walk to park I'll check out these super-greens! 

As always I'm full of enthusiasm when embarking on a new culinary path, I sooo hope this will last. Wish me luck!

Why so tired?

I haven't blogged about food lately, and I must confess it's mainly because it's not going very well at the moment. As you know I started with Natalie Rose's level 5 raw food transition nearly 3 weeks ago, and first week went well. My typical food intake was as I wrote in my post couple of weeks ago, almost exactly as level 5 should be. But then by the end of week 2 I started to feel absolutely exhausted, I started to fall asleep on the train on the way to work which never has happened before! I slept more than usual and quite well at nights so when I felt so drained I just couldn't understand why. Didn't have energy nor motivation to go to gym either. And I was absolutely puzzled - I was supposed have heaps of energy - I was drinking 1,5 litres of green juice every day, eating lot's of raw vegetables and even taking supplements in form of chlorella, Siberian ginseng, milk thistle among others. The whole thing resulted in me going almost back to my "old" eating habits - whole meal toast with cheese for breakfast, coffee a bit later, cooked vegetarian meal for lunch and another cooked meal for dinner. To my further puzzlement I started to feel better.

I started transition diet again on Monday, but by Wednesday I was feeling tired again, yawning throughout the day. I did force myself to gym and felt much better after but I don't get it. What is going on? Is this toxins leaving my body and draining all my energy? If this is the case, then I should just try to hold out a bit longer and it will go over. Me falling back to oldish habits is just going to prolong the whole process, but it's hard. Wonder if any other raw foodists have experienced anything like this, so far I've just read that many have got almost instant energy kick when transforming from cooked to raw and specially when adding green juices and smoothies to the diet. I do hope it's not only me...

Today I had gazpacho for dinner, so delicious! It's hot and muggy tonight and cold soup was exactly what I needed. I must admit that I cheated though, instead of blending it together myself (it's dead easy!) I went down the lazy lane and bought New Covent Gardens fresh soup.

One more day before the weekend, hoping to go to Farmers market on Saturday to top up my fruits and veggies. Now it's time to sleep!

Meet the nasties!

Just a quick post about the synthetic cosmetic ingredients you should avoid in your skin care products. This means reading lot's of small print on back of your products, as some of the products that call themselves "natural" still contain these chemicals, because the manufacturers get away with this if they have even 1 natural ingredient. Following list is produced by Aubrey Hampton:

METHYL, PROPYL, BUTYL AND ETHYL PARABENS

Used as inhibitors of microbial growth and to extend shelf life of products. Can cause allergic reactions and skin rash. Some studies have shown that these ingredients are slightly estrogenic and can be absorbed to the body through skin. 

DIETHANOLAMINE (DEA) AND TRIETHONALAMINE (TEA)

Often used in cosmetic as emulsifiers and foaming agents. They can cause allergic reactions, eye irritation and dryness of hair and skin. DEA and TEA are ammonia compounds and can form cancer-causing nitrosamines when they come in contact with nitrates. Toxic when absorbed into the body over a long period of time.

DIAZOLIDINYL UREA AND IMIDAZOLIDINYL UREA 

Widely used preservatives, works best as biocide in combination with parabens. Can cause contact dermatitis and release formaldehyde which can be toxic. 

SODIUM LAURYL/LAURETH SULFATE (SLS)

A cheap and nasty detergent used in shampoos for it's cleansing and foam-building properties. Often derived from petroleum, it's sometimes disguised in pseudo-natural cosmetics with the phrase "from coconuts". It causes eye irritation, scalp scurf similar to dandruff, skin rashes and allergic reactions. 

PETROLATUM

Also known as petroleum jelly, this mineral oil derivative is used for its emollient properties in cosmetics. It can interfere with skins own moisturising mechanism, causing dry skin - often creating the very conditions it claims to alleviate! It's used widely as it's incredibly cheap.

PROPYLENE GLYCOL

This should be a vegetable glycerin mixed with grain alcohol, both natural. In reality it's a synthetic petrochemical mix used as humectant in cosmetics and even in food (retains moisture, makes firmer creams). It can cause allergic reactions, hives and eczema. PEG (polyethylene glycol) and PPG (polypropylene glycol) are related synthetics, watch out for these on labels!

PVP/VA COPOLYMER

A petroleum-derived chemical used in hair sprays, styling aids and other cosmetics. It can be considered toxic  as inhaled particles can damage the lungs of sensitive persons. So no spraying nasty hair sprays around little children!

STEARALKONIUM CHLORIDE

An ammonium compound used in hair conditioners and creams. Developed by fabric industry as a fabric softener, it is a lot cheaper and easier to use in hair conditioning formulas than proteins and herbals,which are beneficial to the hair.Can be toxic.

SYNTHETIC COLOURS

Used to make cosmetic products to look "pretty", these should be avoided completely. Many synthetic colours can be carcinogenic, so if a cosmetic contains them, don't use it!

SYNTHETIC FRAGRANCES

Some of these fragrances can contain up to 200 different chemicals, which are not listed on products. Some issues caused by these chemicals include headaches, dizziness, rash, skin irritation and even vomiting. If the cosmetics has Fragrance as listed on the label, don't buy it!

The list goes on, but these are the main ones that you should try to avoid. The thumb rule is if you can't pronounce it, avoid it! Do go and have a look now if your shampoo or body lotion contains any of these ingredients. If so, would you still use it? Note that the worst offenders are the most expensive brands - Dior, Clarins, Clinique, Chanel, Lancome etc. There is absolutely nothing good in their products, you only pay for the name. If you want to splash out on your skin care, spend it on natural products (some listed in my previous blog post). 

Time for snooze now!