Spring 2009 Detox - Day 7

Final day of detox. How time flies! With all the raw energy available to you now, with eased digestion and improved sleep, what will you do? Projects won't be lacking, I'm sure of it.

Why not think of integrating living foods into your lifestyle? Without going all rigid and uncompromising, there are ways to eat mainly living foods while still leaving room for the rest. Now, let's see how to make the last meal of the day a living foods meal.

Supper

This is the meal where the whole family sits down and catches up on daily events. We have fun, we enjoy each other's company, we joke around... No time for raw warfare!

If meal preparation becomes too much of a burden, ask for help. Usually children will love spiralizing the fruits and veggies, or spinning the lettuce dry (how doesn't like to see just how fast that thing will spin). They can set the table, help make the sauce or soup with the blender (with parents watching) and bring some truly inspired ideas to the meals if listened to! Believe me.

Meals that will please most include a big salad, vegan wraps or zucchini "pasta" with a raw marinara sauce. Why not try a mexican fiesta with raw dehydrated crackers, guacamole, homemade salsa and all the trimings? Or try to "rawify" an old family favorite as a family?

Incorporating the living foods lifestyle into your own will take time, patience and perseverance not to mention creativity. But it is worth it, truly. Some time can be saved if you buy some organic foods already prepared: prewashed lettuce, baby carrots, or dehydrated crackers (at the health food store). You could also make larger quantities of some staples, like pâtés, and use them in different ways during the week: once as a pâté with cucumber slices, once as a filling for sushi, another time as an extra to your salad. Vary its flavor each time by adding different herbs and spices.

Integrating more healthy living and raw foods into our lifestyle is always going to be a challenge because we live in a society of hyper-commercialized fast and quick foods, all prepared in advance for the consumer. These foods are full of chemical and hardly fit for human consumption. But your health, and that of your family's, is really worth the effort. Pay now with your wallet or pay later with your health. It is our choice, individually and collectively.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 6

Once breakfast is habitually a raw event, you are now ready for the next step on your transition to living foods: lunch!

Living foods lunch

Favor high water content foods such as leafy green vegetables (lettuce, spinach, collards, kale, etc.), sprouts (sunflower, alfalfa, etc.) and vegetables, all raw of course. Once you have made this a habit, your food intake is two-thirds raw!

You will have plenty of variety with these choices. The classical choice, salad, comes in all shapes and colors. A green smoothie is easy to bring along at the office in a tightly-sealed container. You can also bring fruit (or a nice fruit salad), dehydrated fruits (apricots, gojis, dates, etc.) or soaked nuts and seeds. Vegetable sticks with a dip (nut or seed-based, or vegetable-based) make a satisfying lunch. Mexican lovers can bring a raw fiesta with them in the form of guacamole, home-made salsa, and dehydrated crackers. Holé! Add some sunflower sprouts to this and you're in business.

If you go out with colleagues for lunch, try to eat a little something before heading out: this will help you make better choices. There is no stopping a hungry stomach! Drink a green smoothie, grab a few nuts or seeds, a banana or an avocado before going to lunch. Also, you can bring some nuts, seeds or raisins to perk up the restaurant's salad. Why not a sliced avocado and some sprouts? You can whip up a quick homemade salad dressing before work, in the morning. Nobody will say a thing.

Do not hesitate to ask for a custom-made raw vegan salad, without dressing, when you are at a restaurant. Most places will be more than happy to accomodate you and will bring you a very nice salad, exactly to your specifications.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 5

At this stage, it is important to start thinking about keeping some healthy habits after the week is over. How do we do this? One meal at a time, quite simply.

Breakfast

The simplest way to transition to living foods starts with breakfast. This is our first meal of the day and it sets the tone for the rest of the meals of the day. Why not start the day right?

In the morning, the body is busy cleansing. So the breakfast has to be light and easily digested in order to not disrupt this process. Fruits fit the bill perfectly. Most fruits contain around 80% water. Eating these high water content foods allows the cleansing going on in the body to get done unhindered because fruits are easily assimilated.

To further ease digestion, eat fruits alone, on an empty stomach. Think of eating high water content fruits first (they will digest quicker), keeping bananas, avocados and dried fruits for later in the morning. Accelerate further the cleansing by having a mono-meal (meal consisting of one food only).

Chewing food properly is of utmost importance to healthy digestion. Too often, we do not take the time to chew our foods properly (properly meaning, to a creamy texture) before swallowing. This places a heavier workload on the stomach, who must grind food down to digestible morsels.

Those susceptible to candida problems would do best to have a green smoothie or a green juice in the morning. These liquid meals are alkalizing to the body and very easily assimilated (and so require little digestive energy).

Start the day right with a nice raw and living meal: green juices, green smoothies, or fruits - it's up to you. After that, you'll have loads of energy for all those other things you have to do in the day!