Pushing the envelope...

Pushing the envelope... what the hell does that mean and why do we say it when we are pushing ourselves to the brink...

anyhoooo

I woke up sick today... yesterday I was out and got wet. It was raining and windy and an umbrella was useless... so... soaked right through. It started with a head ache, which I blew off as either stress or from the shitty weather we are having. No... no it was the beginning of something else. This morning I woke up with a sore throat. I was suppose to be going to see King Tut. Instead I am going to be on my couch, under my quilt, praying the fever and sore throat are gone by tomorrow. Sick or not I have to go to work. Hopefully switching back to a mostly raw diet will put an end to sore throats and colds.

It is two weeks till April 1 and the beginning of the raw challenge. I have two weeks to get rid of all the cooked food in my fridge and to get myself off coffee. I am about 80% raw right now and starting tomorrow am working up to 90%. My goal is to be down to 3 cooked meals and off coffee by next weekend. Then the last week of March have my final two cooked meals. I am already gathering recipes and rereading all my raw books and in the last week of March am going to start dehydrating things like fruit, nuts, nut loaf and Larabars.

I LOVE Larabars! LOVE LOVE LOVE them, but they are way too expensive, so... I went looking for recipes and found a few. One of my goals is to not buy prepared raw food rather, make all my own. It is actually super easy to dehydrate all your own stuff, it's just the waiting part. The best way to avoid frustration is start dehydrating a few days before you run out of stuff. I don't want to have too much dehydrated food in my diet, but it is a great way to keep variety. Eating just raw veggies, fruit and nuts can get boring after a while and the occasional bit of warmth helps.

A few people have asked me if eating raw means apples and salad all the time. Absolutely NOT! You can make tonnes of raw dishes that aren't just salad, such as raw soup, desserts (raw strawberry pie!!!!!), lasagna, spaghetti, nacho's, falafels, brownies, it's endless. Though many of these dishes do take a bit of time to prep, I tend to make a bunch at a time and refrigerate it, especially things that are made in the dehydrator.

Ok, back to my juice and under the comforter....

Larabar

http://www.cleaneatingonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59:larabar-recipe&catid=39:snack-recipes&Itemid=59

http://www.recipezaar.com/Lara-Bar-Copycat-Raw-Food-347784

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2009/05/homemade_larabars.php

http://www.bradybunchmom.com/2008/03/more-raw-recipes-mango-pieapple-pie.html