Happy Foody

Raw Travel

It’s been a little over 3 weeks on raw food for me…and I’m feeling splendid. We just flew back to South Carolina and I wanted to share a few tips regarding traveling while trying to maintain a raw focus. These tips could apply to a cross-country trek or just sometime when you might be away from your kitchen for awhile.

• Be prepared! I can’t stress this enough. If you aren’t prepared…you’ll fall victim to the “easy” foods you find along the way, and they are almost always bad foods.
• Try to avoid loading yourself up on nuts. It’s easy to do…nuts are so fun to crunch away on while you’re flying or driving, but they are heavy and hard to digest. Also try to avoid eating nuts and fruits in the same sitting. Go easy. With that said, I do think that traveling is a fun time to eat some of your splurge foods (like raw fudge balls).
• Bring fresh fruit. It comes in it’s very own wrapper! The wrapper is even edible sometimes! 🙂 What an amazing gift from God. I could easily stay happy on bananas, apples, and dates.
• Know your triggers. If you know that you love to snack while you drive…be prepared for that and bring your favorite raw treats that satisfy your need to crunch (flax crackers, carrots, etc).
• If you are driving, don’t forget a cooler! It broadens your options so much. You can make green smoothies ahead of time for your entire trip as long as they are kept cold (they are said to “keep” for 3 days!).
• Don’t be afraid to bring your blender or food processor with you if you are staying with family and friends (they they will think you are weird, but don’t they already?!). It’s a great teaching opportunity…teach them how to make a green smoothie and they will be healthy for life! 🙂
• The great thing about eating raw…is that there are grocery stores everywhere. SO…if you run out of food, just go get more. It may not be organic, but it will be raw.

Our stash during this trip included:

• 6 bananas
• 6 apples
• A bag of dates (medjool and barhi). Dates will make you happy when you’re stressing out because your flight is late.
• Raw trail mix that I made up (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, walnuts, raisins, dried fruit mix)
• Two Raw food bars (this one is my favorite)
• Goji berries (my new favorite snack)
• Dried black mission figs
• Raw fudge balls (I whipped up a batch of these before I left and chilled them overnight). They were a great high protein/high fat food for Bella…and a treat for me.

This got us through a day of flying…with no stops for meals due to quick layovers. Yum yum! It’s fun to travel, but it’s great to be back in my own kitchen 🙂

February 21, 2008 at 10:35 pm 7 comments

Raw on a Budget

The cost of “going raw” has always been important for us…being that we don’t have endless resources, we have to make adjustments and budget when we are buying more fresh fruits and veggies. It can be difficult, because personally, I prefer to buy organic whenever it is available. The pesticide levels are too high for my comfort on conventional foods, and the nutritional content of conventional produce is staggering low compared to organic produce. Up to half (or more!) of the minerals/vitamins are sacrificed by conventional farming methods/bad soil quality. With that said, I do not buy organic for everything…just where I find it the most necessary (see the Dirty Dozen) and when it’s available. In the summertime, I will opt for locally grown natural crops (and possibly not “certified organic”).

We spend approximately 25% of our income on our food budget (as opposed to the typical American family which is 5-10%). We make sacrifices in other areas so that we can spend more to keep our family healthy. We made a focused effort to pay off all credit card bills/car loans, etc. so that we wouldn’t be tied down in those areas. However, I know that it’s MUCH harder to eat raw when you are struggling with money, and trying to feed a large family. But, it can be done with some tweaking here and there. You also must consider the “cost” of continuing to buy packaged, processed foods you may currently be buying. Eventually, they will catch up with you and then the cost of your medical bills will be much more than any raw foods. I have found that the low fat raw vegan diet is by far the cheapest…because you’re not making tons of gourmet type raw dishes that require all kinds of fancy, expensive ingredients. It also pretty much eliminates the need for any type of “superfood” or nutritional supplements because you can get all of your vitamins and minerals in your fruits and especially your greens.

Here are some tips to save money when adding more raw foods to your budget:

• You don’t have to go 100% raw! Even 50% will greatly improve your health!
• Buy only the Dirty Dozen in organic to greatly reduce your pesticide exposure.
• Buy frozen fruit for smoothies. Stores like Costco and other warehouse stores have huge bags of quick frozen fruit for sale. They may not be organic, but like I said…that’s a personal choice.
• Find out when your grocery store marks down their produce. I’ve gotten huge amounts of bananas this way…they were completely edible and delicious, but they had brown marks all over them so they were discounted.
• Ask your grocer if they can order you a box of fruit wholesale.
• Freeze bananas that are about to go bad for smoothies.
• Eat mon0-meals and only buy the fruit that is on sale that week
• Rotate your greens and pick the sale greens.
• In the summer, hit the Farmer’s Market for big savings over grocery store produce.
• Go to a “pick your own” farm.
• Join a CSA farm…consider splitting a share with a friend.
• Grow as much of your own food as possible…even if you are in an apt. or a house without a garden…growing sprouts is one of the easiest things you can do! And it’s cheap. You can sprout so many different things…lentils, alfalfa, broccoli. Here is a “how to” for sprouting.
• Dehydrate fruits or veggies that are about to go bad.
• And lastly, if you are willing…Dumpster Dive!! You can find tons of fresh fruit and veggies if you are in the right area. Here is an interesting blog on it.

If you want to eat raw…or even just MORE raw, it can be done!

February 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm 15 comments