OJ addict

This last week I have consumed LARGE amounts of orange juice! The oranges in the store have been cheap and sweet. 

People have different opinions about juice. Is it good for you or not? Is it just extra sugar that you should avoid? Should you not drink juice 'cause it's not a whole food and a lot of good fibers are gone? Guess it all can be true, but sugar gives energy and you get a lot of vitamins, and some fibers are still left in the juice and it tastes like paradise! 

You get some vitamin A from oranges. Vitamin A is good for your eyes, especially your nightvision and your skin.

You get a lot of vitamin C from oranges, which is good for your gristle and bones.

Facts from the National Food Agency. 

Remember that you need your Vitamins. 

I will continue to drink as much orange juice as I feel like. 

Storm outside, calm inside

We have a stormy winter weather today! Woke up in the night by the wind thundering outside. And it has kept on all day. The snow is just whirling around, creating snowdrifts all over.

Fortunately I wasn't going anywhere today so I could just spend the day inside, working and looking through the window to see and listen to the powerful storm outside. I feel a bit sorry for the animals out in the woods, but I guess they know how to find shelter.

This was the view from the kitchen window when I was preparing my lunch today.

As it is warm and cosy inside, I don't miss warm food, but I have consumed some cups of fresh ginger tea, but I always do. I had this strangely looking food for dinner, made of cauliflower, green onion, apple and tomatoes. I made my own curry spice to put on the cauliflower.

Buckwheat crackers

Sometimes I get cravings for crackers, and it is quite easy to make raw food crackers, but many of them are made of nuts and is quite dense. I decided to try and make some crackers out of buckwheat.

I soaked buckwheat for about 8 hours. Then rinsed them, not thoroughly but quite a bit, and then put them in a blender together with some flaxseeds and ramson salt. I blended it all and then put a thin layer on a baking tray and put it in the oven for 45 degrees C for at least 12 hours. I don't have a dehydrator but the oven works just fine.

The crackers turned out really good! Crackers need some spread so I made this tomato spread to put on the crackers and it is Yum!

Dining out at Hemavans Wärdshus

Yesterday we were some people who had decided to go out to have some dinner.

I like dining out, but when you want to eat vegan or even raw vegan you don't have many choices. Were I live there aren't many restaurants too chose from at all, and most of them serve meat, because that is what people eat up here. We went to Hemavans Wärdshus (tavern/inn). I had prepared the restaurant in advance though, told them that I wanted raw food and they promised they could fix it, so I was quite excited to see what they could present and this is what I got.

A really nice salad with romaine, cucumber, fennel and sage. The portion was a bit small and the dressing wasn't raw, but I give the chef a thumbs up for to the salad and for the try.

Apart from the raw and vegan food (that isn't on the menu) they have a really fine menu of conventional food like moose/elk with home made rustic french fries and roe with sourcream.

I like their interior, an old house made of timber. The tavern is situated close to the ski-slope and also has rooms and cottages for rent.

I was wrong... (Green papaya story)

...about the green papaya. Bought some tropical fruit a couple of days ago and one of them was green papaya that I have never heard of. I cut a bit from it and had a bite and it was terribly bitter! Horrible! Thought I was going to throw it away. But I decided that there had to be a way to eat it. It had to be edible in some way, since people obviously eat it. I checked it up on Youtube and now I have constructed my own raw recipe for a suitable dressing to the green vegetable.

The green papaya has to be peeled and make sure not come too close to the seeds. Those little suckers taste so bitter! Shred the papaya into thin noodly stripes. I have a super mandolin that does the trick.

For the dressing I used a clove of garlic, a piece of fresh chili, crushed those into a paste in a mortal, then added some nori flakes, to give it a shrimp kind of taste. Poured some honey (ok, not vegan I know, but I'm out of agave) and fresh lemonjuice into the mortal and mixed everything together. Then I poured it over the green papaya. And voilà! A really fresh and tasty salad!

Raw Banoffee Pie

I love this sweet pie! So sweet and creamy, but yet with a crunchy crust. Even my very conventional-eating dad had a piece and said it was really good. He loves cakes and sweets, so he is kind of an expert in the area, but he's not a fan of raw food. He liked it = it must be really good!

My recipe for

Raw Banoffee Pie

The crust
1,5 dl Buckwheat crunch (I usually make my own but I had run out of my own so I used a good one from the supermarket from the brand Renée Voltaire with Ginger, Apple and Mulberry taste)
1 dl raw almonds
7 fresh dates

Put in a blender and blend until a sticky paste. Add dates or more of the other stuff until you get a paste that you can cover the bottom of your pie dish with.

The filling
6 ripe bananas
3 tsp raw cacao
4-5 tsp carob powder
4-5 tsp lucuma powder
You can also add some salt and some cayenne if you want more depth to the taste
1 dl agave or if you use honey you can use that, and if you want it even sweeter you can have more of course

Blend everything together. Pour over the crust. Garnish with bananas. You can even make some cashew or almond cream and top it with and then the bananas on top. I wanted a non-fat version though. Eat it as it is or put it in the freezer for like 4 hours or more so it will get more like a smooth ice cream. If you leave it in the freezer too long it will get hard and then it has to be in room temperature for a while before you can eat it.

ENJOY!

Here comes the energy

Been waiting for the energy to show up, and yesterday I started to feel it. I almost couldn't go asleep.

When I first started eating high raw, four years ago, the first days were hard, and I felt like starving to death. I probably didn't eat enough, but then a kind of euphoric energy showed. Now I wouldn't call it a euphoric feeling, but it is a true energy boost to eat raw food, if you eat enough, that is. A raw food high!

We have -28 C outside now so I don't feel like using the energy outside, but I have done some workout on my exercise bike inside the house instead. When all that energy comes you feel the motivation grow inside.

Jeeeez, no cheeeese...?!

Never understood what vegans eat to get satisfied and how they could manage without cheese?! I love cheese! All kinds of cheese. Never thought I could stay away from cheese. Unfortunately I don't love vegan cheese that you buy at the supermarket. 

Fortunately you can easily make you own raw cheese. No, no dairy. Tonight I made some almond milk so I had some leftover almond pulp I had to use. 

Blended about 1,5 dl cashews with a clove of garlic, a piece of fresh chili, black pepper, salt, and one tsp ramsons vinegar (bought the vinegar in Gotland where ramsons grow, note to myself: buy some more vinegar this summer). Then added 0,5 dl sundried tomatoes marinated in oil, and the leftover pulp from 2 dl of almonds. Blended everything together with some water. Then let it set in the fridge for a while. Would have used some fresh herbs if I had some but I didn't. The taste of this soft spread cheese turned out DEVINE anyway! Who said something about no cheese?! 

Sliced apples and mushrooms made perfect crackers. Gimmie more cheese, pleeease! 

Got to love raw sushi!

Love the colors of raw sushi!

Ok, raw sushi is quite common and there are many ways to do it. I have never done it this simple. I have usually made a more advanced "rice". This time I just blended zucchini and used as rice and also a carrot. It was not that easy to make stuffing stick together, the zucchini got a bit too watery and the carrot a bit too dry, and the nori rolls didn't look so good because of that, but it tasted great! Raw sushi is much easier to make than regular sushi with white rice!

I love sushi!

I used nori sheets (not raw), zucchini, yellow and red bell peppers, avocado, cucumber and mushrooms. Served with shoyu, wasabi and sushi ginger (not raw).

Raw sushi in the making. 

The final result! Guess I have to practice some more before I can call myself a raw sushi chef ;)

Having doubts

You may ask why I'm doing this and question if raw food is really the most beneficial diet, and you may think that a standard diet is the best. I too have my doubts sometimes about this, and then I fall off the wagon and go back to my vegetarian/pescetarian diet, but then I get a reminder that it isn't as good as I might think. I get troubles with digestion, I lack energy and my body feels achy among other things. Back to raw foods again.

For more then ten years ago I started to eat a vegetarian diet to see if that would improve my body, because studies show that people with rheumatism responses positive to vegetarian food. And then I turned a vegetarian. I realized that a vegetarian diet was much better than a diet with meat. It wasn't even hard to transition to a vegetarian, or actually more a pescetarian diet. After a couple of years I felt that there must be another step I can take to improve my health and started to experiment, excluded sugar and tried a high fat low carb diet. Everybody did it at the time. I liked the food but it didn't really do anything to my health, and it was quite limiting also when I didn't eat meat, mostly ate salmon and tuna with broccoli and other greens, and dairy products. Had bad cholesterol though. It wasn't the way to eat to be healthy. Turned back to my previous way of eating and included more carbs like potatoes, rice, pasta and quinoa. Until I found raw food.

Even if there are people having doubts about a raw food, and raw food could use more research and studies to prove the theories behind raw food, I'm listening to my body and it speaks to me and tells me that raw food is Da Shit! Don't care about studies. I study myself. I have drastically improved my cholesterol profile since I started with raw foods, and I feel energized, so now I'm determined to improve my health even more!

If I only could get all the calories in that I need, so that is my struggle right now, becacuse I want to say "Bye, bye" to cooked carbs. They make my joints feel swollen. The way I'm eating now is far more better though then before, and I have learned quite a lot about raw foods these last four years. I'll continue to learn.

Keep it simple

This week I've been eating simple meals with some mango and avocado or some fruitsalad and orange juice, and I start my days with a smoothie. Also had some cooked potatoes and bussel sprouts this week. Guess I have to try to be a bit more creative, but I haven't had the inspiration and I have spent my energy on the job.

Been looking through some magazines tonight and found some recipes I wanna try. The magazine Vego is a wonderful source for ideas! Got the latest issue today. Was so glad when I found that all vegetarian/vegan magazine last year! 

Not very creative dinner tonight either though. Mango and avo with a head of beautiful romaine. Just love mangos!

Curried zoodles

Thank you for the spiralizer that makes it possible to make zpaghetti and zoodles! So easy.

This zoodle dish is made with an avocado mango curry sause, just avocado and mango blended together with some green onion, cumin, curry powder, cayenne and a pinch of salt and black pepper. 

Busy, busy

Sometimes there is just no time for food or time to eat! This has been one of those days. Total focus on the job instead, even been on national radio today! I love my job (nothing to do with raw food), and the intensity that there can be! But it also gets you all wired up. Then you need a lot of energy to cope with it all.

Luckily raw food is both energizing and can be fast food, so today I've had mostly fruit, some cabbage and a handful of nuts.

Now I'll take a bite of those leftover nutty balls and that'll be all for today!

Hard time?

Been doing this for a little more than a week now. It's going fairly well. The most difficult thing for me is that I can't eat enough of fruits and greens and when the evening comes I feel hungry and then I don't feel like eating more fruits and greens. So this past week I have actually had both some potatoes, rice and pasta, to go with my greens, for some meals. And I've had a sandwich and a couple of crackers that wasn't raw. I was aiming for no exceptions but I'd rather add some starches then trying to stay on raw foods, get starved and not succeed. So as I'm training to eat larger amounts of fruits and greens I'll eat a potatoe or two once in a while.

Even though I have eaten some cooked foods I'm still eating high raw, and hopefully, when this year is through I'll be closer to a fully raw diet. I don't want to give myself a hard time with the raw food and I probably have to take it a little more slow to do this transition than I have planned at first.

I must say that I love all the experimenting in the kitchen that comes with all this, even if I can't get enough calories in with only raw foods all the time. I need variation and I can't eat the same thing over and over again, so I have to try different combinations all the time.

When I talked to a friend the other day she told she had made a pesto of kale and almonds. That inspired me, so today I made a kale pesto of my own and it turned out really good!

Kale almond pesto
Kale
Almonds
Coldpressed olive oil
Sundried tomatoes
Garlic
A pinch of salt and black pepper and cayenne

Put everything in a blender and blend. Serve with a huge portion of salad. I ate the pesto together with a large portion of salad and some small potatoes. It has kept me satisfied the whole day since lunchtime!

Nutty balls

Saturday. Calls for some candy! I love raw balls. They tend to end up different everytime depending on the ingredients I have at home at the moment. Sometimes covered with seeds. This time uncovered. Today's balls turned out really tasty and sweet! 😜

Nutty balls (makes approx. 24 balls)

1 dl sunflower seeds

1,5 dl almonds

13 dates

3 tsp raw cacao

3 tsp carob powder

3 tsp lucuma powder

2 brimful tsp of coconut oil

Put everything in a blender and blend until it makes a sticky mixture. Then roll into balls and have a bite! 

Big bowl of salad with mango avocado dressing

Starting to get into this binging in greens! Still not a big eater though. Need some more training to get all the calories in. 

Made a big bowl of salad for dinner. A small head of lettuce (think it was called heart lettuce), a cucumber, some small orange bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, celery and green onion. Made a dressing of mango and avocado with some fresh mint. Yummie to go with the salad! 

Started the meal with a mango and an avocado, then the salad, not all of it though. Have to work on the rest a bit later on. 

Have a great weekend! Eat your greens! 

Pear spinach salad with my favorite salad dressing

I absolutely loved today's salad! So simple and so delicious!

Yesterday I got the latest issue of one of my favorite cooking magazines Elle Mat & Vin. A lot of greens and vegetables in this issue, and even som raw foods. Perfect!

I got inspired by a pear salad, so today I made a raw version of it and then made my favorite salad dressing. I'm no big fan of salad dressings, I think dressing often mess things up, but this one just adds freshness and enhances the flavors.

I used this for my salad.

Pear spinach salad
A bag of fresh spinach
1 ripe pear, chopped into pieces
6 walnuts, chopped into pieces

Honey lemon dressing
The zest and juice of one organic lemon
2 tbsp honey or agave
2 tsp olive oil
A pinch of salt

Just blend in a bowl and pour it over the salad. I had som freshly squeezed OJ to go along with the salad.

You may have to make a larger portion of salad to get real satisfied. Just double or triple or quadruple the salad!

This is just sooo yum!

Tomato sause and zpaghetti

I keep trying to convince myself that I like blended tomatoes. I'm not there yet.

I made new version of tomato sause this time, from what I'm used to. I put the tomatoes to dry in the oven, for 45 C, over the day to use them for dinner. I love half dried tomatoes. They get sweeter and more intense.

Then I chopped the tomatoes in my mini chopper together with some green onion, a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper, some fresh sage and a piece of fresh piri piri (warning HOT). Sage is also kind of hot right now! Hot like in trendy. You can see it in a lot of menues right now. Sage is new to me but I really like it. Better than basil a the moment, since I've gotten a bit tired of basil after using it a lot in pestos and sauses.

I spiralized some zucchini, cucumber and shredded some white cabbage to go along with the tomato sause. This was one of the best raw tomato sauses I have tasted, but I have to say that I still prefer the tomatoes whole and just as they are.

The best way to start

Most people find it easiest to start to eat raw meals for breakfast. I have gone that way too. Breakfast has never been my favorite meal. When I was a kid I ate almost nothing before I went to school, half a cup of tea and maybe half a sandwich. When I got a bit older I realized I had to eat a litte bit more to stay focused until lunch and started to eat a small plate of yoghurt or sour milk (filmjölk in swedish) and some muesli, then went back to tea and a sandwich until I started with raw foods.

When I started with raw breakfast I had soaked buckwheat and dried apricots for breakfast. I can't say that it was tasty, but I ate it and it became a habit for a while. Breakfast had mostly been by force earlier on anyway. Then I learnt about smoothies! Heaven showed!

I love smoothies for breakfast and I have one almost every morning, except sometimes, like today and yesterday when I have craved for chia porridge. Love chia porridge, made with raw almond milk, raisins, banana and a pinch of cinnamon!

Here is my recipe for a small bowl (use as much as you like to get satisfied).

Chia porridge
3 tbsp Chia seeds
2 dl Raw almond milk
1 tbsp Raisins
A pinch of Cinnamon

I have started to warm my porridge in the oven for a while, because I don't like the cold mess that it makes. I put the chia seeds with the almond milk and raisins in a bowl in the oven (40-45 C) for about 30 minutes. Then I add pieces from a banana into the mixture, and some cinnamon. If you want the porridge to be more dense, use more chia seeds or less almond milk.

Today I also ate some clementines and lychees and had some fresh ginger and menthe tea to go with the porridge.

I love raw breakfasts! A wonderful way to start your day!

Banana nice cream!

I'm no fan of desserts really, but when it comes to raw food I love the desserts! And the best - you can even eat them as a meal and as much and often as you like! Can't beat that.

I've signed up for FullyRaw Kristina's 21 day challenge starting today January 5th, and her Raspberry Vanilla Dream nice cream is the recipe for today's challenge. I threw the bananas into the freezer yesterday to be prepared. 

You should actually always have some bananas in in the freezer, because then you can make a wonderful ice dream whenever a friend or two drops by. Btw, the bananas has to be really ripe for the ice cream to be smooth and sweet. Children of course love this ice cream too! Just blend the bananas as they are or with some spices or chocolate, I love chocolate ice cream. Remember that it is gluten and dairy free too!  

Kristina is a true inspiration when it comes to this lifestyle! I can really recommend that you check her out on youtube or her website. She is a real expert on raw foods. Hurry up if you want to join the challenge!

Here is the recipe for the Raspberry Vanilla Dream Nice Cream as I did it:

Frozen bananas, as many as you want, I used 4

Raspberries and strawberries as much as you want, I used like 2 dl of each I think

Vanilla, I used organic vanilla powder, about 1/2 tsp

Cinnamon, a dash of

Blend the bananas with the vanilla and cinnamon. Depending on what blender you have you may have to add a little water. I did. When you have blended the bananas you can put the ice cream in a bowl and start with the berries. Blend the berries, I needed to add some water to this too, I guess you can also wait until they have become a bit unfrozen, but I didn't have time to wait. Who has?! Then you just pour everything together and eat it all!  

Back on track

Today has been a better day. Not feeling nauseous even though not fully recovered. 

Started out the day with freshly squeezed orange juice and some persimmons. Then I have to say that I couldn't resist my mom's vegan waffles so I had a bite. 

Tonight I've had a plate of romaine lettuce, cucumber sticks, carrots and  celery sticks for dinner along with some mango tomato sause, with some cumin and curry spice. I would like to say "Delicious" but after four years I'm still not really fond of the taste of mixed fresh tomatoes. I love cherry tomatoes when they are whole, but not mixed up. Loved the greens though!

Oh no, I'm detoxing

The idea is to feel great on raw foods, but today I have not. I've been nauseous all day and everything I have put in my mouth has been returned a while later. I'm guessing it is a detox-reaction.

I know that you can get all kinds of different symtoms of detox when you start to eat only raw foods. I've had some detox-reactions before, but I've luckily never been nauseous. Before I have experienced things like skin rashes and sudden high fever.

It is individual which reactions you get, and not all of them are very nice. Our body just wants to get rid of toxins in the body and does that in varoius ways. It is quite hard to be persistent with the raw food when you are nauseous for a whole day. Now I just want this to go away so I can eat something! Starting to be very hungry.

This is the third day and the days before I've just eaten fruits and vegetables, and yesterday some nuts in a cashewpesto and then some cashew milk. It may have been too much fat that day, but I felt really satisfied. The nausea could maybe relate to the cashews though. I don't know.  

Now I just have to wait this thing out. Tried to cure myself with a green smoothie, a couple of hours ago, but that didn't go to well... Hope for a better day tomorrow.

My own way

When I started to learn about raw food I thought there was only one kind of raw food diet, but I've learned that there are almost as many ways as there are raw fooders. It may seem like it is impossible to have so many varieties when you're "only" eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, but there are different genres. I'm no expert, but I would say that you could mainly divide them into low-fat and high-fat raw vegan.

In some raw food genres you eat fermented foods, soak and sprout your seeds and nuts to make them "come alive", enhance their nutrition value and make them easier, and sometimes possible, for the body to digest.

One very popular genre when it comes to low-fat high carb raw vegan is the 80/10/10 diet or lifestyle. Very easily described it means that you eat whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic plant-based foods divided into 80 percent carbs, 10 percent fat, and 10 percent protein. The founder of this lifestyle is Dr Douglas N Graham and there's a whole movement around this lifestyle and a lot of youtubers promoting it. I can recommend you to read The 80/10/10 Diet to learn about it.



There are some people questioning the 80/10/10 lifestyle too. I'm not devoted to the 80/10/10 way but I do think it has its benefits, like for example not to eat too much fatty foods, like nuts. I think it is hard for the body to handle, and you will probably feel better if you instead eat more fruits and greens, the 80/10/10 way. I also think it is good to eat fresh and not dehydrated foods, the body needs a lot of water to function properly. I find it hard though to eat the amount of greens fruit and greens that is promoted by the low-fat movement to get enough calories to not feel hungry. I do though, in that way, benefit from being a small and not physically very active person. I don't need so many calories a day, and I have definately started to eat more fruits and greens than I did in the beginning with raw food.

I'm going to eat limited amounts of nuts and seeds, sometimes soaked, sometimes not, some sprouts and fermented foods and dehydrated stuff, and once in a while a drop of coldpressed oils, but mainly I plan to keep it simple and just eat fruit and vegetables. I'll have the 80/10/10 diet as a guideline and then I'll take my own turns.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my blog!

My name is Sophie and this is a blog about my year of 2015 on the high raw vegan lifestyle.

I've become more and more addicted to the raw food lifestyle, since I started to incorporate raw food in my diet four years ago, and since then the raw style has become a more and more natural way of eating and living.

I live in an area, a small community in the northern part of Sweden, where I'm the only one (as far as I know) eating raw food, well actually until now a pescetarian diet, with a lot of raw foods included. From 2015 no cooked food or animal products will be included. I need this blog to stay motivated and give this lifestyle a true chance.

What is raw food?
Raw food is raw fruits, greens, nuts and seeds that you eat without heating it more than 42 degrees Celsius to keep it as nutritious and natural as it can be. It may sound extreme and maybe fanatic to eat cold uncooked food in such a cold climate, but actually it isn't. It is just eating food in its natural state, so that cannot possibly be unnatural, can it? It is just different from what we've been taught, and we do have strong social habits in our society. I've never been a part of the social norm anyway. I'll go my own way. So can you.

Why raw food?
I love food. All different kinds of food. I'm kind of a gourmet, so it doesn't really match up to eat food that is so simple, or can it be a true match? To learn to appreciate the food it its purest state is an epic feeling and really a part of being a gourmet as I see it. Most people can make food taste good by adding some butter or cream to it, but I can't appreciate that any longer for many reasons.

It is though important to me that food tastes good, or else I cannot eat it, so I'm not a purist that does this because of strong belief, but I'm convinced that we're actually supposed to eat raw foods and that it will fit our body and health the best.

Health 
Some people start to eat raw food to lose weight. I'm not one of those. I would actually prefer to gain weight, but I cannot do that even if I eat fat food, I've tried, I only get high blood fats, ergo not so good. That's not the way to go.

There are some health benefits with this lifestyle that I cannot be blind to and that partly motivates me doing this. My body do feel worse when I eat animal products. My joints get stiff and achy and swollen, but not when I eat raw foods!

I will come back to the vegan aspect later on, because it has other and more important sides than the health aspect. It feels like my body just craves for raw food and thrives on it!

I see this year as an experiment on myself and what kind of health benefits I can achieve.

The rules
So I'm doing this for a whole year which I haven't done before, even though I have been eating high raw for months now and then these last four years. For the first time I will try to not make so many exceptions.

To make this a project possible to go through with I have to adjust it so it will fit my job situation. I'm the CEO for a national organisation in Sweden and I travel a lot for work and for about half of the time I'm not at home, and when I'm home I work a lot too. Sometimes I'm really in a hurry and have to eat something fast, most restaurants don't serve raw food, but some do, and some of the hotels I use to stay in serve raw food. Most of the time it is possible to get a hand on some bananas or other fruits. I will not go hungry. I will though consume quite some amounts of green, white and herbal tea to get some real heat along with my meals.

I don't see this as an impossible project and I will make exceptions only when I have to. I won't make this a fully raw project, because I'm going to use some products that aren't raw, like vinegar and nuts, and I will permit myself to eat some cooked vegan meals if I really crave for it, because I don't wanna make raw food my enemy. I will do it and I will love it! This will be a totally vegan year though. I can promise you that.

Now is when it all starts. Come along with me!

Finished off last year and started this year with this late night snack!