Food Prep

Q: Lori, I’d love to see a sample of your food menu (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for a week! I am really trying to eat raw food but have the hardest time finding new (and somewhat easy) things to make.

A: As the months become colder I find it less appealing to drink cold smoothies. Instead, I find veggie juices easier to drink since they aren’t cold. I also do not eat 100% raw in the cooler months, but I am still eating lots of veggies and fruits. Sometimes, it will be as simple to eat just fresh fruit like bananas, steamed veggies or even veggie soup for breakfast. I am also known to drink lots of hot herbal tea throughout the day to stay warm. However, just to give you an idea of what I am eating around this time of year here is a sample for the cooler months. I keep it pretty simple since I don’t care to spend my day in the kitchen. Every now & then I get a culinary itch, but for the most part my cooler months are looking like this:

Day 1
1- Coconut water, 4 bananas
2- 2 steamed yams w/ sea salt, cinnamon, & coconut oil
3- 2 apples
4- Homemade Veggie Soup: carrot, celery, onion, tomatoes, potato, Swiss chard, peas, corn, zucchini, etc
5- 2 bananas

Day 2
1- 3 apples + coconut water
2- 3 cups of steamed peas w/ coconut oil & sea salt
3- 3 pears
4- steamed butternut squash w/ coconut oil & sea salt
5 – 2 bananas

Day 3
1- 24 oz veggie juice- celery, spinach, cucumber
2 – steel cut oats w/ cinnamon, dates/honey, sea salt, bit of coconut oil
3- celery, cucumber, red bell pepper, & baby carrots w/ red pepper zucchini hummus
4- trail mix- raisins, walnuts, cranberries, cashews, pistachios, almonds, currants

Day 4
1- 24 oz green smoothie (pineapple, strawberries, kale, banana). Check out this video of our first green smoothie.
2- 2 bananas w/ almond butter, coconut water
3- sautéed kale, mushrooms, onion w/ coconut oil & sea salt
4- steamed spaghetti squash w/ raw marinara

Day 5
1- 24 oz romaine, celery, cucumber juice
2- pineapple chunks, coconut water
3- sauteed kale, Swiss Chard, Collards, & spinach w/ onions, coconut oil & sea salt
4- homemade veggie soup, 2 bananas

I recently bought some black rice to add to soups, or to make w/ peas, carrots, mushrooms, celery & onion. I even thought I would blend the meat of a thai coconut and make a creamy mushroom sauce for a richer meal.

Day 6
24 hour fast
Sometimes I will drink water, herbal tea plain, veggie juice or coconut water, other times I just drink water.

Day 7
1- Fresh fruit like bananas for breakfast (if any)
2- Splurge on a raw restaurant -for example if I go to:
Au Lac-I like the Song Salad & Raw Taco
Juliano’s Planet Raw– I have something diferent everytime, last time I had raw lasagna & some pumpkin dessert
I normally won’t eat anything for the rest of the day since I feel pretty heavy afterwards.

My Goal
Drink veggie juice everyday

I eat very simply and stick mostly to what is in season. The fruit and veggies vary on the time of year. I know that since I am not eating 100% raw at this time I need to kick the greens and veggie juice into high gear. However, on warmer days I find myself eating 100% raw like veggies w/ zucchini hummus, green smoothies, fresh fruit, trail mix, and simple garden salad w/a diluted guacamole as a dressing.

When I am on the go I pack the following:
zucchini hummus or guacamole w/ veggies (tomatoes, celery, carrots, mushrooms, cucumber, red bell pepper, etc)
Fresh fruit: apples, bananas, pears
Trail mix
Water

Yes, you will find cool whip, vanilla ice cream (that I tossed out after making this video)and take out of Vietnamese. We are not perfect and I don’t want to mislead anyone. My son was turning 13 and really wanted a pizza party. I went through some turmoil and then just said, “Fine, this is his party and it’s once a year. If he thinks this is what he wants, then I’ll let him make that choice.” As a parent I know I have to let my kids make their own choices. They need to know what’s out there and why we are choosing to eat this way.

I doubt you’ll find those things in our fridge again considering how junky we felt after eating that. My son was bent over the toilet and everyone saw what happens when we eat junk. Some people that aren’t raw think that when we feel sick from junk that “it’s all in our head”. I highly doubt this is how Alex wanted to feel on his birthday. That is part of going raw, your body really screams at you when you make a poor dietary choice. I think of it as a good thing, because most people are not sensitive enough to know the differences in food and how it makes them feel.

I want to make it clear that we are not 100% raw 100% of the time. We are high raw. Sometimes we will go several days even weeks 100% raw, then we will eat some cooked meals. Since we are on the go sometimes I don’t take the time to prepare or pack food before we leave home. So we will eat vegan dishes at ethnic restaurants since lots of places don’t use dairy and have lots of vegetarian options. My goal is to limit eating out since I really don’t know what’s in the food. In the winter we eat lots of soups, baked yams, and steamed veggies. It’s hard to take down a smoothie when you are bundled up in the winter. I noticed that grains and beans do make me puffy and bloated. So, this winter I will be making more veggie dishes, even if they are cooked. I feel eating at home is far superior to food in a restaurant. So, that is the direction we are headed. And to think we used to eat over half of our meals out in restaurants about 5 years ago.

Our life was very different. Rather than focusing on the fact that we aren’t 100% where we want to be, I like to focus on how far we have come. It encourages me to keep going. If I think about how we still eat out or cooked or whatever, then I feel guilt or shame and that is VERY UNempowering. It makes me feel like a failure, So,I change the focus to PROGRESS. I look at our fridge now and smile. I don’t know anyone in my town who has a healthier fridge than mine right now.

We like to focus on hydration, greens, lots of exercise and sunshine. Overall, we are eating better than we did years ago and I am happy with that. Oh, and Alex wants only healthy food on his next birthday…See, I don’t have to be the controlling mom. He figured it out himself. That’s empowerment!

OK, so I am curious…what’s in your fridge? Make a video, take some pics, post your link in my comment box. I wanna see what you’ve got going on in your fridge! 🙂

P.S. Yes, I am going to superglue my broken fridge drawer!

I am a participant and co-organizer of this meetup. http://www.meetup.com/organicproduce/.