ingredients

preparation

The post Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad first appeared on The Balanced Life: Bible Study and Christian Bible Discussion.

The idea of going raw, even for a day seemed unimaginable a month ago.  And if you read the first post that I did on day 3 of the experiment you would have an idea of what motivated me to do this.  Tonight, at dinner, Theresa my wife was commenting on how flavorful the food we are eating is.

I would never have thought that raw food would taste as full or as diverse, or as powerful in some cases as the food we have made has tasted.  And since I have been asked to document what I am eating, I will do just that.  I appreciate the notes of encouragement.  What is the most interesting is what seems very sincere serious questions about what my experience has been so far in doing this experiment.  A raw food plant-based diet has gotten a lot of attention lately in the media, on social media and on television, but still it has peaked the curiosity of those that know about this and has led to questions ranging from “what do you eat?”, “Are you starving?” and “Are you spending a lot of time in the bathroom?”

This is day six.  Day 4 was awesome.  It seemed that days 1-3 flew by so we decided that we would do only a water-fast on day 5.

Here is another thing I thought I would never do, simply because I thought I would not survive it.  Just water? I knew I could probably get through the day ok, but suppertime with just water..  But it was ok.  I woke early, did morning worship and even worked on 25 minutes on the treadmill.  Hunger came at me in waves, sometimes ferociously.  It didn’t make logical sense to me because it wasn’t that the longer I went without food the hungrier I became.  It was random.  I found that before bed I was the least hungry and had the most energy.

Today we decided to do a morning fresh juice smoothie and a lunch smoothie and nothing else.

Supper took about 30 minutes for us to prepare.  I must say I love preparing these meals.  Maybe if I did this all the time over decades I would not like it so much, but finding the recipes, setting out the fresh ingredients, the smells are powerful, making my body anticipate the meal to come.  Theresa made Raw Marinated Portobello Cashew Cheese Burgers.  Yum!

I made Raw Marinated Portobello Mushroomes with Spicy Nut and Seed Crumble.  The mushrooms were my recipe but the nut and seed crumble recipe can be found here.  This was truly an amazing and tasty dish.

Lastly I made lettuce wraps with tomatoes and freshly made guacamole.  The guacamole recipe can be found here.

So in the last 6 days I have lost 10 pounds and feel much clearer and have lots of energy.  I recommend a raw food plant based diet to anyone even if only for a few days.  It will surprise you when you rediscover the actual taste of vegetables and fruit, uncooked, unheated, unprocessed.

The post My Raw Food Experiment – Day 6 first appeared on The Balanced Life: Bible Study and Christian Bible Discussion.

My Raw Food Experiment
Day 4

At the end of last weeks Bible study I mentioned to the group that this week’s study will be on Health and what the Bible says about health and healthy living including eating and drinking.  I was quite excited to jump into the Bible and prepare the study.

The Bible is an awesome resource to understand what our Creator intended for us to consume that would be optimum for the bodies and minds that He created.

A few years ago we watched a movie, “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, ” and noticed on Netflix that there was a sequel.  As we watched it it started to seem strange to us that we are studying about health, looking into what Christ reveals to us in the Bible on health, but we ourselves have not even tried to live in a optimal way.

It also seems that lately, there are many things that seem to be guiding us to a focus on a more healthy way of eating.  Especially in the media, there have been articles and interviews that highlight surprising information on the benefits of plant-based diets.   One such video I watched was done by CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a projram called Vital Signs.  The tag line says, “CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores ways to slow the aging process and live a longer life.”  http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/02/20/spc-vital-signs-art-of-aging-a.cnn.

So my wife and I decided that we will try it.  We will try to eat a purely raw food, plant-based diet strictly for seven days.  Our ultimate goal is to aim for longer, perhaps even 30-60 days, but we are taking it one step at a time.

It is funny the perception before we started down this raw food, plant-based food path.  I mean I was thinking that I would be starving, and that it am eating rabbit food, and that I am saying goodbye to flavor and the joy of eating will be dead for 7 to 60 days.

Habits:  We had developed a habit of that every Friday night for the start of Sabbath we would eat Fish and rice with veggies, or some meat as the main dish.  Also, i love desserts.  I have dessert at practically every meal.  Bread is another habit, in fact, bread – you know the fresh baked french bread…  that can in itself be The Heal for me..  Just 1/4 of the loaf with butter..  yum!  So yesterday we went to the Bulk Barn, picked up items like nuts and natural sweeteners like coconut sugar and dates, nuts and greens.  Then to the regular grocery store and loaded our cart with an assortment of vegetables and fruit.  It was strange passing the isles that had the chocolate, or the meat section, the breads and cheeses.  Oh! the cheese section!

However I did discover after having dinner last night that I am full with way less food consumed.  The food was very tasty.  It is a bit strange that all food consumed is cold but after the first bite it is quickly forgotten since the food tastes great.  I also notice the flavors of the food.

Benefits so far: I am finally noticing I am much clearer thinking than I was before I started doing this experiment.  I eat and get full without feeling stuffed.  I lost 7 pounds in 4 days without feeling that I was loosing weight.  I feel more motivated overall to do whatever I want to do.  It is awesome to be experimenting like this with my wife who is equally as enthusiastic about this as I am.

Drawbacks so far: The first two days were difficult because I craved sugar and salt.  It is a whole new way of thinking about food, so somethings need to be soaked over night or even a few hours before they can be used to prepare a dish.  So prep work requires planning more.  Finding good raw food recipes online was tough at first but now that I have them bookmarked it is much easier.

There is definitely something to this raw food lifestyle.  I am still certain that full-time-for-the-rest-of-my-life raw food lifestyle is probably not for me.  But as a body reset, it is fast and effective so far.

Use our contact form and give me your feedback.  Love to hear if you have done something similar and how it worked for you.

The post My Raw Food Experiment – Day 4 first appeared on The Balanced Life: Bible Study and Christian Bible Discussion.