Day 24

Today it was like Christmas! I received my raw supplies from Amazon which came in 7 or 8 different boxes...SO EXCITING! The raw supplies I ordered were: raw cacao powder, extra virgin coconut oil, raw shredded coconut, raw cashews, raw sunflower seeds (sans shells), raw flax seeds, nutritional yeast (which has a cheesy flavor and is used in the vegan world when cheese flavor is wanted), raw superfood vanilla flavored protein powder, and the most exciting item - World Cuisine's tri-blade plastic spiral vegetable slicer, which I am going to use to turn zucchini into spaghetti noodles. Here is a picture of the wondrous tool:

Since starting this journey I have been blown away by the amazingly beautiful raw creations that people have come up with. Here are a few that I have found particularly impressive:

Nut-Free Bread
 (that requires no cooking!)

(from http://therawchef.com/therawchefblog/nut-free-bread)

Soft Corn Raw Tacos

(again with only a dehydrator for "cooking")

(from http://gliving.com/category/greenchefs/page/13/)

The taco recipe is a bit too complex for me. I thought I would have Rhea make it for me :)

Tomato & Macadamia Mozzarella Linguine
(with pasta made from carrots and parsnips)

(from http://therawchef.com/therawchefblog/tomato-macadamia-mozzarella-linguine)

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart

(completely unbaked!)

(from http://gliving.com/dark-chocolate-peanut-butter-tarts/#more-5437)

Vanilla Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream

(dairy-free!)

 

(http://inspiredbyeverything.blogspot.com/2009/03/raw-style-vanilla-strawberry-swirl-ice.html)

I could go on & on. I am just amazed by peoples' creativity. As a non-cook they are my heroes!

Today I decided to ease up a bit, and allow myself "real" dressing and bread. I had a yummy veggie sandwich and salad for lunch. The dressing did have milk in it, which is now on my banned foods list, but I figured since it was already purchased I didn't want the cow that provided the milk to have done so in vain. I am certain to my core that I will not purchase any animal products that I don't know with 100% certainty what their living conditions were like and how they were treated. [Fun factory farm animal fact of the day: in traditional dairies, milk cows live approximately 20 years, whereas on a factory farm their life expectancy is 4 years. Does that seem healthy?]

Anyway, I haven't been sticking very well to a traditional eating plan. My schedule is all a mess and I have been waking up really late (4 p.m. or so) and have been trying to get to bed early (4 a.m. or so) so it doesn't really provide enough time for all of my meals. That's why I decided to add a couple of non-raw items to my diet. I want to make sure that I am getting enough calories because I am continuing to work out during this raw transition. I also purchased a book entitled, "The Raw Food Detox Diet" and the author (who took 5 years to fully transition) highly recommends phasing into the raw diet rather than making such a huge change suddenly. I am committed to sticking with this and I don't want to mess it up by being too strict with myself.

Each day I make sure that I start out with some fruit and then I focus on vegetables for my next meal . I have fruit as a snack and try to incorporate some nuts too (just a handful or so). Tonight I am planning on partaking in a smoothie as I haven't had one of these yet and I want to be sure to have one smoothie per day. It's the best way to get a lot of vegetable and fruit servings in one meal, and it's supposed to be pretty easy to fix.

On a final note, I attempted to create my first dessert recipe tonight. I made some chocolate coconut balls without the vanilla (I didn't have any on hand). The mix is in the freezer now, so I will let you know tomorrow how it turns out! Also, I did get in 30 minutes of exercise today - a 20 minute walk with Cooper and roughly 5 minutes on the elliptical, then a cool down. My back started aching pretty badly so I decided to listen to my body and quit. I know, I know. I need to go see a chiropractor! :)