But on Monday, I did my first day-long raw food fast. It's going to be a monthly thing, on the first Monday of each month. It was suggested in Skinny Bitch as a way to cleanse the body. And since I'm unable to complete a juice fast (see previous post, "Juice Fast Disaster"), I figure raw fasting is a way for me to eat three solid meals a day, yet still attempt detoxification.
For breakfast, I had a Berry Smoothie from "Raw Food Made Easy" by Jennifer Cornbleet. It's just a banana, a little water, a half cup of frozen strawberries and a half-cup of frozen blueberries.
It was tasty, but I was hungry again about two hours later. I snacked on a few raw cashews and a whole banana before lunchtime. At lunch, I had a salad with spring mix, raw cashews, mushrooms, soaked sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, shredded carrot, and green onion. I used by recipe for "Dreamy Tahini Sauce" (going in the cookbook) for a dressing.
Before my spin class at the gym after work, I had a "Cinnamon Roll" Larabar that I bought at Wild Oats. It's made from dates, raw cashews, and some other raw nuts that I can't remember.
For dinner, I made Garden Wraps from "Raw Food Made Easy." It's mushrooms and red onion marinated in soy sauce with shredded carrot and cucumber rolled up in a collard leaf. They were quite tasty, though I ended up dipping them in more tahini sauce.
By the end of the day, I felt really good about myself. Unfortunately, I came down with a flu-like illness at work on Tuesday. I doubt it's related to my fast though. Memphis has been having some crazy weather lately with temperatures jumping from the 30s to the 70s and back to the 40s today. Ick!
So cool you're trying to raw foods thing. I did it briefly in Hawaii when I was a broke journalism intern. There was a raw foods support group/potluck every week so it was an awesome way to get good, healthy, non-spammy food in my belly.
ReplyDeleteI followed it up when I moved back home to Memphis, though I tended to keep it pretty simple and allowed myself about 25% non-raw food on most days.
I found that for people who like to eat (IE; me) it's awesome, because you can eat constantly and it's fine. Hard to believe that that is a problem for some people, you really do kind of NEED to eat quite a lot in order to keep your calorie count up to a healthy level and some I've talked to say they just don't have the time.
Anyway, my energy levels sky-rocketed and i did lose weight, but overall I just felt so much healthier. Skin, hair, muscle tone, et cetera (though I didn't really increase my exercising much.)
Damn moving to Alaska where I had to eat out of a cafeteria all the time!
Anyway, just some thoughts. Maybe try it more often, gradually, if you like the results from the weekly thing.
There's even raw foods BBQ!
Hello from another vegan living in bbq hell (a different bbq hell-- Texas).
ReplyDeleteThe garden wraps look so good I'm drooling all over my laptop, I bet they went well with the tahini sauce. I made some similar to yours with marinated mushrooms and various other vegetables, but for mine I used Kale- it's really good but a little bitter raw...
ReplyDeleteThe crazy range in the weather is driving my sinuses to sneeze fits. Mmm those wraps look good. The cucumber looked like avocado from the side before I read the description. I go straight for the pictures, then read. :)
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