Tentative steps

My first positive steps towards a raw, living diet was to up my intake of fresh fruit. I therefore started swapping my gluten-free muesli (containing heat-treated grains) for a couple of pieces of fruit for breakfast. Devouring information and recipes from Ani Phyo's Raw Kitchen book and her website, I started incorporating lunches of a green salad with maybe a nori roll filled with almond, carrot and ginger pate, along with some sprouted sunflower seeds, or maybe some raw hummous with sprouted chickpeas, raw tahini, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil, as a dip for carrots. For dinner, alongside a jacket potato or some wholegrain boiled rice, I started adding grated raw root vegetables and some raw greens to the plate, with eggs, fish, avocado or cheese for protein. Dinner progressed so that it incorporated some more of Ani Phyo's fab recipes (mushroom risotto, using raw grated butternut squash for 'rice') or broccoli and brazil nut mash. We would even once or twice a week be tempted by a recipe for a raw dessert such as raw apple pie (with a crust of almonds and dates) or raw carrot, coconut cupcakes.

Although all of this food was fabulous and didn't make me feel that I was missing out on 'cooked' foods at all, it did leave me with a 'heavy and bloated' feeling. It was only when I started writing down a food diary so I could analyse what I was eating that I noticed that I was consuming a very high proportion of nuts. According to articles in Get Fresh! magazine too high a proportion of nuts, and the concomitant fat levels, it not good in any diet, raw or otherwise. From what I can understand, fat, be it raw, processed or cooked is still fat, and ideally we should aim for a diet containing 20% fat and not higher. Meals containing nuts, seeds and avocados, with maybe a dressing made with olive oil were taking my fat consumption to quite a high level. I therefore decided to reign in the fat consumption a little, and focus more on increasing my intake of fruit and vegetables.

More internet research led me to Victoria Boutenko's blog. Victoria strongly advocates 'green smoothies' (basically blended smoothies containing green vegetables, along with either fruit such as apples or sweeter vegetables to make the meal more palatable). Although I have yet to get a copy of any of her books, which is on my to do list, from what I can understand the premise behind the green smoothie is that in order to get the maximum amount of nutrients from greens such as kale, spinach, cabbage etc the fibre needs to be broken down sufficiently for our bodies to assimilate the nutrients, hence blitzing them in a blender.

Alongside this advice, I was also reading about the benefits of green juices, where the nutrients are very quickly absorbed into the body as they are extracted from the fibre of the fruit or vegetable.

As I already owned a Matstone single gear juicer and a basic blender, I decided to start having a green juice for breakfast and a green smoothie for lunch to see what effect this change would have on my energy levels and general sense of well-being...