making the transition - dehydrating Q

[silverspring47]

Hey! I'm working on making the transition to Raw...I'm not sure how long I will do this for, if it is a temporary diet thing, or if I'll fall in love with this way of eating, or if I'll just incorporate it majorly into my diet after I lose the weight that I want.

My dehydrator is old...there's no temp setting. There's air vents tho. I put some fruit in it to test it today for the first time in years, and I put in a meat therm. to keep track of Temp. it hit 50C, which I know is too hot. but I can't sit and watch it and shut it off to keep temp down etc...All vents are already open, so what should I do?? is it okay to go a little over 42C?? (42C = 118F)

Thanks!

[Aleesha Sattva]

no it is not. it kills your food and then it's dead. so... no good.

i suggest either not dehydrating or getting a new one. ;)

[Cottonball McFluffy]

8 degrees is a pretty huge difference and as Aleesha said, it does kill your food dead. However there's two things to consider: 1. You don't actually need a dehydrator to be raw. In case you need to re-dry nuts and seeds, you can just leave them spread out on the kitchen counter and they'll dry on their own. Raw treats almost never require dehydrating and you can modify recipes if they do. So at worst you'd be out of kale chips and crackers.
2. There's no raw police. If you feel good occasionally eating something that's not entirely raw, but fills a craving in a healthier way, then the choice is totally up to you. :)

[silverspring47]

thanks :) I'm still getting the hang of all of it, slowly transitioning...I'm not sure I can go fully Raw anyways b/c I like meat...

another Q...any HOT soup? lol can you warm it a little?

I read a book that explained being 70% raw or 80% ... different "type" (level's) Like vegetarianism (some eat fish, some have dairy, some are vegan...etc) is this right?

[Cottonball McFluffy]

You can warm your soup up a little, but I'd advice against microwaving it. :D
There's actually a really good reason for that as a microwave heats food from the inside out (boiling the water-molecules inside the food) while ovens and stoves work the other way around heating the food from the outside in and not messing with the structure of the water-molecules with radiation. So if you want to heat up a soup a little, put it in a jar and the jar in the oven on the lowest setting for 5-10 minutes or so and stir it around every now and then. When it's ideal it wont be hot like a "regular" meal, but it wont be cold either. You can also warm up the dishes you serve things from. :)

Yes, there are percentages of being raw but it's not really that cut and dried. It all depends on how a person views their food. So someone who eats all raw vegan all the time might call themselves 100% while another one eating the exact same diet might call themselves 95% because they don't consider the dried herbs or cashews totally raw.
There are also several versions or schools of a raw food diet depending on the individual and depending on a guru. Some include animal products too, but as this is a vegan board and the version of raw foods that Alissa teaches is vegan, there's no talk of eating animal products here.

Personally, I went raw out of curiousity and I had no intention of leaving out animal products, but after about 30 days I noticed how absolutely ghastly I felt every time after a meal with any sort of animal product in it, so here I am, accidently vegan. :D

[silverspring47]

oh, see, I haven't even had enough time to search this site to know it's pure vegan. cool...

Yeah, I started a diet, and decided to eat more fruits, and more vegetables...and cut out other stuff....after a few days & some research, I realized I was about 70-80% raw...only one non raw meal a day. I sort of like that way of living, but fear I'll get bored very quickly if I don't find recipes and stuff. BUT every time I look for a recipe it's time consuming and costly (lots of ingredients, lots of dehydrating, so machines, etc) ... I love the concept of going raw, and am open to see where it leads me (vegan? etc) but find it tough to commit.

[Aleesha Sattva]

i highly recommend you read this section (http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18)... to give yourself an idea of what's allowed and not allowed on the forum.

cause ya... we are a vegan forum. doesn't mean you have to be vegan, just that you don't discuss things non-vegan is all. ;)