Spending time away from home with a little cooking
My last seven days have been spent away from home.
My Mother needs full time care and I am the back up caregiver for my older sister who lives with her full time. To give my sister some much deserved time off I have spent the last 7 days living with my Mom who lives 50 miles away from me. She is not a raw foodist. She doesn't have much of an opinion about the food she eats, so it's pretty easy to feed her the things that I like and not get any complaints. For me, it was a challenge to try to include items that #1 were available and #2 that she could manage. Whole nuts and seeds are out of the question for her abilities. Salads are a push. And without a good blender I could not include as much of these items into our diet as I would like. So I modified things as much as I could to keep her system (and mine) from going into shock and or detox.
For breakfast we always had fresh fruit. Without a blender I couldn't make smoothies, so whole fresh fruit was the basis. She gets yogurt, (Yoplait is NOT yogurt) one of the brands we purchase for her is Brown Cow.
Luckily we both love seafood. And since her home is in Eureka California, there is an abundance of great seafood available. Over 7 days we had Halibut, shrimp salads, shrimp sandwiches, salmon, fish tacos, tuna sandwiches and tuna salads. Everything was always complimented with fresh vegetables and very little if any bread. For the salads I just had to modify the size of the spinach and lettuce. By cutting everything into 1/2 inch bite size pieces Mom was able to pick them up with a spoon. Fresh green beans were easy to poke with a fork. Mashed potatoes were easy to eat with a spoon.
I had planned on doing more raw items, but again, not having a blender, I had to make do with items that were easy to eat and readily available. I left feeling great, although I am excited about adding nuts and seeds back into my own diet.
I didn't die eating more cooked food. I still tried to eat at least 70% raw, the one item that was cooked was the fish. I tried to eat most of my vegetables raw or lightly steamed. I don't wish to continue eating that much cooked food in the future, mostly because of all the extra work. If you think raw is hard, you've never tried it. Cooking is WAY more work!
My Mother needs full time care and I am the back up caregiver for my older sister who lives with her full time. To give my sister some much deserved time off I have spent the last 7 days living with my Mom who lives 50 miles away from me. She is not a raw foodist. She doesn't have much of an opinion about the food she eats, so it's pretty easy to feed her the things that I like and not get any complaints. For me, it was a challenge to try to include items that #1 were available and #2 that she could manage. Whole nuts and seeds are out of the question for her abilities. Salads are a push. And without a good blender I could not include as much of these items into our diet as I would like. So I modified things as much as I could to keep her system (and mine) from going into shock and or detox.
For breakfast we always had fresh fruit. Without a blender I couldn't make smoothies, so whole fresh fruit was the basis. She gets yogurt, (Yoplait is NOT yogurt) one of the brands we purchase for her is Brown Cow.
Luckily we both love seafood. And since her home is in Eureka California, there is an abundance of great seafood available. Over 7 days we had Halibut, shrimp salads, shrimp sandwiches, salmon, fish tacos, tuna sandwiches and tuna salads. Everything was always complimented with fresh vegetables and very little if any bread. For the salads I just had to modify the size of the spinach and lettuce. By cutting everything into 1/2 inch bite size pieces Mom was able to pick them up with a spoon. Fresh green beans were easy to poke with a fork. Mashed potatoes were easy to eat with a spoon.
I had planned on doing more raw items, but again, not having a blender, I had to make do with items that were easy to eat and readily available. I left feeling great, although I am excited about adding nuts and seeds back into my own diet.
I didn't die eating more cooked food. I still tried to eat at least 70% raw, the one item that was cooked was the fish. I tried to eat most of my vegetables raw or lightly steamed. I don't wish to continue eating that much cooked food in the future, mostly because of all the extra work. If you think raw is hard, you've never tried it. Cooking is WAY more work!
For the most part I would like to share with all the "newbies" trying raw that you don't have to be a fanatic. Yes, we were when we started. Look at our blog title! We have learned over the year and a half that we have been doing this that it is almost impossible to keep 100% raw (or even 90%). Adding small amounts of cooked items can actually be good for you. We do include organic brown rice in our diet very often now and we are still feeling and looking great. Everybody.... and, every body is different. But none of us require preservatives, additives or chemicals in our food, we're not chemically deficient! That's the important issue to keep in mind. We need to get back to the basics, making our food at home from fresh grains and produce. We know everyone lives in a house with a kitchen (hopefully) so we would like you to use it. That's what our food classes are about. We are not trying to make everyone go raw vegan. Although we always base our recipes on those premises. We demonstrate raw and vegan recipes to show how easy and tasty those dishes can be. We recommend that you add more fresh uncooked items into your diet. If you think about it, everything is really a salad...so add a fun raw dish to any plate and you shouldn't get any complaints. 
Posted by Toni at 10/21/2010 3:43 PM 
Categories: Raw Ingredients Info, Life's dramas, Raw Diet Info
Tags: away from home raw raw to cooked diet
Categories: Raw Ingredients Info, Life's dramas, Raw Diet Info
Tags: away from home raw raw to cooked diet
when im stressed and want a bit of me time there is nothing better then going into the kitchen and making something from scratch even if your not very good at it. saying that i spend so much time in there i have perfected certain dishes
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You rock Toni! Good job this week! We miss u!! =)
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Hi Toni, I am so impressed with your consistency in maintaining your diet. I have such a hard time because one day I'll just want something hot, like fried potatoes and onions.
ok, so get back on the wagon and then i just want something like split pea soup, hot, with melting butter.
I can't say I am 100% vegan because there are moments when I use a little ghee or even thick cream. But i mostly am.
If I could get a basic set of recipes that I like and that work for me, I could get along ok raw. I have a few that i depend on, like kale salad with red pepper, pine nuts, olive oil and lemon and sea salt and sliced olives.
breakfast is a shredded apple and carrot with cut up figs and raisins, topped with ground almonds and then make cream out of a banana and a little sprouted almond milk to pour over my apple.
i need more though I think. I plan to check out your classes to see if I can afford them.
Thank you for your good work.
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Carolyn,
Thank you for the comment. Please print out the coupon here to receive $20 off your first class and try to attend. We are making simple recipes to help with the same issues you are having. You are doing all the right things, it's all about adding unprocessed foods into our diet, you don't have to be 100% raw. We all need some ideas on how to eat more fresh living foods.
Hope to see you Wednesday the 10th at the Juice Jungle in Redway 5:30 pm! We'll be sharing alternative thanksgiving recipes that I know everyone will love!
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