Thursday, December 6, 2012

Blog about introducing more raw...

Hey there blog readers!

It's been a busy few months I suppose, at least that is my excuse for not blogging more. Actually the challenge of merely typing with a baby under one around is multifaceted. He loves to bang keys. He hates to be ignored. He likes to be fed, changed, and cared for... So some things fall to the wayside. Luckily, I still cook a lot of fun, vegan food. I post it on Instagram (I am madisonconlin there too), as many people do. I love the community there. Instant (as the name implies) inspiration everyday. Pinterest too. I have a whole "To Veganize" category...

As I said, I have been cooking and baking lots. I try to be healthy, but the other say I realized every meal I ate that day had a component of flour (pancakes, pizza and pasta, I think). Nothing wrong with a little bread here and there, but 3 meals? That's not my usual day, mind you, I try to be diverse. Still, I sensed a lazy habit forming. I watched a couple documentaries about plant based diets (Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and Food Matters), and decided that it was time to introduce more raw foods into our diets. Luckily, Randy caught a few minutes of the documentaries, so he is on board. He is perfectly content eating vegan at home, when I do most of the cooking and planning. He does, on the other hand, have a hard time turning down pizza lunches and dinners at other peoples houses. He tries, but he doesn't have a passion for it (yet) so he struggles. I have no interesting in forcing him, I hope it will come to it in his own time. He is excited about the health benefits of raw juices and foods though. I really want the kids to be able to grow up eating healthy foods, so they will be able to make informed choices about their own diets as adults.

A few months ago, we borrowed a friend's juicer (she had no room for the beast), and got into juicing a bit. For a few days Randy had juice for breakfast and lunch (that I made the night before). It is a hard habit to keep up. This week we started it again, consistently. We aren't planning any detoxes or fasts with it, but its a great way to get the extra nutrients we probably lack. I am planning to try to make the juice in the afternoon/evening like I did last time, except this time for both of us. I know its best to drink it right away but unfortunately our lifestyle does not permit this. He works, I work in the evening and stay home with the kids in the day. Juicing is easy, but its messy, and requires prep. I do a lot of cooking already in the day and my babies need me!

Yesterday was the first day of my more mindful raw eating. "More" because I am definitely not 100%. I will gradually introduce more, and make better habits. For breakfast with the boys, we had banana ice cream, something we already regularly enjoy. Pureed frozen bananas, that's it. We topped it with hemp hearts (not raw), raw cacao nibs, sliced almonds, and blueberries. Wyatt also had some toast, because hes a hungry boy in the morning.

For lunch I made the most delicious raw tacos. Walnut meat crushed with cumin, coriander, cayenne and Bragg's (not vegan), raw freshly made salsa (tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers, onion and garlic), cashew sour cream (cashews, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar) and avocado on romaine lettuce. I started to get hungry around 11am, but because of the kids I didn't eat til about 1. I was pretty hungry, and these were so satisfying.

Dinner was easy. Raw sweet potato soup. There are a ton of recipes out there, so I just threw some stuff together in my Vitamix and blended til it was warm. Had a salad on the side, and was pretty happy. We always eat early, so I did get hungry later. I had a protein bar that I made (dates, apples, walnuts, coconut, hemp hearts, chia, flax, etc) and celery with peanut butter (not raw).

I won't be blogging about everything that I am eating, but I was pretty happy with my first day. Not perfect (oh did I mention the piece of whole grain toast I ate before bed, oops!) but still healthy and awesome. It is going to take some getting used to, especially all the soaking and sprouting, dehydrating and grinding. That is OK though, its all an adventure and I will learn as I go.