I’m a subscriber to “Disease Proof”, a blog that compliments the Eat to Live ideals, and I really enjoy the posts every day. Todays post was about the raw food movement. Though Dr Furhman does promote that we eat more plant foods, he is also cautious about the hype and misconceptions surrounding raw food, particularly enzymes.

Click here to read the post “Eating Raw”

Based on my own knowledge, I have to agree with the post. Cooked food is NOT all poison, and raw food is not all about enzymes. I think a lot of the leaders of the raw food movement are recognizing this, and realizing that it is not necessarily the amount of raw, but the amount of green. I bet even Dr. Furhman has a copy of “Green for Life” on his bookshelf!

I’m so excited about this post I can hardly sit still. The most exciting part is at the end, but I want to detail my whole day from start to finish.

Last night I tried the goji berries again, but they still didn’t wow me. When I went to bed I put them in one of my tupperware dishes with just enough water to cover them. I figured they might taste better if they weren’t dry and shriveled. I was wrong. They aren’t really bad, just not a taste I’m keen on. I refused to let good food (aka expensive food) go to waste, so I used some of them in my smoothie with the soak water. So my breakfast smoothie was 1/2 cup goji berry water, 1/2 cup OJ, 5 strawberries, about 1/4 cup soaked goji berries, two bananas, and 1/8th of a cantaloupe. As a smoothie attitive, I LOVE goji berries.

Lunch was my usual: 1 head romaine, 1/2 lb grape tomatoes, 1 avocado, juice of half a lemon.

My snacks were one apple, and two home-made energy bars. All of my food for the day so far was made from previously-purchased ingredients, so no expenses to report until supper.

After class I went to the grocery store to pickup another head of romaine for my last salad tomorrow. It was on special this week for 99 cents, what a deal! My plan was also to pickup a bunch of parsley and some mangoes and make my favorite green smoothie, but I was hit by a wave of inspiration.

What kind of example would I be setting if I just made all my own food? Is that what all raw vegans would want to do when they’re travelling? Would they want to order nothing but salad everywhere they went? I doubt it. So I decided to take a chance and seek out something a little different; sushi.

I had walked by this cute little sushi takeout twice already when getting groceries, and both times that nagging voice came on in my head… “oh sushi would be good”, “sushi isn’t all raw, but it’s not bad for you either”, “you could have a little cooked food”. It was no good just denying the craving altogether, especially since I knew they would have fresh veggies and avocados on-hand. When I entered the restaurant, I found that it was much more than just a small takeout. Inside it was a full fledged fancy Japanese restaurant! A nice waitress immediately sprung up infront of me offering to help me to a table; I just looked at my feet and asked for a takeout menu. Finding a quiet corner and glancing over the menu, I saw that they had a huge selection of tempting Japanese foods: Tempura, soba, udon, teriyaki..mmm. My belly was yelling “Itadakimasu!” (that’s what Japanese people say before they eat, at least in the cartoons anyway).

I screwed up my courage and asked the lady behind the counter if I could order some “special” sushi. She gave me a smile and asked “what special?” I tried to keep my answer simple, something like “no rice, just a vegetarian roll with carrot, cucumber, avocado, and a little miso.” I thought I was going to suddenly hear plates crashing in the kitchen and see every head suddenly turn and gawk at me. I obviously watch too many cartoons; it didn’t happen. She repeated what I asked for to me, with emphasis on the “no rice”. I smiled and said yes, and said that I would pay whatever they thought was fair. She thought for a moment, looked over her shoulder, and said “ok, we make you a california roll with no rice, with miso, same cost as california roll”. Yipee! Oh my gosh I don’t think I had been breathing the whole time I was in the restaurant until then.

It’s easy to ask for something from a menu without cheese, or with a different dressing, but to ask for something completely original like that is very intimidating. You worry that they’re going to say no, that they’ll think you’re a freak or a prima-donna. Really; they’re just people running a business.

With my “special” hand roll being made, I also ordered the seaweed salad. I devoured my miso-veggie sushi as soon as I got to my room, and I’m still nibbling on my salad while I write this. I am happy to say that my cravings for Japanese have been satisfied, and I didn’t have to cheat on this raw-food experiment.

Here is the cost breakdown:

• California roll made “special”: $5.95
• Seaweed salad: $3.95
• Total (with tax): $11.30

Disclaimer: I know that some would argue that the seaweed in the sushi and the salad might have been cooked, but this is about me and how I do raw. I would go crazy if I worried about one ingredient, that made up 2% of an entire meal, and whether or not it was really “raw”. This is about adapting to being away from home, it is not about being a raw fanatic/nazi/cultist everywhere you go.

Wow, here I am already on Tuesday, my second full day away from home. With just two days of healthful raw foods, exercise, fresh air, and rest I’m feeling very light and vibrant!

I just got out of my last seminar of the day, and it’s about four-thirty. I haven’t decided what I’m going to eat for supper, but here is what I’ve had so far today:

• Fruit Smoothie
• Energy bar
• Big Salad
• Apple

My fruit smoothie was almost the same one I make at home every day (click here for recipe). Instead of using frozen fruit, I used four strawberries and about 1/8th of a large cantaloupe. This is the first smoothie I’ve tried making with a hand blender, and when I started it didn’t seem like it would do the job. I had to mash the blender up and down into the fruit a lot before it finally blended smooth, but with a bit of patience it turned out just like my smoothies at home!

My salad was just romaine, grape tomatoes, avocado, and lemon juice. This might sound a bit too boring and tasteless for some people; but this is exactly how I make my salads at home so I’m not making any “sacrifices” just because I’m travelling. People with more elaborate tastes would simply need to pack thier own salad dressing, or salad dressing ingredients. I think if I were to do anything differently next time, it would be to bring my own salad dressing; I would be a lot less weary of restaurants.

I haven’t spent any money yet today, but I think I might go out for supper. I’m going to go workout first, then see how I feel. I’ll try to update this post before bed with my last meal of the day.

Update: I wasn’t terribly hungry after my workout, so I just stopped in at the Italian restaurant and got the greek salad to go (without cheese). The salad was huge; made of romaine, green peppers, olives, tomatoes, and a lemon/oil/vinegar dressing. The olives might not have been raw, but they were good!

My workout was just 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

After my seminars on the first day of my trip I finally had time to get some groceries. Part of my clever planning was to ensure my hotel was within walking distance to a grocery store; the walk only took about ten minutes.

I found some really good deals on produce at the store, especially considering it’s the tail end of winter here in Canada. I bought enough food to make breakfast, lunch, and snacks for three days, here is the breakdown from the receipt:

• 4L Spring Water: $1.49
• 1 Cantaloupe: $2.49
• 8 Organic Bananas: $2.44
• 2 Lemons: $1.98
• 4 Avocado: $5.96
• 3 Royal Gala Apples: $2.47
• 7 Valencia Oranges: $3.13
• 2 Pints Grape Tomatoes: $3.98
• 1 lb Strawberries: $3.99
• 2 head Romaine Lettuce: $1.98
• Total: $29.90

If you add it all up, it actually came to $29.91, but I used a fabric bag so they took off a penny! Go me!

I lugged all my food back to my room, then headed to the fitness room for a workout. After a five-minute warmup on the elliptical I did:
3×12 Chest Flyes, with 2x12lb dumbells
3×20 Lunges (ten each side), with 2x12lb dumbells
3×24 One-arm rows (12 each side), with 1x20lb dumbell
3×10 Bench-dips, no weight
Then I paddled around the pool for a few minutes to cool down. When I got back to my room I changed into my jammies and watched TV while eating a big romaine, avocado, and grape tomato salad with lemon squeezed on top.

That’s the end of my first full day, just three more days and this adventure will be over.

One thing I didn’t mention in my last post was my absolute joy when I found out I had a mini fridge in my hotel room. I didn’t ask for one, and nothing on the hotel website said anything about a fridge, but there it was! I had a small counter, a fridge, and a tiny kitchen sink. There was a microwave and a coffee maker on the counter, but I moved those out and setup my little “kitchen” the first night.

Waking up the first morning, I worried I wouldn’t make it until lunch and stay raw. I didn’t have any groceries, and I didn’t know if I’d be anywhere where fresh food would be available. I had a home-made energy bar for breakfast and was off to the seminar location bright and early. I had one of my Lara bars mid-morning with some bottled water, and made it to lunch with no problems.

At lunchtime we were ushered into a very small cafeteria. The first signs of food were two soup pots, and though the carrot cream soup sounded really good, I pushed onwards. Next there was a brightly-lit case of subs, sandwiches, wraps, and drinks. I scanned it in vain hoping for a salad, but there were none. Looking around I didn’t see a salad bar anywhere either, crap. The next stop in the line was the hot-meals order. The specials of the day were some kind of chicken thing, and creamed shrimp on toast. I was semi-panicing at this point, but then I noticed a huge bowl of dark leafy greens behind the food server. He was dropping a few sparse leaves on each plate of shrimp toast. I asked if I could just get a massive heap of salad on a plate and was very relieved when they said “sure”. There were squeeze-bottles of salad dressings available; most were the typical cream-based dressings like Catalina and Ranch, but there was also a bottle of gorgeous dark balsamic dressing, so I loaded that over my greens. I don’t know if it was 100% raw, it probably wasn’t, but oh my goodness that dressing was heaven! Maybe they thought I was crazy, but I went back for a second plate of salad.

My seminars for the day ended around 3PM, and I headed back to my hotel to prepare for the great grocery hunt! I’ll detail that in the next installment of the Raw Vegan Road Trip!

Oh yeah, here is what I spent on lunch:

• Cafeteria green salad x2: $7 (only $3.50 each!)

Equipped with a few Lara bars and goji berries, I was ready to fly. My itinerary was a one-hour flight, and brief stopover, and then a short 25-minute flight. I had a nice big salad for lunch before leaving the house, so wasn’t really too hungry during my travel time. Once I was through security I bought a bottled water, which I sipped on occasionally. I tried a few goji berries while waiting for my connecting flight, but found them a bit dry and bitter, so gave up on them for another time.

By the time I got to my hotel and got unpacked I was pretty darn hungry. Unfortunately for me it was eight o’clock at night on a Sunday, so no grocery stores were open! I decided to try my luck at the Italian restaurant in my hotel; after all, isn’t the mediteranean diet heavily based on fruits and veggies? Well, something got lost in translation I guess because the menu was heavy with cheese and meat. I considered the greek salad; but because I’m on a budget I went for the veggie platter from the appetizer menu. I asked to switch out the ranch dressing for just olive oil and vinegar and they were happy to do it. The platter itself was a good size, probably six cups of veggies at least, and it was all very fresh. I went back to my room full and happy.

Here’s what I spent my first day:

• bottled water: $2
• veggie platter: $7
• Total: $9

Part III will be my first full day. Will I find a grocery store? Will I make it through the seminars? Stay tuned!

Let me back up a bit and talk about the pre-planning and preparation I did for the trip. I knew that rather than trying to eat at restaurants, it would be easier for me to find a grocery store and prepare my own food. These are the items that I packed for food prep and eating:

• 2 naglene water bottles (with measurement markers)
• 1 tupperware juice container (appx 4 cup capacity)
• 1 large round tupperware (appx 4 cup capacity)
• 1 large square-ish tupperware (appx 4 cup capacity)
• 1 small/medium tupperware (appx 2 cups capacity)
• a hand blender
• a citrus juicer
• a fork
• a spoon
• a 3-inch paring knife
• a 4-inch paring knife
• straws
• a dishcloth and dish towel

I spent some of my trip money on a few food items before I left. I bought two Lara bars, and small pack of goji berries, and ingedients to make a dozen energy bars from “The Thrive Diet”. I want to track how much it cost me to stay raw while travelling, so here is the tally of what I bought:

• Lara Bar x2: $6.00
• Dates: $3.50
• 1 Mango: $2
• Dehydrated organic coconut: $2
• Macadamia Nuts: $4
• Goji Berries: $2.50
• Total: $20

All of my food prep items, and my homemade energy bars were packed in my suitcase. They only took up about 1/6 of the room in my suitcase, about the same amount of room as my shoes actually. In my carry-on bag I had my two Lara bars and goji berries.

Stay tuned for my next post in this series, where I’ll talk about staying raw while flying, and eating a restaurant meal.

The contest will be over when there are 20 entries, and the prize is a cute “Keep it RAW” mug. I’m going to wait until I’m “on the road” next week to come up with something; I hope there is still a spot!

Wow, I really thought that my crappy week last week was going to put me up to 164, so this is good news! I’ve been eating much better this week, back to my “normal” routine. I have my smoothie inthe morning, salad at lunch, apples for snacks, and then a small and simple cooked meal for supper.

Next week I’m going to be away from home. Work is sending me on a course, so I’ll be living out of a suitcase from Sunday to Thursday. A lot of people would find travelling to be a challenge when eating raw, but I think it’s going to be easier for me for a few reasons:

• My allowance for eating expenses is very generous, and though eating raw can be expensive, it’s still cheaper than eating in restaurants all the time
• The hotel is right next to a mall with a grocery store, so I’ll have easy access to produce
• I will have more time in the morning because classes don’t start until 8am. I’m used to getting up at 5:30am and getting to work for 7:15. Plus, I won’t be spending half of my time packing a lunch for my daughter and making muffins for her breakfast.
• I don’t have to cook food for the other people in my life, or do chores, so I will have lots of quiet, stress-free time to think about ME
• There is a pool and a small workout room in the hotel, so I can easily get a workout in every day

I think I’m going to make some energy bars from “The Thrive Diet” to take with me, and I’ll pack a few tools for food prep and eating (knife, cutting board, cutlery, bowl). I could take my hand blender as well, I wonder if it’s good enough to make a smoothie or green smoothie with? Oh, and I’ll take a citrus juicer so I can sqeeze OJ whenever I want it!

01/01/07: 167.0 lbs
11/01/07: 164.0 lbs
18/01/07: 162.5 lbs
25/01/07: 162.0 lbs
01/02/07: 162.5 lbs
08/02/07: 160.5 lbs
15/02/07: 161.0 lbs
22/02/07: 160.0 lbs
08/03/07: 151.5 lbs

My business venture, for those that asked (all one of you, haha), is my own very small web-hosting company. I used to manage the webhosting for a small IT business in my town. I did it all; from customer service to server maintenance, and I was really good at it. I see a need right now for smaller web hosting packages for small businesses and individuals; as well as the tools and customer support that will help the technically challenged get started on the web. I’m only going to take on a limited number of clients, and I’m still keeping my day job, haha.

My server is being setup right now, and I should have my hosting site up and running in a week or so. In the meantime I’ve been thinking a lot about where to take this blog. I think I’ve been keeping this blog going long enough to justify moving to my own domain. Free hosting is great, but I can’t change little things like the size of fonts. I could also setup a message board, or an auction site, or…something. Is there anything internet-based that the raw food movement is lacking? What if I setup a site like livejournal, so that everyone could have a blog, and form communities?

Here are some domains I’m considering;
rawcircle.com (if I setup a community site or gave out free blogs)
rawunabashed.com
unabashedraw.com
raw-unabashed.com
unabashed-raw.com

I also thought up “rawdorable.com”, but it’s way too cute for someone like me! I know this is a long and geeky post, but I’d love feedback on my ideas.