Posts Tagged ‘Pasta’

Live Foods to Energize Your Life!

August 1st, 2010

When it comes to eating for energy, you may at times find yourself falling into familiar routines that become, well, dull. You might start off eating exotic and interesting fruits and vegetables until you discover your very favorite one; at which point, you begin to settle your habits around your new comfort foods, and lose the thrill of discovery in favor of convenience and habit.

But have faith, all of you who have found yourself in a dreary (but still better than cooked!) existance – there are still new foods out there for you to try. All it takes to break out of those raw food doldrums is a trip to your favorite alternative supermarket or local farmer’s market.

For instance, you might find yourself missing regular old pasta, or getting bored with the zucchini alternative, thinly slicing the fruit into long, pasta-like strands for your raw tomato sauces. But there are other options, like kelp noodles, that will give you your pasta fix and help you to discover new flavors.

Kelp noodles are made, of course, from kelp – an abundantly available plant in the oceans, sometimes called seaweed. But there is nothing weedy about this great plant, which can be reduced down to a noodle that requires no cooking before you eat it. Kelp is also low in calories, assumes the flavors of whatever sauces you partner it with, and is perfect for people with gluten allergies or those who want to avoid adding additional carbs to their diets.

Another area where raw food enthusiasts might find themselves lacking is in the sweets department. Gone are the processed sugars; in fact, some people will even avoid honey, depending on the method of it’s preparation. That doesn’t leave you with many options with which to sweeten your foods, but agave nectar can be a great solution for raw eaters. This thick liquid is often compared to maple syrup or molasses, but can be purchased raw. It comes from the agave cactus, which is also used to create tequila. It also contains many more nutrients, vitamins and minerals than sugar could ever hope to hold!

Last but not least, many raw food eaters have shied away from certain kinds of nuts, due to the way that many nuts are processed in certain countries. California, for example, uses a fast pasteurization process on all almonds, rendering them, by most standards, cooked. This kills off many of the key benefits of the almond, and leave a lot of raw food people to look elsewhere for their fiber. But if you search enough, you can find truly raw almonds. Spain, for one, does not subject their almonds to these cooking processes, so a Spanish almond should be safe for your raw diet, and beneficial to your body the way it was intended to be. The key with almonds, and indeed all nuts, is to carefully read the labels, or ask your grocer. With the proper research, you can find nuts that are truly raw, instead of simply being “not roasted”.

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Posted in Food For Thought

Tags: agave almonds kelp Pasta raw food variety

The Effect of Wheat on Fat Around the Stomach

April 29th, 2010

The old school method of preparing for some big athletic endeavor, such as a marathon or an important sports game, was to do what is called a carbo-load. That usually meant a huge, steaming plate of spaghetti the night before, to make sure that a ton of carbohydrates were available to the body as fuel for when the going got tough. Of course, it had the added benefit of tasting really good, and being incredibly easy to make. But while good carbs are a very important type of fuel for the body, is all of that glutinous wheat really the best delivery system for it?

If you are starting a raw food diet, you will have cut out a lot of the wheat products that you might have grown up with – pastas, breads and the like. For many people, these are some of the most difficult things to change within a diet. They taste good, and they do a remarkable job of filling your stomach. But that is not all they do to your stomach area.

The sugars, starches and carbs found in wheat products can quickly convert to fat if not used immediately, and more often than not, that fat will accumulate around your midsection.

If you are wondering how to eat a raw diet – a great way to avoid those fatty wheat products – but still get your noodle cravings taken care of, never fear. There is raw food help available to get you the carbs you crave, and the pasta you love, without resorting to masses of cooked wheat noodles.

The starches that wheat contains as a carbohydrate can be found in many rawly consumable foods, such as high-starch vegetables like squashes. You can also get your wheat-like carbs from other veggies like carrots and cauliflower, or from legumes like peanuts. Unlike wheat, these carbs can be eaten raw, and will contribute less to your spare tire, and more to your body’s fuel requirements.

But if is the pasta part of wheat that you really crave, fear not. There is even a healthy, raw alternative to your favorite spaghetti.

Of course, the sauce is simple enough, using fresh tomatoes, basil, and a few spices to flavor. Blend these in your food processor to the consistency you prefer, and use immediately – no cooking time required. For the noodles, a great alternative to wheat pasta is raw zucchini noodles. Again, you won’t have to cook these noodles – you simply take a good sized zucchini, and with your usual vegetable peeler, begin stripping off noodle-sized strips. You can simply eat the pasta as is, or you can add a touch of cold-pressed olive oil over the top for an even more authentic texture.

The important thing to remember is that you do not have to resort to sticky, sugary and fattening wheat starches in order to get the carbohydrates that your body requires. Eating a raw diet will offer you plenty of new and interesting foods with a high carb count, without adding fat to your midsection.

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Posted in Food For Thought, Weight Loss

Tags: carbo loading carbohydrates carbs fat Pasta raw food raw food diet spaghetti weight gain Weight Loss Wheat Zucchini

Transition to a Raw Food Diet

April 20th, 2010

Starting a raw food diet can be a daunting task. It is not simply a quick change in the way you prepare food, but a whole new way of looking at the fuels you put into your body.

It is a lifestyle change, and as such, it is going to require some work on your part in order to make the transition as successful as possible. If you invest the time and effort in these early stages, you will be paving your own way towards a healthier and happier life as a raw eater. It is often said that the lazy man works double – once to do things the easiest way possible, and once again to go back and correct all of his mistakes.

You will probably start by wondering exactly how to eat a raw diet. Unless you have recently moved, or are willing to go through your cupboards and pantry and throw out or donate everything within, you are likely going to be left with some items that simply cannot be eaten raw. Boxes of pasta, loaves of bread, and some meats like pork and chicken just have to be cooked (or already are).

A successful transition, however, does not require you to simply toss this all to the side and start anew. Cold turkey might work for some smokers, but new raw eaters might eventually crave hot turkey if they just try to switch too abruptly.

And of course, there is the financial aspect to consider in restocking your entire kitchen. Instead, a better way to transition to a raw foods diet is to do just that – transition. Use what you have, but augment every meal with at least one raw item. Do this until you are used to it, then up the raw and thin out the cooked.

If you continue this plan of attack until your supplies of cookable food are exhausted, you will find that you have an easier time adapting to your new plans, and fewer cravings for your old cooked favorites.

If you need more raw food help, there are plenty of places to turn. Go to your local holistic or organic grocery store – you will find plenty of great ingredients to ignite your imagination, and the staff there will be able to offer suggestions for new meals. Look online for blogs, articles and web sites dedicated to raw food meal plans, run by uncooked aficionados.

The biggest thing to remember when transitioning from a traditional North American diet to a raw foods diet is that not everything needs to be done in one step. Rome was not built in a day, and neither should your all-raw meal plan.

Put in the time now, and you will find that, once your cupboard is bare of cookable food, you will have no problems stocking it with great raw alternatives, without missing a beat.

And if you ever find yourself tempted to go back, just stop and think for a few minutes before you eat, and remember that for every cooked and dead food item out there, there is a similar raw option.

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Posted in Raw Foods

Tags: Cold Turkey cravings Cupboards Daunting Task diet Financial Aspect Grocery Store Holistic Hot Turkey Imagination Lazy Man Lifestyle Change Organic Grocery Pantry Pasta Plan Of Attack raw diet raw food raw food diet Raw Foods Diet Smokers Staf Transition

Benefits of Eating More Raw Foods

April 5th, 2010

There are plenty of very good reasons to make the switch to a higher concentration of raw foods in your diet. Ideally, of course, you would make the switch to an all-raw diet if eating for energy was your main priority in life. However, sometimes life gets in the way of your ideal eating goals.

But when you feel yourself wavering between a healthy raw option and that processed chocolate bar at snack time, here’s a few thoughts you can review in your mind to remind yourself of why you chose to eat more raw foods in the first place.

Raw foods take less preparation time. Sure, it might not seem like it at time, but overall, a raw diet means you spend a lot less time in the kitchen, and a lot more time out enjoying your life. No longer will you have to baste roasts, cook pasta, thaw turkeys, or wait for water to boil. A raw diet means, at most, you have to put something in the dehydrator overnight. Otherwise, it’s a few minutes of prep time, and straight onto the plate.

Eating raw also means less energy waste, both in your home and in your body. Cooking foods means electricity-hogging appliances like your stove are used, spilling excess heat into your home and adding big bucks to your bills.

But while eating raw means less energy used, it is also a high energy diet for you, in that the essential vitamins, nutrients and living enzymes in the food that sometimes are lost to the cooking process are instead brought into the body. You will probably notice, almost immediately after you begin eating more raw foods that you will have energy levels you haven’t felt since you were much younger. You won’t believe how tired and sluggish you used to feel, and it is that feeling of power, energy and vitality that you need to remember when you feel your will power slipping, and the lure of something cooked and unhealthy beaconing to you.

What other reasons do you need to keep yourself on the raw foods straight and narrow path? Eating for energy in its raw form means you will be taking in more fibre, which will aide in digestion and help you to feel full on less food.

Eating raw also usually means an intake of fewer calories, but more good calories. Many people try to lose weight by simply cutting calories, but in the end, their body craves the energy. Eating raw doesn’t deprive the body, it floods it with good fuel, and encourages the body to become a more high-powered and efficient machine in the process.

A diet high in raw foods will, by its very nature, have less processed sugar than the average person’s diet. But with all of the fresh fruits available, you will never have to deny your sweet tooth.

In the end, when you make the change to eat more raw foods, the biggest benefit will be the higher levels of energy, and how good overall you will feel. Can a moment on the lips replace that? Fat chance.