My meat and potatoes man wants to go raw!!

[Thick]

I've heard other people say that they have raw husbands. I would sigh wistfully, wishing my husband would at least eat a salad or a piece of fruit. He is sooo picky, even with sad food. Tonight, he told me he wants to start eating raw--but very simply. Plain carrots, fruit and lettuce he said. Help me with some very simple recipes that everyone likes to help him out of the celery stick mentality. What does your husband eat?

Never have the words "Be the change you want to see in the world" rung so clear and bright.

/reeling with the pleasure of throwing out the sad junk food in my house!

[RawPaw]

Wow!

That's awesome. Maybe he sees all of the changes in you and wants the same.

[Ilse W.]

One of the simplest things I know to make is zucchinni pasta with pesto or with marinara. I make my marinara with whatever I happen to have in the kitchen, always tomatoes, sometimes mushrooms, maybe avocado, a little olive oil, spices. Pulse it a few times in the food processor. Of course for the zucchini you should have a spiral slicer, which makes it a lot of fun to eat, just like eating long spaghetti. It's a meal I can eat every day.
I think it's great that your husband wants to eat raw.

[spicyfull]

RAWsome...........

[Eva]

One of the simplest things I know to make is zucchinni pasta with pesto or with marinara. I make my marinara with whatever I happen to have in the kitchen, always tomatoes, sometimes mushrooms, maybe avocado, a little olive oil, spices. Pulse it a few times in the food processor. Of course for the zucchini you should have a spiral slicer, which makes it a lot of fun to eat, just like eating long spaghetti. It's a meal I can eat every day.
I think it's great that your husband wants to eat raw.

I have to agree. My husband loves this.

You can make a simple but lovely salad with the second setting of the spiral slicer -- with cucumber, add some paprika (the spicy one if you can find it -- or a mix of that and a touch of cayenne) some sea salt, oil and ACV... and it's sort of filling and definitely pretty and simple.

[MiahTay]

I've gotten my hubby to up his amount of raw but he is very simple also ... plain bananas, he eats his salad every night almost completely plain ... I have gotten him to start drinking some green smoothies but they must be pretty sweet (like with cherries or grapes or other really sweet stuff). Mine did like the jalapeno burger recipe (not dehydrated) with veggies to scoop it with. I also got mine to eat raw lunch with me yesterday we had 1 apple chopped, 4 dates chopped, topped with a generous amount of ground walnut and a drizzle of honey mixed with coconut oil. Best of luck and Congrats ... how exciting!

Blessings,
Heather

[RawSweetie]

Thick, that's wonderful. Good luck!

[Moretta]

Wow, that is great.

I wish mine would go fully raw it would be so much easier to prepare meals especially at dinner time for the both of us.

[annavon]

A lot of Alissa's recipes are not too complicated. The zucchini pasta is a good suggestion. I also like the Not Potato salad made with jicama, this was a hit at my church pot luck.

When I went raw this time back in July I decided to not push myself to do any complicated recipes. I did juicing and salada at first. I gradually wanted different flavors and started adding new things. Perhpas if you let your husband start in the simple way he wants, he will want to start adding different things. You could always have him look through Alissas book and pick out things that appeal to him.

[Thick]

Looking through cookbooks and photo threads is a great idea. I'll also have him look through www.goneraw.com . Now I need to make a walnut chicken fried steak and cashew gravy and he'll be all set=) Thanks for all your suggestions!

[petaltothemetal]

When you say simple food, do you mean simple to fix or tastes like simple comfort food?

Do you own a dehydrator, Thick? I know I should know this since we just went through the 30 day challenge!!!! So kick me if you said you did not already! However, my point is, there are a lot of recipes that use fresh veggies that don't FEEL like sad food until you wilt the veggies a little in the dehydrator. "Pasta" and "potato" dishes especially. Jicama is way too crunchy and sweet to fool a guy looking for potato salad or french fries... unless you dehydrate it a little. Stuffed mushrooms don't taste cooked... unless you dehydrate them a little. Zucchini lasagne is ohmygod good when dehydrated a little.

I really hope my fiance, when he moves out here from Virginia to marry me, will go raw, also. But he's a meat and potatoes guy, too. So I'm learning to make food now that will appeal to him later. I've also been adding meat substitutes like jalapeno burgers that are dehydrated in patty, meatball or loose burger form to pasta dishes and Alissa's enchiladas. I think they'd make about any meat guy happy.

Oh, and one concession I make to my daughter, who does not want to be raw and who loves fried foods is I add toasted sesame oil to dishes I prepare for her. It makes food taste fried.

[blaqberry]

Ohh, that's wonderful! :) I'll sometimes post on my blog what we eat, might also give you some ideas...

[michigan roman]

ide suggest alot of avacado chunks and walnut bits in salads to really hearten them up . mushrooms and brocoli also in salads add heaviness .

[Emma-Liza]

These are such great suggestions! I'd add--

Salads that don't have greens in them such as the above-mentioned jicama salad, slaws, broccoli salad, carrot salad, cucumber salad, corn salad (while it's still in season!) . These are very hearty and can be served on a bed of greens to "round them out" or in lettuce leaves, etc. They are especially filling with the creamier dressings.

If he is not trying for 100%, you can put cooked legumes and grains with all these. I can't imagine meals like these not being at least as filling as chicken fried steak. And he'll sleep and feel better, too!

[Thick]

Thanks, you guys=)

He is so picky, I guess I'm going to have to let him pick his own foods. Here is the article he found that convinced him (not me and my crying in gratitude over avacadoes after all=)

http://www.bibleplus.org/health/rawfood.htm

[petaltothemetal]

Thank you, Thick, for posting that. It is amazing that the doctor wrote that in 1950!

[Raine]

Thank you, Thick, for posting that. It is amazing that the doctor wrote that in 1950!

Petal - have you read Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss? That book is stuffed full of examples from the early 1900's of bad health being cured by real foods and fasting. After reading that book, if you are anything like me, you'll never go near aluminum again!

[Riiiya]

THANKS for that link (the 1950s article) i added it to my "articles" list on my website :)

[petaltothemetal]

Petal - have you read Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss? That book is stuffed full of examples from the early 1900's of bad health being cured by real foods and fasting. After reading that book, if you are anything like me, you'll never go near aluminum again!


I did, and also Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A Price, a huge book that is both tedious and very important (!) about how isolated primitive societies ate and lived in the early 1900s. Many vegans here would not agree wholeheartedly with his findings, but like Kloss, he recommended food as close to nature as possible. He backed it up with data from literally a hundred or so tribes free from contact with western man and contrasted with those who had started eating the western diet. Because of what I read, I include a lot of home-fermented foods in my raw diet, too. (Kimchee, pickles, juices fermented but stopped before they become wine!)

[RawHeaven]

Thick how is your husband doing on Raw?

[Moretta]

Good luck on his rawness journey. How exciting.