Day 89

Cauliflower popcorn and kale chips

Still slogging through the end of term.

Dinner last night was a lot of fun. We had raw "junk food." I'm going to post the recipes quick and then get back to the lab report I'm working on.

Cauliflower Popcorn
My own interpretation extrapolated from various sources around the web
Ingredients
1 large head of cauliflower
1 c cashews, soaked 2 hours
Juice from 1/2 lemon
2 T nutritional yeast
water to blend
salt to taste

Break cauliflower into bite sized pieces. Put in big bowl and set aside. Blend remaining ingredients. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower (should be fairly thick) and toss to coat. Dehydrate 24 hours.

The kale chips came from We Like it Raw. I'm not even going to attempt to emulate the great tutorial they have, but I want to post the ingredients so I can readily find them next time I want to make them (and I do... as soon as I get more kale).

Kale Chips
2 bunches kale
1/4 c olive oil
1 tsp salt
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 T agave

Dehydrate 6-8 hours.

Oh, also: when I was retrieving an errant cauliflower floret that fell on the floor, I found Ethel sitting like this:


I didn't catch her mid-stretch, she was actually just chilling like that. Weirdo cat.

Bonus points if you spot the cauliflower!

-Eloise

Day 88

Five 4.5 pounds of Medjool dates. Mmm.

Madeline called me the other night and asked if I wanted to meet her at work to get dinner. I hesitated for the briefest of moments. After all, we'd used up our self-imposed quota of one cooked meal per month with lunch the week prior. But I had been in the library working on research for the past 6 hours and Mad was going to be at work for 18 hours that day. As soon as she mentioned suishi, I was packing my things and heading out the door.

Dinner was fantastic. There's this amazing Japanese restaurant near her work, in a strip mall of all places. You wouldn't expect it to be so cute until you made it inside. We sat across from each other with a platter full of veggie rolls talking about how are days went. Madeline looked exceedingly sexy in her work clothes- dress slacks and shoes, white button up rolled up to the elbows. On a normal night, we change into PJs right after walking through the door and eat on the couch with salad bowls balancing on our bellies. It was just really nice to go out together, and I think it's really good for our relationship.

So this the long way to say that I've been thinking about what it means to eat raw (again), and how it's impacting my life. A lot of good things have come out of it. I am happier, healthier, more energetic, in love with my skin. I am eating much, much better. There are downsides, too, though. I am hyper aware of everything I'm eating, which I don't think is necessarily a good thing. If I had a smoothie for breakfast, a big salad for lunch and fruit throughout the day, I don't want to feel guilty because I had some rice with dinner.

As we're nearing three months, I'm going to let go a little. Everything we make and eat at home will still be raw, but eating out will be flexible. It'll be an occasional treat, as we've never eaten out more that every couple of weeks, anyway, and of course it will always be vegan. But I'm going to stop obsessing over whether or not I've had a cooked meal within the month. I think this is more a change of my state of mind, rather than circumstances, because really, does it make a huge difference to eat a cooked meal every three weeks as opposed to four. Not really. But relaxing and being able to enjoy it instead of feeling like I'm "cheating" is important to me.

It's kind of difficult to talk about being less than perfect here in the open, but I want to create an honest narrative. Eating raw isn't always easy, and it does involve sacrifice, both gastronomical and social. I know that I will never be one of the raw gurus, but I'm okay with that. Health is the goal for me, not purity.

I think I'm also going to expand my horizons here a little and include s0me knitting content every once in a while. I used to have a knitting blog, but I only finish a project every couple of weeks or so. Makes for slow updates. Doing so opens me up to another world of controversy, though.

I knit with wool.

Wool is not considered vegan.

I consider myself vegan.

There, I've said it. I was a knitter prior to being a vegan, and it's the one thing I never gave up. There are very good reasons for opting to abstain from wool, which I will not recapitulate, but direct you here if you're interested.

But I am also a materials engineer with a focus on textiles, and I can tell you that the production of almost every fiber has significant ecological repercussions. Many so-called green fibers are terrible, bamboo and recycled-from-soda-bottle polyester being my biggest pet peeves. Also, science cannot replicate nature, only mimic it if it's lucky, and there is nothing like wool for it's insulative, wicking and shape retention properties. It's good stuff.

So bottom line: I'm really not raw and I'm really not a vegan. Glad we cleared that up.

-Eloise

Day 84

Sprouting cats

Please take note of Fred's whiskers on the left side of the image. He was being nosy.

So things have been feeling a little stagnant around here lately. I'm not sprouting and the cats have taken to using the station as a sunny chaise. Un-cooking happens in random fits of inspiration. Today was the first day in about two weeks that I made it to the park for a hike. All I can repeat is my tired mantra: school. It's school that's keeping me busy. In these last two weeks, I have a combined fifty plus pages to write. Albeit, a good portion of that is a lab report which is filled with data charts and tables, but still. It's time consuming.

I really had no business even going to the park today with all that needs to get done, but I had to pick up Mr. Bingley's cremains from the vet before it got too late, and once I leave campus, all bets are pretty much off. It's a gorgeous day, and it's hard to pass that up in comparison to the climate controlled lab or the library. I will be there all this weekend, though.

There is an end in sight, and once that happens, hopefully things will get a little more interesting around here. And I'll be able to spend all the time I want outside. Afterall, I have this new nifty gadget that's going to make me the coolest geek on the trails:

It's so dorky, and it's awesome.

-Eloise

Day 82

I have been so incredibly hungry lately. Really, really famished. For the past two days, I have been this bottomless pit, eating everything in the house (which is luckily all raw). I made an indulgent, nut heavy apple crumble tonight. Madeline and I have already devoured half of it, which satiated me for a while, but I'm kind of hungry again. And I want something salty. That combined with the InstaThreePounds!^TM and the cup overfloweth that's been going on lately can only mean one thing: my body is preparing to gestate. Not that that's a possibility, but it's a good a reason as any to eat dessert.

The reason I bring this up is because I've noticed something. My skin is looking incredible. It's smooth and clear, and I'm not broken out at all, which is amazing. I know it sounds like I'm shamelessly boasting, but acne has been something I've dealt with for more than half my life now. I've pretty much got it under control with a regimented washing routine that's incredibly unnatural, but during ovulation, all bets are usually off. My skin very easily marks, too, so evidence of break outs tend to hang around long after the damage is done.

But this month, nothing. See?
Unexpected happy consequence of going raw.

-Eloise

p.s. Oh, boy. I have a bellyache. Waaaay to much apple crumple.

Day 80

Banana bread

I don't like to take medication frivolously, but this sinus thing had gotten to a point where it was almost intolerable. A friend suggested to me that I might be suffering from allergies, since hers had been acting up, but I'd never had them in the past, so I dismissed that.

After work on Saturday, I went to Whole Foods to get something holistic that would hopefully help. It seemed that everything I picked up that was clearly meant for sinus pain, though, was also blatantly not vegan with gelatin or lactose. I must have stood there for a while looking very confused because before I knew it, I had a sales girl on either side of me, one of whom was trying to convince me that it was only a little lactose and the other pushing herbs at me that I hadn't researched and had no clue if they would help. And everything was at least $20. I was overwhelmed and I left without buying anything.

On the way home, though, the pain was particularly bad, and I turned into CVS. I found the box of Tylenol labeled "Sinus pain and congestion" and I bought it without hesitating. It's not vegan. It's not natural. But it said that it would work for my symptoms, and it has. Plus it was like $5.

Before I went to bed that night, I went to take another dose and found two boxes in the medicine cabinet where I had previously placed the one. I thought maybe Madeline had picked up some, too, maybe because she was tired of hearing me gripe, so I called to her in the living room:

"Mad! Did you get more sinus meds?"

"No, I saw that you had bought some, and I remembered that you had some from last year when you went through the same thing."

Oh. So maybe it is allergies. At least I can be better prepared next time I need medication and hopefully stock up on something natural in advance.

I made banana bread yesterday that we ate last night. It was my favorite kind of recipe: quick and simple where everything is just thrown together and the hardest part is having to wait until it's dehydrated enough to eat it. I used this recipe ( 1 cup flax meal, 1 cup ground sesame, 5 bananas, 2 T agave, 2 tsp vanilla, cinnamon to taste, saved in the event that the link ceased to work) from the Raw Freedom Community. I added a handful of chopped walnuts, because banana nut bread is so much better. I spread it about 1/4 inch thick on parchment paper and dehydrated for 12 hours, flipping after about 6 and removing the paper.

It was very good when it came out, warm and soft in the middle. It was slightly flaxy, but tasted so similar to the baked breads I remember that I felt a bit bereft without a slather of Earth Balance margarine. Oh well. It was good, but I think I'm over bananas for the time being.

-Eloise

Day 78

It might not look like much (and the brown plate probably didn't help with presentation), but last night's dinner was. Really. Damn. Good. It's probably one of the most satisfying meals I've made, and my only complaint is that I should have made more.

The bread is another batch of onion bread, originally from here. I made a double batch, replaced the oil with an avocado, halved the Nama Shoyu and made up the difference with water. Dehydrated for 24 hours, flipped at 12. It was perfect, not too salty this time.

The burger is a marinated portobello cap. I de-stemmed and de-gilled them and marinated them for about 12 hours in the juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/4 c olive olive oil, 1/2 t garlic powder and dashes of oregano, basil and sea salt (per cap). The only thing I would do differently would be to set the mushrooms to marinate the night before. They could take it, and it would have saved me time in the morning.

We have onion bread left over and some button mushrooms in the fridge. I think I might try marinating them and making mini-sandwiches for dinner tonight.

-Eloise

Day 77

At work today, we had a sidewalk sale, so I got to spend some time sitting in the sun (after being sufficiently sunblocked, of course). I was only out for about two hours in the late afternoon, and even then I tried to stay in the shade, because I burn quicker than toast. There was only a little shade, though, so as a result, one of my shoulders is a constellation of freckles and the other has only a few stragglers from last year. Heh.

I don't have a picture today. Not even a recycled one. My excuse is that my face hurts (sinuses), but really I just don't feel like taking some or hunting for one. I did feel like posting, though, so I decided that that shouldn't stop me.

The food of the week seems to be bananas. They're always a staple, but these past couple days, I'm really digging them. I just finished another banana shake, which I'm currently obsessed with. I told Mad I had to make one for her tonight, but she probably won't be home until almost 10. At that point, it's dinner and bed. I am very glad that she's happy with her job, but I am missing spending time together. I'll be happy when my schedule frees up for the summer so we can spend her mid-week days off together.

It's interesting to see the way our diets are evolving as we get further into this raw thing. I used to make fairly complex salads that I'd bring for lunch along with plenty of snacks: granola, some fruit, carrot sticks, etc, to get me through the day. Now, though, partially out of convenience, but mostly because I like it, I double my morning smoothie and split it into two quart sized mason jars. I drink one on the way to school and one later on when I get hungry. Other than that, I eat fruit until I get home at night and have dinner. I never would have thought that fruit would keep me going, but 3 bananas, 4 apples, 2 pears and sometimes a bowl of pineapple and mango and I'm set. It varies by what's in stock and in season. My purse has basically turned into a portable fruit bowl. I'm really looking forward to hitting up some pick-your-own farms this summer.

-Eloise

Day 76

It's been a very long week that was capped off with an audition and interview for the role student speaker at commencement. I'm very excited to have been nominated- there are 10 of us auditioning- but it was nerve wracking! I recited the first few minutes of Margaret Chase Smith's famous "Declaration of Conscience," which, by the way, is an amazing speech (you know, if you're in the mood for that sort of thing). I think it went fairly well, but we'll see. I also think it's a funny coincidence that my speech audition and the Day of Silence fell on the same day.

I've finally gotten my sun, but the kind-of-feeling-sick from earlier in the week has blossomed into full blown holy-crap-my-sinuses-are-going-to-explode. So I enjoyed it while I was on campus today, but opted to come home and curl up on the couch with some knitting instead of heading out to the park.

I needed some comfort food when I got home, so I made a banana shake. It was the perfect thing.

Urban Escape
2 pitted dates
1.5 c warm water
2 frozen bananas
splash of vanilla
dash of cinnamon

Soak the dates in the water for 20 minutes ( or as long as you can stand it). Add the dates and water to the blender along with the bananas, vanilla and cinnamon. Blend until creamy.

I was still kind of hungry when I finished it, though, so I made myself another, with the addition of 1.5 T cocoa powder for a chocolate version. Definitely what I needed this afternoon.

-Eloise

Day 75

I came across the above container placed inconspicuously on our bathroom shelf when I was getting ready for bed last night, and it made me burst into laughter. It's tiny, smaller than a quarter. I thought Madeline has been particularly happy because she was finding her new job very fulfilling, but apparently her secret is that she's found inner peace and has bottled it to boot. (Okay, it's actually a sample of hair product from when she'd gotten her hair cut earlier that day, but I prefer my alternative.)

I have recipes to share today. I was very, very happy with the way my cookies came out that I'm going to post the first prototype recipe and another update when I get around to making the date-sweetened alternative. The texture was fantastic, dense and cake-like.

Drama-free cookies*

Ingredients:

pulp from 6 carrots and 3 apples**

3 T flax meal

3 T agave

2 T maple syrup

Cinnamon to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. A dough should form that easily holds together (I did this by hand with a spatula, but a food processor would probably be just as effective, albeit more work to clean). Form into balls and slightly flatten. Dehydrate 12 hours. Make 7 small cookies.

*You know. Cause nothing's nuts. :)

**See yesterday's post for how I juiced with a blender. Also, I used granny smith apples with peel, hence the green flecks.

-

I also made a pudding/custard thing last night. I had soaked some cashews to make a chowder, but as it turned out, I really didn't want chowder for dinner. I wanted a spinach salad with parmesan, instead. I didn't want to let the soaked nuts to sit in the fridge for too long, so dessert it was. (Quick note on the parmesan... we love that stuff. I make huge batches that we keep in the fridge and in lieu of dressings, we frequently opt for giant mixing bowls of dry spinach with a tablespoon or two of parmesan. So good).

Banana custard with mango topping

Ingredients:

1/2 c cashews soaked for 2 hours

2 bananas

1 T agave

3 T water

cinnamon to taste (can you tell, I like cinnamon?)

1 large mango

Combine cashews, bananas, agave, water and cinnamon in a food processor or blender until creamy. Portion into two small bowls. Puree mango until creamy and layer on top of the banana custard. Sprinkle with cinnamon as desired. Chill and serve. Or don't chill. It's still good.

-Elosie

Day 74

Fred, Ethel, Naomi and Ruthie

Thank you so much for all the kind words yesterday. It really meant a lot to know that you guys are out there caring what goes on in my day. :)

Alright, so here's the negatives: it's still raining (the sunny picture is recycled... I've been lacking picture taking motivation, but I don't like to post without one) and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting sick. I also don't have the job that I thought I would this summer, so I very quickly need to figure out what I'm going to do about that.

On the bright side, I feel much more centered today and way less stressed. I sent in the acceptance form that accompanied my graduate school acceptance letter, so in a few short months, I will be engaging in post-collegiate studies (which I'm sure will stress me out, but at this distance, it feels good).

I've tried two raw staples in the past few days: kelp noodles and fresh juice. To start with, I really detested the kelp noodles. Mad and I split a package with pesto, and it was a very sad waste of pesto. I think in my mind I was hoping for a real pasta replacement, but the texture is odd. I don't know how to describe it, except to say that for soft noodles, it's crisp. Also, I get this strongly off-putting burnt plastic aftertaste. I'm sure it's just a sea-weedy taste, and Madeline didn't notice it at all, but I couldn't eat more than a few bites. This is a good thing, though, because now it means that I won't be addicted to ordering packages of these pricey noodles. Shredded zucchini is much better.

As for the juice, I was at my local health food store and decided to treat myself to a carrot, celery and beet juice. I'm really addicted to my smoothies, but I know that there are circles that are really adamant about the benefits of juicing. First of all, it was delicious and shockingly sweet. I had no idea that carrot juice could be that sweet. I think I drank it too quickly, though, or maybe should have opted for the small instead of the large, because it really gave me a jolt. I felt like I had drank something caffeinated, but not in a good way. Caffeine makes my head buzz and my stomach hurt, and this was very similar. I think this might have been because of the rush of sugar without the fiber to slow absorption.

Needless to say, I won't be swapping out my smoothies for juices any time soon, but it got me thinking. Sweetening my smoothies with carrots seemed like a very appealing idea. I'd tried to make a blended carrot, apple, ginger juice once before, but there was way too much fiber to blend and I couldn't drink it. In the order that I had placed with The Raw Food World recently, I'd purchased a nut milk bag on a whim. I'm not sure why because it was pricey considering the fact that I don't see myself making many nut milks, but all of the sudden, it was perfect.

When I got home last night, I blended about 6 carrots and 3 apples together in my blender with a water to get things going. I then strained it through the nut milk bag to make juice and then used that as the base for a giant smoothie with a ton of greens. It was really, really good, although admittedly sweeter than the smoothies I'd gotten accustomed to drinking recently.

I also had plans for the pulp. A few weeks ago, Madeline and I tried a slice of raw cheesecake from Awesome Foods, and Mad particularly liked the crust, which had apples. She asked if I could make apple cookies, and I'd been mulling it over for some time. Most of the recipes I found were very heavy on nuts, which, as always, I'm reticent to use, even for a dessert. One recipe called for apple pulp, though, in addition to nuts, so having just produced some, I thought I'd play around with it.

Prototype 1 was made last night with the apple/carrot pulp, agave, maple syrup, flax meal and cinnamon. I dehydrated for 12 hours and my taste test this morning was definitely positive. I'll have more conclusive evidence after dinner tonight. I'm going to try another version soon using dates to sweeten, though. I didn't think of it until afterwards, but I think that's definitely the direction I want to take these. When I perfect it, I'll post the recipe.

-Eloise

Day 73

This weekend sucked. Specifically, Sunday and Monday which, in my work week, constitutes a weekend.

On Sunday, I woke up to Fred, one of our cats, meowing loudly. He's normally very vocal, but this was unusual even for him. It was around 7:30, earlier than I had intended to get up, but not by much. Madeline had already left for work at 6.

When I walked into the living room, I immediately knew something was wrong. Mr. Bingley, our angora, was laying on his side in the middle of the room. Rabbits sleep against walls and in corners. Closer inspection confirmed my fears: Mr Bingley had died. It was kind of ironic in a bitter way since it was Easter morning, day of resurrection and all things bunny. It wasn't entirely a surprise, as his brother, Mr. Darcy, had died of a congenital heart condition when he was only a few months old, but Bing had been doing so well. He was becoming incredibly social and more interactive every day. I wrapped him up in one of his blankets, and he's in the freezer now until Madeline can take him to the vet to be cremated tomorrow. Makes me sad every time I'm in the kitchen. It's not a great picture of him, kind of blurry, but I don't have many that show his cute face.

Unfortunately, even death does not exempt me from familial obligations, so I packed up to go to my grandparents and then to my parent's overnight. Holidays used to be raucous events with tons of extended family at my grandparent's house, but their health has been declining and they've moved into a small assisted living community. My grandmother has been progressively slipping into dementia. She is unfailingly polite, but recognizes only my grandfather. My grandfather is there mentally, but his physical health is increasingly worrisome and he's so proud and stubborn that he refuses most assistance that the two of them desperately need. They're not going to be able to live on their own much longer, and the past few holidays have been quiet, awkward and somber affairs.

And then there's the issue of staying at my parent's house. I love my parents, but being in their presence for too long makes me feel 14 again. And I really, really hated being 14. I know that there's a lot of emotional baggage there.

Just to top things off, I spent my Monday morning in the DMV replacing my license. When I get stressed out, I lose important things, primarily my cell phone, keys and now my license, and it had been missing for a little over a week. I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the apartment, but I didn't want to go too long without it. It took two hours, mostly waiting in hard plastic chairs in a very crowded waiting area with many unhappy and restless children. I really wouldn't recommend it to start off your week.

And the food. I packed enough healthy raw food to see me through Easter and my overnight stay. I didn't have to bother telling anyone that I was eating raw, since providing food for myself has been my responsibility ever since going vegan. I did pretty well for a while, but once I got to my parent's house Sunday night, I ate crap: a ton of italian bread, apple pie and chocolate. It was all vegan (although the cheese doodles were looking tempting at the end of the night), but it wasn't a treat, and I wasn't enjoying myself. I was emotionally eating, and I knew it, but I couldn't stop myself. Such a crappy feeling, and my body has been kind of thrown off ever since.

I know that a large part of my success and happiness in eating raw comes from the fact that Mad and I have created a healthy and raw environment in our kitchen. If I lived with someone who ate a typical American diet, it would take tremendous willpower for me to stick to my raw food when I got upset or overwhelmed. I am even more grateful that this is something Mad and I do together, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who can eat raw without that kind of support system.

It's just going to be a rough couple of weeks. It's the final push to the end of the semester, to graduation, and I'm stuck under a mountain of work with no idea how I'll complete it time. I know I will, since I always do, but it's going to be a lot of late nights in the library, that's for sure. Yesterday and today, I've been doubling up on my greens, mostly in smoothie form, and eating a lot of fresh fruit. No nuts or oils for the time being. It's kind of a mini-cleanse, and I'm feeling better for it. I just wish the sun would come out. This dreary rain is not helping.

-Eloise

Day 69

Scenes from a hike

I love this. For two days in a row, I've had comments that really make me think about the reasons and ramifications of being raw. I'm pretty consistent about responding directly to comments, but once again, I just have too much to say on the subject.

In response to yesterday's post, Jeremy of Stellar Path has asked:

Soup looks delicious. :) But my reason for this post - one thing that I've wondered - what made you decide to go raw and not just high raw? I certainly get the desire to eat a healthier diet; I'm just curious as to how you and Mad made the decision to completely eliminate cooked food (other than your one splurge meal a month) and not just cut back, so you could occasionally have cooked bread, etc.

I've been thinking about this all morning. Most diet books recommend a gradual transition into new habits and making small changes at a time to achieve success. I disagree. I believe in the power of grand gestures, jumping in feet first or not at all. It's like swimming. When the water is chilly, it's torturous to ease in one inch at a time. If you take the plunge, you'll be shocked for the first few minutes, but you'll acclimate a lot faster.

One of the moments that sticks out very clearly in my mind is from the first week or so of transitioning. I was at my weekend job, which is located in the basement of its building that is always freezing cold during the winter. I was eating a cold salad with a crappy vinaigrette (too much oil, far too little vinegar) and I was shivering and miserable. It sucked. It was definitely a low point in this journey, but I stuck with it, and it's gotten much, much better.

Going raw for us is not just about the food we eat. Certainly that's a large part of it, but it's a lifestyle change, a whole new approach to food. To get in the right frame of mind, everything had to go. Like Victoria Boutenko who smashed her family's microwave, I wanted a clean slate (Of course, I didn't actually smash our microwave. I'm hoping to sell it on Craigslist... but metaphorically, I was totally there).

I like having defined parameters that govern our eating habits. Walking into the grocery store, I immediately know what's going into my cart and what's off-limits. There's no quibbling about the bread, it just doesn't go into the cart. I frequently mention that we were junk food vegans, but it didn't start off that way. We used to eat pretty well, especially when Madeline and I were long distance. Like I was saying yesterday, I ate all organic and a decent amount of fruits and vegetables. I had my share of vegan ice cream, but overall I'd say I was pretty healthy.

Whenever Mad and I would see each other every few months, though, it was a time to indulge. We ate pastries for breakfast, made road trips to try amazing vegan restaurants that we'd read about online. Being together was a cause for celebration. I often returned home with my jeans a little tight, but that would remedy itself after a couple weeks on my normal schedule. The problem was that when we moved in together, our bad habits slowly followed. Two years later, we were 20 lbs heavier apiece and looking to make a change. We were already vegan and had cut out meat, dairy and eggs, so raw just seemed to make sense.

I didn't want to go high raw because I didn't want to give cooked foods the ability to edge their way back to the forefront. I mention bread often, because it's really what I miss the most, really great artisan bread. If we had it in the house, I would eat all of it. I just don't want to give myself that opportunity.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. I have an insatiable sweet tooth. Madeline, inexplicably to me, is not afflicted. Instead of focusing my energy on making dense, nut based desserts, I have a couple squares of extra dark chocolate a couple times a week, and this keeps me extremely satisfied. I've tried carob and I've tried raw chocolate. It's just not the same. I have a routine and a limit and it works out well. We also drink the occasional glass of wine. For me, it's a nice way to unwind at the end of a stressful day. I enjoy it, and I don't feel like I'm compromising my efforts by imbibing. I'm pretty sure that raw purists would heartily disagree, but although we eat 95-99% raw at home, I wouldn't consider myself a purist.

A few weeks ago, I was reading testimonials of people who have gone raw, and one said (and I paraphrase):

I used to have a great social life, but then I went raw and none of my friends wanted to hang out with me because I didn't want to go to restaurants or bars anymore, so I don't have friends but I've been raw for five years and I look and feel terrific!

Okay, they was more to it than that, but that's the message that came across to me. Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm a homebody. I work three jobs and go to school full time and at the end of the day, I really look forward to going home and getting into PJs. But when I can be coaxed out of my domestic sphere, I really want to enjoy the time I spend with my friends. In some cases, it's easy enough to order a salad or a fruit platter. In others, I wind up getting a cooked (but always vegan) meal. And as an occasional thing, I think it's good. Having friends and being social is another really important factor when it comes to health and well-being. I never compromise being vegan, because that's a moral and ethical stand for me, but raw is a lifestyle choice. It makes me happy to eat raw and it makes me happy to eat out with my friends. If it's been a while, Mad and I may chose to go out for a cooked meal, as well. I don't see that those things have to be mutually exclusive.

I hope that answers your question, Jeremy! In short, we wanted a big change, so it seemed logical for us to eat as close to 100% raw at home as possible. Your mileage may vary.

-Eloise

Day 68

Noodle soup with onion bread

I've been thinking about the economics of eating raw. Autismom mentioned in regard to my last post how similar my crackers look to the ones she buys for $6 a bag. I've purchased similar crackers before as well, and those bags probably contain as many crackers as 1 dehydrator tray yielded for me. My batch made 6 trays and took 2 cups of flax seeds. I purchased about 4.4 lbs from my local health food store for $10 and I still have over half a gallon of seeds left (judging from the overflow of my mason jar storage). There are other ingredients in there; pumpkin seeds, parsley, cilantro, garlic powder, salt... but as with the flax seeds, the cost is nominal.

One of the things that keeps coming up in the forums I peruse is how expensive it is to eat raw. As far as I can tell, that's pretty subjective. Coming from a junk food vegan diet, I know we're spending more. No more $1 boxes of pasta for two nights of dinner. We don't stock up as much on sales because most of what we purchase now is perishable and our freezer space is limited. We used to get by on $100/month for both of us. But we weren't happy and we felt like crap. That's why we became raw in the first place.

On the other end of the spectrum, when I was living alone about three years ago, it was all Whole Foods all the time. I spent around $70 a week ($280 a month) just for myself. I did cook some (I baked a lot), but I was still buying a ton of packaged food. Healthy and organic, but packaged nonetheless.

To be honest, I'm not sure how much we're spending now. I started to keep track when I first started the blog, but it's time consuming and boring. We go to the produce market every couple of days, so it would be a constant update on the prices of produce in our corner of the world. And I don't want to keep track, either. I don't want to feel guilty about how much we spend on food. We get by from week to week since we're not really in a position to save at the moment, and if we can reasonably afford it, I'm not going to worry about it. We buy in bulk where we can ( I have chia seeds, hemp seeds and hemp protien coming my way from The Raw Food World... I am unreasonably excited). I know that we're definitely spending more than we used to, but we're also definitely spending less than I did on just myself. For the most part, we're happier and healthier, and you can't really put a price on that.

We don't buy many organic products. A lot of our produce comes from a local produce market that carries a large percentage of local fruits and vegetables. Their prices are the best around, as well. I feel good about that. I would like to eat organic, but that probably won't happen until I have a salary. Conventional produce hasn't killed me yet, and spinach trumps potato chips any day, fertilizers aside. My sprouting seeds are organic, as are some of my bulk goods. The amount will probably increase as the farmer's markets open and I grow some veggies on our balcony, but it's not something I'm going to stress about.

Bottom line, I don't think that eating raw needs to be any more expensive than any other healthy diet. We minimize the expensive ingredients (mainly nuts and nut butters) and focus on the produce that we get cheap and in abundance. A lot of the raw recipes I look through I reject out of hand. 1 cup of macadamia nuts, 2 cups pine nuts... that's expensive! I mainly stick to the cheaper nuts (walnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds) and I use them sparingly. We only eat a nut/seed based recipe at most once a day, usually dinner. It's better for our hips and it's better for our wallets. We also buy very few packaged food items. Come to think of it, Egg-less salad is the only thing we seem to have on a regular basis. We used to buy granola, but, if I say so myself, mine is better. Everything else, we eat as is or I make from scratch, and that's a huge savings right there.

The picture up top is last night's dinner. It was a good pairing. The soup (from here) was pretty bland and the onion bread (from here) was almost too flavorful. My modifications (there are always modifications) for the soup were to cut the turmeric way down. I doubled the recipe, so for 8 cups of water, I added 1/2 tsp turmeric. Madeline thought it could have used more, but I find it to have a bitter aftertaste, and I poured the first batch of broth with the full amount down the drain. This was about as much as I could take. I used a 1/2 tsp garlic powder, but it probably could have stood to be increased even more. It's not a recipe that would make my greatest hits list, but as Madeline said, it would be good to eat when you're sick. The dehydrated zucchini-as-noodles were really good, so I may wind up using them in a different broth eventually.

For the onion bread, after looking at some of the comments, I only used 1 small onion, which was plenty. I also only dehydrated for about 24 hours, instead of the full 36, because it seemed perfect to eat with the soup. It was soft, but not "undercooked". It was very salty, so I might cut some of the Nama Shoyu with water next time.

It was really weird to use my stove! I heated the soup up on the stove, per the instructions, and made sure that it didn't go above 115 using my instant read thermometer. It was nice to have a warm meal though. The bread was warm, too, fresh out of the dehydrator. It was a pretty good dinner.

-Eloise

Day 67

Yesterday's flax crackers

I am suppressing my school anxiety into housework, or so Madeline tells me. I happen to disagree (she says while while vacuuming the living room with the hand attachment... it's more effective!). I do admit that I was prolific in the kitchen last night. We ate the crackers, as featured above, and they were delicious. I may have spread them a little thin, so they were more crisp-like, but that was perfectly fine by me. The best part is that the recipe made a huge batch of 6 trays, so we have plenty left over for the next couple days.

I placed a big order with Sprout House last week which I received just the other day. I immediately started soaking a blend of barley, oat groats and buckwheat. It's a really easy combination to work with. They only need to soak for an hour and sprout for 24-36 hours with rinses every 4-8 hours and they're done (well, when you put it that way... honestly it's easy). I used them when they had little tails, because the wheat that I had sprouted last week had gotten increasingly bitter the longer it sprouted. This was just right. They require a little extra rinsing because of all the starchiness they release, but there's no hulling at the end. I have determined that I really like sprouting, I don't mind the rinsing, but I abhor the hulling. There has to be a better way than submersing the sprouts in water and flicking out the hulls with a spoon. If you know if one, please let me know!

So once they were ready, I of course had to make granola. I perused dozens of recipes, most too nut heavy for my taste, and finally put together this batch based around this recipe on Gone Raw. Here were my modifications:

Raw Cinnamon Raisin Granola

Dry Ingredients

3 cups sprouts (I used equal parts barley, oat groats and buckwheat)

1 cup brazil nuts, chopped

1 cup dried coconut

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup flax seeds

1/2 cup raisins

Wet Ingredients

8 dates

3 T raisins

2T agave nectar

1/2 T cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla

Set dates and raisins to soak in a small bowl with lukewarm water just covering them. Measure dry ingredients into a large bowl. Measure wet ingredients, including the soak water, into a food processor or blender and mix until fully combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix by hand. Spread on dehydrator trays with parchment paper (or those non-stick sheets) and dehydrate at 115 degrees for 12-14 hours until desired texture. I like my granola a little chewy, so I took it out just before 12 hours.

I had a really hard time not eating this before it dehydrated. In fact, Mad and I ate some for dessert last night (I finished hers... I have a relentless sweet tooth). It reminded me so much of the instant packets of Quaker cinnamon raisin oatmeal that I used to eat as a kid. So good. I was afraid that I had added too much cinnamon because the wet ingredients were overpowerfully cinnamony, but when it's all mixed together, it's pretty mellow. I would even venture to add some more next time. I did not soak my seeds or nuts this time around, but I will for next. I'm also going to try mixing in more sprouts (quinoa, I'm thinking of you) and chia seeds and hemp nuts.

There's other kitchen goodness going on around here, but even I admit that I'm procrastinating now. More to come!

-Eloise

Day 66

Wake up, lazy butt!

I have come to find that preparation is the key to eating raw (and I'm sure in some sense, this is applicable to healthy eating in general). If I come home at night and intend to make dinner, my options are limited. If we're lucky, there's leftovers. If not, well, it's salad with a vinaigrette. Not bad, but not really satisfying.

If I've planned ahead since the morning, though, I have nuts and seeds soaking and my options are much more varied. If I thought about it the day before, I can have something dehydrating and waiting for us. That's the best. It's like having a slow cooker (but raw!).

My friends tease me about my Mary Poppins-like purse that I carry, and admit that it gets ridiculous (three calculators... I may be an engineer, but even I don't know why there are three calculators in my bag), but there's always a snack stuck in there. There's nothing more disheartening than being stuck in traffic, hungry, and surrounded by inedible food. Being a vegan did prepare me for the phenomenon of scarcity in abundance, but at least we could still keep our eyes peeled for the Taco Bell on the horizon. A grocery store is our best option now, but it's never a sure bet. So keeping a snack on hand is really the only way to go.

Madeline and I have both found that throughout the day, we almost exclusively eat fruits and vegetables. I also drink lot of green smoothies, although she's not really a fan. Sometimes I'll include granola in my lunch tin, but today, for instance, I brought an extra quart of green smoothie in an insulated bag (which, I might add, fits inside my giant bag). It's going to be a long day at school for me. When we get home, we like to sit down to something hearty and flavorful.

Yesterday, I made flax crackers from The Renegade Health Show (my only variation was to throw in a little garlic powder... everything is better with garlic) and they finished dehydrating this morning. Since our dehydrator was a refurbished model, we didn't get a timer, which would have been helpful, but I remedied the situation with a $10 light timer. It worked like a charm. I flipped the crackers last night before I went to bed, set the timer for six more hours and in the morning when I woke up, the dehydrator was off and the crackers were done. I'm pleased.

By the way, if you're making the cracker recipe and you're like me, you haven't watched the video (something about cooking shows, I just don't have the patience). I was kind of confused what to do with the flax seeds after soaking them. It tells you to include the tomato soak water, but not a word about the flax water. Was I supposed to drain them? Regardless, I trudged ahead blindly, assuming that I'd eventually figure it out, and lo and behold. After soak for a half an hour, there's no soak water left. Instead you have plumper, slimier flax seeds. So that solved that.

I'm pretty sure they're going to be great. I haven't gotten a full taste yet, but I nicked a sample this morning when checking to see if they were crisp (from the corner that was missing, I strongly suspect that Madeline did as well). We'll eat them smeared with egg-less salad (scroll down) from Awesome Foods (we don't buy many packaged foods these days, but it's just phenomenal) and a huge salad on the side.

-Eloise

Day 65

It's been a whirlwind around here lately with weeks until the end of the semester and Madeline getting used to her new job. She's home tonight, though, so just a quick update so we can spend time together. I made a rocking dinner two nights ago that Mad requested again tonight and I don't want to forget what I did. It's an adaptation from this Pesto Stuffed Mushroom recipe, a healthier, cheaper version. ;)

Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms
60 white button mushrooms
2 cups basil leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste
1/4 cup soaked walnuts

Wash and de-stem the mushrooms (just use your fingers, they snap right out) and set aside. Put everything except mushrooms and walnuts in the food processor and process until well combined. Add the walnuts and pulse until chopped. Using a 1/4 tsp, spoon a heaping spoonful into each cap. Dehydrate 4-6 hours until soft.

They taste like breaded mushrooms. So good.

-Eloise

Day 63

Snacking on the go

I. Need. Kale.

You may have noticed that that's been a trend in my blog over the past week. What I've noticed is that my food cravings are very cyclical. In Victoria Boutenko's books, she stresses the importance of listening to your body for its nutritional needs. It's difficult at times for me to filter out my psychological cravings (No, Eloise, you will not die without bread), but there are strong patterns to my eating habits. The first week, all I wanted were avocados. I was bereft when they wouldn't ripen fast enough. Then it was olives, which I had never liked before. I always picked them out of my food. Two weeks ago were green smoothies. I'm still drinking them on a daily basis, sometimes twice a day, but not as ravenously as I had before.

Last week was mangoes. I needed mangoes. We had picked up five or six that we had to wait to ripen, but once I ate them, I had to have more. Seriously, we made an emergency trip out to Whole Foods to pick up a case of 18 (coincidentally, we ran into the twenty-somethings who live below us heading out for a beer run... the comparison of priorities cracks me up). I picked up a second case a couple days later, and between the two of us, we ate about 40 mangoes that week with me having eaten about 30 of them.

This week, it's kale. I have discovered kale salads, and I am obsessed. Savory with garlic and nutritional yeast, like I made last Sunday or sweet, like Kristen's Candy Kale salad, which I made the other day (and several times for lunch), I love it all. I even managed to make kale chips without eating it all first, which were delicious and really satisfy a chip craving. They're quick, too. Unlike a lot of dehydrated recipes that take 24 hours, give or take, this was about 5 hours to completion. We had some that night and they were even better the next day.

I've realized that it's silly to worry so much about the excessive amounts of kale I'm currently consuming, because this obsession will pass. Like mangoes, of which there are three or four in the fruit bowl, I'll continue to eat it, but it will not be my sole reason for existence. Something else will come along to fill that role, and I'm curious to see what's coming next.

My goal this week is to expand my dehydrator repertoire. I used it to to warm up a soup a made last night (Marvelous Mushroom Soup, doubled with half the almond butter and extra mushrooms to compensate. I thought it was alright, but Madeline really loved it), which worked well, but there's so much I could be doing with it. Top priority is to find a good cracker recipe.

-Eloise

Day 61

See the new pink picture hanging out on the sidebar a little ways down the page? It's an award that bloggers can pass along to other bloggers that they enjoy, and I received mine from Autismom. The rules of accepting the award are to share seven things you love and pass it along to seven blogs you love to read. So here we go:

1. The family I've created for myself, meaning Madeline, our cats and our rabbit. I know that this is a bit of a cop out, but growing up gay, you sometimes come to realize that love can be conditional, and it's not something you can take for granted. Mad and I have gone through a lot in the 4 1/2 years we've been together, and I think it's important to stop and appreciate the life we've made for ourselves. It's a good one.

2. Knitting. My knitting hasn't made an appearance on the blog as of late, but I learned to knit when I was 16, and it's been an obsession ever since. Focusing on the repetitive motions is like meditation for me. It's funny, though, but in the past month I haven't been knitting as much, because I can't sit still for too long. Unless I'm eating or utterly exhausted, I feel the need to be up and doing something. Usually it's preparing food or cleaning the kitchen, which is good. i need to knit more, though.

3. Days off. For a while last semester, I was going to school or working seven days a week, which is a recipe for burning out. I've learned how important it is to take time for myself and to stop over committing.

4. The color yellow. It makes me happy.

5. Sunshine. The weather completely affects my mood and my level of motivation, and I have a lot of difficulty getting anything done on cloudy, rainy days, even if I'm indoors. I think people are solar powered.

6. Being domestic. It gives me a lot of pleasure to make a delicious, healthy meal, to vacuum the living room free of fur, to scrub the bathroom until it sparkles, to grocery shop and fill our fridges and cupboards. If it weren't for the fact that I'm in a non-traditional relationship, I'd be such a retro throw back, it would cease to be ironic. It's difficult to find the time sometimes and housecleaning is often the first priority to slip (because I don't really like scrubbing the toilet, I just like when it's been done), but I like a clean house and taking care of my family.

7. Blogging. I knew when I started that it would be helpful to me to record our progress, but it's really thrilling to know that my words are being read, that it's a journey that other people can share with me. Mad and I originally started this as a joint project, but as it turns out, she wasn't really interested and I became mildly obsessed. Whatever. She doesn't know what she's missing. :) I've also found that blogging helps me to focus on the highlights of my day. There are a lot of days that I feel overloaded by school and work, that I come home pissed off at the driver that cut me off, that I'm tired of doing the never ending load of dishes in the sink, a million different little things, but then I sit down to tell you all about the amazing dinner I made or the hike I took or the positive changes I'm noticing and it put things into perspective. Gratitude is a very unexpected side effect of blogging.

In no particular order, here are seven blogs that I've been reading frequently:

1. Becki 365
2. Green and Crunchy
3. Insubordiknit
4. A Baker's Dozen
5. Kristen's Raw
6. Stellar Path
7. Yarn-a-go-go

It's an eclectic list, some who share my passions and some whose lives are completely different than mine, not all of whom read my blog but I think it's a really interesting slice of the blogosphere (and of course, Autismom. Go check her out, though it would have been redundant to put her on the list).

-Eloise

Day 60

The following (one sided) dialogue is what occurred when I walked into the kitchen, camera in hand...

"Mad! I'm going to take your picture! Okay, smile!"

"Wait the flash was on, let me try again...Don't make a face at me, smile!"

"That's better."

Heh. She's been so busy at work lately that this is pretty much the most I've seen her in the past couple days.

Two months raw! It's definitely getting easier, and I'm definitely getting better at putting together meals. Preparing food has become kind of a mediation for me, which is good, because I do spend a ton of time in the kitchen. Right before going raw, I was talking to a co-worker at my weekend job about how great raw was going to be, and a customer who overheard me chimed in. He said that he had been raw for a while, but he hated having to think about what he was going to eat days in advance. I politely nodded and we went on to talk about the best places to get raw food in the city, but inside I was thinking, How long could it possibly take to make a salad?

How naive I was. We do eat plenty of salads, but I do my fair share of soaking, sprouting, slicing, processing, dehydrating... I spend a good couple hours in the kitchen everyday, and it's important to me to keep things interesting. It would be too difficult for me to stay committed to being raw if I wasn't willing to put in that time.

That being said, though, tonight's dinner was pretty quick. I made a variation of Kristen's Candy Kale Salad with kale (massaged with lemon juice, olive oil and sea salt), chopped dates, raisins (both soaked to plump), brazil nuts and strawberry slices. It was so incredibly good. The strawberry was a particularly inspired addition, if I say so myself, although that's makes it a poorly combined meal for those who follow those rules. I'm lax about them, but I can't help but note when my foods are "mis-combined".

I've lost weight this month, too, about 5 lbs. I can't say that's entirely because of going raw, though, but more of a lifestyle change. I've been watching calories, limiting nuts and oils and getting out to hike a couple times a week. I'm just a lot more conscious about the way I take care of myself, and I'm a lot more balanced for it.

-Eloise