Substituting ingredients

[Luciano]

hello! greetings from argentina! Ive been a chef here for a while, and im switching to raw foods. The movement is just starting in this country, and i think there is a lot of potential for raw products.

now, to the question:

i was wondering, as some of the ingredients you use frequently in raw recipes are not available here, if there is a good way to replace them with something else.

for example, i couldnt get a hold of

coconut oil / butter / meat
agave
cacao butter / paste
maple syrup




ive been trying to replace the oils with sunflower/sesame/olive oils, the cacao with cacao powder and the sweeteners with honey, but it just doesnt cut it.

any advice you can give me?


thank you very much!

[drolemil]

Maple syrup isn't even raw in the first place, it's just a "flavor enhancer". So don't even worry about it. Agave IS raw, but it's considered not good at all for your system due to it's high fructose content. In the end these are both just sweeteners, so instead you can use (depending on the type of dish) fresh or dried fruits. Dates are popular, since they have a neutral flavor why being very sweet. For a liquid like agave, date syrup/paste can be made easily and used in placement. Try getting creative though, and use other fruits outside of dates to give a different layer of flavor to food (examples: raisins, figs, bananas, lychee, etc). :) One more sweetener is stevia, a type of plant which leaf tastes sweet, but is not actually a sugar. It can be bought in a powder or liquid drop form or you can just use the whole leaf.

If you can get a fresh coconut, you can get the meat from that. To make homemade coconut butter, dry the coconut into flakes (unless you already have dried coconut flakes) and blend/food process into a paste.

I'm not sure about cacao butter and paste, since I've never used them. They are usually reserved for more "gourmet" raw recipes. Coconut oil often is, too.

Raw food is pretty easy to change ingredients with, once you get the knack of it (which isn't hard). Good luck and have fun! :D