Raw Pudding!!

I used the Chocolate Pudding Recipe from Sarma Melngailis' uncookbook Raw Food Real World. This is the second time I have made the recipe and my boyfriend and I love it when we feel like devouring something sweet/chocolatey. This time I made it with banana and strawberries. I also added a little bit of coconut flour and less coconut water to make it thicker. The first time I made it, it was a little too runny for a pudding texture.

I do not own a meat cleaver- which is what is used to open the young Thai coconuts. However, the hatchet I got for my boyfriend for Christmas works great!

This recipe is delicious and fast! (minus the time it takes to open the coconuts and scoop out the meat)

"Think about how all that cooked grease so stubbornly sticks to the pans.What does it do to the inside of your body?" ~ Sarma Melngailis

Monster Raw Nutrients Salad

This is the recipe for the salad I have been eating every night this week for dinner. Not only am I getting enough iron, but its ingredients supply the essential B vitamins, protein, nutrients from sea vegetables to protect the thyroid, and it tastes great! :-)

Monster Raw Nutrients Salad
Kale,
Mixed Greens,
Carrots-chopped,
Red Cabbage, lots of it for color and crunch!
Sprouted Radish, Chickpeas, and green peas,
Tomato,
Nutritional Yeast Flakes,
Kelp, sprinkled,
Shelled Hemp Seed,
Sunflower seed,
Fresh Dill,
Fresh Cilantro
Flaxseed Oil

Dressing: Green Goddess Dressing (WholeFoods.com recipe) *Note: This dressing is not completely Raw because it requires soft tofu to thicken, but it is absolutely delicious with its ingredients avocado, oil, lime, celtic sea salt, and green onion. It is a VEGAN recipe and I added cilantro for that extra flavor. It tastes great on the salad recipe I have provided and it works great for dipping veggies too because of its thick texture!!

Peace & Love,

Virginia Lilly

Trouble with Staying Raw when Traveling

After this weekend, I realized how hard it is to travel and stay Raw Vegan. I traveled to my birth home for a family get-together for my grandpa’s 80^th birthday (whoohooo!!) The members of my family are BIG meat eaters so much of the meal is focused on the meat rather than the sides of vegetables. The way I maintain a Raw Diet comes from my excitement about the nutrition of my food choices. However, when eating in a group family dining setting, there are not many selections that pertain to my diet and eating only fruit for dinner is very difficult when everyone is loading their plates high with all the cooked food selections. I found it very tempting to eat the eggs but I beat the temptation, however I did give into the breakfast bread. The setting of the traditional family dining, where we all gather around the table, shook my Raw Diet. At the table, I was the minority because of my preferences of food and it was easier for me to follow my cravings and eat food that I would not normally eat in my own home. How could I deny having my grandpa’s birthday cake? I wanted to take part in group family activities, and I conformed my eating so I could take part.
And now that I am back at home and eating Raw Vegan, I am still having trouble! After my large dinner salad of a variety of colorful vegetables, kale, and other leafy greens, I craved sugar after my meal- probably from eating birthday cake after meals two nights in a row! So I made myself of bowl of mint ice cream and while I ate it, I felt good inside and I came to realize that family tradition is comforting to me. I missed my family and eating the ice cream brought me back to that memory of us all sharing cake and ice cream. Food is a powerful substance when connected to emotions. I know that if I maintained my Raw Vegan Diet this weekend, I would have been showing lack of respect for the effort it took my family to pick out, purchase, and cook the meals.
I could have said no to the cake, right? But I did not want to feel left out from family tradition and being a part of everything right then and there, meant more than eating for optimal health.


Aside from the difficulty maintaining the raw diet at a family gathering, traveling in general makes it difficult as well. Airports usually have fruit on the go, but many of the salads are loaded with chicken or cheeses. Also, there are thousands of fast food restaurants conveniently on the side of the highway, but wheres the organic diner when you need it!?! Then, once you made it to your destination, the city may be foreign to you which causes difficulty in finding the healthier restaurants. This is something to be aware of when traveling because you want to keep your immune system strong, but with less choices of food, you don’t always end up getting the foods high in vitamins that you need as a Raw Vegan. This is a topic I will revisit and ponder over until I can get down a method. But for now, I will focus on regrouping my thoughts so I can mentally prepare myself to restart eating for health AND do my best to shake out the sugar cravings!!

Sto Lat, Dzia Dzia!                      (happy birthday, Grandpa! in Polish)
Virginia Lilly

First Entry- writing for positive awareness

3/16/11

I created this blog to help me maintain a VEGAN RAW and LIVING foods lifestyle. I have been a vegetarian for about 4 years and now I have been trying to improve my eating habits further by eating raw and living foods. It has been a huge transition for me to go from Vegetarian to not only Vegan but Raw and somewhat Living. At first it was not so difficult since I was reading some inspiring books including The Raw Food Lifestyle by Ruthann Russo, and a couple cookbooks by Ann Wigmore, Sarma Melngailis, and Wendy Rudell. But now the "honeymoon stage" has past and I am suffering withdrawals from the SAD-CRAP diet (Standard American Diet- Carbohydrates Refined And Processed). I decided to detoxify by fasting for three days. I only lasted 1 day and broke down and ate some kale and young thai coconut juice. However the next couple of days I could not stop stuffing my face with chocolate and chips. I read that it is good to keep a journal to help change a lifestyle so I am starting this blog to write down my excitement from trying new recipes, foods that work for me, struggles and breakdowns, as well as spiritual aspects that intertwine with the lifestyle for me.
I know most of us struggle with our eating habits and we consciously feel bad about ourselves and our bodies when we don’t eat mindfully. I hope this blog will be helpful to people who are on the same path as me, for inspiration and guidance. I want people to know that they are not alone when dealing with the struggles of saying no to all the fast food, refined junk and sugars that our society produces and calls “food.” Majority of Americans have grown up eating the SAD diet and we think it’s normal because everyone around us eats it, which tempts us even more when we are trying to abstain and create a new path. Believe in yourself and know that we make mistakes, but it is how we rebound from those mistakes that can set our minds to strive even harder to make ourselves better.

Peace and Love,
Virginia Lilly