Raw Recipes from week 2 and 3

The Best Recipes of week 2 & 3

At long last I have a little time to update with more recipes that we loved over the last couple of weeks.  I hope you enjoy them too.  If you make any please tag me on fb so I can smile real big :)

JUICES
just run through the juicer

The Glow Stick (we made this several times.. yum!)

1.5 pounds carrots

1 small thumb of ginger

2 apples (ab a lb)

4 oranges (recipe says juice of 5 oranges but if I juice in the juicer I only needed 4)

Jungle Juice

1 pound seedless green, red and or/black grapes, stems removed
3 oranges
½ bunch cilantro
5 apples (2.5 lbs) honeycrisp or fugi
3-4 leaves kale
½ pineapple
2 TB lime

Sweet Potato Pie

4 med apples
2 medium sweet potatoes
1 med thumb (1 inch) ginger
¼ c lemon juice (or less to taste)

Carrot Apple Ginger

1 large (2 inch) thumb ginger
3 apples (1.5 lb) pref Honeycrisp or pink lady
1 lb carrots
2 TB lemon juice

SMOOTHIES

Hide-the-spinach Tropical

1 ring fresh pineapple cored and rind removed
½ orange
1 cup spinach
½ to 1 c frozen blueberries
4-5 mint leaves
½ granny smith apple
1 banana frozen

Banana Granny

3-4 frozen bananas
1-2 granny smith apples
2-3 celery stalks
Spinach if desired

Banana Blackberry Basil

4 bananas frozen
1 pint blackberries
6 basil leaves

Coconut Banana – much like a milk shake!

5-6 bananas frozen
seeds from ½ vanilla bean
½ tsp cinnamon
1 cup coconut water

Raw Meals

The first two recipes we served to our company for the evening and they LOVED it and wanted recipes :)

Vegan Chili (Makes 2 super large or 3 regular servings)

3-4 c no salt, no oil sun-dried tomatoes (go to whole foods)
3-4 c chopped ripe tomatoes (3-4 med tomatoes)
1 c cherry tomatoes, sliced
1 TB chili powder
2 tsp sweet or hot paprika
½ tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp ground cumin
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno chile, stem and seeds removed, minced
Dash ground cayenne pepper
2 ¼ c corn kernels
1 c diced zucchini (1 med zucchini)
½ c diced celery (1 large stalk)
1 c diced red bell pepper (1 large pepper)
½ c chopped carrot (1 med carrot)
½ c chopped green onions (white and green parts, about 4 onions)
½ c finely chopped red onion (1/2 med onion)
½ c chopped cilantro leaves (1/2 bunch)
4 basil leaves, chopped
Leaves from 1 sprig fresh thyme
1 c sliced mushrooms
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced

Soak sun dried tomatoes in water for 30-60 minutes until plump and tender then drain.  Combine sun dried tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, chili powder, paprika, sage and cumin in blender or food processor until thick paste.  Scrape into a mixing bowl.  Mix in garlic, jalapeno and cayenne.  Pile on corn, zucchini, celery, bell pepper, carrot, green onion and red onion and mix into the tomato base.  Scatter herbs, mushrooms and avocado on top. 

Fettuccine Alfredo – makes 1 large or 2 regular servings

5 large zucchini
1 celery stalk, cut in chunks
¼ cup raw pine nuts
1 garlic clove, halved (we added much more)
2 TB lemon juice
Leaves from 3 basil sprigs
4 fresh sage leaves
Nutritional yeast to sprinkle on top (found at whole foods)

Use a spiral slicer, julienne peeler, mandolin or veg peeler to make zucchini noodles with 4 of the zucchini.  Transfer to large bowl.  Cut the remaining zucchini into chunks and put in blender along with celery, pine nuts, garlic, lemon juice, basil and sage.  Blend until smooth.  Pour the sauce over the noodles and sprinkle nutritional yeast on top

Macho Tacos – makes 8 tacos, 2 large servings

For the Filling:
2 ¼ c kernel corn
1 large mango, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved and sliced
1/8 red onion, finely chopped
Leaves from 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped
½ avocado, diced
3 romaine leaves, cut in thin strips
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced

For the sauce:
1 large tomato, coarsely chopped
1 small bunch basil, coarsely chopped
Juice of ½ lemon (2 TB)
½ jalapeno chile, chopped

For assembly:
8 large romaine leaves (or collard leaves)

To make the filling:  Toss all ingredients together
To make the sauce:  Blend all ingredients together
Pour sauce over the filling and toss.  Set aside for 10-15 minutes for flavors to get happy.  Scoop filling into romaine leaves and enjoy.  We ended up adding a little hummus to the leaves for more flavor.

Desserts

Walnut Fudge
(this is basically the base of every raw dessert pie and is similar to a larabar so feel free to add other dried fruit in addition to what you see here)

36 medjool dates, pitted and coarsely chopped
2 TB raw organic carob powder (or cacao powder)
1 tsp cinnamon
½ pound raw walnut pieces (ab 2 cups), coarsely chopped

Toss all ingredients into a mixing bowl and working in two batches pulse in the food processor until it is uniformly fine and mushy.  Line the interior of the glass dish with parchment paper.  Transfer mix to the dish and pack evenly.  Run a thin bladed knife around the edge of the dish.  Cover the dish with a cutting board and invert.  Cut into squares.

We went to a Vegan Veg Out during this time and I mention these desserts in my blog.  They were INCREDIBLE!!!!!  Here are the links to the recipes below.

Blueberry Cheesecake - here's the link
Raw Carrot cake - I'm pretty sure it's this one
Peanut butter Dates - I don't have an exact recipe for this one but it is pretty basic.  Take some peanut/almond butter and blend in some shredded coconut.  Open a date, remove the pit and top each half with the nut butter blend.  I don't like shredded coconut but I only tasted the coconut flavor with this one.  So good!

Other websites for recipes:
http://www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com/
http://minimalistbaker.com/

Final Week as Raw Foodies - Results and what we learned

At the close of the 21st day of our raw food challenge I have to admit I feel a little lost.  I feel like I need to be chopping something or juicing my breakfast.  My kitchen should still be turned upside down because it is, after all, only 9:30.  The kids should be up helping me because I can't juice and get them ready for bed at the same time.  And yet, I'm sitting on the couch, kids in bed 45 minutes ago.  I can hear Cliff in the kitchen dishing out the Caribbean Black beans and rice dish that we are eating for lunch next week.  I have no idea what dinner will be.  Maybe that's why I feel lost.  I don't have a PLAN past lunch.  Uncool.

So what all changed over the last 21 days?  

• Remember the annoying knee pain I had?  Last week was the first week I could climb stairs without it bothering me... like AT ALL!  
• I started waking up at 4:30 last week.  At first I thought it was a very bad thing and I needed to force myself back to sleep.  That worked once but the rest of the times I really was not tired.  My body is not under the same stress from the foods I'm eating so I can go with less sleep.  Hmm think of all that I can get done before 7am!!
• The salads at fast food restaurants now look very puney.  I managed to be able to eat larger salads which is good in that they will then last for 5 hours before I get hungry again.
• I found I can survive, thrive even, on less food.  I can make a meal out of a bunch of fruit and a handful of nuts and seriously not die of hunger.  Food for the road!

Tips and tricks we learned:

• Shop at the Farmer's Market!!  Even if you don't have a huge amount, it's still a better selection and cheaper than Walmart.  If you do want to buy in bulk make it something you can juice like oranges or apples.  Mangoes, for example are a minimum of $1-1.25/each at the store.  At the Farmer's market I got a case of 15 for $12.  They were super sweet and lasted longer.  Oranges?  You can get a whole case of 50-60 for $20.
• When juicing apples, it can get expensive.  If it calls for apples with a strong or tart flavor like honeycrisp or pink lady go instead with a mix of granny smith and golden delicious.  It gives the strong apple flavor with half the cost.  If you don't like any tartness at all just eliminate the granny smith.
• When juicing WEAR AN APRON.  It will splash on your shirt every time.
• Get on youtube and watch how to properly cut a pineapple and mango.  Saves a ton of time.
• Got left over celery from a recipe?  You know, the puney stalks in the middle.  Save them for a juice.  Also the outside romaine leaves that are too limp for the salad?  Throw it in a juice.  Check out the recipes from Week 1 to make the Soulshine juice using these ingredients.

Do you have to go raw for the best health?

Nope.  Although eating this way does feel great a majority of the time, part of the reason is we are eating no processed foods.  We are flooding our bodies with tons of good nutrients at every meal and that's a good thing.  For someone who is sick, adding in juices to drink with your meals or making smoothies for breakfast can give you instant access to amazing micronutrients that can help fight for you.  However studies have not shown that it's superior to eating other whole food plant based diets.  You can listen to Dr Michael Gregor explain it better than I can here.  

So why do a raw food diet?  And how long do you have to stay with it?

The benefits we found most useful were these:  the first week was a detoxing period.  Toxins flushed out, bad bacteria replaced with healthy bacteria.  The second week it was a replacement of cravings.  With the good bacteria in place your body starts to crave the things you are eating.  It REALLY DOES happen this way!  The gut determines what you crave, seriously!  The third week it was more of a habit forming, mental switch that helped us see where we could continue parts of what we were doing into our lives post challenge.  When you commit this long to eating clean you don't really want to go out and eat crap the next day.  The standards for what you put in your body get a little higher.  Or they should, otherwise you just wasted a lot of money!  This is the point I wanted to get to in my journey.  If I ever get stuck in a rut again mentally at least I know where to turn.  So if you want to detox naturally, turn off your cravings or switch your mental switch to better health it's something to consider.

Can it ward off the common cold?

Sadly that answer is no.  I started getting a cold the end of last week.  I was hoping it was just a huge flareup of allergies but it lasted 4 days.  Granted, I was highly functional but it still kicked my butt.  I know, it made no sense to me either.

So for a mom who has many jobs, this challenge was a great deal of stress.  Overall, it was worth it and I'm not opposed to doing a 3 day raw food stint each month to keep focused.  It will be pretty seamless this time seeing as how we have all the resources in place.

The Results??  I know that's why you clicked on here :)  

Denise - down a total of 7 pounds and 11 inches

Cliff - down a total of 15 pounds and he didn't measure

The weight loss was not the primary goal but it is nice.  The mental focus on better health, the clean feeling, less pain in my body, that's what I was looking for.  Now we can continue on our whole food plant based lifestyle with more recipes and flexibility than we had before.  Thanks for hanging in there with us.  I will post our additional recipes shortly and will keep posting as we learn more about incredible health.  

Week 2 in Review - Results as a Raw Foodie

So we have completed 14 days eating raw food only.  We have 7 more to go.  How did it go this week?

Juices and smoothies from Kristina's book were really good!  There were a great deal of salads as well.  The Chef AJ dressing ran out at the first of the week.  We tried two new dressings:  strawberry vinaigrette was yummy, lemon creme was not.  We also had a couple of challenges to overcome:

1. We go to a vegan potluck one tuesday night a month and typically there is nothing but cooked foods there.  We brought a giant spinach strawberry salad and watermelon just in case there was nothing else there for us.  Lucky for us there were some GREAT raw options there:  peanut butter/coconut stuffed figs, raw carrot cake and raw mini blueberry cheesecakes.  There were other salads as well so we had no issues.  I will be sending out the recipes that I have found for these because they were really good.
2. We were having friends over for dinner Friday night.  Fortunately they are health nuts and were interested in our raw food options.  We made a Zucchini Fettuccine and raw chili and it turned out really good.  Of course we had to follow it up with peanut butter chocolate nice cream :)

Cool tricks we learned:

• Garlic - you can't get enough garlic in fettuccine sauce when the noodles have very little flavor
• Hummus makes a great dressing!  When out at Jason's Deli on Saturday I wanted a good thick salad dressing, not the balsamic vinegar.  Their roasted red pepper hummus made a great dressing!  I'll be keeping that trick.
• Fresh juices can be made 2 days in advance but that's it.  
• Salads keep well in a mason jar.  Stuff the greens in jar and top it with a folded paper towel and screw the lid on tight.  Turn it upside down in the fridge to store for the week.  
• Cliff requires his food to taste really good or he's super cranky.  He found that to be disturbing that it irritated him so bad so I will let him blog about that later...

Struggle:  Time

The struggle continues with the amount of time it takes to prep all of these meals.  Especially when you are doing it for two people.  I feel like it has taken over my life and every spare minute is figuring out what I have to chop or juice or have ready for the next day.  Once the kitchen gets cleaned up for dinner it's time to prep the juice for the next day.  There is a reason I typically make my meals on Sunday for the whole week.  I don't have TIME during the week to make meals every night.  It will be nice to get my life back.  

Struggle:  Money

It continues to be a bit more expensive than I want it to be.  This week did come out to less than last week.  I think I came in around $200.

The POSITIVE results are in:

Denise:  lost another pound.  Didn't measure this week.  Will at the finale :)

Cliff:  lost 5 more pounds.. Yes that's right 15 pounds in 2 weeks!!  :-o

We are getting blood work done next week to see how it affected the numbers.  Stay tuned!

RECIPES from this week coming soon!!!!  Thanks for hanging in there with us.  I know some of you may not care at all about going raw but I know others have and hopefully we can make it "real" enough for you so you can decide.  Or maybe you just want to add more raw meals and not go 100%.  Either way, I thank you for checking in and if there is anything else I can do to help, let me know!

The Best of Week 1 - Sharing Recipes

I have had many requests for some of the recipes we used for our Week 1 as raw foodies.  I'm sharing some of our favorite recipes below.  I have also been asked about what tools we use.

Ninja blender - the top of the line kind that also has the food processor that comes with it.  Get it at Bed, Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon.  This way, if anything ever happens to it you can return it easily for a new one.

Jack LaLanne juicer - there are other options.  The Breville is a good brand but pricier than Jack's.  We have had ours for a long time and have never had any trouble.

Most of these recipes come from The Fully Raw Diet Cookbook and some of her recipes can be found on her website but only one of them did we use last week.  It's linked below:

When you eat a LARGE amount of salad you HAVE to have a good dressing.  There are a couple that we really enjoyed this week:

SALAD STUFF

Orange Sesame Ginger Dressing
http://www.fullyraw.com/recipes/fullyraw-orange-ginger-sesame-salad-dressing/

Hail to the Kale Salad (from Chef AJ Unprocessed cookbook)

Salad:
2 large heads of curly kale
Chopped almonds

Dressing: (INCREDIBLE)
1 cup raw almond butter (unsweetened and unsalted)
1 cup coconut water (or regular water)
¼ cup fresh lime juice (about 2) and zest
2 cloves garlic
Fresh, peeled ginger (1 or ½ of an oz)
2 TB low sodium tamari
4 pitted dates (soaked in water if not soft)
½ tsp red pepper flakes (if you want a little bite)

Method:
In a high-powered blender, combine all dressing ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.   Remove the thick, larger stems from the kale.  Place the kale leaves in a large bowl.  Pour 2 cups of the dressing over the kale and, using the Ulu blade, massage the dressing into the kale while finely chopping the kale (or massage with your fingers).  Sprinkle with seeds or nuts before serving, if desired.  Refrigerate any unused dressing.

Fully Raw Rainbow salad

2 large heads or bunches of greens
1 quart of dressing…(gotta enjoy the dressing to eat this much!)
1 ½ quarts (6 cups) chopped fruits and veggies of your choice
¼ to 1 c of toppings (nuts, seeds, herbs)

An hour later you will be done eating it.  Must have a raw dressing you enjoy!

JUICES
just run through the juicer

Beetle Juice 

2 small beets, including leaves and stems
2 large romaine leaves
3-4 apples (about 2 lb), preferably fuji, gala or honeycrisp (peel seeds and all)
3 celery stalks with leaves

Sunburst Juice 

3 kale leaves
3 apples
½ large pineapple, leaves and rind removed
3 oranges
2 TB lime juice

Soulshine Juice

½ head romaine
Leaves from 1 bunch of kale, including stems
6 apples (honeycrisp or pink lady)
6 celery stalks
1 unwaxed cucumber
juice of 2 lemons or 4 limes (1/2 cup)

SMOOTHIES

Banana Celery (this was a happy surprise)

7 bananas, frozen in chunks
3 celery stalks, cut in chunks

Super Sweet Pink

2-3 cups coconut water
½ pineapple
2-3 oranges
2 c fresh strawberries, with greens (strawberry leaves are good for you!)

Totally Tropical

2 large mangoes, in chunks
3 bananas, frozen in chunks
¼ pineapple chunks
2-3 kale leaves, tough stems removed
1 c coconut water

Dessert or Meal:

Banana Berry Nice Cream (makes 2 servings)

8 very ripe bananas, frozen (peel before freezing) and in chunks
pinch of ground cinnamon
Seeds scraped from ½ vanilla bean
1 c fresh raspberries
1 c. fresh strawberries, greens removed

Blend bananas, cinnamon and vanilla seeds until smooth.  May need to add a little water or coconut water but not too much.  Put the nice cream in two bowls.  Rinse the blender then add the raspberries and strawberries and blend until smooth.  Pour over the banana cream and swirl to make a delicious dessert or meal if you want to feel like you are cheating J  If you are using this for dessert you can easily get 4 servings and share with your family.  If you want…

We also did a Banana Blueberry Nice Cream

6 frozen bananas

1 to 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

Seeds scraped out of a 1/2 vanilla bean

1/2 cup water or coconut water (or nut milk)

Blend and serve!

More to share next week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Week 1 Results as a Raw Foodie

We are coming to a close of day 6.  I recorded my results on day 5 because for some reason weighing in seems to be what you do on Friday.  I'll get to that in a minute.

How does it feel?  Is it feasible for the average person to do this daily and what have we learned?  My goal is to help you learn from our mistakes should you wish to follow suit.

It feels great most of the time.  The morning juices give me good energy and I almost make it to lunch time.  I carry a banana with me at all times just in case.  I'm thinking this will get easier in the coming weeks as my body adjusts.  I had been used to eating a little every 3 hours so I'm getting acclimated.  I find that when I do get hungry it's just hunger pains that, if ignored, go away and I feel fine again.  So the symptoms are not faint headed and irritability like they used to be, which is good..for all around me.  There are times I feel a little light headed about 30 minutes after some of the smoothies.  And after the 9 clementines.  Some wondered about the acid in the oranges hitting my stomach and that turned out not to be a problem.  I'm thinking I will change up the mono meal choice of fruit/veggie to less acidic.

Feasibility?  I'm still working on making this easier.  So far I send ALOT of time in the kitchen chopping, juicing, blending and more chopping.  The evenings are too hectic most week nights so I need to have things done ahead of time.  That is my goal for next week's meals.  Otherwise I'm cleaning the kitchen until 10 and that is not good...for all around me.  

All of the juices and smoothies have been very yummy.  All recipes are taken from "The Fully Raw Diet" book.  I have learned that the key to a good salad is a great dressing.  THEN I can force down the many many cups of veggies.  I'm even getting used to stretching my stomach for the bigger salads.  It doesn't stay full long and the amount of food holds me until the next meal.  We tried the Mango Gazpacho soup today to change things up.  It's a blend of mango, red bell pepper and green onions topped with chopped cherry tomatoes and cilantro.  I cringed at the first bite praying that it would taste good.  I didn't throw up.  Woohoo!  I was so hungry that I think a piece of plywood would have been delicious.  So the soup started out really good.  Then I wasn't hungry anymore and I had half a bowl to finish.  It got really hard at the end.  I'm sure in a couple of weeks when my tastes have adjusted this will all taste great.  I'm already starting to crave a "beet juice" so there's hope.

The cool news is that the bacteria in my gut is changing and the good bacteria in our gut LOVES plants.  The bacteria in our gut directs our cravings.  When we eat crap we crave more crap.  When we eat good food our body craves good food.  It's all in the gut.  It's only mental if you emotionally tie yourself to the food.  And let's face it.  We all tie at least a few emotions to our food.  We have the special meals we get at various celebrations in our lives..but does that have to happen daily?  This challenge has been the best way for me to break the cycle and change my cravings.  It's not the easiest thing but if I want things to change I have to be willing to sacrifice.  

So what were the results?  I'm weighing in on Fridays and recording my measurements every other week.  Here are the first week results:

From Monday morning - Friday morning:

Weight loss 4.4 pounds 

Inches lost 5.5

Not bad for 4 days...

Cliff lost 10 pounds.  Yea he's a guy, what are you gonna do?  Happy for him.  He's happy, I'm happy.  I feel less "puffy" and cleaner.  Yes my digestive system is getting a good cleansing so I know that is part of the reason but my mind feels sharper.  The energy level is getting better (as long as I don't wake up from a nightmare at 4:30 like I did this morning..)  Yes, on a saturday.

Tune in next week as we hit week 2!  Don't forget to follow us on snapchat, facebook and instagram.  Great pics :)  

Day 1 and 2 - In the bag!

Monday was quite possibly the hardest day of the week to start a fully raw diet but we managed to muddle through it.  For those of you on snapchat you can follow cliffa74 to get a glimpse of what it was like.

Menu for Day 1:

Lemon water - 32 oz drink first thing

Breakfast:  Orange juice - 32 oz of orange juice from the juicer 

Lunch: Banana "nice cream" with raspberry&strawberry puree

Dinner:  appetizer of 3 mangos and 1/2 a pineapple

Salad was 2 pounds of greens (kale and romaine) and a quart and a half of this mix: yellow and red bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, purple cabbage and an avocado.  Dressing was avocado, orange juice and fresh herbs

The water first thing in the morning felt great!  Surprisingly the orange juice lasted until 11ish.  I didn't think it would make it that long.  I did a work out that morning of 30 minutes strength training and felt great throughout.  The kids wanted to have a picnic for lunch so it was crazy getting their lunch ready and blending 7 frozen bananas and raspberries and strawberries into a puree.  Half way through I realized the recipe was for 2 people so I had to split it before I blended Cliff's portion.  My mind started racing thinking "did I do that for all of the recipes?  Did I just buy double what I needed for the week?"  Wouldn't that be a happy mistake but no, only for this recipe.  Maybe a few others but whatever.  Now I know how to read a recipe.  Moving on.  It made for a delicious lunch and I felt like I was cheating :)

Worked out again at 5 on the Arc trainer.  Had enough "juice" to get through it but not with mighty power.  Really didn't want to be late for dinner...

Speaking of dinner.  It was a complete disaster.  I started chopping at 6:30.  Cliff got home at 6:45 and immediately started helping.  Between kids asking for juice, dinner, play with me, read me a book it was 7:30 before we finished making the salads and appetizers.  It took an hour to eat it.  Seriously an hour!  Now it's 8:30, I have already thrown in the towel.  No way I can finish that salad.  I ate the appetizer and 1/3 of the salad.  Cliff was still chewing at 8:50 when I had to start getting the kids ready for bed.  The kitchen looked like Iron Chef had just finished a competition.  I still had to juice the breakfast for the next morning.  Noah and Adelyn helped after they got jammies on.  Then Cliff threw in the towel.  He had put salad dressing all over his so we had to throw his leftovers out :(.  10:30 I was finally done cleaning the kitchen.  Bear in mind most of this has to be hand washed since you use it again in the morning.  

So how did it feel?  All in all the meals were very filling and lasted until the next meal.  No cravings so far.  Missed coffee but not for the caffeine.  I have been off caffeine for a while now.  I just missed the warm cup in the morning.

Day 2 - today was already better.  Lessons learned and all.

Menu:
Lemon Cucumber water

Breakfast:  Soulshine juice - romaine, cucumber, celery, kale, honeycrisp apples

Lunch:  Asian salad (my leftover salad from last night + spinach, romaine, snap peas and broccoli) with Orange ginger dressing (orange juice, ginger, pistachios, sesame seeds)

Dinner:  appetizer of 2 mangos and Banana Celery smoothie (yep just banana and celery)

I know the juice does not sound good.  I have had versions of this juice that did not end well however the honeycrisp apples in this blend was really good!  The flavor was strong enough to overcome the celery enough to where you knew it was there but only by a hint.  And it felt great!  I did my workout at home this morning and powered through it.  Was ready for lunch at 11:30.  I took the left over salad from last night and split it with Cliff then added spinach, broccoli, snap peas and a head of romaine.  Yes it was still a large salad but not near as big as last night.  The best part?  The dressing was AMAZING!  I love the ginger dressing at japanese steak houses and this one was JUST LIKE IT!  But raw and legal for my 21 day challenge!!!  I was singing the "I'm so happy" song in my head when I tasted it.  Since I go to work (at my desk) at noon I was able to sit long enough to finish the WHOLE thing!  Yes it took an hour.  Good news is that it lasted through until 6:30 for dinner.  

You would THINK that a Banana Celery smoothie would be nasty and that's kinda what I was thinking but it was surprisingly delicious.  Lots of bananas in this so it hides the celery well.  

What I have learned so far:

1. Read the recipes really well before you shop
2. Chop everything once for 3 days worth of salads at a time (or whenever you have the most time in your schedule) and store them in large quart sized mason jars.  More pics to come on facebook.
3. Juice everything you can for a 2 day period at once so you are only cleaning the juicer once.  Read ahead in your recipes as some calls for fresh orange juice...
4. Move the meals around on your schedule until it works for you.  For me a salad at night with all that is involved is not going to work for me.  Too much to do.  Smoothie at night is great.  Problem solved!
5. Get as much as you can in bulk from the Farmer's market and Costco/Sams.  Go to the grocery store for the small batch items that doesn't make sense to bulk up on.  I'm considering tweaking the menu to only include things I can buy in bulk for cheaper.  I'll figure all that out for week 2 so stay tuned.
6. DON'T QUIT!  If it's not working well find out what it is and tweak.  If you have a strong enough reason for doing this you will keep with it.  If you don't, you will cave easily.  If you spent over $200 on fruits and veggies then you at least owe it to yourself and your budget to finish the week out...

And if you are wondering, my system is getting a good cleansing.  Olaf says it best:  "all good things, all good things".  If you have ever considered going raw temporarily or full time just hang in with me and I'll pave the way so you will know what to expect.  I'm posting on facebook and instagram and Cliff is posting on snapchat.  I might too if I ever figure out how to work the dumb thing!

21 day FullyRaw challenge!

That's right!  21 days of eating raw food only!  Why would anyone do that?

Back track a little... when I started  this journey on this blog two years ago I posted about how amazing I felt.  I was coming from a diet higher in chicken, cheese, processed foods.  Switching over to whole foods and plants was a huge relief to my body and flooded me with nutrients that made me want to run without stopping.  Over the last two years the new wore off a little and compromises were made from time to time.  Don't get me wrong I still don't feel as bad as I did on animal products but I KNOW I can feel better.  I have been there and I want it back.  I was not fully raw when I started but it was definitely more than it is now.  I have found incredible recipes, some I have shared here and some on facebook.  I'm not abandoning cooked food forever.  I'm curious, however, to know how this challenge will affect me.  Will I still have this annoying pain in my knee?  How sore will my neck and back be at night after my workouts?   How much more energy will I have?  And the best question of all:  can I seriously DO this?

The plan we will follow comes from FullyRaw Kristina.  I have seen her off an on through this process and learned more about her on the Rich Roll podcast.  You can listen here.  Her story has inspired many to change their lives and get healthy.  She went from spending $25k a year in medical bills, because she was so sick, to $0 in a year.  She needed so much produce a week to continue this lifestyle that she made deals with local grocery stores to buy by the box but the amount she would need to get for the deal was so outrageous that she called on friends to help split the boxes with her.  From there she launched the largest co-op in the nation and continues to inspire others with her youtube videos and new book The Fully Raw Diet.

What will I be eating?  Lots of juices, smoothies and salads.  There's even a plan for chili at the end of the week!  I have reservations about juicing...what about all that fiber you lose?  I know.  I will get it back in the smoothies but why juice at all?  The juice is scheduled for breakfast which is good for a couple of reasons:  it's better for hydrating, cleansing, gives you a rush of energy and drains quickly from the stomach.  My workouts are typically in the morning so this should work in my favor.  The smoothie comes at lunch and is giant!  The dinner of salad and appetizer fruit plate looks like way more food than I'm going to be able to eat but I'll give it a whirl.  I'll post pics of course ;)

How much did it cost?  Shockingly less than I expected.  I took her advice in the book and went to the local farmer's market to buy in bulk.  When you need 86 small oranges you don't want to have to go to Publix!  26 mangoes, 36 bananas, 32 apples and so on...  I got a giant box of oranges for $20.  When we got home we realized we should have gone through the box first (3 had to be tossed) but all in all satisfied with my purchase.  I was able to get mangoes for as low as $.77 a piece!  I did end up at Publix for a few things and they are pricier than Walmart much better quality.  I spent $172 at Publix and $107 at the farmer's market.  So $279 for a week's worth of food for me and Cliff.  Is that more than we are used to spending?  Of course but I was scared it was going to be more...  I will get this number down as we go because I will be learning more through this process.  I haven't priced at Costco and if I had gone to the farmer's market first this would probably have been less.  Either way, I will continue to get it down lower so I can share my money tips with you all.

So for now, that is the why, the what, the how much.  It's an adventure!  I will try to post daily on here or facebook/instagram so check in when you can!  If you snapchat Cliff is posting there under cliffa74.  The kids get involved so you don't want to miss that!