Raw Foods

I love raw vegan food blogs.

I’m not raw, but for some reason I love to read them.

Maybe it’s because the writers feel so passionately about the food they make. Maybe it’s because the food is bright and vibrant.

I’m not sure.

I love them though, and my favorites list is full of them. I follow many of them on a regular basis. It is a guilty pleasure in a lot of ways, because I don’t follow a raw foods diet.

I’ve explored it in the past. If you are a vegan and you spend a lot of time online, it’s hard to miss the raw vegan scene. The claims are big. If you go raw, you feel better, you look better, you can cure illness, etc. It’s hard to ignore. I’m a researcher at heart and, although I have an open mind, the cynic in me requires any big change to begin with intense research. I went through a researching bout with raw foods several months ago and remained unconvinced of many of the arguments. I totally saw the value of it, and believed in the healthy aspects of incorporating raw veggies, but I had a hard time believing all the claims. So, I just let it go and moved on with my vegan diet.

Well… except for the raw vegan blogs that I love so much.

Fast forward a few months, and I finally read The Thrive Diet, which had been sitting on my shelf forever. Brendan Brazier makes a lot of raw food claims, but he uses different wording. It all made sense to me, but I wanted more proof. More evidence. I began researching raw food-ism again using the terms and concepts written about in the Thrive Diet. Low and behold, there was the proof I had missed in the previous research. I won’t get into all the research stuff, because each person will resonate with different things, and it’s up to each of us to do our own research concerning food. So, if you are interested, start researching. We all have to find our own answer when it comes to what we eat!

This doesn’t go to say that I whole-heartedly believe all the claims, but I do believe that raw foods does have a lot of benefits. A lot more benefits than I originally gave it credit for. Thus, Brandon and I have been giving raw foods a bigger role in our daily lives to see if it works for us. We are trying to be “raw before dinner.” No rules or anything though. If we want a cooked lunch or breakfast, then we have it. I don’t believe well-chosen vegan cooked food is bad for you in any way.

For breakfast lately, we’ve been having smoothies: lovely green smoothies, packed full of energy. You can practically feel the energy vibrating through your veins. Our greenest smoothie to date, pictured below, had cucumber, avocado, kale, and an apple (with some coconut sprinkled on top). Whoo! Talk about a rush… and yummy too.



For lunch, I’ve been having a huge salad with varied toppings (because I get bored so easy). Yum… isn’t that lovely?



For dinner, we just eat our normal cooked vegan food. Pictured below is one of my favorite comfort food: mashed potatoes and corn, smothered with Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance.

To make our new experiment more affordable, we plan on cooking dinners that will last for more than one meal, so we can have it for more than one dinner. All those organic veggies really add up!!!

If you are curious about those lovely raw vegan blogs I’m talking about, check out two of my absolute favorites: www.choosingraw.com and kristensraw.blogspot.com. I’m warning you though, it’s addictive!