Day 36: Solid Plans for Solid Food :)

Woke up today a little late...had a few minutes to throw together a quick kale/cuke/apple before running out the door. I'm excited to break my feast. I feel like I've gained everything I set out to gain when I began. Having feasted also makes the raw food lifestyle seem so much easier! (and cheaper, lol)

All kinds of craziness is happening around me and it will be so great to not have such restrictive eating habits...grabbing a piece of fruit/pre-made and running is really where things are headed. :) And I'm a million times more grateful for raw food restaurants, and hope to be more conscious of keeping things interesting in the kitchen.

Hm. :)


Today's feast:
-- 2 qts kale/apple/cuke (2 bunches kale, ~2.5 lb apples, 1 huge cucumber, ginger)
-- tea w/honey
-- 1 qt romaine/apple (5 mcintosh apples, 5oz baby romaine lettuce)


[Tuesday, 1:06 AM]

Woo! I'm really stoked about breaking my feast. Despite a year-and-a-half of a raw lifestlye, I feel like I'm experiencing raw foods for the first time! I've seriously never been this excited about salad before. I'm determined not to get into any "ruts," and I'm excited that I'm focused more on mixing up incredible salad recipes than cranking out nut meat burgers, raw bread, and other heaviness.

I'm definitely not saying that these types of foods are bad by any means. They can certainly have a place in a healthy raw vegan diet, particularly for those who are transitioning...but I'm into maximizing my intake of fresh, raw, leafy goodness! I'm also craving parsley for...the first time in my life! I used to hate it so so much. I can't wait to make some delicious raw tabouleh with a smidge of raw humus and a great big salad! Perhaps some raw falafel... :) Yum! The week after my feast breaking is going to include a dazzling array of various salads. Cabbage salad...salad with salsa and delicious Mexican flavors...middle eastern stuff...ginger salad and raw stir fried veggies...asldkflaskjf! Greeeeeeens! Tomatoes and cucumbers!

I'm switching up my raw vegan approach, this time as well. I think every couple of days I'm going to make a huge, giant, ridiculous batch of some kind of marinated deliciousness (be it kale or cabbage salad, etc) and keep it in a giant container in the fridge...this way I'll always have something green and wholesome and delicious ready to eat. This way, I'm not always going for nuts/seeds/heavy stuff, or too much fruit, when I'm starving and feel the need to eat immediately, or if I'm leaving the house and want to bring a snack with me quickly.

(My whole idea before was that the sooner I chop up the salad, the more quickly it would deteriorate, resulting in nutrient loss. My thoughts on this now are: 1. that the leaves are better off chopped up in a sealed environment than they would be sitting intact in a plastic bag in the fridge, 2. Even if nutrient loss does occur, I'm better off eating a marinated salad while out and about than I am eating a raw bar/snack food/trail mix, 3. Plus, the overnight marination of dark leafy greens [ie, cabbage & kale] is just delicious. I mean, who are we kidding?)

Back in the day, when I would run out I would just bring lots of nuts, a raw bar, fruit, or trail mix...or end up spending $15 on nasty Whole Foods salad bar, lol. If I bring some marinated salad instead, I will feel so much more balanced. My mom has these great silicone sealing food storage containers that even keep avocados bright green overnight, they're so airtight! I try to steal them from her when I can, but she always, always catches me. Immediately. Its uncanny. S'pose I'll be ordering them off of Amazon then. :)

I was anti-grain for a while after I sprouted some buckwheat groats into a huge batch of crunchy cereal that tasted delicious but wasn't so kind on the tummy. Perhaps it was the dehydration. I'm going to sprout quinoa this time around, as it will help with my cooked starch cravings. I'm also thinking its more balancing than lots of fruits. I'm so excited to really experiment with raw food again and figure out what exactly makes me feel my best.

I know I mentioned "occasional cooked foods" earlier in my feast...but raw foods are the real deal. Why the hell would I put cooked food in my body, ever again!? AFTER 40 DAYS OF LIVE, FRESHLY PRESSED, CHLOROPHYLL RICH, HAND SQUEEZED-WITH-LOVE-AND-I-HAVE-THE-FOREARMS-TO-PROVE-IT, JUICES!!?

Seriously! What the hell was I thinking!? I could be the laziest schmuck in the world, and not want to prepare anything ever again, and I could STILL stay happily 100% raw in NYC. On gourmet freaking food, no less. The selection that is available to me boggles the mind.

I'm so incredibly grateful (even more so than before) for the raw vegan community since undertaking this journey. Its not even about the food anymore. That part is secondary. Interacting with people who are operating on the same frequency as you is just..indescribable. After trudging along from day to day (okay, so I really don't hate my job *that* much), yelling at angsty 12-year-olds in Bushwick, I'd honestly forgotten what it felt like to have authentic, inspiring conversations with like-minded people. Particularly when these interactions occur over fresh coconut water and leafy deliciousness.

My feast feels radically different now that there's an end in sight. I'm going to spend some time reviewing my intentions and working hard to stay focused. :)