The One Month RAW Challenge

[Bogi]

I'm having my first salad at this moment...Heavenly!

[mtmouse]

Sounds great!

I moved on to watermelon and banana this afternoon too. So far so good.

[TeePee]

Oh you girls!! I'm so jealous! Of all my cleanses - about 7-10 maybe..I have never gone longer than 17 days. I would love to do these long cleanses like you. I think once I'm done teaching in June, I'll start one up and see how long I can do!!


Sounds like you guys are doing great!!!! Dad in hospital and I have fallen into some "comfort foods" unfortunately. I am trying to get back into my mind set of "feeding my body" not "feeding my emotions".

I have been reading about Justin's 100 day juice fast on WE LIKE IT RAW. His story is amazing!!

[Bogi]

Kathy, I had water melon, too after gym. I also ate a very few almonds and goji berries (really tasty together). My stomach absolutely fine., it seems 2.5 days was enough to break my fast. I will keep it light over the weekend, but I'm planning to prepare some crackers and "amazing almonds" for next week. Happy to eat again!

Rain how is it going to you?

TeePee, I met a raw food enthusiast last month who was doing a 104 day altered MC with lemonade/coconut water during the day and raw veggie soup at tyhe evening. He was on day 94 when I met him, was holding a 2 hour lecture and radiated so much energy it was truly amazing! If I wouldn't like to eat so much I tried it, too!

[Meedis]

I just ate my first homemade soup since breaking the cleanse Wednesday. It's an hour later and I'm feeling pretty good. I'm about to take a probiotic in another hour or so. I have a road trip tomorrow morning to look forward to... I'll have to do my best not to eat too crazy while away.

When I get back in town, I think I'll definitely make another Raw Apple Pie. Granny Smith apples are definitely the best brand to make it with. Yum...can't wait for next week.

[mtmouse]

Bogi,

Well, it seems I may be on your schedule, too!

I stuck to my juice this morning. Early in the afternoon I had another "fury" episode. Or at least, I got very irritated for really very little reason. After that I ate regular watermelon (which I'd been putting in my juice unfiltered anyway, so it didn't seem it was any different from eating it) and some sliced bananas. It all seemed to sit just fine.

Then later this afternoon I decided to put in a batch of my red dragon crackers. Oh man, that smelled so wonderful I felt like eating the batter right then and there! I think that did tip me over, because then I had some carrots with a teeny bit of my macadamia nut cheese (which was divine). And then a few cashews!

At that point I pulled myself back and will stick to fruit for the rest of the evening. I'm not having any stomach issues and I feel fine, but I do think I should slow down here.

[rain]

I've had a busy past few days, buying food (not that I'm complaining...it's been fun! ). Both days, it took way longer that I'd anticipated and I've come home in the evenings with my pack stuffed with food (better it than me! ) and plastic bags of food hanging from the handlebars of my bicycle. It takes longer when I have to get around by bus and bicycle and have certain stores I like to go to for certain things and my kitchen was low on supplies.

Oh Kathy, I'm so glad you were able to pull yourself back after those few nibbles of carrots and nuts! I remember reading a post in the past written by someone who ate a bunch of cashews within the first few days following their long cleanse and was in agony from the distended belly and lump of nuts just sitting there. It made quite an impression on me. I bought a small bag of cashews today that I "hide" from myself (now if I could only forget where they are till I use them in a recipe. LOL!).

I don't think I could handle living with the smell of my favourite crackers dehydrating when it's too soon for me to be able to sample them. And then having an emotional storm at the same time? Oh, boy!! Can you put them (partially dehydrated) back in the fridge for a few days?

I've been doing really well, Bogi! Other than eating a few tiny samples of some raw flax crackers at a store today and tasting a few tiny pieces of Matt's onion crackers this evening (yummy, but i was fine with not having more), I'm still eating only whole fruits: oranges, bananas, pineapple, watermelon, and a delicious (!!!) cantaloupe I found today that I now want to get more of (I only bought a small one because usually, when I buy cantaloupes, they have little taste). But I don't want to take the time to go alllll the way back to that store untill near the end of next week. Until a few hours ago, I'd eaten only 4 large oranges so far today, and I didn't feel hungry. Then I got home and made myself a fruit salad with 4-5 pieces of fruit (orange, banana, pineapple, and cantaloupe). That was so yummy and I wanted more, so I had another one with 4 more pieces of fruit (plus several glasses of water to make up for not drinking much earlier), Then I felt satiated. It's been interesting to discover how satiating fruit can be. I've had a fear of eating as much fruit as I'm eating right now (about 12-15 pieces per day) because i feel terrible when I eat sugar. But I don't feel like that at all! So much for some more of the myths I've been fed about food. It felt like i came off the cleanse beyond the point of needing more sustenance than I was getting, and fruit has been giving me that. I have more energy and the hunger and cravings I'd been experiencing on the last days of my cleanse are gone (and, when I am hungry, eating fruit satisfies me). This is so different from the intense hunger I experienced when I came off my 10-day cleanses. Kathy, I was thinking about what you said yesterday that's similar to this, and that doing a long cleanse (with the sense of calm and peace that can come) has had that unique benefit. But other people lose control over their eating when they come off a long cleanse...

I'm making a cooked soup tomorrow because I miss hot soup (especially coming off the cleanse, when I'm still cold) and I was drinking MS everyday anyway, which isn't raw. I'm going to cook it as little as possible and this is the only time I'll make it. But it will be a large enough batch that I'll be eating it for a few days. yum!

TeePee, I'm sorry to hear about your Dad and your temporary setback with food. You'll come around again, because you know how good raw feels. And I hope you get that good long cleanse this summer!

Bogi, thanks for finding that Just like Ritz Crackers recipe. I'm going to paste it into the Lemonhead Recipe Box, in case the link changes in the future. I said before that it turns out crumbly, but they weren't so crumbly that they fell apart too easily. It made them tender, kind of like shortbread. Maybe it's the oil in the walnuts that makes them like that. I found the Everyone's Favourite Crackers recipe have a similar texture, and I like that they also have almonds and sunflower seeds in them (easier to find raw and more nutritious, I think, plus less expensive).

Oh great, I just found the One Lucky Duck cracker recipe you posted a few weeks ago. Yum, a sweet cocoa or carob cracker. Gotta try that. (I hope it'll work with honey and stevia instead of agave.) Thanks!

[mtmouse]

Hi rain,

Sounds like you're doing great! I hardly slept at all last night, with the smell of my drying crackers permeating the house, but feel fine now. (It's probably too late to put them away, but I do consider it a mistake I don't intend to make again.) I woke up with a little abdominal distress, but that soon passed with a very large elimination, so I am much more comfortable now. (That was my second elimination--I actually started back "regular" yesterday, which surprised me.)

The surprising thing last night was a strong aversion to either fruit juice OR water. Not sure exactly what that's about. I still have a bunch of oranges and grapefruits, and the easiest way to eat them would be as juice. This morning I'm going to take yesterday's juice and make a green smoothie, and I might do that with the rest, too. I'll eat the oranges fresh, but these were organic grapefruits, and they are sour!

I like the idea of a fruit salad too. Yesterday I only combined two things at once, but I'd like a little more variety.

But I've been lusting now for three days over a bagel-lox-cream cheese sandwich! Every time I get the idea, I ask myself questions. Do I want the bagel toasted or soft? Do I want as much cream cheese as they'd serve me in the store? How much lox would I put on it? And every time I realize the sandwich would not taste the way I'm imagining it--whatever I'm imagining those foods to be, they aren't. It's odd.

And yeah, I don't think the lessons from the MC can be codified. We each come to it at different times from different places. So we can't count on getting to a "calm" place, but just have to do what we do and take what we get, each time. I'm still really happy with my results from this one.

[Bogi]

Ladies, I have an annoucement to make. While I'm typng this messages I'm sitting in my SIZE 4 SKINNY JEANS!!!!! SHOOBY-DOOBY DOOOOO!!!!!
(I don't know how I did that, I haven't lost, not gained (!!! ) any weight since finishing the MC, but it seems working out pays off! So I don't even worry about the little bulging thingy arond my waist, it will come off,too pretty soon!

Rain, I haven't posted one lucky duck recipes yet, I only have their macaroon recipes. I need to find the recipes of their cheese and rosemary crackers, those are really good! I also want to come up with a plain, crumbly, salty cracker what I can use to season with caraway seeds and nutritional yeast. I want to create some europen style salty tea cookies. I miss those!

I'm going to to do my first serious grocery shopping and fill up my fridge with goodies. Later, ladies!

[mtmouse]

Congratulations, Bogi! That's wonderful!

I've just finished putting a batch of Just like Ritz Crackers in the dehydrator. They sure do taste good! I used brown flax because that's what I had (and I never pay more for looks just for myself, LOL). But I can tell already they're going to be good.

I'm pretty impressed with hemp seeds, too. I'd never even heard of them until I bought Raw Food Real World, and as I said above I just found them at my health food store. I've only just tasted them, of course, but they have a wonderful flavor.

I just noticed, Raw Food Real World's Walnut-Hemp Cracker recipe is the exact same one as our Ritz one! They say they are rich in vitamin E and in omega-3 fatty acids.