What do you eat?

• Raw food is more than just a village salad: it’s the extraordinary range of fruit (even if you tried to eat a different fruit every day until the rest of your life, you still will only have covered a small percent), luscious leafy greens, a myriad of vegetables, algae/, superfoods, seaweeds, flowers, nuts, seeds and those powerhouses, sprouts. It’s about creative colourful food and nature’s crispy, juicy, sweet, exotic and zany flavours! The combinations you can make with the above are infinite and rainbowotic; we just need to re-train our taste buds after years of processed, pasteurized and sugary foods.

BENEFITS:
 

People who dance 'high-raw' speak of the glowing benefits. Here are some:

• abundance of energy/vibrancy – lethargy after eating goes
• clarity of  mind
• sharper concentration
• strengthen body/organs
• clearer skin
• proper bowel movements
• brighter eyes
• detoxing of old waste naturally
• calm, brighter  attitude (especially if lots of green salads and green juices are consumed)
• loss of fat/cellulite(Yes it does go!)  and body attains natural weight
• when ill, people have seen immense healing with raw – even cancer patients
• zest for life!
• eating raw is creative and fun!

You don’t have to be a 100% raw foodist but making fresh food a staple part of your diet can only give you tenfold reward.  Do take it easy at first and dispel with any feelings of shame and guilt with anything you eat.  To us, it is not so much as being on or off the wagon, but more of a dance at the deepest level where your organs, skin and cells can function as they were meant to -  certainly not weighed down clearing sludge.  Of course you are not going to tango straight off.  For most people, it starts as a slow trot with certain stops and starts until you find your rhythm, pick up the tempo and twirl away! There are no rules either; there are only guidelines and suggestions but ultimately, learning to listen to the needs of your own body will reveal more than any text book or lecturer.

7 Tips on Getting Started & Staying Raw:

Where do I begin?' is  common question we get asked. Here are some useful tips that have helped us:

1) Only eat what you love. Eat fruit, vegetables, greens, seeds, nuts, superfoods and sprouts that you truly enjoy and work with recipes from those.

2) Introduce 1 recipe per week

3) Learn and educate yourself on the raw lifestyle. 

4) Keeping a journal of your physical, mental and emotional changes is also a good idea

5) Avoid setting rules and being fastidious - be gentle with yourself.

6) It is true, some days are very long and we cannot be bothered to make anything. To be prepared, scout your local area and find restaurants that can make you a raw take way based on the ingredients they already have.  You'll be surprised at what's out there. Don't be afraid to ask them to mix and match the raw items from various parts of the menu. Japanese restaurants can make great raw salads as we have discovered. 

7) If you love avocado, then always have some in the fridge. They save the day for many raw foodists!  ( See our 'Avocado to the Rescue!' in the recipe section).

Rather than super-size me, here at Raw Journeys we prefer Super-Strength Me!

Eating truly well leaves you feeling energized and light - and super-sizing your meals, especially with junk food, certainly doesn’t provide you with that.

In fact, today, people in the Western world eat a lot but they are actually starving! Why? Because a great deal of their diet is lacking in minerals and enzymes.Fresh, uncooked fruit and vegetables and superfoods are the richest foods you can give your brain and body.

What are superfoods?

They are those plants, pods, seeds, berries, sea weeds, roots etc that have been consumed and revered by ancient cultures like the Greeks, Aztecs, Tibetans for their ‘super-strengths’; even a spoonful is packed with more minerals, vitamins, proteins, amino acids and many, other nutrients than a whole plate of processed food .

And when we say ‘superfood’, we are not talking about synthetic supplements that taste like cough medicine. These chemical-free, raw superfoods have their own unique flavours whether it be the juicy raisin-cherry taste of goji berries, the earthy sweetness of truly raw carob or the bittersweet, rich velvet of cacao nibs.

So why consume superfoods?

Given that many of us live lifestyles that include rushing to meet deadlines, punching clocks, going to bed late, grabbing quick meals, eating store-bought fruit and vegetables that all have to be just the right size, colour, shape, thickness to meet EU standards, along with the weekly food scandals we keep hearing about, (you only have to turn on the news to hear the tip of the iceberg) it is no wonder we are not functioning at our supreme best. Add to that the bombardment of electromagnetic frequencies, air pollution and less than optimum water quality and it’s a wonder we can wiggle!

However, the human body is the most wonderful piece of engineering, a daily miracle that no scientist could ever hope to replicate. Our bodies amazingly pump, filter and pulse away, doing everything they can to protect us until eventually, they get fed up and tire out - which is why we need to treat them well through lifestyle changes and certain additions:

How?

• slowing down where and when we can
• breathing deeply
• doing exercise that we love
• avoid going to bed late
• spending time in nature
• laughing
• adding more raw food to our lives; more green juices, dark green salads, wild edibles and superfoods.

These can all re-charge and re-vitalise you, help your organs to work as they should, balance hormones and circadian rhythms and give you a sense of well being.

Here are some Superfoods from around the world that are known for their super qualities and ones we love in their raw states:

* hemp seeds

* olives

* cacao

* sesame seeds

* maca

* carob

* goji berry

*kelp, seaweeds (nori, wakame, kombu)

* spirulina, algae, chlorella, plankton

* cedar nut

* vanilla sticks

* honey, bee pollen, propolis, royal jelly

*aloe vera

*Himalayan pink salt

Many of these are great additions to meals, drinks and smoothies –and you only need a small amount each time to super-strength yourself.