Day One: 100% Raw for Thirty Days +

Why 100% Raw?

Having researched raw food and read Jinjee and Storm's ebook on Ecstatic Birth, I am conducting an experiment of going 100% in the last month of our pregnancy. Bulking up on nutrient dense food can only be a good thing and will help in the production of high quality baby milk and the hope is that as raw foods have such a profound effect at a cellular level that it makes birthing quicker and easier. As Jinjee writes about her 100% raw birth, "My labour was only 45 minutes long with a 10 minute hard labour. It was so easy that right afterwards I said 'Storm, I don't feel like I've given birth'." Compare this to the thirty hour labour she had previously where she states 'I felt like I was going to burst wide open'. Her third birthing was forty hours and a painful hard labour. She was not raw for this pregnancy and attributes cooked foods to the ordeal.

So this is a little experiment to aid our home water birth at the end of October. My hope is to inspire myself to keep at it and to record all the wonderful aspects of being raw that one forgets when eating cooked and hopefully inspire others who are on a similar journey.

Eating raw is really a new way of living. Getting into it in the beginning is quite an unusual experience as some of the dishes one prepares are amazing and are gobbled down in minutes, others are so different from our usual dishes that we have to change our level of thinking to a delayed pleasure reaction. We grow up as pleasure seekers and food offers us instant gratification with often longer term discomfort, disease or energy slump. With raw food it can be the reverse in the beginning. Until you are in your raw food zone, one has to get past the 'taste high' of now to get to the 'nutrition high' of thirty minutes from now. It is worth noting that this is only an initial feeling, for as you become fully raw you begin to get your instant taste highs back again, but without the concomitant lows.

No one said raw was easy, but it can make you feel amazing, cure disease, pain and ill health and even save your life and is most definitely worthy of your consideration. It is after all our most biologically appropriate diet.

Today's Menu

Pre-breakfast: Mineral water and pineapple chunks

Breakfast:

Organic App

le and Cinnamon Crunch

2 Grated Apples

Soaked Sunflower Seeds

Ground Flax Seeds

Sultanas

Goji Berries

Fresh Ginger - as much as you can bear

Cinnamon - as much as you can bear

Lunch: Pineapple and Avocado Garden Salad with Raw Tahini Dressing - So Good!

Tahini Dressing:

1 Jar Raw Tahini such as Biona Organic Raw White Tahini

Tamari Sauce

Lemon Juice

Mineral Water

Sea Salt

Dinner: TBC - watch this space!

Aim to drink 3 litres of mineral water in addition to any homemade juices or smoothies. Remember shop bought juice is not raw.

The story so far...

I am feeling tired from a weekend of renovations and pre-raw pig out of tofu curry and chips, but am already feeling the benefits of my raw morning. I don't have any pregnancy related indigestion, heart burn and nausea that I have been suffering. I feel inspired, motivated and excited about the radiance to come!

Preparation

Preparation is key to raw and will have to meal plan so that I have enough soaked, sprouted and in stock items for the meals I want to eat.

Last Night: Soaked Almonds, Sunflower Seeds, Mung Beans, Alfalfa Seeds

Today: Made Almond Nut Mylk, a batch of Coconut Power Bars and Tahini Dressing and put seeds in germinator

Dodgy Orc or Gorgeous Human?

Ok... so it's a little extreme to say that to eating cooked food will make you look this bad! But eating cooked food will age you much more than eating raw living foods. As Tonya Zavasta says "People who have been on the raw food lifestyle for several years begin to have a glow, the kind not often seen in middle-aged people. Optimal health is recognized by an emerging radiance. Glow is hard to fake because it is internal. It comes from an abundance of clear, pink, almost transparent cells that light up the face. Only superior blood circulation can bring this transfiguring glow. Several years on the raw food diet will make you look as though you just stepped out of a painting by Renoir--the impressionist best known for his preoccupation with light. Even on the 100 percent raw food diet, no one lives forever. For individuals who follow this diet for many years, aging comes a week or two before death. Deterioration takes place rapidly. Perennial youth is a perpetual dream. The raw food lifestyle is the closest anyone can come to reaching the maximum life span with the quality of life intact. The diet allows the body to mature gracefully. It produces an alliance of character and health." (http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Zavasta2.html).

Lasagne picture from http://www.purerawcafe.com

Skin and Raw - Toxic wastes can build up under the skin in fat deposits and sick tissue. Toxicity can lead to dehydration which leaves skin haggered. I have only just learnt the true value of being properly hydrated... we all know we need it, but it's not until we truly understand it do we get motivated to make the effort to hydrate. I am feeling so amazing from upping my water intake. Of course raw foods have a high water content which is excellent! See http://www.watercure.com/wondersofwater.html and the excellent book by Ramiel Nagel.


Teeth and Raw - This subject is so well explained in the following article http://www.naturalnews.com/022564.html. I intend to eat to heal my cavities as an experiment. So much I am reading suggests that eating acid forming foods creates such an inbalance in the body that it has to pull nutrients from the bones, including the teeth, to rectify the problem. Also see http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=529174.

Hair and Raw - Grey hair isn't the inevitable part of aging we are led to believe. I have known people in th early twenties with completly grey hair, although one of these muppets used to go home after work and eat a box of icing sugar for dinner and had never eaten an apple before. Need I say more! Ann Wigmore was grey in her seventies and through a raw food diet including wheatgrass she was able to reverse the grey into a full head of colour. Her hair was tested in a lab to prove it wasn't dyed. http://www.wigmore.org/miracles_wheatgrass.html and http://rawlivingfoods.typepad.com/1/dr_ann_wigmore/index.html.

Hair loss is also nutrient related. "In animal experimentation a lack of even one of the B vitamins can cause animals to lose their hair. When the food intake is again made optimal, the hair quickly grows in and becomes luxuriant." (http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/nutrition-and-the-hair/some-common-disorders.html). If you think about it, the body is not going to prioritise hair colour over a more vital function of the body. Give the body what it needs and the hair comes back! Testimonials - http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=28985 and http://annwigmore.com/index.php/testimonials-1.html.

The Gorgeous Ani Phyo, raw food chef and true inspiration.

An excellent and comrehensive resource for information surrounding raw food can be found at http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/index.html.

All Hail the Green Smoothie!

I had the Raw Food epiphany over six years and boy what an incredible journey. But like all things viewed with hindsight I wish I had known more about the Green Smoothie!

Many raw foodists relish the high fat content of nuts as did I... but after learning more about fat as explained in the book 80 10 10 by Douglas Adams, it became clear that too much fat was having a negative effect and creating cravings. Since discovering that our natural diets would be similar to chimps which is mainly greens and fruits, the Green Smoothie makes so much nutritional sense. I don't want to reinvent to wheel as so much has been written about the benefits of this green goodness, but merely to praise its virtues.

I find that I am satisfied by their existence, I look forward to eating them (remember to still chew so the enzymes in your mouth to start digesting it) and once I have consumed a jug full I am nicely satiated. And best of all I don't crave anything... I just feel balanced and happy! Did I mention they taste AMAZING! To begin with you might want to try 60% fruit with 40% greens with some ground flax and hemp seeds. Here are some mixes to try:

• Winter Smoothie - 1 cup organic frozen berries (any kind), 2 cups fresh spinach, 1/4 inch fresh ginger, water
• Spring Smoothie - fresh orange juice, ripe bananas, frozen mangoes, and several large leaves of kale (extra frozen mango gives lovely thick consistency you eat with a bowl + spoon)
• 1/2 bunch romaine lettuce, 1 cup strawberries, 2 bananas, water
• 4-5 kale leaves, 4 apples, 1/2 lemon juiced, water
• 2 big handfuls mixed baby greens, 2 pears, 2 mangoes, 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
• Choc-mint – 2 cups spinach, 10-12 mint leaves, 3 bananas, 2 Tbs. carob powder, 1 cup water
• 1 handful of spinach, 2 stalks of celery, 2 bananas, 2 pears, 1 apple, 1 cup water
• 1 small handful of spinach, 2 cups rocket, 2-3 mangoes, 1 cup water
• 1/2 head romaine lettuce, 1 small pineapple, 1 large mango, 1-inch fresh ginger
• 1 handful wild greens (e.g. dandelion), 1 small handful mint leaves, 3 cups honeydew melon
• 3-4 stalks celery, 2 ripe persimmons, 1 banana
• 1 handful chard leaves, 5-6 kale leaves, 3 large bananas, 1 cup water
• 1 handful parsley, 3 cups of peeled papaya

Taken from EatSpouts.com http://eatsprouts.com/blend/green.html

I whole heartedly recommend incorporating Green Smoothies into your life, even it’s just for breakfast. There is lots of info on the web and I can recommend Victoria Boutenko’s Green for Life as a good place to start. Have fun and enjoy!

Watch Victoria Boutenko’s son tell you how to make the best Green Smoothie!