Wednesday, April 12, 2006

RAW

Well, I wanted a change of pace in today's lunch, and I didn't have much time yesterday evening to plan anything out and shop for ingredients to make something new, so I ended up just going to the fridge and taking out a bunch of raw fruits & vegetables and filling the lunchbox up with them. Heck, this is probably how most people think that vegans eat all of the time anyway, so I might as well give them something to talk about. Ha!

I purchased the grapes and carrots in very large bags at the local grocery store, so I needed to finish using them up before they went bad on me. I have been reading about raw foods a little bit this week and have become quite interested in them. I didn't have time to devote to any kind of fancy preparation or anything, but I would like to read more about it. It just seems strange though that eating raw can actually require MORE work than cooking. Well, not this time. All I did was take the stuff out of the bags, rinse it off and put it in the lunchbox. Based on some of my reading this week though, next time I buy grapes I am going to buy ones WITH seeds instead of seedless because grape seeds contain all kinds of good stuff. They never really bothered my anyway when I used to eat them when I was little. In fact, I think they're kinda' nice. If I can simply buy grapes with seeds and put a few more good compounds into my body, then I think I probably should.

The broccoli and strawberries are organic and came from the produce section of the Earth Fare market over in Asheville, NC. I started to remove the tops from the berries and slice them up so I could fit more in there, but then I decided I would rather just open my lunchbox up today and look and see all of the food intact, just the way that it naturally is (well, the carrots are obviously peeled). Heck, I bet if I looked hard enough on the internet I could probably find out that the green tops of strawberries contain some miracle compound. Seems like that's the way it always goes, whatever part of food we throw out ends up being the most nutritious part of the whole thing. Strange...

Well, I guess that's about it. There's not really that much you can say about beautiful raw fruits & vegetables. I realize that this is not a balanced lunch or anything, I mean there's probably not much protein in this meal (if any, although I assume there is a very small amount), but I get plenty of protein in other meals. I just wanted to do something different, light, easy and healthy for today (you can't get much different from a pepperoni pizza than this). I guess it's similar to just eating a salad for lunch, which I occasionally do. I will probably be purchasing one or two of the raw food un-cookbooks that I have been looking at. Who knows, you might log on here one day and see some of that really big fancy, beautiful, raw food like they serve in those really expensive restaurants. I doubt it, but I guess anything is possible. It just sounds like an awful lot of work to eat some raw things. I guess I would just rather eat the raw stuff instead of spending a lot of time trying to make it look or taste like something else without cooking it. I think it's interesting and I would definitely like to read more about it though.

Thanks for stopping by. See you on Thursday!

P.S. I just noticed how neat it is that the color of each item in today's lunch matches the color of the container that it is in. COOL!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful and inspiring!

Anonymous said...

Kennyboy,

I toy around with raw food and love it! If you are even remotely interested I highly recommend the book "Living on Live Food" by Alissa Cohen. You can buy it at her website http://www.alissacohen.com. It has alot of great information and wonderful recipes. She has a 4 week plan with shopping lists and recipes that you only prepare twice a week. Very easy and yummy. Enjoy your raw lunch- it looks great!

p.s. you don't have to be 100% raw to enjoy the benefits of the raw diet. You can still enjoy your favorite vegan cooked fare along with raw "uncooked" meals. Your body will thank you!

kennyboy said...

I have been looking at her website some this week. I was actually thinking about getting her book. I probably will now that you have given it a thumbs up.

I am actually surprised at how much I enjoyed that lunch. I guess my body was really craving something that was in there because it was really good. I had forgotten what fresh broccoli tastes like because I always eat it steamed. It has been years since I ate some raw broccoli, and even then it was probably at a party covered in Ranch dressing (pre-vegan days obviously). I forgot how good it tastes.

I definitely intend on exploring this topic much more.

Anonymous said...

I too am intrigued by raw foods. . . I don't think I could ever give up most cooked food, but occasionally I find myself thinking about doing a few meals a week raw. My main obstacle, though, is that I have allergies to some foods when they are raw that I don't experience when they are cooked! I tried the Lara bars, which are raw, but had an allergic reaction to them. Same with nuts and certain fruits and veggies. . . I can eat bananas in soy ice cream (mmm. . . Swingin' Anna Banana!) or in vegan bananas foster or pancakes, but not straight out of the peel. It's weird!

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering if the lunch was filling enough or were you really hungry by the end of the day?

I've toyed around with raw foods but cooked foods is a hard habit to break.

Thanks for your site.

VeggieMamacita

kennyboy said...

I was full. I got in my drawer of Larabars and had one for breakfast, then I ate my lunch around noon, and I was fine until I got home. I did have a snack at home (some cashews) before I fixed dinner.

I was worried about that, and I was actually amazed at how full I stayed.

I ordered that book and DVD set by Alissa Cohen today. I don't know if I will try to do the full blown thing for a long time, but I would definitely like to work a lot of it in. I am looking forward to reading the book.