New to the raw food lifestyle.

[symeonsam]

Hi all,

I'm a 56 year old man with a load of problems. Just had 3 stents put in my heart for 3 blockages, 70, 80, and 95% blockages. I've had type 2 diabetes for over 15 years, am on the max dose of Metformin and have been on the insulan pump for about 5 years. I weigh 275, down from 295 lbs before raw foods. I have gout, gerd, hypertension, bad skin (dry and flakey). My cholestoral was around 256 but is now too low at 110 total cholestoral, I'm on crestor for that. I take a handful of pills twice daily for all of these things and want despairetly to improve my health and get off of all of the pills.

I get the health benefits of raw foods, but am having trouble finding recipes that don't take 2 or 3 days to make something. How do you all do it?

I will be having my wife take my before picture so that I can post it. I look forward to loosing about 100 lbs in the next year or so. By then I hope to be off of all this medication and insulin and be a picture of health.

Thanks for your input.

[ruffsongraw]

Welcome Simeonsam!

if you enjoy preparing elaborate meals or dishes, then you can go that route with raw. if you would rather keep it simple, then you can make fabulous salads with all sorts of fresh veggies, greens, etc; you can make yummy guacomole dishes with bell peppers, cilantro, fresh sweet corn and tomatoes. you can make all SORTS of green smoothies (or fruit smoothies!). it just depends on what you like & how much time you prefer spending on a meal.
many ppl on here make the elaborate stuff in the dehydrator. there are lots of recipes for these in Alyssa's book (which we all highly recommend!!). then there are simpler recipes too.
i have MS and went off all meds in January. it is possible. i dont know enough about your conditions to advise of course. they say it takes (approx) one month of RAW eating to un-do the damage done for every YEAR you ate the Standard American Diet (called SAD on here). so results are not instantaneous for medical probs. but the body CAN and does heal and re-balance once fed proper (live,not DEAD/cooked) foods!

you will get loads of advice, help and info on this site!

goodluck & welcome!!

jen

[snoops]

Hi Symeonsam. I have a problem with all the preparation and intricate recipes too. But I can't just do salads and smoothies. At the moment I need something more substantial which I thing the dehydrated recipes give you. So I do a bit of both. Alissa's book does have alot of both the intricate and the simple. I would recommend it.

I wish you lots of health in the future with raw eating. I do believe it is the way to go. I am not all raw yet but am trying a 5 day all raw challenge. The 30 day one scares me still!! Silly I know. But one day at a time.

Welcome to the forum. There is a wealth of knowledge here.

[Dimond]

Welcome Simeonsam. The recipes I've been using for years all take around 5 minutes. There's plenty of simple meals you can make: soups, smoothies, puddings, wraps, salads, pasta, pates, etc. Then if you really need to, you can take a day occasionally to create more time consuming recipes, but no need for anything more than a couple of hours. The other alternative is buying some premade snacks and meals to have on hand.

[Moretta]

Welcome and good luck on your RAWNESS journey.

[symeonsam]

Thanks everyone for your encouragement. I have found a few simpler recipes online and will be trying them out. Right now I'm unemployed so I can't afford to buy Alissa's book. I will continue to scour the web for simple recipes, till I can afford to buy a good dehydrator and some other kitchen needs to make some of the other recipes.

[GlimR]

Welcome to the forum. I've tried many raw gourmet recipes but fall back to more simple foods for the most part...raw fruit of rainbow assortment to satisfy...all kinds of smoothies, almond milk a must have...cacao, almond milk and frozen bananas...great !! Green smoothies, salads galore, cole slaws, guacamole, raw desserts, yup,,,plenty to have raw...rounded out by nuts and seeds to fill you up more. Wishing you the best as you go along~

[jane b]

Do you have the space for a garden? That's a great way to get fresh food for a low cost. fyi to all concerned, most states allow you to buy seeds with food stamps (I'm a recovering social worker).

I'm new, too, and have discovered that raw "recipes" range in difficulty just about like regular cookbooks. Everything from easy stuff (think Rachel Ray) all the way up to Cordon Bleu like Julia Child. You might even look through your own cookbooks and find recipes that can be adapted. Ethnic foods are another good source since many peoples have only limited fuel and use that primarily for starches such as beans and rice.

I've been experimenting with various fruit green smoothie combinations--I'm using kale as my base--and have found them surprisingly addicting. I haven't tried any veggie combos yet, but really, isn't it just like V8 juice?

Wish you all success,
jane b

[symeonsam]

Do you have the space for a garden? That's a great way to get fresh food for a low cost. fyi to all concerned, most states allow you to buy seeds with food stamps (I'm a recovering social worker).

jane b

Due to my health problems, I've reduced my garden to 5 containers. I can't dig or use the powertools needed to turn the soil. I want to experiment with the Lasagna Garden system in a SquareFoot Garden layout. That way there is no digging needed. I just need to get through this cardio therapy so that I can get back to some normal activities.

Presently, I am growing beets, Green and Yellow beans, squash, and shallots. I won't get a large harvest, but it keeps my hand in the craft of gardening. I just harvested some micro beet greens today and ate them in a great salad. :)