Day 25

Lest you think it's all doom and gloom around here (or that my attempts to prepare food end in nothing but disaster), I made a soup tonight that Madeline raved about. It was a variation on the basic chowder from 12 Steps to Raw Foods. Here's what I my interpretation:

Tomato and Red Pepper Chowder
1 cup cashews
1 cup water

Blend until creamy

Add:
1 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup zucchini
6 white mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno with seeds
2 pitted medjool dates
Salt to taste

Blend again until creamy and pour into bowls

4 Roma tomatoes
1 bell pepper

Dice and add to chowder base.

And that's it! I thoroughly appreciate a successful night in the kitchen.

-Eloise

Day 24: a series of unfortunate events

So our day off was a mixed bag. We had a giant raw salad before we left, so the whole day wasn't too bad. The forbidden food was good, but I felt slightly ill and uncomfortably full after eating. We ordered too much and wound up bringing some home with the intention of freezing it for another day off. But the temptation of having cooked food in the house is just too much for me, so we ate the rest the next day. We're still going to take the occasional day off, but hopefully make some better choices (i.e: not flour and refined sugar).

I think it was later that night that I was putting together another salad when the veggies took revenge. (For the squeamish- aka, you, Madeline- I injured my finger. Now skip to the next paragraph.) We had just purchased a new knife and I was using it to chop. Actually, when it occurred, I was pitting an avocado. You can imagine what happened: knife slipped and found my finger. Luckily it hit my nail, because I think it would have been a lot deeper had it not met that resistance. I think I was more shocked than anything. I had cut through and under my nail (so horizontally from the middle of my nail to the tip of my finger). I washed and bandaged it and consulted with my med school resident neighbor, so no doctor's visit. It actually doesn't even hurt that badly unless I bump it (highly not recommended), and it doesn't impede my knitting, which would drive me insane, but I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing a lot of bandaids until the giant crack in the nail grows out). Mad's taken on avocado pitting duties for the foreseeable future.

On Monday, I went to start the morning right with some fresh juice. We have an old juicer inherited from Madeline's mom that has been sitting in our cabinet for months. I don't know how old exactly, but Mad has no recollection of her parents ever using it when she was growing up (so maybe 25 years old). I painstakingly cleaned it, assembled it, plugged it in and flicked the switch. Excellent, it turned on (although it sounded like a chainsaw). The feed chute was tiny, so I got out my apples and carrots and chopped them all into small pieces. I turned on the machine again and... nothing. Tried one more time: a dull hum and ominous smoke. Thus concluded our adventures in juicing. As old as it was, I wouldn't have minded, but I'd tested the darn thing first, and I could have saved myself plenty of work.

So looking to save the apples, I looked for a recipe to use them in. We could have just eaten them, but I wanted something more. I found this apple pie recipe, which looked easy enough. I have this immersion blender with a canister thing that my mom has bought me (from all of $12) when I first left for college. I'd been using it frequently to coarsely grind nuts and seeds, as well as to mix salad dressing in tiny batches. So long story short, I loaded the thing up with half of the crust ingredients, and it blended a little and then... nothing. Two appliances in a matter of ten minutes! I think that's some sort of record. So breakfast was disappointing.

On the bright side, we ordered a food processor from Amazon last night, specifically this KitchenAid one, which seems to be well reviewed. I like the idea of the mini cup for mincing garlic and ginger, etc, and my fingers like the decrease in manual chopping. I'm hoping it will be a good bridge between now and when-we-can-afford-a-blender.

Yesterday was grocery day. We didn't need many staples (nuts, seeds, olive oil, nama shoyu, etc), so it was a pretty inexpensive week. We also already had carrots, tomatoes, jalapenos, medijool dates, mangoes and onions, most of which are imperative in our kitchen. Let me see if I can remember what we got:

Produce Market
Giant bag of spinach (think plastic grocery bag overstuffed with spinach leaves)
1 bunch kale
3 bunches cilantro (mostly for our rabbit)
1 bag white button mushrooms
1 bag brussel sprouts
2 lbs red bell peppers
2 lbs green bell peppers
6 small zucchini
3 cucumbers
1 large eggplant
3 large broccoli crowns
8 Valencia oranges
2 lb gala apples
3 containers of strawberries
bag of lemons
bag of limes
3 bunches of bananas
Total: $38
(I feel like I might be leaving something out, so I'll double check my list when I get home. I know the total is correct, though)

Trader Joe's
4 avocados (they were out at the produce place)
balsamic vinegar (biiiig bottle)
cinnamon
Total: $11

We usually get a few more produce items on Friday to get us through the last few days, so add $10-15, plus any treats we get during the week (like prepackaged raw treats or crackers). I don't think it's much more than the average grocery bill for two people. Stocking our kitchen was pricey, but I think we have a handle on how much of what we eat. I'm going to keep track.

-Eloise

Day 19

Did I say that this had gotten easy? Cause that's funny.

Feeling confidant in the kitchen, I decided to create a healthier pate from cauliflower and mushrooms, which was wholly unsatisfying. Between the disaster of a dinner, homework and care for our special needs animals, I fell asleep without getting a lunch together and managed to oversleep in the morning. The water for my shower never got hot, so I washed my bangs in the sink and called it done and then tried to throw together a salad dressing, since we were low. I tried "golden elixir" from Raw Food Detox Diet, which seemed easy enough, but the 2 cups of fresh lemon juice was deceiving. I squeezed 9 lemons for a total of 1.5c, which took forever. The kitchen is still a disaster.

Needless to say, I was a few minutes late to class this morning. Would have been worse, but Madeline dropped me off so I didn't have to park and trek the quarter mile to the building. And so far, I've eaten 2 bananas, 2 oranges, all my chopped veggies and olives, and I'm still really hungry. I have 2 apples, a handful of pecans and an avocado to get me through the next 7 hours before I go home.

Luckily, we have a safety valve built into our plan. Once a month, we're going to treat ourselves to a cooked meal. Always vegan, but something we've been wanting all month. I think that having that safety net will keep us from giving up and abandoning raw food altogether. Tomorrow's a special occasion: Madeline is taking the oath for her American citizenship (she's Canadian). So it's a perfect excuse to indulge. After a morning like this, I really can't wait.

Day 18

And we're back!

Apparently, I am a freak of nature in the Apple store. In it's third year, my MacBook is on its third hard drive and third disc drive. You would think that after the first crash, I would have make backups of my files, but no. I live on the edge. Sad to lose pictures and music, but I'll survive without the rest of the clutter.

And the raw thing. Well, we've passed the two week mark, and it's getting easier all the time. I've gotten in the habit of making triple batches of raw dressing to keep in the fridge. When we're pressed for time, it's really easy to grab a veggie and a little to-go container of dressing. I'm trying out different dressings to keep things interesting. First it was the Italian I talked about a while back, then it was a tahini dressing and this week we're doing a sweet mustard dressing from Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People. Love that book.

I've also gotten more adventurous in the kitchen. We've decided that Modays will be our day to go all out, calories be damned. It's my day off, so I have time to spend making something fancy in the kitchen. This Monday, I made peppers stuffed with curried walnut pate (again from Raw Foods Made Easy) and cashew cheese. Took some prep, but definitely worth it.

We have also discovered that our piece-o-crap blender (which was free from a coworker...who can begrudge free?) will handle soups pretty well, if a bit chunky. So last night I made an adaptation of the chili from 12 Steps to Raw Foods, which we topped with a bit of the leftover cashew cheese and had 2 ears of raw corn apiece. SO GOOD. And really quick. A little bit of chopping, but mostly just throwing things in the blender. I have the leftovers for lunch on a bed of spinach today, which I thought of snapping a picture of, but it looks like a hot (cold) mess after swinging around in my tiffin on the way to school. Oh well. I should try to do it as soon as I pack it, but the lighting in our apartment just sucks. I really can't wait to get a Vitamix, but with a bunch of unexpected vet bills this month, the saving is slow going.

I'm finding it really easy to throw together meals with so much fresh food and some basic staples in the house. I think I'll post a list of what we purchase the next time we get food (so Monday).

-Eloise

Day 10

Huge paper due this week and my laptop decides to crash! Expect things will be a bit quiet on the blog front.

In short: We did our second raw grocery trip yesterday, which was much easier than the first. We went lighter on the greens, since towards the middle and end of the week, they weren't looking so hot. We'll do a mid-week run for them to keep our salads going.

We discovered a raw brand at Whole Foods this week: Go Raw. First we found the crackers and seeds, and then as we were walking through the aisles we came upon the cookies and cereal. It was like raw treasure hunt, and we are in loooooove. We bought a bag of chocolate granola and gingersnap cookies. As Madeline said this morning, the only thing more expensive would be cereal made of diamonds, but I really liked the granola that I ate for breakfast and the cookies which we shared last night were amazing. Because it's so expensive, it will definitely be a treat and not a staple in our diet, but it's really great to have options.

-Eloise

Correction

So, it's Mad. I'm not actually anorexic. Thought that was a given, but perhaps I should clarify.

Enough of the doom and gloom.

Woke up with a tummy ache, and snarfed down a banana. I'm too sarcastic for blogging. Perhaps I'll keep my posts to a minimum.

That is all.

Appetite

So, it's Mad. El's right - this blog is hers. In a rare attempt to partake in sharing my personal experiences thus far, I'm posting a short entry.

I agree, I have lost my appetite. El is very informed. When it comes to our rabbits, I am very informed. This whole raw thing was my idea, but El is the one who has done all the reading and research. So back to my appetite - I have none. Not a bad thing, except that for my job, I need to be alert. Well, who doesn't? But, I really do. Did El mention what I do? Well, not that it matters. I am surviving on guacamole, olives, and nuts when alone. Oh yeah, and tea. Not green tea, yerba mate. I like full bodied stuff.

I have this little quirk where I go around randomly making songs out of sentences. Well, El tolerates it.

My latest...

Anorexia

How I missed  ya.

That is all. Goodnight.

Day Seven

One week raw!

 

This is going to be a short post and not the book review intended, because I am exhausted. Nothing raw related, but my weekend job is much more physically labor intensive than my sedentary weekday jobs and I'm just not getting enough sleep (full time school plus three part time jobs is overwhelming at times). 

Last night's lack of sleep was entirely my fault, but very much worth it. In a uncharacteristic display of social interactivity, Madeline and I went to my friend, Bridget's house for drinks. Which are not raw, but are included in my personal exception list (along with dark chocolate, maple syrup and aforementioned tea). It was a lot of fun. Brig and I have three classes together this semester, so we wind up working together frequently. I've been telling her about going raw, which she listens to very politely while partaking in Cheetos and Mountain Dew for breakfast. She thought to buy us a plate of raw veggies to snack on, which was awesome of her. She also bought hummus, because she didn't realize it wasn't raw, but Mad and I brought guacamole with us, so we were set. I think it was a good balance of conscious eating and sociability, which is incredibly important to me. I never had too much trouble going out with friends as a vegan, and similarly, I want to be able to enjoy every aspect of my life as a raw foodist.

Looking around the raw community, I see a lot of percentages being tossed around: 75%, 80% 90% raw%... I supposed if you wanted to argue semantics, Madeline and I have not gone completely raw. But I have no intention of berating myself when I've exchange my pasta and rice for heaping plates of veggies for lunch and dinner. It's a huge change. And so far, so good. I haven't had any of the major detox symptoms like flu symptoms or acne breakouts. I was getting hunger pangs between meals for the first half of the week, but for the last day or two, it seems like my body has adjusted to the amount and frequency of food. I'd even venture to say that I have more energy. I'm tired, certainly, but my body doesn't seem to be so heavily weighed down as it used to at the end of the day. It may be psychological at this point, though. It's still really early on in the game.

I had a little extra money this week, so I purchased The Live Food Factor, which I am very excited to read. The most critical review on Amazon complains that "[t]here are many many many references throughout the entire text of the book, making it a bit of a cumbersome read for me and making it feel a bit like reading a student's research paper", which is exactly the type of book I love. I want to hear the facts and be able to follow up with my own research by going to the original sources. I'm a bit fanatical like that.

This was not short.

-Eloise

Day Five: Poop and Fiber

Okay. I'm going to tell you a story about poop, which is going to lead into my next entry, a book review. If you'd rather not get to know me that well, you might want to skip this one and come back a bit later. But I promise it's related, and I do have a point.

So growing up, food was never a priority for my parents. My brother and I never went hungry, but particularly as we got older, it was never given much thought. If it didn't come in a box, if it didn't go in the microwave, if it didn't come when you beckoned on the phone, we generally didn't eat it. By the time I was in high school, the menu was pretty fixed: Mondays were Chinese food, Wednesdays were Boston Market, Fridays were pizza night and most nights in between were a mix of Stouffer's frozen dinners and my Mom's ziti (huge batches of white pasta with jarred sauce and mozzarella-from-a-bag on top that were always in the fridge for the sole purpose of making There's nothing to eat in here! a factual lie). The only veggies we ate were baby carrots with ranch dressing and sad, limp, overcooked green beans. I used to sneak the green beans away from the table in my socks to throw them out later. To this day, I still can't stand the thought of them.

Needless to say, I was chronically constipated for pretty much the first 15 years of my life. And I didn't know any better. No one had ever asked and I'd never thought to tell anyone about my bathroom habits. I just figured that that was the way it was. When I was a teenager, I heavily used laxatives and diet pills, which helped, but of course were shit for my body (no pun, really). And until I met Madeline, I had never known that people pooped Every day! Happily! Easily!

I can't even remember how the topic came up, because really, at what point in your relationship do you go from discreetly checking your breath before the possibility of a kiss to talking about how often you poop? But anyway, she introduced me to the magic that is fiber. My grocery shopping habits began to revolve around fiber content, and suddenly, I too was a happy, daily pooper!

Until I really got into nutrition, though, I never actually looked into how it works. Actually, all this time, I thought that soluble fiber was the the only one that could be used by the body and that insoluble fiber just came along for the ride. That's somewhat true, but doesn't tell the whole picture. Those are the broadest category of classification, and you need both kinds. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and binds to bile (which is made from cholesterol) in your intestine to help it exit your system. It also slows digestion so that you can absorb more nutrients from your food and helps you to feel full and satisfied. Insoluble fiber helps to bulk up your poop and make it pass through your system more easily. Fiber keeps the sewer of your body in good working order.

And that's just one part of it. Diets high in fiber have been attributed to maintaining a healthy weight, lowering blood cholesterol and sugar, reducing your risk of diseases such as diverticulitis and digestive disorders, and may prevent cancer and help you to live longer (Tru fax! Tufts University doctors said so!)¹. All really good stuff. Fiber can only be found in fruits, vegetable and grains. Good, raw sources of soluble fiber include apples, citrus fruits, carrots and flax seed. An assortment of vegetables is your best source of insoluble fiber. You can't just eat apples and broccoli and call it a day, though. If you want to get specific, there are actually six subcategories of fiber and you want to eat a variety of fruits and veggies to get full benefit.

So tl:dr version: eat more fiber!

-Eloise

¹ The Facts on Fiber. (2009). Tufts University Heath and Nutrition Letter, 26(12), 4-5. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from Health Module database. (Document ID 1631975001).

Day Five

Okay. Let's chalk up aforementioned "detox" symptoms as not eating. Which I highly do not recommend.

I feel really good today. I've gotten into a bit of a routine these past couple days that seems to be working well:

• Breakfast: fresh fruit, usually a couple bananas as they're easiest to eat on my way out the door
• Lunch: Large salad with lots of greens, some walnuts on top and some homemade dressing to dip on the side. The nuts really seem to make the difference between being satisfied and not. I have office hours from 11-1 every day I'm at school, so it gives me a chance to actually sit down and eat
• Afternoon snack: fresh fruit usually consumed while walking across campus
• Dinner: Large salad with avocado, guacamole if time permits
• Dessert: A couple of squares of dark chocolate. This is not raw, but I definitely look forward to it.

Another non-raw indulgence I'm holding onto for the time being is tea. Actually, I don't know that I'll ever want to give it up. I don't drink a lot by most standards, I think, but I'm really attached to my green tea in the morning and my peppermint tea at night. I try to consume it an hour away, either before or after, from eating my raw foods.

I'm sure that being so busy and out of the house for so many hours of the day is making this much easier than if I had all the time in the world to think about food. Madeline has been on a short business trip (she gets home late tonight), and I'm curious to see how she's done out in the real world.

-Eloise

Day Four: part 2

So let's face it, this is my blog, really, not Madeline's. I think I was hoping for more of a joint effort when we started, but it's something that I'm much more motivated to keep track of at this time. Maybe at some point there will be a guest appearance. ;)

I wanted to post some pictures as a baseline for the progress that I hear it going to occur. Plus, pictures are more interesting than all these words.

This is probably not as relevant as it could be to the intent at hand, but this is Madeline (on the left) and me a month after we started dating in 2004. We were omnivores at the time, and this was taken with a disposable camera.

Three years later in the summer of 2007. We had become vegans, but were living in different states at the time.

Another from the same time period. That was a really great summer.

And this is much more recent, from New Year's Eve of this year. At this point, we had been living together for about a year and a half. For the record, Madeline does not like this picture of us, but I think it's cute and one of the few recent ones we have. We're not really picture takers.

And there you have it.

-Eloise

Day Four

Posting at lunchtime today during my office hours (I'm a TA at my school). I should be grading papers, but I'll get to that later. Lunch today is the Hearty Corn Salad from The Raw Food Detox Diet.I made it last night for dinner, but really hated the raw Cesar dressing that was recommended. I made more of my Italian dressing today, and it's 100% better. In the recipe, Natalia Rose says something to the effect of It's so hearty, you'll think you're eating stew! which makes me think she hasn't had stew in a long while. It's a good salad, but really, it's a freakin salad.

I've been thinking a lot about why we're becoming raw foodist. It's been bothering me since the first day when we weren't prepared with what to eat and Madeline said, only half jokingly, "We've become anorexic!" Now that's certainly not the goal, and nor do I want this to be a diet of deprivation. But I would be lying if I said that one of my main motivations for changing my eating habits was not to lose weight. It certainly is a primary driving force. My father has an extremely high metabolism and despite eating mountains of food, there is not an ounce of fat on his body. I didn't inherit that genetic gift. If I did, fatigue and chronic stomach and headaches be damned, I'd eat vegan lasagna, fried tofu and double chocolate chip cookies every night. I know that I'm not really overweight. I'm well within the range of healthy, but probably 10-15lbs from what I consider ideal. But if I don't have the body I want at 23, then when? Madeline has heard me say on more that one occasion in the past month, "When I have my raw body, I'm going to..."

So could I eat a healthier cooked vegan diet? Probably. But it's much more difficult to make small changes, harder to reframe the existing picture. It's better to start with a new picture entirely and work with a whole different landscape. I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and was struck by this quote:

"Most of us are creatures so comforted by habit, it can take something on the order of religion to invoke new, more conscious behaviors- however glad we may be afterward that we went to the trouble."

She is referring to her family's efforts to eat locally for a year, but I find it to be very applicable to my current state. It goes beyond vanity, though. I have been reading as much as I can about diet, nutrition and raw food, and there's a lot of information out there. It's kind of overwhelming, really, to sort through the fanatical crap to get to the hard facts. But the more I read, the more I'm convinced that this is the answer. And if we stick to it long enough, it, too, will become a habit. It's easy to forget how inhibited I felt when I first became vegan when all I can remember is how easy it was before I began this raw transition. Over time, it became second nature, as will this. 

-Eloise

Day Three

Quick post before bed.

Today was my first raw day of school. I packed my tiffin in the morning full of salad, dressing, plums, apples and walnuts. It went pretty well. I'm generally so busy that I wasn't thinking about food, really. I think I could have benefited from the three-tier tiffin instead of the two, though. My days are regularly 8 to 10 hours, and I was certainly starving by the time I got home.

Madeline worked from home today, and I think as a result, she's having a harder time with it. I also think that our food variety is limited by a lack of time and equipment. We would really benefit from a good blender and dehydrator to make soups, nut butters, crackers, etc, but $800 just isn't in the budget at the moment. I need to make it a priority to go through recipes and find creative ways to keep us satisfied. 

It may be psychological (or the fact that I *ahem* eliminated three times today), but I feel physically lighter. My head is still heavy and I'm kind of mucus-y, but this may or may not be the result of the cold I had when we started. 

Here's to hoping that a couple avocados ripen for tomorrow....

-Eloise

Day Two

Avocados are the answer.

Maddie succinctly summed up yesterday: "It went from YEAH to oh, to crap." 

Today started out slow, but got much, much better. We slept in this morning, dawdling in bed. It set everything else back for the day, but really, the time we spend together doing nothing is very much worth it. The UPS guy came while we were still in PJs to deliver the To-go Ware Active Packs I'd ordered as a surprise last week, green for me, black for Mad. I had a coupon for 40% off and had placed an order while Maddie was out of town for training. I even managed to keep the secret until they arrived a week later, and if you knew me, you'd know that I suck at keeping secrets to myself, especially surprises. I get too excited and share the anticipation. That's the best part! I meant to take a picture for some visual interest, but we were rush heading out this morning and the lighting in the apartment is not great. It's much darker than I would prefer, and it's difficult to take decent pictures without natural sunlight. I'll take some in action in the near future.

So once we finally got out of the bed and out of the house, we made the rounds to return some cooked items and to purchase provisions for the week, mostly a metric ton of produce. It was kind of scary how much we managed to spend today, particularly considering that we were only trying to buy food for the week. We were able to get away with spending so little in recent months on crap: beans, bread, flour, etc. We weren't eating well, but we were certainly eating cheaply. I have a feeling, though, that we've bought more than we'll be able to consume in a week, but it's better than running short. 

The day was difficult, as there was little for us to eat in the apartment. We had bananas for breakfast and brought apples to munch on, but we were starving again by the time we got home. We did have plenty of time to talk while running errands, though, and one topic was what we wanted out of being raw. Ultimately for us, it's not about the title or the classification of being 100% raw. At this time, things like raw spices are not of the utmost importance when they are such a nominal part of our diet. Rather, we're striving to eat as raw as possible, but don't want to feel like we're starving ourselves, either. It's not healthy, nor is it sustainable.

With that in mind, we picked up some vegan dark chocolate and a bottle of wine for dessert, which definitely helped to end the night on a better note. For dinner, I made a guacamole that I definitely see becoming a staple:

Guacamole

4 avocados, peeled and pitted

1 small red onion, chopped

handful cilantro, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

Mash together until well combined, but slightly chunky.

It was very, very good. We ate it rolled up in Swiss chard, which was satisfying, and I actually feel full tonight. 

While we were out, we also picked up a bathroom scale at Target. We tried them out in store, and I think we were both shocked at how much we currently weigh. I know that the number is not the end all, be all, and I have to say that I felt pretty damn sexy rolling around in bed this morning, but we're both pretty far from where we started a year and a half ago. I think it will be good motivation to stick to our raw foods, even when the cravings get strong.

No real detox symptoms today. We're still fatigued, but that probably has more to do with not eating enough again for most of the day and then splitting a bottle of wine after dinner.

-Eloise

Day One

Okay. This has not been an easy day.

I think for the most part, it's a result of a lack of preparation. Really, I read so much about what we should be eating, in terms of nutritional value, but didn't think about what would sustain us and make the transition easier. Plus, tomorrow is my only day off, so we're going to go downtown to the market, Whole Foods and a couple health food stores to buy a week's worth of groceries. In the meantime, we went to a local grocery store last night to pick up basic provisions for the day.

We started out strong: I had a cantaloupe and Maddie had strawberries for breakfast. I packed a decent amount of fruits and veggies to take to work. But we hadn't made a dip or dressing and I was tired of eating plain raw veggies before I was anywhere near full at lunch today. On the way home, I made an emergency stop at Whole Foods to pick up some cold pressed olive oil for dressing and made this:

Italian Dressing

1 large tomato

1 clove garlic

1/4 c water

1/4 c olive oil

2tbl lemon juice

1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp salt

In blender, process all ingredients until smooth and creamy.

I would credit the recipe, but I saved a bunch of them in a text document and lack a source. It was good. I added extra lemon, which made it better. It definitely made "dinner" easier, but I can't really say we ate a meal, and I know we're both feeling pretty unsatiated tonight. All I can think about are starchy, cooked, carb foods. We spent a lot of time looking through recipe books and Gone Raw in preparation of our shopping trip, so hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. It may have been better to wait until we could shop properly, but we were very determined to start right on the first, as planned. I think it's good, though. We had the opportunity to see what really doesn't work so that we can plan a better week for ourselves.

As for detox, for me it's hard to say. I started with a bit of a cold or something. I've just been feeling pretty run down and waking up  the past few mornings with a sore throat, so I can't tell what's a result of that and what's caused by eating raw. It's probably too soon to tell, really. I had a low grade headache by the end of the work day, but that's not really unusual. I get headaches all the time, mostly from stress, and the minimal amount of food I ate certainly didn't help. One odd symptom that Mad and I are both experiencing, though, has to do with our eyes. I'd describe it as having difficulty focusing. When we were watching the Superbowl tonight, Maddie said that she wasn't physically tired, but her eyes felt so heavy. Again, though, it might just be because we haven't eaten enough. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

-Eloise