Sandy,
Ha! Starting on the raw food journey means a lot of grocery store trips and a lot of shopping online, LOL! I had a really hard time estimating how much food I would need, the types of food, and finding all the "special" ingredients that go into some of these gourmet recipes. Sometimes my husband would eat my creations and sometimes I had more than I needed - raw meals don't last very long for "leftovers" due to their nature. Also, many times I would start with a recipe and have forgotten a crucial ingredient in a 20 ingredient list, so I would have to run to the store to get that. And of course, there were all the gadgets that make raw food easier. My poor husband was incredibly patient with me and our checkbook and his dinner plans
Body wise, I didn't have any issues adjusting to a raw diet. In fact, it was like my body breathed a sigh of relief and said "FINALLY!" I used to worry about eating too much fat and too many carbs because of weight gain, but I found that on the raw diet, my body assimilated all nutrients so much more efficiently and not only did I not gain any weight, I actually lost 40 pounds.
Raw eating can be very simple or very complex. The 28 day program will probably give you a pretty intense intro to raw eating, but it may help give you some perspective. Ultimately, it's about eating "living" foods, so anything that contributes to that - be it fermented foods, sprouts, salads, juices, dehydrated chips or gourmet chef-style meals is part of it. It can be overwhelming at first to think that you -have- learn to do all that stuff. You don't have to. If you can just manage to make juice every day, you are already doing great things for your body
Only take it to the next level when you're comfortable.
I think the hardest thing about a raw diet is the food prep. Especially if you are just transitioning, start at maybe 50% raw and work up from there. Start with salads and juices to replace a meal here and there, then try a raw dinner recipe if you're feeling bold. Try to cook more "vegetable based" meals for the times you're not eating raw. It helps ease the transition until you get some practice with the timing of everything and allows you to find some favorite meals that can become "staples" when you are feeling lazy. The more "gourmet" you try to go, the longer the food prep generally takes. For example, some meals require soaking nuts over night, marinating vegetables overnight, etc etc. If you sprout, that can take several days. Once I transitioned I tried to aim for 85% raw with every meal - 100% is admirable, but I just felt like I could manage it all better (and felt better) if I allowed myself leeway with some things (like whey protein). The key is really to focus on nourishing your body, not acquire 500 rare ingredients that even most gourmet chefs have never heard of
Some things that became essential for me over time - a blender, a spirooli (spiral vegetable slicer for making veggie noodles, you can also use a julienne peeler), a dehydrator, an "Easy Sprouter" and a juicer. If you don't have a high-powered blender, you'll want to spend a little more time chopping things up finely (or use a food processor to do this) so your blender can handle them, but otherwise you should still be able to make smoothies, sauces and soups.
The blender and juicer are probably my most treasured appliances. Eating raw means eating A LOT of veggies and fruits, and sometimes that can be overwhelming and literally, you will not want to chew another bite. Being able to just make up some fresh juice or blend 10 servings of veggies and fruits into a fiber rich, tasty smoothie is a Godsend.
The spirooli or julienne peeler makes it so you can make veggie pasta - need I say more?!?!?!?! You can make ALL kinds of noodles - I have used parsnips, turnips, carrots, zucchini, beets, sweet potatoes and even butternut squash! (I very lightly steam turnip noodles because it makes them sweeter, and the sweet potatoes and butternut squash soften a little bit if lightly steamed which frankly, makes them more palatable.) There are tons of "raw" sauces you can make. I have two favorite raw sauces - a simple peanut sauce and a rich, DECADENT, alfredo. You will feel like you should be dieting after you eat that alfredo...but it is loaded with tons of healthy nutrients and there is nothing in it for your body to fear!
A sprouter can be a whole separate sub-adventure of raw foods. Eating raw is about eating as many "living" foods as possible so that you are nourishing your body with enzymes and vitamins in their peak form - which allows your body to focus less energy on digesting and more on on funneling nutrients directly to your cells to nourish and rebuild. Sprouts are essentially little nutrient-dense machines generating their own energy to create vibrant plants. I would highly encourage you to try sprouting if you haven't - it's easy (especially if you use the Easy Sprouter!), safe, inexpensive and extremely nutritious for you. You can make sprouts with just about any seed that is viable - I prefer alfalfa and clover because they are very mild tasting, and right now I'm growing a tray of lovely chia
They give you a boost of energy (literally) and really deliver a powerhouse of nutrients to your cells. I try to eat about a cup of sprouts a day and you can either put them on salads or in meals or blend it up in a smoothie. A place with a lot of sprout info is:
https://sproutpeople.org/
The dehydrator isn't necessary but expands some of the things you can do. Everyone's favorite - fruit rollups - are easy. I like to make apple chips, banana chips, raw almond & flax crackers, raw tortilla chips (guess what's raw and goes well with tortilla chips...GUACAMOLE!!!) and sun-dried tomatoes. You can also use the dehydrator to "cook" some meals if you are craving something warm. If you don't have one of these, using a home made sun oven or setting the regular oven on the lowest setting with the door slightly ajar can work too.
My biggest complaint about raw cookbooks was that there were a lot of books that had tons of recipes, but no pictures. I am such a visual person and I my culinary skills already lack somewhat, so I really wanted pictures to help me visualize what I was doing
But it seems that raw food books don't have a lot of pictures, haha. Then I had the opportunity to go to The Blossoming Lotus restaurant in Portland, OR and absolutely fell in love with them. So I ended up getting one of their cookbooks,
The Complete Idiot's guide to Eating Raw." It gives a great overview of raw foods and has a lot of recipes that range from easy to complex. I also use the website "
http://www.rawfoodrecipes.com" as a main source for raw meals.
Also, some purists may have other opinions, but I consider kefir made with non-raw milk to still be "raw" because it's cultured with living bacteria, which essentially transforms it into a living food.
You can also learn to ferment vegetables with nothing more than sea salt at home, on your counter. Fermented carrots are raw and delicious!
Some things you'll probably want to try to have on hand at any given time (aside from whatever fruits and vegetables you like to eat) are below. If you absolutely can't find some of this stuff without making a trek or paying exorbitant amounts of money, don't stress. Just substitute the regular version if the recipe calls for it - like rice wine vinegar for ACV, or regular soy sauce for nama shoyu. This is where the 85% rule comes in handy
Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother)
Nama Shoyu (raw soy sauce)
Nutritional Yeast (Excellent cheese flavor)
Raw Cashews
Raw Walnuts
Raw Almonds
Ground flax seed
Coconut butter and oil
Kelp noodles
Raw garlic
Raw Honey
And now, just to give you a taste of all the joyous raw meals that are out there,here is a fairly simple recipe that is hands down one of my favorites:
Noodles:
6 Zucchinis, julienned (1 medium zucchini makes about 1.5 cups of noodles or a large 1 person serving. Adjust as preferred.)
Sauce:
2 cups Raw Cashews (soak for 4 hours or so to soften)
Juice of one Lemon
2-3 Cloves raw Garlic
1 tsp Fresh Thyme
1 tsp Sea Salt
1-3 tablespoons Nutritional Yeast (to taste)
1/2 to 1 cup of water, almond milk or kefir*** as needed for consistency
Garnish:
Fresh chopped Basil, to taste
Mini cherry or grape Tomatoes, halved
Black Pepper
Parmesan cheese***(optional)
Directions:
Blend all sauce ingredients together until a creamy and thick. Add water/almond milk to thin sauce to desired consistency.
Toss zucchini noodles with 1-2 Tablespoons of sauce per serving. Sauce is very rich and will coat noodles evenly, so if in doubt, start with 2 tablespoons and add more only if desired (nutrition info is based on 2 tblspns.) Garnish with chopped fresh basil, mini tomatoes, black pepper and/or parmesan cheese for a rich, absolutely delicious and filling meal.
To heat: For a warm, raw meal, toss all ingredients together and warm for 10 min at 105 degrees in dehydrator or on the "warm" setting in your oven. For a non-raw meal, you can lightly steam zucchini noodles but be careful about overcooking as you want them relatively firm, and once heated zucchini releases water very rapidly, which will thin your sauce. A trick is to heat the sauce and spread it over the raw noodles, which will soften them slightly. Or you can lightly steam the noodles until warm and then blot with a paper towel to absorb water. To just warm the sauce, gently warm on the stove or on low power in the microwave. If you have a high-powered blender, you can blend on high for 5 minutes continously to create a very warm sauce using the same method as when making blended soups.
Approx. nutritional info per serving:
260 calories
20 g Fat
2 g fiber
16 g Carbs
9.5 g Protein