I’ve been an absentee blogger for the last few weeks. Those of you who follow on me on twitter will already know it’s because I was in hospital, having my final bowel surgery. Without going into details you don’t need, it was a scheduled operation and I’m now better than new, albeit still in recovery mode. Thanks for all the well wishes I’ve received from readers and the blog-o-sphere, I really appreciate it!

My recovery from this surgery has been markedly different from past surgeries and hospital stays, which I credit to my amazing diet. (as well as lots of positivity and loads of support, obviously!)

Rather than make me eat hospital food, my darling mother brought food to the hospital for me. I had a series of vegan and semi raw treats, including my first meal, after a week, of mashed potatoes! It’s true what they say about comfort food…

Buttercup, Zucchini, Tomato and Carrot Soup from my mother. It smelt amazing and tasted better.

I had gluten-free, vegan pasta dishes, salads of raw grated carrots and zucchini, lots of delish fresh fruit, yummy vege soups, crudites and more. I’m so spoilt, I know. And on a side note, I’m so glad I didn’t have to eat North Shore Hospital’s food. One day for lunch I got a piece of gluten-free bread, a glass of soy milk and an orange. I’m not making this up. Another day, I got soy yoghurt on tinned peaches, with another slice of bread and the soy milk. It wobbled like lard. I was too scared to taste it. How any patient is expected to nourish and heal their bodies on what they gave me and the other patients in my room, who weren’t vegan, but had equally heinous meals…is something I cannot fathom.

The soy custard. Gross.

And because of all this good food, I feel…amazing. Don’t get me wrong, I can still tell I was operated on 2 weeks ago, and I still sleep 12 hours in a day and I’m definitely still recovering, but I’m bouncy and my skin looks great and I feel good. Even my visitors comment on how well I’m looking and the nurses are astounded by how quickly I’m healing. And this is purely because of the nutritious, easily digested food I’m putting into my body. Because this has never, ever happened before, and my diet is the difference. By eating so much high raw, vegan food, I’m giving my body all the vitamins, minerals and fuel it needs to heal and it’s doing a great job. I’m really happy that I get to be such a power of example for the raw food lifestyle.

So I’ll keep eating yummy things, like cos lettuces wraps with tahini dressing:

and look forward to recovering and having dinner parties with friends again soon!

(See? I do practice what I preach!)

Enjoy your day guys, and I’ll catch you back here soon!
Kate

A reader asked how I maintain a high-raw diet if I’m invited to a dinner party? And the answer is simple and the same: Be Prepared.

Salad, Marinated Mushrooms, Cashew Spread, Flax Crackers

The preparedness policy that serves me during the week also extends to other scial situations, like dinner at a friends or a picnic at a music festival. Preparedness shouldn’t be seen as some massive burden either. It’s just a little forethought into what you can take with you that suits your surroundings and your diet.

I jump at any chance to show my friends the sort of food I’m eating and why. Inevitably, it leads to them stealing both my food and my recipes.

My absolute staple dinner party fare is a big salad with Tahini dressing and marinated mushrooms.

Marinated Mushrooms are great for barbecues and so easy. All you need to do is marinated the mushrooms in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar before cooking them on the BBQ or a pan. They’re also tasty raw, but need at least 4 hours marinating to be “cooked” by the marinade.

You can actually add anything to the marinade. I sometimes add Apple Cider Vinegar, Garlic, Rosemary, whatever I feel like. (Or, in all honestly, whatever I have lying around)

Mushrooms have a great meaty texture that fits in well as my “steak” at dinner parties, but lacks cholesterol, bad fat and significant indigestibility of meat.

And like all Raw meals, this is easy, healthy and tasty. If my experiences are anything to go by, you’ll have the most coveted meal at the table.

The question I get asked most about my diet, (even more than “Where do you get your protein?”) is simply, “Why Raw?”

People become raw (and/or vegan) for a number of reasons. Most often it’s for their overall health, for some people it’s concern for their environment or animal welfare. For others, like my friend Anna, or, you know, Brendan Brazier,  who are elite athletes, it’s about athletic performance. And for some people, myself included, it’s because they are trying to help their bodies heal in the face of chronic illness.

The primary reason raw is so good for your body is ENZYMES.  Heating food above 116 degre destroys foods’ natural enzymes that aid in the digestion and absorption of food. And the better digested and absorbed your food is, the more nutrition you get.

Enzymes are substances that help our bodies break down and assimilate food, and although our bodies produce their own enzymes, adding the natural enzymes in food makes digestion much easier and more efficient. This in turn means more energy for other body functions, like repair (need some of that!) and immune function (I’ll have that too.)

Add to this that cooking can deplete the vitamin and phytonutrient content of food (in general!), and it’s 2 points for Raw while Cooked food has yet to score. Keep in mind I’m an advocate of high-raw, not all-raw…

The other primary benefit of a raw plant-based diet can be explained thusly:

Crohn’s disease is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Inflammation is encouraged in bodies that are highly acidic and discouraged by highly alkaline diets. Meat, dairy, refined sugar and processed foods are acid forming in your body. Plant based diets are highly alkaline.

It’s a fairly simple equation to work out why an alkalizing high-raw diet is good for an acidic, inflamed body.

For me, being high-raw vegan works in both theory and practice. My hair, which was falling out for about 5 years, is growing back thicker and faster than ever. My skin looks healthier. I have so much more energy.  And, without trying to sound like an infomercial, anyone can get these benefits.  Why not try adding some more raw into your life?

The Middle: The Recipe

And now I’ll step off my soapbox and into the kitchen, to share my newest obsession:

Beetroot Pasta with Tomato Cashew Sauce.

Cut the head and tail off 3 medium beetroot, slice off the skin as thinly as possible, then grate. (That’s the pasta done. Tough, right?)

Combine:

½ cup soaked cashews
8 sundried tomatoes
2 tps Sunflower seeds
A slug of olive oil to loosen

Blitz!

Combine the pasta and sauce, add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy the meal that took you 7 minutes to make while your flatmates are still checking to see whether their pasta is al dente…. I also tried this sauce with a handful of Basil added tonight. Very, very tasty.

Ending on a grateful note:

To wrap up, I’m going to share an award I was gifted today by my friend and mentor Gena; The Sunshine Award.

Awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blog world, getting this from Gena was such a compliment. I aim to inspire people everyday, and positivity is something I strive for, so thank you so much Gena, truly.

And in accepting this award, it’s my job to pass it on to some new  people.

Mandee

Lauren

Robyn

Emily

Vaala

Nikki

Averie

And finally, in the spirit of paying this award forward, I want to ask you guys to share your blogs with me. You may have noticed I finally got round to adding links to some sites I love to the Getting Raw homepage. Let me know about your blog if I’m not a regular visitor or you’re blogging about Raw Food, Veganism or Health. I love sharing the love, so please say hi! If you’re shy about commenting, send me an email kate@gettingraw.com.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Over the weekend I was discussing my snacking habits with my nutritionist, explaining that in the afternoons I need something with crunch, like crackers or potato chips. Gena suggested I try Kale Chips and I literally got off the phone to her and made them. They are AMAZING. I never imagined something so healthy could be better so much better than the food I was craving. And seriously, chips made from Kale? I’m not even ashamed I didn’t think of it, because it doesn’t seem like a good idea. Until you try them.

Side note – If you haven’t already, visit my nutritionist Gena’s blog, Choosing Raw. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be so far down the path to healing if I hadn’t discovered it, and her.  If my posts can be half as good as her’s, I’m doing a stellar job.

I went off the recipe that Gena sent me, discovering a fab new blog in the process, but the basic premise is wash your kale and break it into bite size chunks, while discarding the stalk.

Dry, put on a baking dish lined with baking paper – which, uh, I was lacking – sprinkle with salt and bake at about 190 for around 15 minutes, til they’re crunchy.

These are crunchy, a little crumbly, tasty, salty and make a perfect substitute when you’re after some crunch. Plus you know they’re filled with un-fried, unprocessed Kale goodness. A definite winner! I can see these will be featuring in my diet a LOT from now on.

If you have healthy snack substitutes you like more than the original, let me know! I’m always on the look out.

Many raw foodists imbibe a lot of blended foods and juices, some even going as far as subsisting on liquids alone. I’m not, and will probably never be one of those people, although I am partial to my morning green juice, and I indulge in the occasional green smoothie (I’m talking at least 50% greens).  Lately I’ve also been going bananas (I know, I’m on fire!) for Fruit smoothies. I’ve been using them specifically for afternoon snacks at work, to nullify my 3pm sugar cravings in a heathier, easier to digest way.  I love how smoothies are such a great way to sneak nutrition into a sweet-tooth-fix.

This week I’ve been riffing on a Banana and Berry theme, with a few extras thrown in. You can use whatever flavours you’d like, all you need is fruit, your “extras” and water or nut milk to liquify the mixture.

Aside from the goodness of the berry, banana and hazelnut milk base – hello potassium, protein and antioxidants, this week’s smoothies  also had:

Pumpkin Seeds (protein, iron (there’s around 25 grams per ¼ cup) zinc, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, copper and potassium and essential polyunsaturated fatty acids.)

Chia seeds (Omega 3, iron, protein, B vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, boron, and copper)

Raw cacao powder (antioxidants, anti inflammatory properties, sulphur, magnesium, sulphur, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, potassium, and manganese; plus some of the B Vitamins.)

LSA (Omega 3, protein, Vitamin E, Folate, Thiamine, Pantothenic acid, Vitamin B-6, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Manganese, Zinc and Selenium and Antioxidants)

Ground Hemp Seeds (Omega 3, 6, 9, protein, amino acids)

Obviously I haven’t listed every vitamin/mineral/health giving property provided in each of the ingredients, but you get the idea…

I know you all know how to make a smoothie, but….throw it all in the blender, and blitz until smooth. It’s even better if your fruit if frozen, because it makes the smoothie a bit icy and frappe like.

Next week I might go for a coconut theme. If you have any suggestions or favourites, let me know.

Of course I’m not prepared for every meal. And in those cases, I head to Revive, or, you know, spend a Friday night in front of the TV eating sunflower sprouts straight from the bag and 4 Larabars…which is still about a thousand percent better than what I used to eat on Friday nights, but I digress.

Being prepared is a commitment, sure, but it’s doesn’t need to be daunting. A couple of the main practices I’ve adopted involve about an hour and hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon and several plastic bags!

Every Sunday, I buy my juicing ingredients for the week, as well as lunch and dinner ingredients for at least three days. Then I get to work chopping, prepping and sorting for the days ahead.

Last weekend, for example, I washed and sorted my juice ingredients into individual bags, so all I have to do every weekday morning is grab a bag from the fridge and get juicing… Then I do the same with my salad ingredients, washing, chopping and grating, before putting 3 days worth in individual bags, and make a big jar of dressing, all of which I tote to work with a few Lara bars.

I also cooked a big bowl of quinoa and roasted enough Kumara for 3 days of dinner, along with other veges to have raw or steamed alongside, and made another big jar of dressing.

Mmm, Quinoa with organic marinara sauce

Roasted Kumara, or sweet potato, for my non-Kiwi readers.

I love pottering in the kitchen and creating, but since my work can get pretty manic and involve some long hours, taking some time for food prep on the weekend makes my life so much less stressful! But I still get to indulge my love for cooking, and un cooking, by making the rest of my weeks lunches and dinners on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, as well as going crazy on the weekends!

A quick, awesome update. As of now, I’m the proud owner of GettingRaw.com, so the blog redirects straight from that address, will be easier to find, and easier to, ahem, direct your friends to!

Secondly, as a happy consequence of the domain name change, my email is now kate@gettingraw.com, and I would love to hear questions, comments, etc. Maybe tell me about your blog? Love letters are strongly encouraged too.

Kate

Raw Tacos have two elements. First, the taco “shell”, which is a sturdy green leaf, and the filling, which can be a mix of whatever you’d like.

Here I used cherry tomatoes, corn, olives, celery and kale mixed with tahini, tomato paste, olive oil and himalayan sea salt. Mix all your filling ingredients, and fill the “shells” and eat. The shells I used were nutrient free iceberg lettuce, but my favourite is baby cos. That’s Romaine for the American’s that asked!

This is one of the simplest raw vegan meals I’ve made so far and it’s truly satisfying to boot!

Like it says on their website, Revive cafes “are vegetarian and semi-organic.  There are many low-fat, allergy free and animal free dishes”.  Every day they have a hotpot, which is served with brown rice, a couple of “cabinet options” like a frittata or burrito and a bunch of delicious salads. I usually pick four choices of salad.

They’re also really reasonably priced. So many Auckland cafes charge $16 for a few wilted leaves. Revive charges $12 for the 4 choice salad and it’s HUGE. (I’ve given you a few different angles in this post so you can see for yourself) In fact, in  the time I’ve been going to Revive, they have REDUCED their prices. I’ve never heard of that happening anywhere before. The owners obviously care about their customers and the quality of the food they produce and it shows in everything they do.

Revive has a great loyalty program as well. If you sign up to their email newsletter, they will send you discount vouchers every week. Plus you can become a secret shopper and receive the occasional meal voucher in return for giving feedback. They also run in store competitions to win free things regularly. I’ve probably had more than 10 free lunches in the year and a half I’ve been going to Revive. And since they don’t over charge you in the first place, it’s a great system!