Tonight was my first attempt to eat raw at a non raw restaurant. I picked my favourite vegetarian restaurant and called in the afternoon to make sure there would be something on the menu I could eat. They said it was fine. When we got there they weren’t overly accommodating and said they actually would have needed at least 24 hours to be able to make something, but they could do a basic salad – lettuce, tomato, green capsicum, walnuts. Luckily my friend had raw cashew salad dressing in her handbag (don’t ask) so we were able to give it some flavour love. My friends ordered amazing looking vegetarian dishes – lots of roast veg, sweet potato cake, stuffed fennel bulb with lentils, mushrooms and blue cheese….you get the picture. I can’t be at all judgemental about the restaurant because no where do they say they can cater for rawists. (wow, just kinda called myself a rawist, shitz gettin’ real) but it was definitely the toughest night so far – I could have easily smashed some of that yummy veggie food.
It is a Saturday night tonight, I’m heading out for drinks (red wine) with friends. It’s great that I can join in for a drink but I am finding there are limited letting-your-hair-down-opportunities on a raw food diet. Just knowing that you can’t go to the bar to get a coffee or a Coke if you are feeling tired, or a kebab on the way home makes the whole prospect a little less appealing.
Today I watched Knives over Forks – really interesting documentary about how a substantial amount of degenerative diseases can be treated with a whole food plant based diet. It is definitely a controversial subject but they make a lot of sense in the documentary and I highly recommend checking it out. Link below to more info on the film.
Breakfast:
— Green smoothie: fresh coconut water, banana, pear, spinach, lime, a dash of cacao and chia seeds. I only added a tiny bit of cacao but the whole drink tasted really chocolatey – which was kinda odd when it was so green!
Lunch:
— Pimped leftover salad with pizza
Dinner:
— Salad with cashew dressing
Snacks:
— Green smoothie of the day #2: honeydew melon, mango, kiwi, kale and mint
— Dried fruit and nuts
— Tamarind
Good! I woke up feeling a little groggy, but if didn’t last long. I felt pretty good all day, even better after an afternoon run, then a little flat at dinner.
Nifty little chart here to help you work out bad, better and best options for all sorts of things – sugar, coffee, spreads etc.
Forks over knives – quote from their site: feature film Forks Over Knives examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.
Tamarind is a sweet, slightly tangy fruit originally from Africa. Really interesting taste and worth a try!