Yellow curry paste, raw?

[Beanie]

Just wanted to ask if you could use yellow curry paste in the 30 day challenge. I'm struggling with wanting some "condiments" which aren't raw I don't think......mostly because I'm lazy!

Also, can you have a cup of tea on the 30 day challenge? I so want a cup of tea........herbal is fine with me, just want something hot.

[Autumn]

Your challenge is your own, and it can include or not include whatever you like. However, if you're trying to be 100% raw for 30 days, hot tea is not on the menu. ;) You *can* however, make sun tea or make your tea finger-warm (not so hot that you can't put your finger in it). Of course you want to make sure the tea leaves you use are raw.

As far as yellow curry paste, I couldn't tell you, sorry. I never heard of it.

[Beanie]

Do others notice any difference if they drink tea or not on an otherwise totally raw diet?

The curry paste is in a container, so since it has a decent length shelf life, I am assuming it is not raw.

[sport]

I never gave up tea. If I am on my own in the house I use organic herbal tea but sometimes when I make a cup of tea for hubby I dip the tea bag in a cup of boiling water a few times and drink it myself. I consider myself to be 100% most of the time and had the tea during my 30 day challange. If having tea make the challange easier then you should have it rather than risk going astray

[exurb]

Beanie, I used to love curry paste before I was raw. I dropped it and just do my best with spices now. It's the oil in it that particularly concerns me, I'm sure that's not a good quality raw oil. Also when curries are made, the spices are often toasted (and or toasted in the oil) to increase the flavor.

But if it doesn't bother you, no problem, there's lots of 99 percenters out there too.

[Beanie]

The curry paste I have is by Mae Ploy. It says no preservative and colorant added. The Ingredients are lemon grass, garlic, shallot, salt, galangal, dried red chilli, coriander, kaffir lime peel, cumin, cinnamon, mace, tumeric, cardamom. No oil is added. So in time, except for finding kaffir and galangal, I could make this easy in a Vitamix. Just struggling with time now and been getting cravings for highly seasoned foods still......not sure how long this will last though.

I've been thinking.......to be 100% raw, but "allow" myself tea and some spices that may not be exactly raw. I just been contemplating on why I ate cooked during the beginning of my challenge. And it was because of the rigidity that I felt. So then I ate an ALL COOKED meal rather than try to satisfy my desire for something hot with a cup of tea or a touch of seasoning. I have a tendency to be black and white so I think thinking "gray" may be helpful for me. So I might try to be lenient in the beginning until my stress level decreases and raw becomes easier for me.

Just having a hard time with cravings. Between the ethnic lentils, multigrain rice, and Chinese, my brain is cooked, lol!
:eek:

[Choose Life]

I am not sure if this is what you are after, but I made a curry sauce from Alissa's book and it is beautiful.

[Choose Life]

Just to continue.... it is a bit like a chutney and I have had it on the walnut - mushroom loaf.

[exurb]

beanie, if you want to whip up some of that curry paste, just substitute the galangal for ginger. It's pretty much the same, if you ask me ginger is better anyway, I once hunted down the galangal because it's more authentic, but it really wasn't worth all the hype. You can just use lime peel for the kaffir lime too. I have some kaffir lime leaves, you often read in recipes to substitute regular old lime peel for those too.

From what you said in your other post, you might be happy as a 99 percenter. Some people I know eat all raw with the exception of condiments and seasonings, and you could consider the tea in thay maybe... whatever works for you. Sort of in line with what you're saying.

As for the tea, when winter hit this year, I started drinking more warm water with lemon, or with peppermint leaves.

I share your craving for spicy food - spice is the spice of life. No reason not to eat spicy and raw.

Have you tried the chili recipe circulating on here?

[Beanie]

Choose Life- I was a big time authentic cook....when I DID cook that is.....was kinda lazy though! So curry spice is not good enough for me. Plus, yellow curry is Thai.....its a little different. Guess I'm picky! :( But I did invent a good yellow curry that is raw.....still not sure if the spice mixture part is raw, but I'm ok with that for now.

exurb-Thanks for the ideas! When things settle down in my life, I'll prepare my own. Right now my apartment is a total embarrassment/actually a disaster, so if I have time, I need to take care of some basics first like cleaning......:eek:

I've settled down a little in my thinking of 100% for myself. I'm very hard on myself, and feel lesser of a human when I'm not able to be 100%. Then I want to throw in the towel. So I've decided that if there is something that I really want, and its cooked, I will do my best to accomodate it as raw or allow myself a tiny portion of a food that won't affect me too much. Its better than mentally obsessing over a food which distracts me from attending to more important things in life.

Tonight I went on a date where my boyfriend went out of his way to make a vegan, gluten free pizza. I brought a kale salad, filled up on that and ate one small slice of pizza. (actually, it was probably closer to hummus with tomato sauce, lol!). But besides it being too heavy and feeling tired, I'm OK. I enjoyed our time together, and actually learned I prefer RAW!! So it was a good experience. No I can't eat gluten, but allowing me that made me not feel deprived and helped me to realize how much I really do prefer raw. So maybe next time we can eat raw together!! But for ME, I seem to do OK with having a couple of bites of certain foods. Some though would send me off the edge, so I'll try to keep the cooked foods in small quantities, on rare, planned occasions. But right now I'll be 100%, besides some tea for the next 2 weeks and take it from there. I'm going to a raw potluck for Thanksgiving and will be busy with school so no dates until the 10th. One day at a time......

The good news is that for some reason, my Chinese cravings have abated! :D But yes, I did try the chili recipe and got out my Rainbow Green book which has lots of curry type recipes! YAY!!