Raw Experiment

Our family is about 90% vegan. I guess if you get technical, we're not even that, cuz true vegans don't eat honey and wouldn't use leather products and we do both. We also enjoy eggs sometimes, though I make a point of buying the ones from vegetarian/grain fed hens. Occasionally we'll eat cheese when we go out to eat, and I have a weakness for vanilla lattes at Starbucks and they are not the same with soy! I probably have 2 or 3 a month, so that's much better than my everyday (and sometimes more!) habit from a few years ago.

So... something my husband and I have been curious about is raw foods. If you ate raw, what would it include? An apple for breakfast, plain lettuce for lunch and raw carrots for supper? I finally ordered a raw cookbook to find out. This is the one I chose:

The authors are Erica Palmcrantz and Irmela Lilja and I got it through borders.com with a birthday gift card --thanks Aunt Sharon! It's a beautiful, inspiring book and I read it through this weekend. No, I don't normally read cookbooks just for fun! All the way through this one, I kept thinking, I can do this! These recipes look great! 

My husband was completely on board, so we decided to eat raw suppers for a week and see how it goes. So far we've eaten recipes like this:

Carrot salad--our version had sunflower seeds too.
My kids (18 mo & 3 yrs) loved it!

and this:

Zucchini/carrot 'pasta' with pesto, tomatoes
& calamata olives--so delicious!

So far, we love it!

I know, I know, you think we're crazy. Well, from all the testimonies we've read, people who eat 80-90% raw food say their energy increases in about 3 days, they don't get sick as often, they lose weight effortlessly and one woman had an amazing testimony about how easy and less painful childbirth was when she ate raw and when she didn't! Ok! Sign me up! (My labor with #2 was long and very painful. I'm willing to try raw for 6 months on the chances of a shorter, easier labor!)

We'll keep you posted.