I tried something different this time, too. I wrote out recipes, not just the menu suggestions, and I tried to put things in chronological order – because some recipes require advance preparation. For instance, to make almond milk, you need to soak the almonds for 12 hours before you puree them in the blender. So if you want almond milk on your cereal for breakfast, you need to set the almonds to soak the night before.

Finally, at the end I typed up a list of ingredients, but not quantities. It’s hard to figure how much you’ll need, because I don’t know how many people are in your family, or how hungry they are. If I suggest mangoes for breakfast, a child might eat only half of one, but a husband might eat two or three whole ones. Either is fine! With the raw foods diet, it is important to eat enough raw foods to fill you. Most of us think of a 10-oz cereal bowl full of lettuce for a serving of salad. But when you’re eating raw, and the salad is your whole meal not just a side-dish, you should think more of eating the entire head of lettuce yourself!

There is, of course, a lot of variety on the web of “how” to eat a raw food diet. Some sources say as long as it’s raw, it’s okay. Some say you shouldn’t eat potatoes, carrots, or beets which are “hybrid” vegetables. I wonder why they didn’t put corn on the list – isn’t that the most genetically altered vegetable on the planet? Other sources say to avoid spices, which are all slightly toxic and harmful for the digestive system. Other sources say to be sure to add avocados and olive oil to your diet, so you do have some source of fat, yet of course, other sources claim that most of us who transition to raw eat too much fats even in our raw diet. So, unless you want to get several degrees in nutrition and fitness, you just have to make a few decisions for yourself based on the best information you have available.

I suggest using your body as a guideline. I love garlic. I’ve always cooked with garlic, and I’ve read a lot about the health benefits of garlic. But when I put two cloves of raw garlic in one of this week’s recipes, I had a bellyache for 24 hours. I may try cutting the raw garlic down to a single clove, but if it happens again, I think I’ll cut raw garlic from my diet.

The best guide for how much to eat is your body, unless you don’t trust your instincts yet. If you, like me, have a weight problem, then the cooked foods of the Standard American Diet (SAD) have overburdened your system. Your body may not know when it’s truly hungry or when it’s truly satisfied. While you transition to eating raw, you may want to consider the “recommended daily allowance” for raw foods.

Women should consume 6 pounds of fruit, 2.5 pounds of vegetables, and 1/4 pound of nuts and seeds daily.
Men should consume a bit more – 7.5 pounds of fruit, 3 pounds of vegetables, and 1/3 pound of nuts or seeds daily.

A “fruit” is any food that has seeds. So while apples, pears and peaches are fruits, so are tomatoes, cucumbers and avocados. Avoid eating hybrid fruits that do not have seeds, like seedless watermelon. I’m not sure why folks recommend that, but if you are trying to eat a raw “living” foods diet, it would stand to reason that seedless watermelon cannot be a living food.

I’m learning that in the raw foods diet, all vegetables are great, but concentrate mostly are dark green leafy vegetables, as they have the highest nutrient count. There is a wide variety – chard, collards, spinach, kale, and more. Lettuce should be leaf lettuce, not iceberg, which doesn’t have much for nutrients at all.

Another tip I’ve learned – be sure to chew your food carefully! Many people tend to give their food a few good chews, then swallow and wash it down with a drink of beverage. This is very hard on the digestive system and may cause heart-burn and gas! If you chew each mouthful 30 – 40 times before you swallow, you may find that you can throw away the ant-acids entirely. And never wash your foods down with a beverage, as you dilute your stomach acids. If you are thirsty, drink a glass of filtered water at least 30 minutes before the meal, or 2 hours afterward.

Many weight-loss programs also advise careful and thorough chewing of food, but for a different reason. If we eat too fast, our bellies are full before our brains realize it. Eat slower, and your brain can tell you when you’ve had enough, so you don’t overeat. Then I read that if you want to train yourself to eat slower, switch to chopsticks for now! Before you master the trick of chopsticks (unless you already know how to use them) you’ll have established the habit of slower eating and careful chewing.

I hope you enjoy this week’s menus! As an added bonus, I simply LOVE how much quicker most of these meals are to prepare. There are NO cooking dishes to scrub. No messy, greasy clean-up, no long-lasting food odors that hang in the air for days. And I feel so much better! Happy eating!

For more information on Raw Foods, read:
Going Raw
Raw for Life
Creative Health Institute

Photo Credits:
Top:http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_girl/ / CC BY 2.0
Middle:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomeppy/ / CC BY 2.0
Bottom:http://www.flickr.com/photos/8136496@N05/ / CC BY 2.0

My finicky eater loves raw foods! Young children generally prefer finger foods over anything cooked, and they prefer their food separated. While many kids will eat apples or raisins or celery, they will not eat an apple-raisin-celery salad with mayonnaise. I’ve served raw apple slices with raw sunflower seed butter, which is very popular. I tried a raw carrot soup that neither of us liked much. I froze the left-over soup until I can find a way to make it more tasty. The literature I’ve read on raw foods allows sun-dried foods, dehydrated foods if dehydrated at less than 108 degrees, and frozen foods. Of course, fresh is always best.

I learned how to make muesli – another food item my granddaughter loves. It’s raw oatmeal -which sounds faintly disgusting – but you soak it for a while to soften it, then serve it with fruits and nuts. We like it with banana or blueberries and a dollop of pure maple syrup. Yum-yum! Best of all, besides all that wonderful natural oatbran for its cholesterol-lowering ability, it’s quick and easy to prepare, and no yucky pot to wash. I think I like that part about the best. When you serve raw foods, there are no cooking dishes!

I haven’t learned to like “energy soup” yet. That’s simply a garden salad pureed smooth and you drink it. Lots of good reasons why energy soup is good for you. I just wish it tasted better! I like salad. I guess I’m just not a “soup” person.

Anyway, I’m taking the long way around announcing that I’ve posted Week Two of the raw foods menu. I’m new to raw foods, so I’m not certain that my menus are complete or balanced. This is me, learning about raw foods, and what I’m going to feed my family next week. On Sundays it is our tradition to not eat breakfast before we go to Mass. Then we have a big brunch, so aren’t hungry for lunch. We have a mid-day snack, and then supper at the normal time. This coming Sunday, I’ll be making a raw Peach Pie! I can hardly wait! My mouth is watering already. Peach Pie is one of my favorites, but I don’t like “peach pie filling” that comes in a can. Too gooey. This pie has ripe, raw, sliced peaches with an almond cream topping and a ground almond crust. Maybe I’ll have to make the pie early and sample it, before I serve it to my family? It’s a good thing raw fruits are good for you. I’m really enjoying them a lot, and still managing to lose a few pounds.

If you chose to try raw foods with your family, you may want to check out www.chidiet.com – that’s the website for Creative Health Institute, from where I got the home study course. One thing I like about this “diet” is that you don’t have to commit to it 100 percent. There is such a thing as being “fifty percent” raw, or “eighty percent” raw. With most diets, if you don’t follow them exactly, then there is a sense of failure and guilt. But with raw foods, every little bit that you do only improves your overall health. There is no failure. Only success. Isn’t that the way we want our children to grow up? Eating good, nutritious foods that nourish the body as well as the soul?

For further reading, check out:
Raw for Life
Feeding the Finicky Eater
We Like it Raw
Transition Kids to Raw

Photo Credits:
Top:http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturalmom/ / CC BY 2.0
Middle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpeters/ / CC BY 2.0
Bottom:http://www.flickr.com/photos/savannahgrandfather/ / CC BY 2.0

The belief behind a raw diet is that by cooking our food we destroy all the beneficial nutrients. Man is the ONLY animal that cooks his food, and man suffers from a host of illnesses and diseases, that just don’t exist in the animal kingdom. Odd, because you’d think we were smarter than that! Most, if not all, of man’s current health concerns are diet related. We know that type-2, adult onset diabetes is caused by diet, specifically, drinking diet soda. ^1. We know that high cholesterol and heart disease is related to consuming fatty red meats, dairy products, and lack of exercise. Even cow’s milk – the wonder-food of the current “got milk” campaign, has been linked to allergies, headaches, muscle aches, arthritis, constipation, chronic fatigue, obesity, autism, prostate cancer, Chrohn’s Disease and heart problems!

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by everything. There is just so much to learn all at once! I have been wanting to post about it, but I’m still a beginner. I’m just starting on this journey. I don’t have my “success story” yet. I can’t tell you yet how this has changed my life, or if it will change my life, but I do want to bring you along on my journey. For now, I’ll post updates of my progress on my blog, and the menus on my menus page. I’ll include how raw foods affect me, my husband, and my 2 yr old granddaughter, the queen of fussy eaters.

I should warn you though, that Raw menu Week One will NOT qualify for any government sponsored child care food reimbursement program. I am currently on such a program – I get reimbursed for the foods I feed my granddaughter on the days I get paid to babysit her. I am not sure what I’m going to do about that – as I am required to serve milk at every meal, and I’m not sure if they’d take issue with me excluding meats from a preschooler’s diet. I will probably have to drop the program eventually. For now, I’ll offer my granddaughter the required servings of “forbidden foods” as she transitions from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) to totally raw.

The source where I got the week one menu did not serve the raw banana-avocado cream bars for Sunday’s brunch. This is a raw recipe I found in the Raw Living Foods Lifestyle Recipes book that came with my home study course. I’ve never these bars before – but they sure sounds interesting! It’s good that I actually like avocados. Looks like I’ll be eating a lot of them! In the raw menu, it is encouraged to mini-fast on Sundays, but this is so totally foreign to my family, that I didn’t want to push it. Our family tradition has always been to fast before Mass, then have a late, large brunch, often with hashbrowns, gooey cinnamon rolls, and even champagne. So I’m going to try to find ways to keep the tradition – eating brunch with family – while eating raw.

I’ve only listened to about a dozen of the 40+ CDs and DVDs I received. I want to get through them as fast as I can, so I can share all this great new information, but I also need to go through them slowly, carefully, so I can “digest” it all . For now, it looks like I’ll be eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, some nuts and seeds, and giving up all cooked foods, all meat and dairy products, all alcohol, and the hardest… Bigby’s Coffee. A year ago I had already given up all white flour, all refined sugar, all processed foods, all prepackaged foods, and (supposedly) chocolate bars. I cheat on the last one. Regularly. Ooops.

I can have raw cocoa. It doesn’t taste the same. You can guess what recipes I’m going to focus on! I learned to make “almond milk”, or sometimes spelled “almond mylk”. It actually tastes pretty good. Not like cow’s milk, and maybe you don’t know this about me, but I had a dairy cow on my homestead for four years. I milked her once a day, and let a calf suckle the rest of her milk. I made yogurt, sour cream, butter, ice cream, and even tried my hand at cheese. My family LOVES their milk! Giving up milk is going to be a really big challenge for us. But, my family is not particularly healthy, even though I raised my own bovine growth-hormone free milk, on a pasture-fed cow that did not receive antibiotics. In my immediate, milk-drinking family, we have the following: obesity, type-2 diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, hypothyroidism, arthritis and joint pain, food allergies, seasonal and chronic rhinitis, anxiety, and asthma. I think I got it all! Wow. That’s quite a list, and there’s just six of us that I’m counting. Myself, my spouse, and my four children who are all young adults now.

So, without boring all of you on how I’m going to turn into this wacky vegan, I’ll end for now. The main focus of my blog is still preschoolers and their families. The S.A.D. menus will remain posted, and I do plan to re-write them to include recipes for some of the menus that may not be commonly available.

for further reading, check out:
Going Raw

Photo Credits:
Top: Creative Health Institute
Middle: MJorge
Bottom: faeryboots