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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Going Raw (for a while!)

Welcome to the January 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Experiments in Natural Family Living
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have reported on weeklong trials to make their lives a little greener. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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My family loves and enjoys good food! As long as food tastes good, we used to be unconcerned about health consequences.  Things changed when I had kids.  When N was born, I became more conscious of the food we ate - more so when I found out that S was predisposed to having high cholesterol.  Some changes I did were having weekly organic vegetable deliveries and enrolling my cook in several healthy cooking classes.  
One of the classes I found was a Raw Food Class organized by Dahon Kusina.  It was a weekend cooking class which I was supposed to attend.  But considering that I left the cooking to our helper and rarely stepped in the kitchen (yes, N cooks/bakes more than I do!!), I decided to send our cook G instead.  I felt that it would help our family more since she will learn about the benefits first hand rather than I learn about them then instruct her thereafter - with a chance of losing out on some of the information given.
After that weekend, G was able to whip up some raw food goodness for the family. 
soaked shiitake mushrooms 
raw salad - cabbage, tomatoes with cayenne pepper
california maki
raw pasta (zucchini strips) with pesto 
unfried rice
So how did they fare?  The raw pasta was quite good with the pesto sauce.  N loved the california maki.  However, the other dishes were a bit too spicy for her because the main spice used to flavor the dishes was cayenne pepper.   
I had resolved to have 1 raw meal per week for the family.  Then I got pregnant and with my hormones and appetite going haywire, the 1 raw meal per week experiment eventually got cancelled. 
I resolve to go back to this experiment again - probably try to have 1 raw meal per month first before increasing the frequency.  I don't see my family going 100% raw but I would love to include a regular raw meal in our diet for 2012. 

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Carnival of Natural Parenting -- Hobo Mama and Code Name: MamaVisit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

9 comments:

  1. Those dishes look incredible! I've tried raw before, and my biggest problem was getting enough food to feel full. Well, that, and I like cooked food. :) But I like your idea of one raw meal a week — that sounds doable.

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  2. I'd love to know more about the unfried rice.  How does that work?  It looks gorgeous - actually, all of this food looks amazing.  

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  3. Wow, those actually look good. I think I shall try some. :)

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  4. We've gone through spurts of eating raw, but I haven't found great recipes - I'm excited to try some of these!

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  5. Rone Valles GuerreroJanuary 11, 2012 at 3:52 PM

    You know I've read so much about the benefits of raw food but I wouldn't be able to do it 100% either.  I love stews and hot soups so I don't think I would survive.  Maybe one cooked meal a day would work.

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  6. Those do look good.  A-N-D I'm jealous you have someone to help you cook!  Half the time we eat raw just because I don't have time to cook anything ;)

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  7. What is the reasoning behind eating raw food?  Do you feel better while eating raw?

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  8. you can read this post for the benefits - http://rawfoodrestaurantguide.com/blog/?p=47

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  9. I've been increasingly interested in raw food, but there are a lot of things I just don't think I can eat raw (like zucchini, haha, I'm lucky I can get myself to eat it cooked now :) ). I admire your resolve to eat one raw meal a week! I'm sure you'll get back into it, especially since you have a cook who already knows how to do it!

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