About To Begin - All Help Welcome

[whoeva]

Hello from the UK,

I just posted my greeting in the new members forum and have come straight into here to post this plea for assistance.
I have been vegetarian for a few years and current require going vegan for various reasons. I have attempted to reduce the rubbish in the foods I buy (MSG, hydrogenated fats etc) but mostly I bought convenience food. Since mostly all of this rubbish contains some sort of animal product the things I am now buying (due to habit) have been reduced to virtually nothing.

The main problem is I thoroughly enjoy cheese and even though attempting to only eat organic stuff and cut out the dairy products my diet at the moment consists of pizza for dinner and cheese sandwiches for my packed lunch. I need a non-dairy cheese substitute if such a thing exists? (Potential market here?)

I never used to eat fruit but since removing chocolate from my diet I do include a little fruit (when I say fruit I mean a banana) in my packup but as you can see I need serious help. I also eat a banana when I get home. I buy apples and carrots but find I'm mostly throwing half of these away because I automatically throw a pizza in the oven instead.

I cannot sustain my existance on cheese pizzas every single day and the toll it is taking on my body is becoming more than noticable.

So I arrive here looking for some guidance. I know there is already a wealth of information on these forums and if I spent the time I could find all I needed to know but I just thought I would post this in the hope that some angelic being will take me under their wings and essentially guide me into my new diet.

I would like to be 100% raw and the main problem is I have always been a fussy eater. If I don't like the look of something I find it difficult to even try it. I know that I will need to overcome this if I am to continue living on this planet because if I continue in this manner I will not exist much longer.

I need advise on what to eat and where to buy it. My overall goal is to build my own earth-sheltered house capable of generating it's own energy and recycling my waste and grow all my own food as I require becoming self-sufficient in all aspects of life. (Side note - The people who print the money do not work for the governent, they work for their shareholders, ie themselves).

I cannot wait until my house is built until I start my new diet because it is likely I will not begin digging the first hole before my body collapses in a toxic heap of destruction on the floor.

I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm being pathetic and wanting somebody else to do all the work and be like:
Day1 - eat this
Day2 - eat that
etc etc
but I feel this would be the most help to me as it's almost like I need someone to take control of my diet for me since I feel so unable to do so.

Any comments positive or negative would be greatly appreciated.
Thanx for reading.

[D'vorah]

The things that are of most value to me on my journey are:

Green Smoothies - these help me keep from cravings for dairy and such
Lots of fruit
Eating anytime I feel hungry, not by any set schedule

The books most meaningful to me:

Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko - all about green smoothies
Raw Secrets by Frederic Patenaude
And, of course, Alissa's book, Living on Live Food

This website is a wealth of information. The other website I most value is Douglass Graham's site:

http://www.foodnsport.com/joomla/

No one can do it for you, because each of us is different, you have to learn to listen to your own body and give it what it wants/needs. But you already knew that. :-)

Blessings as you explore.

D

[dreamrawalwz]

First off welcome!

There are cheese substitute recipies floating around here somewhere. Those that have tried it say it tastes really good, but I havn't done them. If you're tempted by the pizza instead of fruits and veggies then get rid of the pizza and don't buy anymore of the "convenience" foods. If you live with a cooked/SAD eating that does not want to go raw then this may not be possible. Remember, it is a conscience choice. Surround yourself with all the fresh produce you desire. Eventually things WILL grow on you (no pun intended!). Raw doesn't mean just apples and lettuice, or as some of my friends call it "rabbit food." You can make many many recipes. When you say convenience food...is it because you're on the run or you just don't want to cook? Either way you can just grab a few pieces of fruit, home made trail mixes, or chopped veggies for on the go. Then when you get home you can have a fuller recipe if you desire. Good luck!

[whoeva]

Thank you for this reply. I'm gonna be all about green smoothies now. Need to get myself a blender. Anything I need to know about blending?

Done a quick online search for green smoothie and found this site (http://www.emaxhealth.com/14/1182.html) which has a few recipies on I can try.

Seems I should be able to simply drink green smooties for the rest of my life, yes?

I am going to cast aside my aprehension about previous ideas about certain fruits or vegetables and try everything I can get my hands on in my quest for total raw diet creation.

Thanx again for the help.

Edit - another reply, thanx! The answer is convenience foods because of my laziness regarding the preparing/cooking of meals but this has to change now for the reasons previously stated.

I feel alot of the lethargy has come about due to my poor diet over the previous x number of years! I live on my own so am my own worst enemy but have decided to be my own best friend instead.

[D'vorah]

Thank you for this reply. I'm gonna be all about green smoothies now. Need to get myself a blender. Anything I need to know about blending?

Done a quick online search for green smoothie and found this site (http://www.emaxhealth.com/14/1182.html) which has a few recipies on I can try.

Seems I should be able to simply drink green smooties for the rest of my life, yes?

Blenders: Get the most powerful blender you can afford. You can burn up the motors on lesser brands wtih all of the fiber and daily usage. I have and love a Vitamix.

Live on smoothies the rest of your life? I actually think I could. They are filling and satisfying, they don't take tons of prep time, and they make eating salads yummy. The website you posted is Victoria Boutenko's Ode to Green Smoothie. It is her book I recommended above.

Good luck,

Deborah

[Graciebeliever]

Welcome so GLAD you are here!!

You will find a wealth of information about so much but remember this more than anything:

We are all walking this journey TOGETHER and we all have to make the decision of what is right for us. You will learn a lot and find MANY different views of what is right and wrong. You must decide what is best for you and just because lots of us do different things does not mean that one is right and one is wrong.


Having said that enjoy finding a GREAT way to live and eat. Read Read Read!!

I am 100% Raw for my 78th Day today and I could NOT be happier let me tell you!!

Some people are transitioning slowly off cooked food and adding all Raw, Some of us (Me included) Went Cold turkey from day one to 100%.

I taunt myself very LUCKY that I have not strayed off raw and I only attribute it to the fact that I am VERY deeply motivated to regain my life and health (I have a LOT of weight to lose) and I have gone from barely getting out of bed to walking and moving and living again! My only other choice was surgery or death and now I am looking at a life filled with health and love and WONDERFUL supportive family here :)

Rememeber: Even a loving family gets in tiffs once in a while so don't let the occasional spat here discourage you. This Site IS the reason that I have come so far and PLEASE understand that your involvment is very important whether that is just reading, asking questions, giving us your opinion, or telling us of your booboo's or your successes!!! We want it all :)

Use this site to the best of your ability, that is what it is here for!!

THANKS ALISSA!!

Again Welcome
RAW ROCKS!

[luckitri]

Dairy is also my weakness but in cutting it out and then trying it again I learned that it is a #1 source of allergies and breathing problems for me. Somewhere on here I read that milk is mostly white blood cells and pus from the cow. Since I read your post I have done alot of searching to find these sites for you - I knew they were on here somewhere!

www.notmilk. com

www.milksucks.com

Really there is so much good information on here and people have posted so many good links - I just have difficulty finding what it is that I want in a timely manner. I think that one could just read this site full-time and still never get it all!

I tried juicing and didn't like it. (bowel accidents.) Tried to make a bunch of green smoothies and didn't like them. (Also didn't like mixing bananas with vegetables.) Found out that I do like fruit juice from the blender (mango, melon etc) but the sugar in the fruit wore me out. Don't want to get involved with all these recipes and finding that just cleaning all the vegetables and drying the greens after cleaning (so they don't rot) is enough busywork so I have just been doing cut up vegetables and salads. For the extreme hunger pangs I have been doing avocados and young coconut. I put a hole (2) in the base of the coconut and drain the juice into a blender. Then I hack it open with a hammer and chisel and scoop the meat also into the blender and I love that and have received much benefit from it. (There are many old threads on here about young coconut.) I am lucky as I can go to an Asian market and get the young coconuts for $1 each. The other day I went to a health food store that is a chain out here and they had the exact same brand young coconut for double the price! So basically I have just been doing cut up vegetables and salads. For some reason I haven't wanted to eat nuts or anything else fatty other than coconut and avocado and suddenly my desire for those two fatty foods has decreased also....but I keep them around for when those intense hunger pangs hit.

Someone posted on here that longtime raw foodists don't get into juicing alot. I have a juicer that I got for $20 26 years ago from an old hippie that was recycling them for a living and it still works! I haven't even looked into getting a food processer yet. I have a dehydrator and I am not interested in using it. I have a sprouter and I haven't opened the box yet. I have a cheap blender that we picked up new for $20 and I do expect that it won't hold up to what I am doing with it sometimes but for $20 I am not worried. This weekend I will juice some spinach by itself as I do like that and I am home so if it gives me trouble I don't have to get someones permission to take care of it. I am also going to try my first raw recipe - the raw chili that was posted here a few days ago.

PS. Always wanted to build a cob house and I conceived the whole house water recycler but I didn't patent it!

PPS: Just keep it simple for starters. I was overwhelmed too which is why I decided to just keep it down to cut up vegetables.

[Imagine]

If I don't like the look of something

raw food always looks good, it's so rich and colorful.

Alissa's book is all you need!

She's a wizz at education and helping people new to raw.

What you need to do is think raw, but you don't want to be left feeling hungry either, to begin with (especially if your used to pizza and cheese sandwiches) you will feel hungry while your stomach is getting used to a different (cleaner, more satisfying) way to live.

Alissa's book is filled with recipes / ideas that are great for new rawbies as they contain nut or seed bases and that gives the familiar feeling of full you will be looking for.

She also has a few raw cheese recipes, but if your in a hurry google it, I'm sure you will find one. Off the top of my head I think it's macadamia nuts, lemon and garlic..

There are raw pizza's too, that have the raw cheese, and a raw tomato sauce, with all the toppings, on a seed & vege base dried in the dehydrator.

When making the change, it's good to understand that you'll need a bit of planning time in the kitchen, especially if you are busy working, it's too easy to get hungry and grab something.

Planning helps me, as I sprout a lot, if I want to do a dehydrator recipe, it's best I think of that the day before.

If your short on money and need / want to jump right in, SALADS SALADS SALADS.. there are so many yummy raw dressing recipes, if you add sprouts and avacados to your salads it gives it more bulk so you wont feel hungry.

drink plenty of water, a lot of times we're more thirsty than hungry.
but also while transitioning to raw, your body will be healing itself back to wellness, and it needs the water desperately to help it flush out the toxins..

[whoeva]

Awesome, only just joined this forum and all these fantastic replies. Thanx to all of you. I only ever really used to have milk on my cerals but stopped that a while ago when I learned about the growth hormone and stuff.

Humans are the only animals that continue to drink milk into adulthood and it's not even milk from their own species. Seems very unnatural to me.

As for the water, well it is the only thing I drink except for the occasional fruit juice ( soon to become regular fruit juice I'm sure ) so drinking plenty of water shouldn't be an issue for me. The only thing about water is I have to buy bottled water as to avoid the flouride and this is not the most environmentally sound method of intaking the liquid.

I should hope to build my house near a natural spring or look into sinking a well because with all the pollution in the atmosphere is rain water really safe to drink these days?

Will try to get myself a blender after the weekend. I looked quickly at the vitamix one but the one I saw said it uses heat friction to "cook" the stuff as it blends so I guess this is not the kind of blender I should be looking at getting?

Anyway, off to bed to give my body it's daily attempt at getting rid of cheese sandwich and pizzas. Peace.

[sport]

Here are some cheese preps that you may find fill the gap.

Cream cheese
2 cups soaked cashews
1 T water
1/8 tsp salt
Process till creamy.
Cover and leave out overnight at room temp. Then refrigerate to get more solid. You can flavor this cream cheese with herbs, garlic, chives, dried fruit, honey, etc.

Feta
2 c saved almond pulp
¼ cup light miso
4 sprigs fresh parsley
6 fresh basil leaves
3 T fresh oregano
4 T fresh thyme
3 T fresh white sage
¼ c olive oil
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp salt
2 green onions
Combine and blenderize until very creamy. Pour into mesh bag. Squeeze liquid out of bag until no more will come out.
Put pulp crumbles on teflex sheet and dehydrate at 105 degrees for 6 hours or until completely dry. Keep in refrigerator in sealed glass jar.
Freeze liquid into ice cubes and use to season soups or gravy.

Ricotta
4 c soaked macadamia nuts
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 basil leaf
1 sprig parsley
Puree adding water as needed.

Pimento Cheese
Blend until smooth:
1 cup water
¾ cup cashew nuts
1 T tahini
1 tsp salt
3 T Nutritional Yeast flakes
1 T minced onion
¼ cup minced red bell pepper
½ of a small clove of garlic
Dash dill seed
2 T lemon juice (or to taste)
Stir in:
¾ c minced

Cheddar Cheese
Blend until creamy:
1 large red bell pepper
¼ c water
1 c raw cashews
1 T tahini
3 T nutritional yeast
1 ½ tsp. sea salt
1 T minced onion
1 clove garlic
2 T lemon juice
Spread on teflex sheet and dehydrate. Slice as desired.

Parmesan
Grind to preferred consistency:
Cashew nuts
Salt

[luckitri]

Wow - those look like excellent recipes! Thanks!

[Lay-Lay]

Howdy and welcome!

[Pierre]

If you feel you need cheese, what you probably need is fat and salt. Eat some raw olives, or mix unrefined salt with avocado (which is what I do when waiting for the olives to come). 1 to 2 grams of salt per 1 or 2 avocados is about right to me.

"Table salt" from the grocery store is not raw. It's heated, IIRR, to 800 degrees to melt it and remove "impurities", which are minerals that we need! Even some salt labeled "sea salt" is refined. Celtic seasalt is raw.

[luckitri]

That makes good sense Pierre, because I read elsewhere on here that you crave what you are detoxing.

[whoeva]

Thank you for the "cheese" recipe. Might have a go when I get more adventurous. For now here is the update:

Just went shopping and bought a cheap blender. It will do the trick for now. I bought some spinach, curly kale and some carrots. Also bought bananas, cucumber, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples and some celery.

I just had my first green smoothie and just chucked in some kale, banana, bit of celery, and some strawberries. Added the water and mashed it all up.It wasn't too bad but wasn't as sweet as I thought it might be.

It may take me some time to adjust the levels and ingredients but the best the best part is I can just randomly mix all this stuff together and not have to worry about the texture or flavour of foods I don't like so much (like celery for example) as it all gets blended together :)

I'm very excited about creating some strange concoctions of fruit and veg so thanx to all who spent time in this thread with me.

Next smoothie will be spinach, carrot, apple, banana and raspberry I think. I guess there's really no wrong way of doing this. Bring it on.

My tummy feels full of vitality.

It's not all good news though as I did succomb to the buy one get one free of cheese pizza just in case of starvation emergency while I re-educate myself in the ways of healthy eating.

[Frog]

When I started on the raw journey (I'm not 100% yet) I wanted to do green juices, but I put too much spinach in the first one and it was too strong tasting for me. Now when I juice I just put maybe 2 apples, some carrots, fresh root ginger, maybe some celery and just 2 or 3 leaves of spinach or kale. If you increase slowly your body will adjust to the green rush gradually and they wont taste so strong or affect your tummy/bowels so violently! :o

Good luck from the UK too! :)

[tvillemom]

Hey, and welcome! Question for you....did you freeze your fruit? I like to freeze my banana and my other fruit. I make my smoothies with about 4 cups of spinach...add about 1/2 cup of water (maybe alittle less) and puree that. Then I add all the frozen fruit I want....comes out like a milkshake. My favorite is spinach, banana, and blueberry! My kids even like that! Best of luck to you, and stay on the boards, they are a wealth of information.
Wendi
Oh, by the way, add frozen fruit slowly, or you may burn up your blender. I also freeze my bananas in small slices....it will be easier on your blender if you do that. Good luck.

[D'vorah]

I looked quickly at the vitamix one but the one I saw said it uses heat friction to "cook" the stuff as it blends so I guess this is not the kind of blender I should be looking at getting?


No, it doesn't "cook" everything you blend. You CAN make hot soups that are heated to the point of being cooked, but it has to run for a while to heat it up that much. You control how warm things get.

For smoothies and such, I only run it seconds, so no worries, it doesn't even warm up.

D

[whoeva]

No, I used fresh fruit. Never even thought about freezing it. Is there any other reason to do this other than to keep it for longer?

I did make a smoothie the other day with lots of stuff in it. I think it had kale, carrot, apple, banana and raspberry. I made it and it was very thick so had to add lots more water. It wasn't great and stuggled to get it down. I kept the rest in the fridge which when I went back to actually didn't taste too bad.

I just made the best smoothie yet. Lots of spinach, a banana, blueberries and some cucumber. It was delicious, very fresh.

I'm doing quite well so far. I did have some cooked chips yesterday as I still have them in the freezer but my 2 cheese pizzas are still in there much to my surprise!

Thanx for the info about the vitamix. My cheap blender seems to be doing the job just fine for now.

[luckitri]

Yes when cranberries come back in season I will be freezing some bags for medicinal purposes when they are out of season. I would have frozen some blueberries when they were on sale this season but I was having a bad reaction to them so I suspect that there was some pesticide residue that my washing wasn't getting off. Personally I am not a fan of cold food and drink so I only freeze and refrigerate to keep stuff from spoiling. I was wanting to get rid of my freezer because my family overbuys and then wastes because it gets freezer burn but then I thought about freezing berries and so I will keep it for awhile longer. I think freezing is almost as damaging as cooking lightly.