Quick advice on going raw, repurposed from an email to a friend
A friend of mine emailed me to say that she's thinking about going raw for a bit and wondered if I had any advice. I'm sure I have way more than I could write up in an email, but I thought of a few tips off the top of my head and thought I'd share them here too, in case anyone else is looking for this sort of guidance.
- Start where you are. You really don't need a whole bunch of expensive equipment. If you have a food processor, you can make hummus and other dips and spreads. If you have even a cheap blender, you can do smoothies. It's a little tougher to do green smoothies, but you can use baby spinach or other tender greens and a cheap blender should be able to tear through that fine. A dehydrator is fantastic but not strictly necessary, especially in the summer when you have so much seasonal produce to make into salads and smoothies and just eat by itself.
- Focus on what you really enjoy. Cherries are in season right now and when I munch on those in the evening I couldn't possibly imagine wanting to eat processed snacks.
- Find a few easy recipes that you love. Mine is a "roasted" red pepper hummus recipe modified from one in Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw. I make a big batch of that every weekend and I eat hummus with carrot sticks almost every day. It's my standby.
- Be prepared with a raw snack wherever you go. It's easy to get hungry and give in to the temptation of what's available when you don't have a better alternative. But if you carry a raw bar or two (Larabar or Raw Revolution, for example), or some dried fruit or trail mix, you'll always have an ideal option to tide you over until you can have something optimally nutritious.
In short, it's about doing what makes you feel healthiest, and the only way to get there is to pay close attention to your body. Since going raw, I've been more aware of nuanced signals my body makes about what's going well and what isn't than I ever was before. Fine-tuning is easy, and I can usually feel the effects of slight adjustments within hours or a day or two. Bonus? I haven't been sick in three months, whereas for quite a while, I was sick at least a day or two about every other week.
I'd never claim that going raw is for everyone, but I do think everyone can benefit from eating more raw food. For me, just about 100% works best. The relative amount that works best for you is up to you to determine. Good luck!
