http://www.care2.com/greenliving/green-dish-the-raw-and-the-cooked.html
Green Dish: The Raw and the Cooked
There’s something inherently beautiful about a raw food diet. It’s hard to argue with the purity of eating completely unprocessed food unadulterated by heat, let alone additives and preservatives. By never heating food above 118F degrees, valuable enzymes and nutrients are retained, and since the raw lifestyle is usually vegan, and organic as well it’s just a big old beautiful healthy party.
People who live on a raw vegan diet all seem to look amazing. Excess weight seems to disappear, and raw foodists seem to all have “the glow.”I think, as far as the body goes, it makes perfect sense.Perfect sense, that is, if you live in the right latitude.
Because no matter how many times I’ve tried, it just feels too foreign to look out the window on a snowy Brooklyn day while eating raw young coconut and warm weather produce. The more locally I eat, the more I think about the food miles incurred with exotic foods. How does one maintain an exciting raw diet, and do so sustainably in a cooler climate?
So that’s the rub for me: Local versus raw. If I were to eat local and raw, here in the northeast, I’d be stuck with loads of raw winter greens and apples during the lean months. With planning I could add frozen, fermented or dehydrated summer produce, but still. I haven’t found a way to eat root vegetables, one of my winter mainstays, not cooked. And as much as I love raw kale in small doses, a dinner of it leaves me with a debilitating jaw ache.
So I’m in a conundrum: How can I eat local, and also have “the glow”? Does it really boil down to the raw versus the cooked? Am I missing something here?I am really interested in hearing how others have handled these two seemingly opposed, but both very valid, approaches to food.
Please comment, I’d love to hear from you.
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6 comments
add your comment »Root veggies are wonderful raw!
Finely shred beets and carrots, and parsnips, into a fabulous salad... add some raisins. Drizzle with Extra Virgin, cold-pressed Olive oil, or find a recipe for Raw Mayo (Google is your friend).
Green smoothies, as someone else mentioned, are a great way to get LOTS of great raw nutrition in you! I'd recommend Victoria Boutenko's book, Green for Life.
Grow some wheatgrass, and start incorporating wheatgrass juice into your life! :)
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My advice is to eat as much local raw produce as you can - perhaps a green smoothie in the morning, a raw lunch (you could warm a raw soup, just don't heat it past the point that feels comfy to your finger) and then have roasted root veggies or a curry with wholegrains for dinner - with a raw salad to start :-). Just go with what your body asks, and what makes you feel good.
And don't forget greens, greens greens! Juice them, make smoothies, marinate, and chop e'm finely - you should be eating lots of them, but not suffering a jaw ache for it :-).
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One of the problems I have found trying to follow a veggie diet is that when you are invited out for a meal to someone's house it can appear rude not to eat what they offer. If it is meat it is one thing but many people don't understand the difference between raw food eater, vegetarian and vegan, and when I attempt to explain i get strange looks.
Congrats on the great article :)
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I think all things in moderation and go local==personally.
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Living a Raw food lifestyle definitely demands a lot of attention when you move through the seasons. I also believe strongly about eating locally and struggle during winter months. I shift my direction and focus heavily on the greens. As with life, I try to balance this idea with moments of expanding my food choices to a more global experience( young coconuts). Being a Raw being has its challenges when focusing on a pure local diet. One has to decide what is most important. Eating cooked food with the 'locals' or remaining true on the path. Just think of the opportunity you have to be creative during those tougher seasonal months. Limit the non local products to times when you are needing a treat-because we all love to endulge in life at times. Maybe our bodies need all those apples, pears, and dark greens at the time of fall. Go easy on what you think is the 'right' way-just being conscious about the food and the planet is miles ahead.
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Give it time...for the happiness of the food to come through...once you feel the food...it shows. Within.. So many give up because of the detox you go through....when the crap/sadness/anger/dead comes out....it's tough. But so worth the happiness and BLISS you feel. You get a smile on your face no one can slap off. You smile at everyone which in turn makes them smile back. It is amazing...the raw food. And I'm not even totally 100% raw. I'm on the verge of high raw, but not 100%. It is an amazing thing. To feel good every morning (but then detoxing the dead out of your body can freak you out) But it is like feeling bliss. And seeing nature in total beauty. And once you're raw/vegan...to have butterflies, dragonflies, bees, birds land on you, make eye contact....it is amazing....and it tells you....it is the right thing to do.
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