The household is going raw food for six weeks. There's a lot of reasons behind this. Part of it is that raw foods really are very good for you, part of it is just culinary experimentation. Another part is that Steph and I had both put on weight over the last year and a half (almost 10 kilos for me, slightly less for Steph) for varying reasons. And as I have stated before many, many times, I want to be able to fit all my clothes comfortably again. And I have never seen a fat raw fooder.
It's also a way of adhering to our favourite diet plan (eat lots and lots of low-calorie, high-nutrient foods until your stomach explodes). I have certainly found that I don't make proper dietary changes unless they're drastic, and Fuhrman is no longer drastic enough for me. (When we went vegan originally, we also went wholefoods at the same time. I lost multiple kilos when we did that.)
So far so good, although I find the raw food community's habit of putting fat (nuts & seeds or avocado, or out-and-out oils) in EVERYTHING very offputting. I'm used to Drs Fuhrmann, MacDougall and Esselstein, who are all very adamant in their NO OIL (except for 1 tB of ground flaxseed or small quantity of nuts for the fat-soluble vitamins and Omega 3s) message. And yet I'm losing weight, and largely enjoying it. I was craving salad on Friday at lunch, if you can believe that. (It had non-raw felafel and hummus dressing, but still.)
Cint and I went shopping to the Organic Wholefoods place on Lygon St, which I hadn't checked out before. It's very exciting, and quite large. We bought Maca and Lucuma powders, which I have never tried, and so am eager to use. I bet they'd be nice in baked goods once I'm not being raw anymore, too.
I also bought a sprouting greenhouse. Previously I had a hemp bag, which was quite good for sprouts rather than shoots, if I can make that distinction. This one is more geared towards shoots; it suggests only putting in about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of seed per each tray; I'd generally chuck 1 cup of dried beans or lentils in my bag (after soaking them first, of course). I'm planning on ignoring directions in my greenhouse for large beans/lentils/etc that I just want for sprouts, and using their small quantities for shoots. There are three layers to my greenhouse, so I currently have a layer of adzuki beans, one of quinoa, and one of cress. And I still have my hemp bag, so I might do another round of chickpeas in that for either raw hummus or an experiment in raw felafel. Because I will be able to get through six weeks if I am allowed to have hummus and felafel.
We actually made raw hummus yesterday (I plan ahead when it comes to my addictions). We found BLACK TAHINI at the wholefoods place, presumably from black sesame seeds. It really is black as pitch. When we're not eating raw, I'm going to make goth hummus with black beans and black tahini. It will be awesome. (I'd have a go at it raw, but apparently sprouted black beans aren't worth eating.) So our raw hummus is a kind of purply-grey, since we mixed some of the black tahini with normal tahini. Raw hummus, by the way, seems to need more flavourings like lemon juice and garlic, but that may be because Cint didn't measure the sprouted chickpeas, so there may have been more than we were guesstimating for.
So yeah, hurrah food experimentation! And hurrah for my new awesome sprouting greenhouse! (I like lentil sprouts. They are delicious.)
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