The Alaska cotton is blooming--it's a whole other kind of Dr Seuss plant!
I'm grateful that I'm not rigid about being 100% raw. It recognizes the difficulty of living mostly on fresh produce in a part of the world where fresh produce is shipped in from far away and avoids setting me up for yet another impossible endeavor (yes, I do have an affinity for 'lost causes'). It also makes it a little easier to feed me when we're out on the road or staying with friends (both of which seem to happen pretty often in our life). Recalling my Conversation about ground rules for nutritional research and self-experimentation, I also remind myself that in these situations, it's smart to maintain a spirit of compromise around my current fat-avoidance. The third piece for me today is that I'm generally a bit of a stickler for making everything from scratch. Especially with travel, and also with preparing food for people with very different preferences from mine, I'm recognizing that taking short cuts occasionally, if I'm canny about the quality of the products I select, it can be 'allowable.'
Sometimes, getting something that's not technically raw gets me more good quality nutrition for a lot less money. I recognize that this is a very shaky criterion of choice, but it does play a part. As an example, I can get a gallon of organic orange juice (not-from-concentrate but pasteurized) for less than $10 (if we're in Anchorage) or a little over $10 (with markup here in Homer). But organic oranges are almost unavailable and I couldn't even get regular oranges that would make that amount of orange juice for twice that much. I'd love to hear any words from anyone to explain why this pasteurized OJ is such a bad idea. I hadn't had juice for years, and I've been impressed with how good I feel with it. It fills me up and makes me happy. I used to think that juice is empty calories: it's true that juice has no fiber. But judging how my body feels after drinking it, it doesn't seem 'empty' at all.
Jars of salsa fresca have been a godsend for lunches on the road too, and the remaining 3/4 cup of salsa lent itself to a beautiful kelp noodle dressing when we got home today. In about ten minutes flat. We got home with a ton of unpacking and other chores, and of course I was fixing 'regular' food too.
There was a lovely ataulfo (aka champagne) mango that was gorgeously ripe. Also a pineapple that was about as ripe as they can get here without rotting.
Soak the kelp noodles in warm water for a few minutes, then drain.
Toss together with half a pineapple, sliced up, a sliced mango, a roma tomato and half an avocado.
The sauce was about a three-quarter-cup of salsa mixed with a teaspoon of onion powder, two tablespoons of maca, a quarter teaspoon each of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper, all dissolved in a quarter cup of water.
Garnished with chopped chives and cilantro from our garden...
...And served on a bed of freshly harvested lettuce (with a few mustard flowers).
Light, delicious, very summery and a great texture combination with the toothsome noodles and the melting fruit. Oh, and of course, it would have been perfectly easy to make a sauce/salsa myself with sun-dried tomatoes, etc, but this was a super
Do you think I'm doing something wrong by drinking organic store-bought OJ? Do you feel ok about 'cheating' by using something premade in a recipe rather than doing it all from scratch?
Apologies for the rushed nature of this post: I want to share, and am in many places simultaneously.
Oh gosh, no, I don't think some storebought juice is "cheating." And I think that you're right to note that the main sign of how "good" something is for you is really to ask yourself how you feel. If juice fills you up and leaves you feeling well, then you should keep drinking it! I think one of the hazards of eating healthily and researching nutrition is that you start to let information you take in dictate what you do, and you forget that the body has its own ways of telling you what's best.
ReplyDeleteI like that idea for your fruit salad. Yummy combination!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the o.j. If it makes you feel good, then go ahead and drink it. The rest of your diet is so fresh that I'm sure it's not the end of the world if you drink a little pasteurized juice here and there. It's better than eating highly processed junk food with a shelf-life longer then those who eat such things.
Good to hear from you Ela. I've questioned the idea of being rigidly raw (just like rigidly anything else) almost since I first heard about it. It's all about the individual to me. I remember when I first started learning, specifically thinking something like "but can a Thai young coconut on every table make any sense in a far northern clime?". I have read accounts of the food that Inuit ate and apparently thrived on in pre-modern days, almost all animal flesh and fat, which worked in their bodies in the incredibly harsh environment (plus that's all they had). Now that they are eating processed fast food, their health is being destroyed. I think we have to take climate into account. I've actually heard some folks insist that it only makes sense for people to live in the tropics for the sake of their health. Can you imagine the overpopulated cesspool the tropics would become, if that were the case?
ReplyDeleteAs for pasteurization, that just means it was heated "cooked" to a temperature believed sufficient to kill bacteria, which to a strict raw foodist means no enzymes, so it's dead and some even would say toxic. Also, some of the heat-sensitive nutrients may be destroyed. I was reminded of this when I looked yesterday (in a bookstore) at a new edition of a raw food book by a well-known raw fooder. In his case he classified all cooked fruits and veggies as inert, doing little or nothing for the body. If no nutrition were available in cooked food, and given that's what the majority of modern people eat, no one should reach adulthood (witness what happens to children with Celiac who are supposed to be actively growing, when their little intestines are damaged, and they can't absorb vitamins from food). It also doesn't make sense that people have cured themselves of cancer eating a macrobiotic diet, which is almost all cooked food, with some being fermented. People attach to dogma about food (and religion and politics) and refuse to acknowledge contrary evidence when it's right in front of their nose. How we all seem to want the security of believing we have the truth all packed up neatly in a box - unchangeable for all time.
I've never heard pure fruit juice described as empty calories - only a so-called "juice drink" which means almost no real juice which is suspended in artificially flavored and colored sugar water. The main problem with OJ for some people (and I can be one of them sometimes) is that drinking a large amount of pure OJ by itself can give a huge sugar spike, with subsequent crash afterwards - similar to making a meal of donuts. It doesn't seem to have that effect on folks who are super active.
As for "cheating" using something premade, that can really feel like a must to me. As you know, with raw food diets, the reason recipes often have so many different components and sub-recipes is because you have to make your own condiments, since most are not available raw. That can make it so overwhelming for many people. I may be more likely to make a raw hemp burger from scratch, if I feel it's okay to dress it with the bottled mustard in my fridge, instead of having to also soak mustard seeds and prepare it from scratch. We ask an insane amount of ourselves sometimes, I feel. To me, making every single thing from scratch only works if food prep is basically your job, and you have no other significant responsibilities.
Mindy
Kelp noodles with fruit? Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI do not think you are cheating at all with pre-made goods. I think I would be a crazy, annoying person if I tried to stay 100% raw all the time. I feel totally happy eating raw when I can, and not worrying about it when it's difficult/impossible. I don't like to stress about food. I'd much rather enjoy it!
Good luck with your busy schedule!
I enjoy premade oj once in awhile but sometimes the taste isn't as good as unpasteurized. But the vitamin c in oj isn't destroyed by cooking. Not all nutrients are. I prefer made from scratch too and feel better with it.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Gena--and great point that it's too easy (especially for those of us with bees in our bonnets) to allow 'information' to override 'intuition.' I love being able to allow myself some flexibility and ease. Yes, I'm far removed from living in HI and only eating food I harvested right there, but even there, people set themselves impossible standards in that regard. It's good to let go of perfection...
ReplyDeletelove
Ela
Thanks so much for that great comment, Mindy--it's true, a lot of blanket statements about how things should be lead to a crazy vision if you really ask "what if?"
ReplyDeleteI appreciate being reminded that I'm not the only person who gets attracted to black and white thinking: that people insist on dogma when the contrary evidence is clear to see. It's been quite liberating to me to learn, for example, that minerals are not lost by heating foods, or to notice that I generally digest cooked broccoli far better than raw broccoli.
I find that I enjoy drinking oj slowly, and that it's very clear how much is 'enough.' So far, I'm glad that it feels so good, and grateful that it's available.
And yes, I hear you on the making everything from scratch thing. Sometimes I see people just taking milk from their fridge and pouring it into recipes, and think of making nut milk from scratch and how it really does add to the time. Generally, I'm happy to do it, but you're right that it's good to have some leeway.
love
Ela
kt--I love the idea of enjoying food rather than stressing about it! That sounds like a great place to be in, and one that I should aim for.
ReplyDeletelove
Ela
bitt--I definitely prefer 'made from scratch' in general too: I think that having allergies really makes me appreciate having control over ingredients.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the oj doesn't taste as good as fresh-squeezed, but this organic, not-from-concentrate stuff really is pretty good. It's weird to me to think of a fruit-based item as cooked food. I would love to have the opportunity to drink some fresh-squeezed side by side with this stuff and compare how they make me feel. This stuff makes me feel pretty good, so the fresh stuff might be awesome!
love
Ela
Shannonmarie--you're too funny about the shelf-life of food longer than that of its eaters!
ReplyDeletelove
Ela