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Raw Diet Day Six: Crunchy Munchies and Oozing Yams

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on July 18, 2010

I’m in the home stretch now! Actually, I’m on my last day of the semi-raw diet, but the last post will have to wait until tomorrow. ;)

Raw Diet Day 6 Menu

  • 1/2 cup Cabot fat free cottage cheese
  • Handful of raw cashews
  • Anjou pear
  • Raw nachos “rawchos”: raw flax seed hemp crackers, nutritional yeast, bell pepper, celery, an entire avocado mashed into fresh guac with a squeeze of lime juice, grape tomatoes, Fage Total 0% plain Greek strained yogurt, and lots of hot sauce
  • Roasted sweet potato with raw almond butter (didn’t eat much of it)
  • Ginormous salad with romaine, fresh baby spinach, no salt added cheddar cheese, carrots, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas dressed with cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, raw honey, fig infused white balsamic vinegar, and black pepper
  • 2 pieces organic nectars raw 70% cacao bar
  • Licks of almond butter
  • 2 slices Sargento reduced fat Swiss cheese with Hellmann’s olive oil mayo
  • PURE organic raw fruit + nut bar

Rawchos (mostly raw nachos)

My “cheez and sour cream” components…

Nutritional yeast is so awesome, but not a raw food unfortunately. Smells like popcorn to me, tastes cheesy.

Tell me fresh guacamole isn’t one of life’s greatest gifts. :D

These were RAWsome!! After a few splashes of Tabasco and a big blob of Greek yogurt, it was a lot like eating regular nachos. LOVED them! Wasn’t too crazy about the raw hemp flax seed crackers due to the earthy taste which doesn’t belong in a plate of nachos, they got extra Tabasco. :twisted: Loved the bell peppers and celery as my chips, though. So. much. volume. I ended up leaving half of the guac and yogurt, but ate everything else. Super delicious!

Something went terribly wrong with the sweet potato I roasted for dinner. I thought I’d be rebellious and have a baked sweet potato with my dinner salad, so I asked my mom to pop one in the oven for me when she made whatever she was eating. She comes up to our office awhile later to inform me that something weird happened to the potato: half of it oozed out! :shock: What the hell????!!

I’ve never seen this happen before. The potato literally exploded and oozed out, but only half of it. It must have had a very high water content or something. So strange. My mom said it was perfectly normal before she put it in. So, I don’t know if I was a little freaked out by it knowing that it exploded in the oven, or if I’m just out of touch with warm, mushy foods, but I took 2 bites and threw the rest out. :? It tasted ok, I just wasn’t interested in it. *shrugs*

Such a shame. I liked the raw almond butter on it, but I just wasn’t feeling it. :(

My salad was phenomenal, though. I love salads, they’re definitely in my top 10 favorite meals, even when I’m off of the raw kick. hehe

By now I am officially done with my raw diet trial, but I still have today’s food to do in an update tomorrow. I’ll give my thoughts and scale results in my last update. I’ll tell you one thing, I have a major energy deficit this week; I’m exhausted! Can’t wait to hit the hay — or eat it!!! No, no, no. I can have cooked food starting tomorrow. SO EXCITED!!!! It feels like Christmas Eve. Can’t wait to sleep and wake up to warmth in my belly. :D

Tagged as: high raw diet, nutritional yeast, raw, raw almond butter, raw diet, raw food diet, raw nachos, rawchos, salad, sweet potato, vegan, vegan foods, vegetarian

{ 9 comments }

Raw Diet Day Three: The Joy Of Not Cooking

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on July 14, 2010

I’m trying to find the joy in this raw diet, which isn’t always easy, lol. There haven’t been any noticeable changes in the tummy situation, though I haven’t eaten much today and I also have a lot of questionable contributing factors, such as dairy. I took some Gas-X a few hours ago, but haven’t noticed any changes yet. I’ve started to expand my raw diet menu beyond the typical salad. Yesterday morning, I made a batch of no-bake raw cookies:

No-Bake Raw Cookies

  • 1/2 cup raw rolled oats
  • 2 TBSP raw almond butter
  • 14g raw sweetened cacao nibs
  • 14g raw slivered almonds
  • 1 teaspoon raw honey
  • A few Tablespoons water

1. Mix all the ingredients by hand, in a blender (I put mine in the Vita-Mix for a few seconds), or food processor until dough forms
2. Roll little balls of the dough (it’s sticky!!) into as many balls as you like
3. Set on plate and let air dry with ventilated cover (I used a colander) for 6-7 hours. You could speed up the process by using a food dehydrator, but I was lazy, lol

So easy, so tasty!! I ate 2 of them. You can imagine my heartbreak this morning when I went to eat one and discovered that fruit flies had found them to be delicious, too. :cry: After they were dry enough, I covered the plate with plastic wrap, but the little buggers got underneath it anyway! :evil: I made a new (double) batch right away. :D This time I put them in the oven to dry, lol. Not turned on, of course! :shock: Surely my food dehydrator would work so much better, but alas, I’m not up to taking it out of the box yet. I’ve had it new in the box for over a year now. I hoard appliances, LOL. :oops:

In other kitchen news: I’m going through fresh produce at the speed of light! I went to Hannaford with my mom yesterday afternoon to replenish the dwindling supply. I ate an entire one pound tub of organic mixed spring greens in 2.5 days. :shock: Plus, a lot of the fruit that I bought at Shop Rite on Sunday isn’t ripe enough yet, including 6 avocados!! :( So, I went shopping once again. Don’t have to convince me to shop 2… 3… 10 times a week. I got another cart-full of assorted fruits + veggies, but before we left I had an amazing lunch to stave off hunger while in the store. So incredible that it’s something I would eat even when not following a semi-high raw diet!!

Raw pea salad, strawberries drizzled with raw almond butter and raw honey, and sprinkled with raw pumpkin seeds, anjou pear, and PURE raw food bar

Lovin’ these organic PURE raw fruit and nut bars! Veronica, you’re A-Ok. :)

A bowl of defrosted frozen peas with chopped red onion, tossed in cold pressd organic extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt + pepper

Pure, unadulterated raw decadence… fresh strawberries drizzled with raw almond butter, raw honey, and raw pumpkin seeds <3

This was my favorite meal, thus far! I LOVE peas with EVOO + vinegar, it’s so good. Typically, the peas are cooked every other time I’ve had it, but it tastes just as good raw. YUM!!!! And the strawberries… WOW! What a truly magnificent combo. LOVED them.

I did something I normally don’t do yesterday: I hit up the olive bar at Hannaford. *chorus of angels* I usually avoid them because they’re sooo salty, but I’ve kept my sodium ultra low this week, so I felt like I could indulge. And indulge I did. Holy scrum-da-dilly-umptious!!! I only got a half-pint, but I haven’t been able to stay out of it ever since I brought it home, lol.

Just like I said, my dinner included a boiled potato with a generous helping of Fage Total 0% plain Greek strained yogurt…

Assorted olives on my leafy greens <3

I felt kind of weird to eat something cooked and warm! :o My mom cooked it for me, and I think it was overdone because it was sort of mushy–unless I’m so far removed from warm cooked foods already, LOL. It still tasted VERY good to me. I ate it all, BUT I kept moving it to the side to eat my salad. I’m telling ya, I have an affinity for olives. They are SO YUMMY! Bitter, salty, fun texture. Mmm! Wish they weren’t so high in sodium, I’d seriously eat a pint of them a day! I’ve never come across a raw olive in my life, I’m hoping to find them one day. That would be a dream come true. :D

While we were in Hannaford yesterday, I remembered a raw vegan non-dairy frozen ice cream that I tried not-so-long ago: organic nectars gelato

Move over Ben & Jerry, there’s a new chocolate cherry frozen treat on the block!

I’ve had the chocolate hazelnut before, but the chocolate cherry is new to me. It was AMAZING! Dustin loved it, too. It’s so hard to believe that it’s dairy-free and made from cashew milk! It’s so creamy, and a little creepy — it doesn’t melt very fast! LOL It’s perfect. And so delicious. I had a little taste of each flavor for dessert…

Not only is organic nectars raw gelato made with 100% pure, raw, wholesome ingredients, but it’s also low in calories: 120 calories per serving, 5 servings per pint. I’d buy this even when I’m not on a raw diet. Yum!

I’ve been managing my bouts of hunger better by snacking when the tummy calls. After eating the boiled potato last night, I honestly felt fuller and more satisfied than I have since I started this trial on Sunday. I haven’t eaten anything cooked (besides cheese + yogurt, technically) today and probably won’t. I’ve been picking at cheese and olives all day. :oops: I have an awesome dinner planned, which I’m totally excited to make and eat. That will be on tomorrow’s update. ;) Only 3 more days to go! I’m looking forward to cooked food again, but I still have some raw recipes to try. I’m REALLY surprised that I’m not craving bread AT ALL! :shock: Weird, right? Probably because I know I’ll have lots of it in 72 hours, lol. I’m sure if I was trying to give them up permanently I’d be in the corner shivering with cold sweats, LOL.

:lol:

Alright, I’m going to start on my mystery dinner now. Yay!

Tagged as: anjou pear, boiled potato, cheese, Fage Total 0% plain Greek strained yogurt, gluten-free, high raw diet, no-bake raw cookies, olive bar, olives, organic nectars raw dairy-free ice cream, organic nectars raw gelato, pumpkin seeds, PURE fruit and nut bars, raw, raw almond butter, raw diet, raw pea salad, raw recipes, strawberries

{ 7 comments }

Raw Diet Day Two: My Shampoo Smells Appetizing

by Jenn (j3nn.net) on July 13, 2010

Soooooo hungry! Not directly after I eat, but within 2 hours I have been ravenous. And bloated, ugh, SO bloated! Since starting this high-raw diet experiment, my stomach troubles have gotten worse. :( Shortly after eating any type of fruit or veggie my stomach has been reacting badly. I’ve always eaten raw foods in one form or another, but never to this extreme, and apparently my tum tum does not love! I’ve lost 3 lbs, but my stomach is so bloated that my pants feel skin-tight, needless to say I am extremely uncomfortable. :oops: Last night, my entire body felt so weak and sore, as if I was covered in bruises. I’m pretty sure that my irritated, swollen digestive tract is pressing on nerves and other parts of my body. This sucks. Being I’ve kept dairy in while I am doing this trial, it could be that or a combination of the fruits and veggies. Not sure yet. The only gluten I have eaten in 3 days would be in cross-contamination form from oats, but other than that, I haven’t had any other grains. I don’t know if my stomach symptoms are food-related, or if certain foods just aggravate an entirely different underlying issue, but so far this semi-high-raw diet hasn’t been the solution. I’m not giving up on it, though. I’m going to keep going for the remainder of the week.

The unofficial definition of a high raw diet is 80-99% raw foods, obviously I’m on the lesser end of that spectrum with my dairy consumption and various other things, like condiments and nutritional yeast. Most raw foodists that I know of still keep some vegan cooked foods in their diets for 1 or 2 meals a day. I’m typically not one to do things down to the letter, so I modify the heck out of everything I do, lol. For instance, being I’m past the initial 3 days (my blog updates are lagging by a day), I’m going to include one cooked food per day besides dairy, like a potato or lentils, and then eat raw around the rest of my menu. This is the list of “rules” I made up for myself…

Jenn’s 7 Day High Raw Diet “Rules” — that are made to be broken :twisted: !

  • Eat at least 80% raw vegetarian foods
  • 2 to 3, maybe 4 servings of dairy per day is ok (yogurt, milk, cheese)
  • One cooked food per day, e.g., a potato, lentils, or cereal
  • Eat a large variety of foods, not just raw foods bars and raw ice cream
  • Condiments like vinegar, hot sauce, mustard, mayo, salt, pepper, dressings, etc., are ok
  • Coffee, tea, seltzer are ok
  • Keep raw grain servings to 2 or less a day
  • Nutritional yeast is ok
  • Olives are ok
  • You can change your mind and get off this raw ride anytime you want, the food police are not going to arrest you!

:lol: Silly, right? That’s how I roll. ;) Just to clarify: this raw diet isn’t a punishment or a crazy weight loss tactic, it’s simply an experience that I was curious about, and hoped to see some signs of improvement in my health. Raw food diets have fascinated me for a long time now, and while I could never commit to this as a lifestyle, I am sort of enjoying it despite my gripes. Mainly because I know that I can end it anytime I want, and I just might. Last night I was feeling like you do when you’re little and staying over a friend or family’s house for the first time; in theory you’re all excited about it, but as the night wears on you find yourself feeling completely out of your element and wanting to be back in your own bed. That’s how I felt all day yesterday, especially before I went to sleep. I was seriously considering ending it right then and there. Not just out of hunger, but out of the exasperated discomfort I was feeling from whatever I ate. By now I’m all but used to my tummy troubles, but they have definitely increased in the past few days. Whether that’s a coincidence or not, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m looking forward to Sunday, lol. If it gets completely unbearable, I’ll throw in the towel, but I think I can hang for a few more days. I’ll just be hungry. And whiny. :mrgreen:

By the way, I’m also on day 7 of taking Culturelle, and that also hasn’t shown any signs of helping matters. I’ll stick with that, too.

Raw Diet Day 2 Menu:

  • Granny Smith candy apple: almond butter, raw honey, raw sweetened cacao nibs, raw pumpkin seeds
  • 1 small container Breakstone 2% cottage cheese
  • 1 Pure trail mix raw food bar
  • Caprese salad with Price Chopper reduced fat mozzarella cheese, grape tomatoes, basil, fresh baby spinach, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, and cold pressed EVOO
  • Raw hemp flax seed crackers with raw almond butter
  • Mixed spring green salad with raw defrosted frozen peas, raw milk cheddar cheese, grape tomatoes, red onions, cold pressed EVOO, red wine vinegar, fig infused white balsamic vinegar, and a drizzle of honey
  • Grass-fed yogurt – not eaten, exchanged for another piece of cheese
  • Half-handful of raw cacao nibs

Breakfast

LOVE these organic PURE bars! They’re so tasty.

Breakstone cottage cheese — I wasn’t crazy about this. I like Friendship cottage cheese better. I haven’t had Breakstone in awhile and noticed that it’s much creamier than Friendship, which I don’t particularly like.

Guys, you HAVE to make this raw candy apple!!!! It was AMAZING!

Just take an apple of your choice, core it, slather almond butter on it, sprinkle with raw sweetened cacao nibs and raw pumpkin seeds, then drizzle with raw honey. OMGAWD!! It was DELICIOUS! Tasted even better than any candy apple I’ve ever had. Yum x bajillion! Not to mention, HEALTHY!

Lunch

Yes, Dustin was eating a microwave pizza right next to me. It smelled REALLY good! lol

Raw hemp flax seed crackers with raw almond butter

Pitiful green grapes. They weren’t that firm. :?

The most incredible caprese salad made with: fresh grape tomatoes cut in halves, 2oz Price Chopper low-fat mozzarella cheese (120 cal), 1/2 TBSP cold pressed EVOO, red wine vinegar, and fresh basil from my pot on the deck, tossed with fresh baby spinach and sprinkled with a little salt + black pepper. Wish I had some crusty bread to go with this! :(

The raw hemp flax seed crackers are slimy. I need to take out my food dehydrator and make some of my own!

Dinner

This is the grass-fed lemon yogurt I bought at Mother Earth’s — I didn’t like it, so I swapped it for another piece of cheese. The yogurt consistency was just too liquid-y and I wasn’t feeling the flavor.

Simple leafy green salad topped with raw milk cheddar cheese, defrosted frozen raw peas, red onions, grape tomatoes, cold pressed EVOO, black pepper, and red wine vinegar. Plus a drizzle of raw honey and about a TBSP blue cheese crumbles added at the last minute when my dinner didn’t look like much sustenance, lol.

The salad was delicious, but not very filling. I ended up refilling my bowl with more leafy greens being I had a pool of EVOO + vinegar sitting there, and my tummy was egging me on. hehe This salad also inspired me for today’s lunch, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see it! Ooooh, the suspense! hehe

Ok, I’m going to eat dinner now. I’m really looking forward to this boiled potato with my salad. I can’t wait actually. :D Today’s menu was much better than the first 2 days, so that’s probably why I’m still going through with the rest of this trial, lol. :D

What’s your favorite raw food?

Tagged as: Breakstone 2% cottage cheese, candy apple, high raw diet, organic PURE food bars, raw almond butter, raw food, raw food diet, raw fruit and vegetables, raw honey, raw milk cheddar cheese, raw nuts, raw pumpkin seeds, salads, vegan, vegetarian

{ 16 comments }

I Went, I Saw, I Gnawed

July 10, 2010 Jenneral Posts

We saw Eclipse at the drive-in Thursday night!! First, we had dinner at Andiamo’s in Newburgh: I had the vegetable lover’s “mini pizza.” Loved the assortment of veggies! Eggplant, broccoli, onions, and the mozzarella seemed like fresh mozzarella, not the plastic-y stuff. Dustin had the all meat. Polar opposite pizzas, lol. What is that green [...]

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