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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookI am starting to add raw foods to my diet. This weekend I plan to go to my local grocery store Brookshires or maybe the farmer stand close to my home and wanted to know if someone could just give me simple easy meal ideas. I currently don’t have a dehydrator, juicer or even a blender. I might buy a blender if I can find one at WalMart. Yesterday instead of snacking on candy bars I had a bannana and an orange. Are raisins in a box ok to eat if the ingredient say just raisins? I have alot to learn!!
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Hi, and welcome!
I’ve been doing ths same since New Years, and I found I have learned a lot just from this forum.
I too need to eat fairly simply, so my usual day is some fruit for breakfast (whole, blended, or in a fruit salad), lunch is a BIG salad, sometimes I throw in some apples and raisins to jazz it up – no dressing – and then dinner is another big salad. Quite often I will also throw in some chick peas (not raw, but I’m OK with that) or add a dash of apple cider vinegar or olive oil to get in some fats.
You should get a blender or even a small food processor. I do green smoothies (veggie/fruit smoothie, made with fruit, green veggies and water) in the blender, and make great soups in the processor.
If you don’t have these items though, you can still eat ‘raw’ by concentrating on salads, lettuce wraps, and whole fruits and veggies.
Check out the recipie page – there are great ideas there!
thanks so much…I plan on getting a blender so I can make smoothies. I will most likely start out by eating fruits and salads. Once I can purchase a dehydrator and juicer then I should be able to do more!!
Hi Dnacol,
I actually nibble all day long at the minute. If I get hungry I stop, have a sit-down with a smoothie or a a piece of fruit. I’m not really taking much notice of meal-times. I try and listen to my body. I don’t have a dehydrator but I wouldn’t worry too much for now. My theory is the fresher the better, so I am eating what I can…mainly fruit at the minute. If I feel desperate for greens I have celery and carrot juice (with or without apple also/or ginger) or a mango and spinach smoothie (takes some time to blend!). And when I am working at the very cooked cafe I work in, I try and find somewhere that sells salads and have olives and sundried toms with them. Not strictly raw due to the olives being pasteurised and the oil with the toms being heat-treated, but I figure I am just doing the best I can for now. I also take a lunchbox to work of fruit, dried or fresh and usually a handful of nuts (almonds mainly)! I always buy organic and I can’t emphasise enough how important I think this is. I know it may be more expensive but it is worth it not to have poisoned food. Don’t worry too much about getting the balance right at first cause I’ve found it takes a while to get into the swing of things.
thanks for the advice numptellie. that is pretty much my thinking..even though I don’t know how to make meals yet eating raw, as long as I am having fresh fruits and veggies instaed of candy and frenchfries. i must be doing something right. where do you buy your almonds? .
I’m only two months into eating raw and I’m only doing about 40-50% right now.
The easiest stuff is just to eat an apple or something. Or a handful of nuts/seeds. Not sexy, but it’s really easy.
I am personally going to stick with a blender and not get a dehydrator or juicer. I don’t see the point in spending money on stuff I won’t use much. If I’m going to eat dried stuff, I almost feel like I’d just as soon eat a cooked meal but obviously others here would disagree with me.
My blender is an old Oster blender I found at a garage sale. It works just fine. I make sure there’s enough juice before throwing greens in and I kind of have to push the greens around sometimes but I made smoothies on my friend’s fancy pants Kitchenaid blender and it’s not that much better.
I don’t think you need a dehydrator or juicer unless you love dried or juicy stuff. I like the blender because it keeps all the fiber in the drink.
I’m in the UK and fortunately for us we have had a big influx of organic foods recently due to everyone getting on the green bandwaggon, don’t know what it’s like where you are. It’s awful really, that we have to pay more for our food NOT to be poisoned but there it is…the warped world for you. I would try and find your local health food stores or even consider buying in bulk online if you can’t find organic almonds. Oh, and if they aren’t in their skins they have been heat-treated apparently.
ok I don’t mean to sound so clueless but if I find a place that sells almonds and they are still in the shell then they are considered raw? or could they still be heated that way? I enjoy eating almonds and walnuts but where I buy them they are in a can or package!
In there shells and skins they are raw. Packaged is fine. Everything that is canned is heated during the canning process. Again don’t worry about sounding clueless. Try shazzie.com, she has a very long but interesting journal about how she did it on a day to day basis. Anyway, lots of my information comes from my older sister who when I’m gabbing on about raw usually corrects me, so I bought canned chickpeas the other day and she gently told me that thing about the canned stuff, cause I’ve only started a few months back meself.. Try Zoe and Chris’s website purelyraw.co.uk. Lots of great info about stuff there…good luck!
Sorry packaged usually fine I think, but it may be worthwhile trying to find a specialist supplier because most commercial nuts are roasted, salted etc and it’s so common they often don’t feel the need to tell you on the pack what they’ve done to them.
ok thanks for all your info numptellie and chupacabra!!
One of my favorite recipies is corn chowder – you will need a blender, but it’s really simple. 2 10oz bags of organic frozen corn – you run this under warm water until thaw and combine in a blender with 1/2 red pepper (chopped up) and 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro (I have used dried cilantro also). It will come out a bit lumpy but it’s filling and really hits the spot when I am hungry. It makes about 3 servings.
FYI, frozen veggies are blanched before being frozen so they are not raw… convenient, but not raw. I would stick with fresh.
Some easy meals I have made are lettuce wraps filled with “stirfry mix”. At some grocery stores they sell a bagged mix of organic stir fry veggies (snow peas, cabbage, carrots, bok choy, etc.). I will marinate veggies with olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, ginger, raw agave, salt, etc. then just put the mix into romaine leaves. No equipment necessary.
If you do get a blender or food processor (I have a MiniPrep fp) there is a peanut sauce recipe on this site that is good on the lettuce wraps instead of marinating the veggies. Also, lettuce wrap tacos are good with nut meat, salsa, guac.
Numptellie….
What is the ‘thing’ about canned chickpeas?...you’re making my salad appear a little frightening to me right now!
I have been raw since May 2007 and tastes do change. For quick snacks these days I stick with apples or a generic raw fruit/nut mix from a supermarket that I keep in the car glove box for if I am out and get ravenous. Another best quick food for me is grabbing the walnuts, linseeds and raisins from the cupboard and pulsing them up in my food mill with a pinch of salt and then stirring raw cacao powder through. If I am not rushed I press it out into brownies or something and play around with other flavours and ingredients. If I am in a hurry, I gobble some up from the bowl.
The rest goes in the fridge for munching on as necessary. Lately I am trying to work out how coconut oil affects me, and if it really does speed up weight loss and metabolism, so I have been slurping virgin coconut oil into the mix too. At the moment that and abundant salad greens and green smoothies seem to be my staples with minimum preparation time! (Renoir I read that, if you go for the snapfrozen frozen fruit and veg – including some corns then it’s truly raw, or at least still an enzyme-rich product even though the texture has changed through the water in the plant cells expanding when frozen and softening the texture.) Blessings :)
dnacol – if you don’t have anything to grind up the seeds etc the ‘brownie’ recipe is still achievable but in a slightly different form: Put the walnuts and pinch of salt in a bag or under baking parchment and crush them with a rolling pin or in a mortar and pestle (a mortar & pestle would work for the linseeds too if it’s the big Asian suribachi kind). Walnuts are soft and crumble easily. When you have a rubble with a fair amount of walnut flour or fine crumbs add in your whole raisins and the cocao powder. Whereas in the first recipe I gave you can just add the crushed raisings/sultanas or even fresh dates and they will ‘glue’ it all together without extra oil, in this one if you have to use whole raisins, moisten it up with a dash of vanilla or something and then dollop in a few spoonfuls of coconut oil and put it in the fridge. You will end up with a great superfood snack that’s a bit like choc fruit and nut!
I absolutely love brownies…thanks for the recipe Mopoke!!
Hi Tinkerbelly, sorry I took so long. Apparently (this is in the UK anyway I don’t know about where you are) everything tinned/canned is pasteurised. It is part of the canning/preserving process – I shall find out more and see if that is definate…but pwobly is…man seems to enjoy heatin his food quite abit!
Before buying any appliance in one of those big stores, check your local Good Will, trift shops or Salvation Army.
First, it’s much cheaper and you can save bundles on some pretty good high end finds.
Second, it just feels better to give your money to a charity shop over a place like “Walmart”.
Third, it’s a form of recycling, which is always a good thing.:-)
As someone who is also getting into raw, and who also wants to keep it “simple”, I have been a little put off by some of the expense involved.
$15 a pound for nuts is a bit out of my range, and being raw and healthy should not be just for the privileged few, it should be for everyone.
One way I am trying to keep my raw life simple and affordable is to try to let go of my addictions to cook foods and to try not to feel like I always have to find the raw versions of them.
The beauty and flavours of fresh fruits, veggies and sprouts are delicious and affordable on their own without having to always pulverize and dehydrate them with other expensive exotic ingredients.
So, in other words, just grabbing a piece of fruit is probably a perfect idea.
Mashing up an avocado with a squeeze of lime and a pinch of sea salt and eating it with a spoon is simple and filling.
Tossing a little olive oil, lemon juice and herbs onto a plate of sprouts is quick and simple.
Keep an apple or a baggie of baby carrots in your bag for snacking on the run.
canned chickpeas are cooked. that’s why they are soft.
most people don’t eat their chick peas sprouted… but the good news is it’s really easy and very affordable to just buy some dried ones in the bulk aisle.
IsisDC- nicely put.
but, in case you like almonds, i got some from wholesale-almonds.com for $5/lb if you buy 10 lbs (they freeze REALLY well). they are IMP (almost as good as organic) and the best i have ever tasted, totally raw. (nope, they don’t pay me to say this)
and dnacol- the simpler the better. i have a dehydrator but rarely use it do anything but warm stuff up or dry out soaked nuts. the first you can do by pouring boiling water into a covered serving dish, dumping the water (or pouring into your bowl to heat it too), and then letting you food warm up for a few minutes while you do other stuff… the second happens on its own, by just leaving them out to dry.
the best simple meal for me is a beautifully presented salad with avocado slices on the bottom and zucchini ribbons tossed with a little evoo and sea salt and pepper (chili flakes are great too).
pianissima – thank you so much for that site. I do very much like almonds, but I just don’t plan to use that many of them, so spending $50 on almonds is just not something I can justify to budget for.
I think I will pass on the nuts and stick to sprouts, which are so cheap and healthy and less fatty.(no fat really)
I bought a dehydrator when I was going raw a year ago, and my favorite thing to dehydrate were strawberrys because they made the house smell so good.
Maybe I’ll give the more complicated dehydrator recipes a try if I find myself feeling bold.