As so many of us, I've just watched the movie "Food Matters" and it made me think. Deeply. About what's on my plate. Mostly it's been brown rice, whole wheat pasta or quinoa, beans, chicken or turkey, and the same steamed veggies - carrots, broccoli, green beans, zucchini - which were, I'm ashamed to admit it, too often overcooked. But we've had salads in summer, homemade soups in winter, so I thought I was feeding my family well. We've even been eating kale, which is so easy to grow, so I was convinced I was doing something right. Occasional beet or leek or asparagus or artichoke would also be welcomed. Not a bad diet, I thought, compared to the Standard American Diet (SAD) of drive thru burgers on squishy buns washed down with coke, and the afternoon coffee and donuts, with hardly a veggie in sight.
Of course we also eat our fare share of bread - crusty, whole wheat kind- and goat or sheep cheese, so not so bad, I thought. And I always liked baked goods too much, but I would hardly ever buy them , but bake pies and cakes myself, so that's better for us too, right? And cupcakes for my daughter. And waffles that I adore. And pancakes that my family adores. And so on and on.... you get the idea. But now I know - I'm completely guilty of not eating enough raw fruits and veggies. So it's not so strange that I have quite a few unwanted pounds and a host of health problems. Serious problems. Like TTP, a very rare blood disorder with nasty side effects. And chronic liver problem. And duodenal ulcer, not once, but twice. And my skin does not exactly look as healthy as it did once. And did I mention too many extra pounds?
So after watching the movie I was in a quandary - to raw or not to raw? On one hand - raw food is full of nutrients and there are claims it could vanquish disease. On the other hand, it just sounds too weird to eat only raw food. And is it true about the leukocytosis they talked about in the movie? That when you eat cooked food you get an allergic reaction so you produce more white blood cells (WBC) as if you've had an inflammation in your system? I couldn't find anything about leukocytosis in regards to food. And if you go on the "Food Matters" website you're flooded with all the stuff they want to sell you. So is it a gimmick or not? And how can people even survive eating just raw foods? What about the protein? Calcium? Meat? And mega-doses of vitamins? Too scary. So I researched some more. There's so many raw food diet websites out there that it's impossible to take a look at them all. But this one was useful to me. I found it rather balanced, and I made up my mind: I'm going mostly raw. Just like David Wolfe in "Food Matters" said, if you eat 51% raw, you'll be fine. And I want to be fine. So I'm experimenting on myself: for 30 days I'll eat two raw meals per day and one meal will be cooked, and I will note all the changes in my health along the way. And maybe then I will know. And maybe I'll lose some weight. And maybe my next liver tests will be better. And maybe my skin will be less blotchy.
So today, Friday, March 30, 2012, DAY 1 of my Mostly Raw diet, I've had:
Breakfast: peach and blueberry smoothie with coconut milk and flax seed and some rice protein powder (what do I do without protein? I have to have some protein in the morning! The rice protein powder must be better for me than fried eggs and potatoes. Note to self: research how rice protein is made. Maybe with low heat?). Smoothie was tasty and filling, but much more sweet than my usual salty breakfast, so I craved something salty. So I had a small cup of miso soup with hot water - not boiling! Was the water cool enough? How do you make a raw soup? I did see some recipes for soups in raw food cookbook's index. But the book was on Amazon and I did not buy it. No budget. So I couldn't see the recipe. Note: how is miso made? Are soybeans cooked? And humongous cup of green tea - is that considered cooked? Yikes!
Lunch: I wasn't hungry at my usual time! But later on I thought I should make something so I started warming up some black beans and corn tortillas and cooked some kale and ended up eating two tortillas, all the beans (4 Tblspoons roughly) and 5 large leaves of Tuscan (or dino) kale (yum) cooked with olive oil and garlic. Very satisfying. Then I've had 4 little mandarin oranges. Then I had a small cup of warm cocoa (with almond milk) because I found some raw cocoa powder in the cupboard and after reading about the innumerable nutritional qualities of the raw cocoa on David Wolfe website, I decided that I absolutely needed all those nutrients. Yummy.
Dinner: when I was cooking dinner for my family, I got hungry and snacked on a handful of almonds - raw, I checked. THEY had salmon burgers and rice pasta and steamed veggies. I had green pea hummus (whirl peas with olive oil, salt, tahini, and a squirt of lemon juice together) - it's good. And grated carrot salad with green onions and mayonnaise (!) - my not-so-secret vice (not so secret because you can see it in my hips, ha ha!) And a small banana for dessert. Is it too much? Too greasy? To starchy? Will I develop diabetes? Will my arteries get clogged with too much sinful fat?
DAY 1 Result: Regardless of all the fat I ate today, I feel light and energetic. The food was more yummy than I thought and not difficult to find or prepare. But I need to go shopping for raw food tomorrow and get some superfoods. I wonder how much is that going to cost?
