In our previous post, we looked at the ingredients of a large salad and the some of the nutrients found in them. In this post, we’re going to add some dressing. When I was growing up, my idea of salad dressing was a relatively thin liquid, but when I started on my health journey, I found that increasing the thickness and amount of dressing used would simultaneously increase my satiety and the nutrient content of the salad, often significantly. This was one of the many game-changer realizations that made a difference for me early on. Over the years, we have developed a number of thicker dressings, including the hummus-style dressing listed below. We particularly love this red pepper hummus for the flavor and the nutrients that it adds to the salad.
Here are the ingredients of the salad from the previous post and the red pepper hummus in this photo:
Salad:
7 cups chopped or torn Romaine lettuce (329 g, 11.6 oz.)
6 cups chopped or torn red leaf lettuce (170 g, 6 oz.)
3 cups chopped or torn dandelion greens (165 g, 5.8 oz.)
1.5 cups shredded cucumber (227 g, 8 oz.)
1 cup shredded carrots (113 g, 4 oz.)
¼ cup chopped tomato (45 g, 1.6 oz.)
Red Pepper Hummus:
3 cups chopped zucchini (445 g, 15.7 oz.)
½ cup walnuts (50 g, 1.8 oz.)
1 tsp. chia seeds (10 g, 0.35 oz.)
Juice of one large lemon (48 ml, 1.57 fluid oz.)
½ cup dehydrated red pepper (30 g, 1.1 oz.)
1 small clove garlic (totally optional) (2 g, 0.07 oz.) not included in nutrient analysis
1 tsp. chickpea miso (totally optional) (7 g, 0.25 oz.) not included in nutrient analysis
AND here are some of the nutrients in this salad and hummus:
Salad
Adult DRIs
Calories (kcal)
780
B1
1.4
1.1 – 1.2 mg
B2
1.7
1.1 – 1.3 mg
B3
10.7
14 – 16 mg
B5
4.0
5 mg
B6
3.1
1.3 – 1.7 mg
Folate
905
400 mcg
B12
0
2.4 mcg
C
576
75 – 90 mg
D
0
5 – 15 mcg
E
13.1
15 mg
K1
2021
90 – 120 mcg
Beta-carotene (mcg)
49,578
Calcium
759
1,000 – 1,200 mg
Iron
17.5
8 – 18 mg
Magnesium
410.7
310 – 420 mg
Potassium
4691
4,700 mg
Zinc
6.8
8 – 11 mg
The salad and red pepper hummus together have exceeded the adult daily values for vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, folate, and K1, all for 780 kcals (calories)! Vitamins B3, B5, and E are close to the adult daily values as are the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. I encourage you to compare these numbers to the salad without dressing in the previous post and you’ll see how much of a difference dressing can make in the nutrient content of a salad. Additionally, if you desire a lower fat dressing, please feel free to substitute more zucchini or cauliflower for the nuts.
There are so many ways to enjoy vegetables and leafy greens – really the sky is the limit as to the creative dishes you can create from them. One of my tried-and-true favorites of all time is not surprisingly salad. I love salad, but it wasn’t always this way.
While growing up, before I started my health journey, I would begrudgingly eat a small bowl of iceberg lettuce with a slice of tomato or two and maybe some onion all drenched in either bleu cheese, thousand island, or Italian dressing along with my standard western dinner. This was my idea of a salad back then, so when I discovered fruit and vegetable-based eating, I had to significantly alter my point of view on salad, especially the size and contents.
I started with the small-size salads that I was used to, but quickly found that to experience satiety with a salad-based meal that I had to increase my portion size. Nowadays my salads tend to be quite large by most accounts, as you can see in this photo and the quantities of ingredients noted below. Sure, this is a large amount of veggies and leafy greens – but here is an experiment one can try – make a salad of this size while cutting the ingredients into smaller pieces than one normally does. Notice how much smaller the salad appears when much of the air space of the salad is removed by condensing the ingredients in this way. Adding a delicious dressing can also condense the salad further.
Here are the ingredients of the salad in this photo:
7 cups chopped or torn Romaine lettuce (329 g, 11.6 oz.)
6 cups chopped or torn red leaf lettuce (170 g, 6 oz.)
3 cups chopped or torn dandelion greens (165 g, 5.8 oz.)
1.5 cups shredded cucumber (227 g, 8 oz.)
1 cup shredded carrots (113 g, 4 oz.)
¼ cup chopped tomato (45 g, 1.6 oz.)
AND here are some of the nutrients in this salad:
Salad
Adult DRIs
Calories (kcal)
241
B1
0.8
1.1 – 1.2 mg
B2
0.9
1.1 – 1.3 mg
B3
4.5
14 – 16 mg
B5
1.8
5 mg
B6
1.6
1.3 – 1.7 mg
Folate
597
400 mcg
B12
0
2.4 mcg
C
96.4
75 – 90 mg
D
0
5 – 15 mcg
E
7.4
15 mg
K1
1916
90 – 120 mcg
Beta-carotene (mcg)
44,196
Calcium
551
1,000 – 1,200 mg
Iron
11.4
8 – 18 mg
Magnesium
174
310 – 420 mg
Potassium
2589
4,700 mg
Zinc
2.6
8 – 11 mg
The nutrient content of this salad is pretty impressive considering that it only contains 241 kcals! When dressing is added these numbers increase even more, which I’ll show in my next post!
When I started my raw food journey over 30 years ago, spinach was one of my favorite leafy greens. I'd loved spinach since childhood, so raw spinach quickly became my staple salad green next to lettuce. I'd heard that spinach contained notable amounts of important minerals like calcium and iron, so I thought I was getting a decent amount of these minerals.
I love to learn as much as I can, so I started researching the nutrient content of my diet. It was then that I came across up-to-date scientific studies regarding oxalate.
For those of you not familiar with this term, oxalate (also known as oxalic acid) is a substance found in certain foods that binds to minerals like calcium, iron, and zinc, making them less bioavailable. I learned that spinach is rich in oxalate. What this means is that much of the iron, zinc, and calcium found in raw spinach is bound to oxalate making these minerals less nutritionally usable by the human body.
Because of this, the conversation around oxalate in the raw food and plant-based community has generally centered around avoidance of oxalate-containing greens for the reasons mentioned earlier. However, recent research has indicated that some oxalate in one’s diet may actually be beneficial for microbiome diversity. This research centers around Oxalobacter Formigenes, a type of bacteria that inhabits our digestive tract and uses oxalate as its major energy source.
O. Formigenes is considered to be a probiotic, and has been found to survive well in the microbiome of people who consume foods containing some oxalate. Research has found that the prevalence of O. Formigenes in the microbiomes of people eating standard western diets is about half of populations that consume more plant foods. Additionally, there are other types of probiotics that consume oxalate, so as it turns out, having some oxalate in the diet may help increase microbiome diversity and the benefits associated with it.
Often, we hear about concern regarding kidney stone formation and the consumption of oxalate-containing foods. Results from a case-controlled study suggested that lack of O. formigenes colonization is a risk factor for recurrent oxalate stone formation (Kaufman et al., Ellis et al.). What this means is that recurrent oxalate stone formation is associated with lower amounts or the absence of O. formigenes in one's microbiome. Given that oxalate is a food source of O. formigenes , it looks like some oxalate in one's diet can actually be protective against recurrent oxalate stone formation. Of course, it is important to note that it's important to consult with one's healthcare provider who is well-researched on this topic when making dietary and healthcare decisions. This information is both fascinating and encouraging and we look forward to future research shedding light on this important topic!
The bottom line is that our stance on oxalate has not changed. We still think that it is preferable to focus on lower oxalate greens in our diet to help with mineral use in the body, but we do not think that eliminating these foods completely is essential (unless otherwise instructed by a healthcare provider) since oxalate can serve as a food source for O. Formigenes and other probiotics to assist in creating greater microbiome diversity and other potential benefits.
References and Research:
Ellis ML, Dowell AE, Li X, Knight J. Probiotic properties of Oxalobacter formigenes: an in vitro examination. Arch Microbiol. 2016;198(10):1019-1026.
Kaufman DW, Kelly JP, Curhan GC, et al. Oxalobacter formigenes may reduce the risk of calcium oxalate kidney stones. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2008;19(6):1197-1203.
Liebman M, Al-Wahsh IA. Probiotics and other key determinants of dietary oxalate absorption. Adv Nutr. 2011;2(3):254-260.
PeBenito A, Nazzal L, Wang C, Li H, Jay M, Noya-Alarcon O, Contreras M, Lander O, Leach J, Dominguez-Bello MG, Blaser MJ. Comparative prevalence of Oxalobacter formigenes in three human populations. Sci Rep. 2019 Jan 24;9(1):574.
Turroni S, Bendazzoli C, Dipalo SC, et al. Oxalate-degrading activity in Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis: impact of acidic conditions on the transcriptional levels of the oxalyl coenzyme A (CoA) decarboxylase and formyl-CoA transferase genes. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2010;76(16):5609-5620.
After our recent Energy Reset Summit which we co-produced with Better Life Summits, we received a number of questions from people interested in knowing the difference between a starch-focused whole food plant-based diet and one that emphasizes fruits and vegetables. We did a dietary comparison and were quite amazed to see some of the notable differences. We are so happy to share the outcome with you in this email article!
To get started, we have a starched-based “original” diet as a reference point, and then we change things up with our fruit and vegetable-based “makeover” diet to see what happens when we de-emphasize some of the starches and add more fruits and vegetables in their place.
Both diets are free from sugar, oil, and salt, with the exception of a small amount of salt in the tortillas of the original diet. The overall sodium intake of the original diet is still less than 400 mg for the entire day.
As shown in the table below, the original diet breakfast consists of 2 servings of rolled oats, with diced apple, raisins, cinnamon, and flax meal. The original lunch consists of two vegan burritos made from sprouted grain (flourless) tortillas, filled with tomato, avocado, zucchini, brown rice, and black beans. The original dinner is made from two cups of cooked broccoli, and one cup each of quinoa and chickpeas.
What changed?
For breakfast, we chose a totally different meal. We made a fruit and green smoothie instead of oatmeal.
For lunch, we kept the same quantities of avocado, zucchini, brown rice, and black beans from the original diet. We doubled the tomato, and used additional raw and cooked vegetables in place of the wraps. Mashed avocado and diced tomato make a simple salsa that can be poured over the lettuce and zucchini as a creamy salad dressing. The avocado tomato dressing could also be a great topping for the rice and beans and / or the cooked veggies.
For dinner, we reduced our quantity of quinoa and chickpeas by 50%, added a large salad made from lettuce, tomato, carrot, zucchini, and cucumber, topped that with a delicious dressing made from celery, onion, lemon juice, chia seeds, and walnuts, and kept the 2 cups of cooked broccoli.
Instead of 1 TBSP of ground flax seeds added to the breakfast oatmeal of the original diet, we used 1 TBSP of chia seeds and 1.5 TBSP of walnuts in the salad dressing of fruit and vegetable-based diet dinner for omega 3 sources. Both the total fat content and % of calories from fat of each diet were virtually identical.
Original Diet
Makeover Diet
Original Breakfast:Oatmeal w apple, raisins, cinnamon, flax Whole Oats, rolled, 2 Servings Apple, fresh, with skin, 1 medium Raisins, 2 TBSP Cinnamon, ground, 1 tsp Flax Seed Meal, 1 TBSP
Makeover Breakfast:Fruit and Green Smoothie Banana, fresh, 2 medium Oranges, fresh, 2 medium Mango, frozen, 1 cup Kale, raw, 2 leaves
Original Lunch:Vegan Burritos Sprouted grain tortillas x 2 Tomato, red, raw, 2 small Roma Zucchini, raw, 1 large Avocado, raw, California, ½ Brown rice, steamed, ½ cup Black beans, cooked, ½ cup
Makeover Lunch:Salad, dressing, steamed veggies, rice + beans Lettuce, romaine, ½ head Tomato, red, raw, 4 small Roma Zucchini, raw, 1 large Avocado, raw, California, ½ Brown rice, steamed, ½ cup Black beans, cooked, ½ cup Kale, cooked from fresh, 1 cup Cauliflower, cooked from fresh, 1.5 cups Carrots, cooked from fresh, 1 cup
Original Dinner:Steamed broccoli, quinoa, chickpeas Broccoli, cooked from fresh, 2 cups, chopped Quinoa, cooked, 1 cup Chickpeas, boiled without salt, 1 cup
Makeover Dinner:Large salad, dressing, steamed veggies,quinoa, chickpeas Lettuce, romaine, ½ head Tomato, red, raw, 2 small Roma Carrots, raw, ½ cup Zucchini, raw, ½ cup Cucumber, raw, ½ cup Celery, raw, 3 medium Onion, white, etc. ¼ medium Lemons, raw, ½ Chia seeds, 1 TBSP Walnuts, 1.5 TBSP Broccoli, cooked from fresh, 2 cups, chopped Quinoa, cooked, ½ cup Chickpeas, boiled without salt, ½ cup
What was the Nutritional Outcome?
Drumroll please! In changing from the original diet to the makeover diet, we saw some dramatic nutritional changes. To start with, we decreased calories by 103, and increased dietary fiber by 23%.
Regarding vitamins, the beta carotene content increased by an incredible 1,870%, vitamin C increased by 283%, vitamin E increased by 80%, Vitamin K increased by 460%, and folate more than doubled.
Omega 3 fats tripled, while improving the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio from 3.0 to 1.66 and keeping the overall fat intake the same for both diets. Omega 3 recommendations are 1.1 grams for women, and 1.6 grams for men. The original diet provided 1.7 grams of omega 3 in total, but that would have been only 0.8 grams without the flax meal. In the makeover diet, even without the addition of chia seeds and walnuts in the dinner salad dressing, the omega 3 content was 2.5 grams, which increased to 5.7 grams with the addition of the chia seeds and walnuts. Leafy green vegetables, both raw and cooked, are excellent sources of omega 3 fats when eaten in substantial quantities, such as the amounts shown in the makeover diet.
For minerals, the calcium content increased by 230% and magnesium increased by 37%. Sodium went up by 89 mg due to increased vegetable intake. These vegetables and the fruit from the smoothie also more than doubled the potassium intake, which dramatically improved the sodium to potassium ratio. Iron increased by 21%, while zinc remained consistently solid in both diets.
Plant Based Diet Comparison
Original
Makeover
Calories
1805
1702
Fiber
73 grams
90 grams
Beta Carotene
5,523 IU
103,296 IU
Vitamin C
237 mg
671 mg
Vitamin E
10 mg
18 mg
Vitamin K
376 ug
1,731 ug
Folate
912 ug
2,081 ug
Omega 3
1.7 grams
5.3 grams
Omega 6
5.1 grams
8.8 grams
6 / 3 Ratio (Lower is preferable)
3
1.66
Calcium
469 mg
1,081 mg
Magnesium
531 mg
725 mg
Sodium
396 mg
485 mg
Potassium
3792 mg
8376 mg
Sodium / Potassium Ratio (Higher 2nd number is preferable)
1 to 9.6
1 to 17.3
Iron
19 mg
23 mg
Zinc
11.5 mg
11.6 mg
The original starch-centered diet is a fantastic diet! It’s high in nutrient density, low in calorie density, high in fiber, and low in fat with a healthy fatty acid profile. It is the type of diet that has been scientifically proven to reduce excess body fat, and reverse health challenges like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, autoimmune issues, etc. That’s incredibly powerful stuff! But does that mean there is no room for further improvement?
As you can see in this example, including an abundance of fruits and vegetables in a whole food plant-based diet can offer us additional nutritional benefits. Implementing these types of dietary improvements usually translates into having the most energy, the clearest, sharpest mind, having a more radiant glow to our skin, and thriving to the fullest extent of our health potential for a lifetime.
We wanted to share this green smoothie recipe with you because we really enjoyed it and thought you might too:
Two oranges
Half of a cantaloupe
Three frozen or fresh bananas
Handful of washed arugula
One half cup mango chunks (frozen or fresh)
One half cup dark sweet cherries (frozen or fresh)
All ingredients have peels and seeds removed, if they have peels or seeds. Blend fresh ingredients first, then add frozen ingredients and blend until smooth. If you love blueberries, then one half cup of blueberries can replace the cherries. Both alternatives are delicious and have become of two of our favorite smoothie recipes!
This dressing is one of our favorites, in addition to the others that we have recently shared.
Large Dinner Salad:
10 cups chopped or torn Romaine lettuce (470 g, 16.6 oz.)
3 cups chopped or torn dandelion greens (165 g, 5.8 oz.)
1 cup chopped tomatoes (180 g, 6.3 oz.)
1 cup shredded carrots (110 g, 3.9 oz.)
1 cup shredded cucumber (104 g, 3.7 oz.)
½ cup chopped red bell pepper (74.5 g, 2.6 oz.)
Here are some of the nutrient highlights of this salad:
Salad
Adult DRIs
Calories
270
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
0.86 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.2 mg for men
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
0.94 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.3 mg for men
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
5.78 mg
14 mg for women 16 mg for men
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
1.77 mg
5 mg for both
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)
1.32 mg
1.3 mg for both Over 50: 1.5 mg for women 1.7 mg for men
Vitamin B7 (Biotin)
23.23 mcg
30 mcg for both
Folate
773 mcg
400 mcg for both
Ranch Dressing
1 ½ cups of chopped cucumber (178 g, 6.3 oz.)
¼ cup walnuts (29 g, 1.0 oz.)
½ tbsp. chia seeds (5 g, 0.17 oz.)
½ tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice (optional) (6 ml, 0.2 fluid oz.)
½ tbsp. chopped fresh chives (1.5 g, 0.05 oz.)
½ tbsp. chopped fresh dill (0.28 g, 0.01 oz.)
½ tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (1.9 g. 0.07 oz.)
½ small clove of garlic (optional) (1.5 g, 0.05 oz.)
½ tbsp. chickpea miso (9 g, 0.31 oz.) (optional)
Blend cucumber, walnuts, garlic, chia seeds, lemon juice, and optional miso until smooth. Crush in the parsley, chives, and dill. Place in refrigerator for 3 hours to allow for the flavor of the culinary herbs to mix with the rest of the ingredients. Makes 1 serving. We’ve found that this dressing tastes even better the next day. You can decrease the fat content in it by substituting zucchini for some proportion of your choosing of the walnuts and/or chia seeds. You can also decrease the size of the salad if you find that it is a lot to eat - after over 3 decades on our respective raw food and plant-based paths, we eat a salad of this size just about every day.
Nutrient analysis of Ranch Dressing:
Salad
Adult DRIs
Calories
243 mg
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
0.16 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.2 mg for men
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
0.10 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.3 mg for men
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
0.45 mg
14 mg for women 16 mg for men
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
0.63 mg
5 mg for both
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)
0.27 mg
1.3 mg for both Over 50: 1.5 mg for women 1.7 mg for men
Vitamin B7 (Biotin)
5.58 mcg
30 mcg for both
Folate
59.6 mcg
400 mcg for both
Nutrient analysis of Large Dinner Salad and Ranch Dressing:
Salad
Adult DRIs
Calories
513 mg
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
1.02 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.2 mg for men
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
1.04 mg
1.1 mg for women 1.3 mg for men
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
6.23 mg
14 mg for women 16 mg for men
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
0.63 mg
5 mg for both
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)
1.59 mg
1.3 mg for both Over 50: 1.5 mg for women 1.7 mg for men
Dehydrated red bell peppers – what an amazing flavor! We’ve found that a great way to add more flavor to recipes, especially salad dressings is with dehydrated red bell peppers. This can be especially helpful for people who are new to raw food or not used to the more delicate flavors of fresh fruits and vegetables. Especially, when one subtracts added salt or salt products, dehydrated veggies, like red bell peppers, can create the strong flavors that one may be seeking, and may even be a game-changer for someone trying to decrease their salt intake. This being said, as long-term raw food enthusiasts, we really love the delicious flavor that dehydrated red bell peppers bring to our recipes.
Here’s an example of one that we love – red pepper hummus dressing:
4 cups chopped unpeeled gold bar squash, yellow crookneck squash, or peeled zucchini
½ cup walnuts
1 tbsp. chia seeds
Juice of two medium lemons
½ cup dehydrated red bell peppers
To decrease the fat intake, you can substitute more zucchini or some cauliflower for the walnuts.
I just had to show you this picture of these delicious semi-dehydrated tomatoes we made several weeks ago! We found ourselves with a case of Roma tomatoes that was starting to go bad with little time to eat them all before they would qualify for the compost pile.
This is a challenge I have heard from students and raw food enthusiasts over my 31 years on the raw plant-based path – having more produce than they can eat in a specified amount of time. This tends to happen more often when one is new to this lifestyle, but many of us who have been on the path for years may find ourselves in this situation.
One of my most common suggestions is to eat more, especially if they find themselves hungry – that’s an obvious suggestion. But what can you do if you find yourself in our shoes with an extra case of tomatoes that are starting to show signs of senescence or a case of bananas that are suddenly overripe? Or leafy greens that are on the way to turning yellow?
Freezing can work well for the bananas and can go towards making delicious bowls of banana ice cream and the leafy greens such as kale or collard greens can be made into kale or collard chips. These suggestions are well known, utilized, and appreciated.
But what about tomatoes? Have you ever made your own dehydrated tomatoes? We love them – and find them to be more flavorful than the commercially sundried ones we’ve found online. A few weeks ago, we made a whole dehydrator-full of them and enjoyed them for many days afterwards. We love the partially dehydrated tomatoes the best since they have a jelly-like consistency along with a concentrated tomato flavor. Yum! We’ve also recently dehydrated red bell peppers which we used in our salad dressings and raw hummus.
It goes without saying that we prefer fresh whole foods, but dehydrating and freezing are a good alternative to having perfectly good produce wither into compost and can be a great opportunity to create some great new recipes. What have you done to preserve your excess produce?
Continuing our conversation from the last post, when I first started with raw food 31 years ago, the healing that I experienced with my fatigue and other health challenges was so significant that I was super motivated to stay with raw. Within a few months I encountered a significant pitfall that many of you may have experienced too, which was hunger. All the raw food books I read and the teachers that I spoke with encouraged me to eat fruit whole. I followed this suggestion and found myself eating fruit regularly throughout the morning and afternoon. I was also told to eat until I felt satisfied. Even when I ate one piece of fruit after another for what seemed like quite a bit of time, I still felt hungry. So, I ate more. And still felt hungry.
I’m the type of person who really likes to feel full. In reality, I have always been a two to three large meals per day person. I like to eat a meal and feel full until the next meal. I’m not really a snacker or a grazer like many people that I know are.
Getting back to my story, when I started raw, I found myself eating fruit whole but was still hungry. I could have easily given raw up for not working because if this, but I had experienced the benefits of this lifestyle and was resolved to find a solution. One morning, as I was loading up my tote with a bunch fruit to eat for the day, I had an idea – instead of carrying this large bag of fruit throughout my busy day ahead, what if I just blended it all and put the mixture into large mason jars?
I got out my glass carafe low-power blender and created some smoothies, which were actually more appropriately called “chunkies” at the time since that’s the best my little blender could do.
I had two of the smoothies for breakfast and remaining for lunch. I felt my usual great amount of energy throughout the day with one big difference, no hunger! I felt full and satisfied with my fruit smoothies until my next meal.
I knew then, that this would be a game changer for me and I have been employing this strategy ever since. As a side note, a couple years later, I started adding leafy greens to my smoothies and my satiety was even better. And a few years later after graduation, these smoothies evolved into smoothie bowls.
This is why it is so important to know yourself and what works best for you. I think that the approaches that certain raw food teachers teach can be a good starting point, but may not be the most ideal for everyone in all situations. One must consider health goals, current health status, how the approach fits into their daily life, and more. It’s more than okay to find what works best for you. Similar to my situation, it may be a simple change or a series of changes that make the difference, keep you on the path, and help you achieve and MAINTAIN the health goals you are seeking. Open-mindedness and critical thinking together can be a powerful combination! In my next few posts, I’ll continue to share more game-changing strategies that have made all the difference on my raw plant-based path.
On January 1 of every new year, we like to do a quick exercise where we consider what we (Rick and I) created in the previous year that worked or was successful and what we could have done differently. It’s always a fun process, because we get to celebrate our wins and creatively evaluate how we can make what we have done even better, and it only takes a few minutes. It’s a great way to bring closure to the previous year, create renewed energy for the coming year, and to see where we are with current carryover projects.
Speaking of what’s working, this past October I shared with you my top 30 raw food success strategies from my past 30 years on this path and one of my strategies was consistency – which I have found to be one of the most important for me personally. I also see sustainability, a close ‘sibling’ of consistency, as being of great importance with achieving success raw food or really any endeavor.
Sustainability in a sense brings consistency to the next level because we can be consistent with something, but if it is ultimately not the path that brings us the results we are seeking, then it’s time to course correct. Finding what works best for us dietarily or otherwise can be a fun opportunity of exploration that builds upon what we already know or have experienced and as we learn more, can lead ultimately to what is sustainable over the long-term.
I’ll share with you my experience with the shifts I’ve made over the past 30 years on my raw food plant-based path in coming posts. In the meantime, what shifts have you made in the past or present that are working for you?
You can find smoothie bowl recipes similar to this one in our Holiday Recipe Guide eBook which you can receive for free when you register for our email list using the form on in the right margin of this post.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Rick and I!
As part of our dinner today we are having one of our classic salads with pieces of our raw vegan stuffing and a simple lemon tahini dressing. You can find the recipe in our Holiday Recipe Guide which you can receive when you join our email list using the link in the right margin
We find that this salad is great when we are wanting something a little extra filling like after going on a long hike or run or during the colder winter months. You can find the recipe for the stuffing in our previous post for stuffing burgers.
We find this stuffing recipe so versatile – we’ve made burgers, croutons, and even pizza crust out of it with the addition of some chia seeds.
Wishing you much love and light this holiday season and a happy and healthful New Year!
A couple of weeks ago, as Rick and I made our favorite recipe for raw plant-based stuffing, we wondered how this recipe would taste as a veggie burger. So, earlier this week, we gave it a try and loved them!
Here is the recipe:
3 cups chopped celery
1 ½ cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped cauliflower
3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 cup walnuts (substitute 2 cups chopped zucchini for lower fat version)
1 cup chopped yellow onion (optional)
1 tbsp rosemary (optional)
½ tsp miso (optional)
This recipe makes 10 to 12 veggie patties depending on how large you make them. After cleaning the veggies, we blended all the ingredients together in our food processor. We then transferred the mixture to a mixing bowl and to make the patties, we scooped the blended mixture out of the bowl with a ⅓ cup measuring cup and placed the contents of the measuring cup on a dehydrator tray with a dehydrator sheet to keep liquid from the patties from leaking through the dehydrator tray holes.
We dehydrated the patties at 100°F degrees (38°C) for about 7 hours – this time may vary depending on ambient humidity and temperature. We then flipped the patties, removing the dehydrator sheet in the process, and dehydrated the patties for another 3 hours until the patties were ready.
To make a “burger”, we placed one of the patties on a couple of lettuce leaves, then added tomato with a few slices of avocado and a sprinkle of dulse flakes.
As mentioned earlier, this recipe can also be made into raw dehydrated “stuffing” too. Instead of forming individual patties, we spread the mixture onto a dehydrator tray (with a dehydrator sheet) and followed the rest of the dehydrating directions above.
Nice cream in the winter? Yes please! We actually eat banana nice cream year-round as we have for many years. As far as flavors go, the sky of course is the limit and we tend to favor whatever fruit is in season in addition to bananas naturally, and right now, we have a few varieties of mint growing in our backyard garden – peppermint, chocolate mint, and French mint.
The fragrance of these mint plants is just delectable and so was the nice cream we made with 10 leaves of the French mint and 4 frozen bananas. We usually use our trusty Champion with the blank in place for a soft-serve ice cream consistency, and at times, we use our food processor or Vitamix too. Some frozen broccoli is actually good added to this recipe with the green broccoli flecks blending with the mint speckles. What is your favorite method for making banana nice cream?
Just a note on mint – it’s a plant that grows quickly with an underground root system that can take over your garden if you don’t help contain its enthusiasm, so we grow our mint plants in containers rather than our raised beds.
How do we stay warm in the winter on raw foods? At this time of year, this question is especially pertinent and the answer is one I know from my own personal experience of starting my raw food journey in the northeastern U.S. in the middle of winter back in 1990. You can read more about our raw food winter strategies in our Raw Food in Cold Climates article:
We actually discovered this recipe by accident – but it sure was a happy one!
Several years ago, we purchased an upright manual citrus press to make citrus juice easier than the hand-held press we had been using for many years. The press worked so beautifully that we thought it would be fun to juice pomegranates in the press too, which ended up being a game changer for making and enjoying our beloved pomegranate juice!
On one occasion when we were making both pomegranate and orange juice in the press, we mixed the two and were astounded to find the taste similar to our old childhood favorite from growing up in the 1970s – Hawaiian Punch – which was super popular among kids our age back then.
We call our version tropical punch and it consists of 3 parts orange juice and 1 part pomegranate juice. So, if you wanted to make a cup (8 ounces) of tropical punch, the recipe would be ¾ cup of fresh squeezed orange juice mixed with ¼ cup of fresh pomegranate juice.
For a cool visual effect, pour the pomegranate juice into the orange juice in a clear glass and watch it settle on the bottom of the glass creating a gradation between the red and orange juices – it makes for a beautiful presentation!
Cheers!
You can find a more detailed explanation of this recipe in our free Holiday Raw Food Recipe Guide: https://rawfoodeducation.com/?page_id=3322
PS: We’ll be posting our favorite holiday and everyday recipes on Instagram and this blog a few times per week during the month of December. We invite you to join us!
During the month of October, I counted down the top 30 mindset and practical strategies that have made all the difference in my success for 30 years as a raw food plant-based enthusiast to help you on your path!
Here on the final day, Rick and I address what we have observed as one of the most important factors in success with raw food and plant-based diets: education.
A study conducted by the Columbia University department of epidemiology in 2008 examined factors that affect adherence to a raw vegan diet after a stay at a raw vegan institute. The strongest predictor of future adherence was the level of education people had at baseline, specifically at the beginning of their stay at the institute. The more educated people were about raw food nutrition, the more likely they were to be adhering to the program down the road.
That shouldn’t be surprising, as it applies to many other areas of life as well. It’s more difficult to be successful at something if one isn’t clear on what to do in comparison to an educated approach.
Not only does education provide important and essential INFORMATION to help one create an approach that works for them, it creates CONFIDENCE in what one is doing. Knowing that one is getting important nutrients, or how to avoid certain challenges that may arise and how to address them if they do, or how to answer questions by inquiring friends and family members, etc. can be extremely valuable or even essential to success.
When I got started with raw food 30 years ago, I found myself seeking out as much information as I could about raw food and plant-based diets. Most of what I learned was helpful, but I wanted more concrete answers to my health and nutrition-related questions than those resources were able to provide. I had already experienced some great results with raw food and wanted to continue on the path from an educated perspective.
The bottom line is that education made all the difference for me and has helped to keep me on the path for over 30 years.
Both Rick and I know from our experience how much of a difference education can make, so we encourage you to be lifelong learners and solution seekers.
This is the conclusion of our Top 30 for 30 and over the coming months both Rick and I will expound on many of the concepts we have introduced over the last 30 days. It has been our pleasure to bring you this information and thank you for joining us! We look forward to continuing this conversation with you!
You can read the continuation of this article in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list at rawfoodeducation.com
Very often, someone interested in the benefits of a raw food diet will embark upon their journey by subscribing to a ready-made or popular approach to raw food. For many people who have started before them, the approach may be working well. You’d like to get the results they are experiencing, so you figure if you do the same things, you’ll get the same results. While this is often the case, it is not always the case. Or you may experience great results with your approach for a while, but then you notice that your needs may be changing.
My classic example of this is my own personal experience. When I started with raw food 30 years ago, my introduction to this lifestyle was the high-fruit low-fat approach. My primary goal was to address and remove the underlying cause of the fatigue that I had been experiencing. It worked! Within a short period of time my fatigue vanished along with a variety of other symptoms I had for years and I had more energy than I knew what to do with. I slept better, I enjoyed exercising, my digestion improved, and the nasal congestion that I had come to accept as ‘normal’ disappeared as well. I was so very happy with my results and thought that I had found ‘the answer’.
However, after a few months, I found that my skin started to feel dry, so I started thinking that my dietary approach might needs some ‘tweaking’ so I added some more nuts, seeds, and avocados into my diet and within a short period of time, my skin became soft and smooth, more so than it had been really been in my entire life up until that point. The change also brought about a greater sense of satiety and the abatement of cravings.
What it comes down to is that being flexible allowed me to feel even better on a raw diet, and if I had not given myself the opportunity to make some changes, I might have left raw food thinking it didn’t work because it made my skin dry.
The bottom line is that pre-conceived approaches to raw food may be a great start and may serve as a great healing diet. But what about when healing has been achieved? What is a good ‘maintenance’ approach to sustain those health gains over the long term or bring your health to an even higher level?
We’ll address this concept in further posts.
You can read the continuation of this article in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list at rawfoodeducation.com
Give yourself the gift of consistency. It's what you do on a regular basis that makes the biggest difference. This is about any choices you make on a daily basis in your life.
Whether or not you decide to exercise when is seems challenging or you don't think you have the time, whether or not you put a health-supporting lunch together in the morning (or night before) before leaving for the day, etc.
We have the opportunity every day to make health a priority. It may seem hard or inconvenient at the time, but with dedicated effort and consistency, we get to reap the benefits. And it's all worth it in the end.
This doesn't mean that we need be disappointed if we fall off track. When we do, we have the opportunity to shift our thinking in the moment and course correct. We get to learn from the process. We get to remember the experience. We get to not judge ourselves. We get to show up in support of our vision.
We get to experience and thrive from the gift we have given ourselves and we get to share this gift with others in that we get to be a kind, supportive example of the results that the gift of consistency can manifest.
There are so many rumors that we have heard circulating in the raw food and plant-based community over the past 30 years, some of which can be so limiting and taken so seriously that people no longer stay on the path because they found it too restrictive. There are so many: vegetables are bad, fat is bad, fruit is bad, you can only eat when it’s light out, juice is junk food because the fiber is gone, blending destroys all the nutrients so smoothies are junk food, all cooked food is bad, this or that food is bad, and the list goes on.
Myths are perpetuated in the health community as they have been for years, and now with social media, different versions of these myths appear as people put their spin on various topics to build an audience. This makes it ever more difficult to be successful eating a raw plant-based diet, especially when one is new to the idea and is genuinely looking for guidance to help them succeed.
One of the challenges is that we see many people relying on one source for information, one particular teacher, or one particular camp of raw food, and following it exclusively. This can be helpful in cutting through confusion because one can simply follow a particular plan or set of guidelines and need not worry about conflicting information. One may think they have found all the answers in one place and there is comfort in that. One may find other people on the same path who have made dramatic improvements in their health who didn’t find those improvements with other approaches. This happens in a variety of raw food approaches, not just one, although in general some approaches are clearly better suited for particular challenges or endeavors than others.
(See comments for rest of this post)
On the positive side one isn’t confused anymore because they have something solid to connect with and a sense of community and camaraderie, but on the other side, this strategy may lead to one missing out on information from other approaches that can make all the difference for them!
The fact is there is no one place or one person who has all the answers, even us! You will find both truth and folklore in virtually every approach out there, from within and from outside of the raw food community. Often times, although admittedly more challenging, taking the best of various approaches can create the best health plan for any given individual, which may be different depending upon the person’s individual biochemistry, goals, work, family, and social schedule.
You can read more in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list using the sign-up form you can find in the right margin of this webpage.
There are a number of issues that can affect the long-term success of people when they limit their fat intake too much. The first issue has to do with getting an adequate number of calories as discussed previously. Fruits and vegetables are high in water, high in fiber, and low in fat. This makes them very low in calorie density which means large quantities of food don’t contain very many calories.
This is great in that one can eat lots of food and get good and full without excess calories. When taken too far however, it can become difficult to get enough calories. Many people have jobs and kids and school and schedules that don’t allow enough time during the day to dedicate to eating such huge quantities of food. Additionally, most of us don’t have the patience or willingness to be that full all of the time. Remember also that fruit is 3-4 times more calorie dense than vegetables, so when fat is so low, fruit is often preferred over vegetables, which means we are missing appropriate quantities of key minerals that are abundant in vegetables but found in smaller amounts in fruit.
Getting to fat itself, if we were to start with a base of fruits and vegetables, then add a reasonable quantity of nuts or seeds to our diets to bring the percentage of calories from fat up to maybe 15% or more of total calories, this increases the calorie density enough so consuming all of the calories needed becomes easier. You don’t have to eat as great of a volume of food, which means you have more room for vegetables and can therefore take advantage of all their nutritional benefits such as mineral content. Additionally, many nuts and seeds are much better sources of key minerals than fruit as well. Certain nuts and seeds like chia, walnut, and hemp can contribute to the omega 3 content of our diet. Dr. Rick has a whole video series on omega 3 conversion on his YouTube channel.
The bottom line here is that by adding mineral rich fat sources to our diets, not only do we get the minerals directly from those foods, we also decrease the quantity of food we have to eat to obtain enough calories, which leaves more room to consume more vegetables from which we get even more minerals. In this common example, when implemented appropriately, more fat means greater nutrient density. You can read more about fat sources in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list by using the sign-up form located in the right margin of this webpage.
Fruit has many amazing properties! It’s high in a variety of key vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals, including vitamin C and potassium. Particular types of fruit can also be rich in carotenoids, folate, iron, and even calcium.
Fresh fruit is low in calorie density, meaning large quantities of fruit that help us feel full and satisfied don’t contain an excess of calories. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to fill one’s stomach to a satisfying level while knowing one is eating an appropriate number of calories for their body’s needs.
Fruit is also very easy to digest, allowing the body more energy for healing, repair, and other processes. Interestingly, the ease of fruit digestion is related to its simple carbohydrate content, meaning the body has to do little else to be able to obtain energy from fruit.
On a mostly to all raw vegan diet, fruit is an important source of calories, and without it, calories have to come from somewhere. As vegetables are so low in calorie density, you can’t get enough calories even if you spend all day stuffing yourself full of vegetables and do little else. The other major sources of calories on a raw food diet are fat sources. Most people don’t realize how much fat is in a typical raw food diet that is low in fruit. All those nuts, seeds, coconuts, avocados, and oils as staples in one’s diet end up being very calorie dense. People don’t feel nearly as energetic as they could, and they can’t fill up their stomachs with satisfying amounts of these foods without consuming an excess of calories. After a while they may discontinue eating raw saying that raw food did not work for them. Despite all of the benefits of fruit, there continue to be rumors about it that don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny or individual biochemical reality. We will continue this conversation in further posts.
There has been a lot of talk in the raw food community about fruit playing an important role in our natural diet as humans, and there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding the fate of fructose in the human body (does it all turn to fat?) and other rumored concerns about fruit. You can read more about the science behind fruit in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list by using the sign-up form in the right margin of this webpage.
