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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookI am having trouble putting it all together mostly w/deciding what to eat/menus. DO you make your menu on sundays for the entire week? How many times do you go to the grocery store per week? I need easy meals with just a few ingredients and did get some raw books for guidance but that only took me so far. Im getting lost and have totally fallen off the wagon. Has anyone had a similar issue? If so, can you make any helpful suggestions? whats your best tip for making this easier? thanks
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When I first started, I was trying a new recipe every day for lunch and dinner. I was constantly going to the grocery store for new ingredients, and I spent all my free time uncooking! I got burned out on that real quick. I “sort of” plan things out now. I might pick one or two raw soup recipes or a nut/seed pate recipe for lunch that will last me all week. Like this week, I took Zoe’s Cheese and Spring Onion recipe, folded a bunch of diced veggies into it, and then stuffed half a bell pepper with it. So, I’ve just brought the stuffed pepper half, half a cucumber, some cauliflower florets, and two pieces of fruit to work to last me all day. And mostly for dinner, at least during the week, I’ll just make salads. I’ll just buy a couple of different greens and whatever veggie and seed toppings I want, then I’ll just mix and match the ingredients everyday with a couple of simple dressings. I make the fancier stuff on the weekends.
When in doubt, blend your green smoothies.
I fall off the wagon, too (I read an article by Dhrumil about a man he met named Nature Man (I think) and Nature Man said “food is not my focus, but my nourishment”.
I loved that and it helped me not get too crazy if I wandered off path a little.
Ok, I am off subject, anyway…
When I am not sure what to do and getting hungry, I make a smoothie to ward off the cravings. I am trying to make a weekly menu, but it can be difficult as I am 35 minutes drive to a good store where (coslty) organic produce abounds.
I think my best advice is keep it simple with mono-eating. One fruit or veggie meals and lots of yummy salads.—It is difficult for me as I am feeding a husband, mother-in-love and daughter. Dinners are slowly turning more raw…but I still give them some cooked vegan options.
On another note, my meat-eating husband has agreed to no more meat in the house! HOORAY!
I would also love suggestions on making menus simpler!
Heyenglish——visited your site. You rock!
I am slowly overcoming the same situation. Instead of “meal planning”, I just eat simply. I stick to whole fruits and vegetables. I don’t do gourmet or make smoothies right now because it takes too much time. Time that I don’t have due to a hectic schedule. I’ve been eating mono-meals and sometimes even having mono-days! It has been really effective in getting me back into the raw lifestyle. Hope this helped~
I’ve started making a similiar really simple “salad” each workday. I take some kind of fruit, usually about three or four pieces and chop it up with a few chopped greens and a little chopped dulse. The sweet/salty/greens combo is filling and nutritious and easy on my brain. Just pick a fruit in the morning.. today it was plums, some days’ it’s apples or bananas. Weekday dinners I do the same thing but with a big salad. I also make some kind of nut cheese at the beginning of the week to dip veggies in all week and some kind of fun dessert. Finally, on the weekends, I make a handful of my version of larabars, that way I can take them to work as a snack. I save elaborate raw dinners for the weekends (or not at all :))
I love gourmet raw foods, and I like to make the meals. But I have a life outside of the kitchen. So I (through trial & error & success) have found several recipes that are very simple & quick to make, and I make those a lot (several recipes once a week each makes for good variety in flavors & nutrients). I started buying a big variety of fresh fruits that I can just grab & eat. I also love to have salad greens, hemp seeds & avocados on hand & when I cut up other veggies, then those go in my salads, too – but at least if I make big batches of dressings at a time, I always have salad options quickly, even on the nights I get home too tired & hungry to want to do anything time consuming. With these things going on, I go to the store once or twice per week (it used to be a lot more, but I now buy some things that need to be eaten in a day or two, and others that last longer or aren’t ripe yet, and that keeps me stocked pretty well. I hardly ever make anything that requires more planning than soaking and/or dehydrating overnight. The four hour dehydration stuff usually gets forgotten in the dehydrator or I forget about making it until I don’t have time for the dehydration before I have to leave or want to go to bed. Oh, to have a personal raw chef would be soooo lovely. :) Meanwhile, this reality works for me. It has taken a long time to get to this system, though, so be easy on yourself – it will all work out. :)
What works for us is green smoothies, lots of salads, and we usually snack on berries (not sure what we’ll do in the winter). And I make flax crackers once a week. My husband loves his flax crackas! I also make almond milk a few nights a week, and when we have that we throw some seeds and berries and dried coconut into a bowl for a granola and have us some cereal. yum.
hummm, very good suggestions thanks. i will keep trying. i think i am getting overwhelmed-i KNOW i did initially and thats why i “fell off.”..but i want it now! lol anyway. im not sure if i could eat only salads, fruits and nuts every day. i need more than that. i think the key is getting organized which i am not. im totally overwhelmed and like i “gotta get this already.” im thinking of printing out a few simple recipes and getting the ingredients and trying that for a few days. and this doesnt help either: i hate cleaning all the “equipment”-that seems never ending. i gotta clean raw or not so i just need to get over it and get raw! argh.
bodybyRaw: My best suggestion would be to not be so hard on yourself. I had the same issue as you, and I also found it extremely overwhelming. I finally decided to cut myself some slack and focus on eating what I intuitively felt my body wanted. And in all honestly, I naturally started eating more raw. I’m not all raw (maybe 80% overall), but I feel good about it because there is no stress. Eventually I forgot about making all the elaborate meals because I didn’t feel like my body processed them well (but everyone is different!), and now I am happy with salads, fruit, veggies, and some non-raw foods. I hope it works out! :-)
progressive chick, what is a typical daily menu look like for you?
Green smoothies, huge kale salad, walnuts and pineapple kept me raw in the beginning. Then I realized I was allergic to walnuts. :-p