Saturday, July 17, 2010

Becoming a Raw Foodie

Since I moved to Puerto Princesa a few months back, I have been properly introduced to Raw Food by Pi & Daniw of Bahay Kalipay.

 Breakfast from BK: Avocado-Mango-Banana with honey + coco milk + cacao bits

I have read about this diet years ago but found it quite drastic since I couldn't fathom eating anything that was un-cooked all day. Yes, I have been pork & beef free (and at times happy with a pure vegetarian diet) for so long but the thought of having to eat ONLY fruits and salads was just out of this world. To me, salads were always for starters and fruits were commonly just for snacks or dessert. I also grew up eating all kinds of food and delicacies..most of which are, sadly, not healthy for you.

Review all those comfort foods we all grew up with - white rice with ulam (dishes), pasta with bread, milk, butter in everything, potatoes in all forms esp the fried ones, fast food joints, oh and don't forget the chocolates, cakes and ice cream. The sweets, I find hardest to remove. Up to this day, I can remove all the others listed above but please don't take away my chocolates :(

So, imagine having to cut off all those deeply ingrained eating habits which you have grown to love all these years? When you are into healing, however, you slowly evolve into this being who resonates towards purity. And for a pure body, mind and soul... you'll need to detox. Remove all junk, toxic wastes from the body to let the light and life force flow within.


The Raw Food Diet is considered super nutrition that immensely adds life force because it's majorly composed of, preferably, organic fruits and green vegetables that provide live enzymes without all the junk. Pi Villaraza has an amazing explanation on this topic and foods that we are addicted to and why we should get off them. He connects this to our life force and spirituality. For those interested, he will be conducting a Raw Spirituality Workshop focusing on Raw Food in Manila on Aug 27, 2010. Limited slots only. Please contact kalimata777@gmail.com or 0999-451-2765 to save your space.


In a nutshell, what I have learned so far from Pi's talk, is that, being on raw would be spending the least amount of energy plus the most nutrition into your body. Having to digest very heavy food like processed carbohydrates disturbs your energy system. In yogic view, this would be likened to 'wasting or dumping all your energy'. After cooked meals, you draw all energies towards your digestive system just to break down all the food you have eaten when you would want energy to rise up to higher chakras instead of down to lower ones. It's basic energy consumption.

The sweetest yellow watermelons from the BK Garden

It's really removing layers of yourself like an onion. Until you get to your raw core to unleash your full potential. So, I'm aiming to slowly ease myself into raw. I've started with green smoothies or basic fruit for breakfast each day and experimented & incorporated some raw food dishes that actually fill the tummy for other meals at home. My days vary between 30% - 50% raw but I am pushing for 70% especially after our farming course! 100% Raw will continue to be a dream for now :)

Here's an interesting recipe taught to me by Bahay Kalipay's raw food goddess, Daniw. Making and tasting this sumptuous dish will surely jumpstart you and your family on your raw food journey.

Raw Pesto Pasta



Ingredients
-shredded fresh coconut meat (this is your noodles substitute!)
-tomatoes
-white or green onions
-pepper
-cayenne
-homemade pesto sauce : a mixture of basil, cashew nuts, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, Bragg's liquid aminos tossed in food processor or blender.


What I love about raw food preparation is that there is absolutely no cooking involved! So, just toss all ingredients above into a bowl and mix well :)

*Don't ask me about quantity because mine is always different per batch. Just use your instincts :)

Santi loves his raw pesto pasta! Plate is clean and mum is happy :)

Some Starter Tips on Becoming a Raw Foodie
1. Start small. I helped ease myself on all this by introducing green smoothies. If you are not fond of greens, at least it is being masked by the fruit and honey in your shake! Have it all day long if you end up loving it.
2. Since no cooking is involved, you save on a lot of costs on gas or electricity and can invest in a good set of knives, scoopers, and a bamboo chopping board instead.
3. A food processor, powerful juicer, and a really good blender is a MUST! Many raw foodist like Victoria Boutenko swear by VitaMix. It's got a very high price tag so I'm sticking to my trusty Osterizer until it konks out :P
4. Stock up on lots of green vegetables and fruits. Remember that fresh, local and organic is best so source them in your weekly organic markets. In Makati, there is the Salcedo Market every Saturdays, the Legaspi Market on Sundays and the Lung Center in Quezon City on Sundays.
5. Grow your own vegetable patch & herb garden. This is the most ideal situation. Growing your own greens is the most fulfilling for a raw foodie. It helps your kids learn where there food & health comes from! Later on you'll be amazed at how they will learn to respect
6. Have fun in your little dish experiments! The internet is a great source for hundreds of raw recipes by the experts. Here are some links for you:

http://www.rawfamily.com/
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/
http://www.therawfoodfamily.com/
http://www.aniphyo.com/

Goodluck on your raw endeavors in the kitchen! If you have any interesting recipes to share, please send them in. We'd love to hear from you! :)

7 comments:

FOR LOVE OF MY OCEANS said...

I continuously hear about these green smoothies, but they look aweful. Do you haev a good recipe? sounds likesup your includes honey among other things I might be able to handle that. If your up to it you can emailthe recipe to me at ovsmama@gmail.com

Blessings,
Kat

Unknown said...

Going raw always made sense to me. Unfortunately I haven't had the will to do it. Looks like you are on to a good start.

angie said...

My dad has a Vitamix blender which he almost never uses yet is loathe to give to me! LOL. Don't worry about it. The Vitamix is REALLY loud and jolts the senses each time you use it. It uses up a ton of electricity and I am uneasy going raw at the expense of consuming more carbon credits to make the shakes we drink.

Taking a note from those following a Paleolithic Diet, our early ancestors didn't have the spinning steel blades to mash up their veggies. All they had were strong Neanderthal or homo erectus mandibles to crush up their food. I also read somewhere on the net that the spinning, even in a blender, throws the electrons of the fruit out of whack and destabilizes them, hindering your body's proper absorption of nutrients even if it IS raw. So spinning fruit in a blender, or even cutting it with a steel knife (steel demagnetizes the electrons in food which are the basic source of your body's electrical energy) makes you lose the energy anyway.

Like you, after using my dad's Vitamix for maybe 10x, I decided to stick to my trusty Krups blender and I'm ok not ever owning a Vitamix.

I was curious one time about that "spinning fruit in a blender throws the electrons out of whack" proposition. So one day I sliced up some mango, set aside some for blending and some to eat the regular way. My body preferred the mango eaten as-is, compared to the one blended.

So I think that eventually we will all end up aiming for some version of a Paleolithic diet or breathtarianism. Until then, tools like blenders and gradual strategies of increasing percentages to a raw diet will be our method.

One thing I can share is that the body will always prefer the higher quality energy option. So, the body will prefer:

Home cooked food versus fast food.
Fresh salad versus cooked food.
Homegrown greens versus store-bought.

Sometimes the difference is subtle, say Raw Food A will yield 90% energy and Raw Food B will yield 95% energy.

This is why I was surprised to see that my body preferred normal chewing of mango versus the blended one. (It felt like a 78% versus 83% choice to me)

My analytical mind thought that there shouldn't be any difference. Hindi naman dumaan sa apoy yung blended mango shake eh.

Yet my body said otherwise.

And as your sensitivity grows, so does the wealth of subtle energy discriminations increase because your body, once used to high quality energy from raw sources, will become an etheric gourmand and turn up its nose at lesser, cooked fare-- sometimes to your annoyance! (Just let me enjoy this cheeseburger dammit!!)

That's when I REALLY got the saying "Ignorance is bliss" LOL

Hope that share helped :)

I'm going back to raw again this week, after my first round back in June. I stopped when the torrent of toxins was so much that even daily coffee enemas couldn't handle the crud coming out of me. Then it was pizza, fried chicken and porkchops *mmmm*

My cycle is to swing from one extreme to another-- that's how I find my balance.

Best wishes to you and your family for going raw and moving to Palawan too.

Unknown said...

Hey Kat :)

I think we have diff ingredients in our areas but I'll email you some green smoothie recipes :D


Hello Rone, thanks for dropping by :) Your blog's super cute and funny!

Angie -- have you been to Bahay Kalipay? Did I meet you there! Your note is so informative! Thanks :D

Pi-Kalimata said...

thank you for your wonderful article, Monix. After being on smoothies for ever so long, we've gone also through ever so many blenders and so the Vitamix is ever also on the wishlist.

Based on the mover, shaker and blender of the green revolution - Victoria Boutenko's books on the raw food and green smoothie diet, greens have the toughest cell wall on any living thing on the planet. For the simple fact that it absorbs the highest source of energy on Earth, the sun.

That it is so touch, the human jaw isn't made to masticate them properly. Which is why when we eat raw green leafy vegetables, we find that we cannot digest them properly. The blenders are an attempt to rupture the cellular wall to get at the complete nutrients found within leaves - phytonutrients, vitamins, plant proteins and some of the most complete mineral content of any superfood out there. Supposedly, only the Vitamix has the raw horespower to blend greens properly but many have healed themselves even of stage four cancer with the cheapest blenders available.

Fruits are a different matter and angie is so right in saying that it is probably better to eat certain raw foods in its natural condition, lest we invert the whole purpose of living raw anyway.

But a high five to your attempt to add more life force to your body, Monica. It is only respectable that yoga teachers like you enter integrative wholeness as you reach out to others more, particularly Santi who is lucky to be living in pristine Palawan at the beginning of his formative years.

More life force and energy to your journey!

Bean Bag said...

hi, ganda naman po ng blog na to mukhang ang sasarap nung mga pagkain pano pa ba mag luto ng ganyan tnx for sharing

Anna Patricia said...

Monix, I am soooo proud of you! I wish I can do the same thing... it's so hard especially since Pel is in the food and wine industry.

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