Raw Food – Day 3: Trying something a bit new
So the food experiment of yesterday was just a spur of the moment thing. I had nori, I had carrot and beetroot, I had spices and I wanted to try to do something a bit more complex than salad. Today’s adventures in the realm of raw food were much more planned. And as a result I suspect a bit less special. But I will leave that question to the philosophers. Read on for exciting daily numbers, pictures that may or may not make you wish to eat raw food and slightly self-indulgent thoughts on the condition of my body and mind.
Food for the day,
- 08:30: Lemon juice
- 09:15: paw paw, flax-seed oil and flax seeds
- 9:45: Green smoothie – kale, blueberries, banana
- 10:30: Green juice
- 11:00: Carrot juice and wheat grass shot
- 12:30: Large salad with avocado
- 2:30: Green juice, brazil nuts
- 4:00: Green Smoothie, spinach, blueberries, raspberries
- 5:00: Carrot and beetroot juice
- 7:00: Garden burgers with tahini “aioli” on raw crackers (see photo)
Enjoy the shots for the day. I am getting lazier with my food porn shots. I really need a better camera I suspect. That and some idea of what I am doing. The “burgers” certainly look interesting. Rather appropriately they look most like real burgers that have not been cooked :P. The Burgers where quite nice, the tahini aioli was amazing. It could have done with a touch more spice but that is easily achieved. Certainly a learning experience, next time I suspect I will do things a touch different and put up a recipe.
Totals for the day:
Calories: 2040 kcal
Calories from fat:52.7%
fat: 85g
sugar: 118g
Protein: 55.9g
Fiber: 60.9g
Stats for the day:
Morning weight: 63.5kg
Morning pH: Urine 6.9
Evening temperature: 36.9 C
Evening pulse: 76
Evening pH: Urine 7.3
General Thoughts:
Interesting that my pH went down. Not much but a little bit. Heart beat stays way up there. For a man who used to have a resting heart rate of between 50 and 60 this is very high. Also body temp of 36.9 C is crazy for me. Usually I am happy to boost that bad boy into the 35’s C (yes that is right reader, I just refered to my temperature as a “bad boy”). Several possibilities,
- The temperature indicates a body working “better”.
- I am detoxing still and the temperature is a very small fever.
- The high fat content is doing funny things with my system.
- It is non of those things and is just a result of natural fluctuations.
The diet today was very high in fat. That sort of happened without me meaning it to. I snacked on a few activated walnuts. I had the whole avocado for lunch because I got through most of it with the salad and couldn’t be bothered wrapping it up. The Burgers ended up being so good that I ate more than I was going to. In the end I guess on a raw food diet you make a choice between getting your calories from fat or getting them from sugar. And here we run into my long running issues with food. You hear so often that sugar is bad for cancer that I find I very difficult to justify eating lots of it, even when it is camouflaged amongst a large amount of green stuff within a smoothie. I dropped the number of bananas in my smoothie to one today. This is partly because I was just feeling so full after trying to finish one but it is also, I have to admit, because of my desire to reduce sugar intake.
I am feeling full still from tonight’s dinner. That is doubtless due to its higher fat content that previous dinners. I guess this is probably why they say to have non fat meals during the day and fat meals at night while on a raw diet. Hmmmm, I should get some sort of prize for insights like these. Maybe I will make one out of cardboard and pin it on my shirt. Maybe I need to get out more.
Mental condition:
Today has been interesting. I meditated more than I have for a while which was very very pleasant. I found myself in tears during one session with images of my childhood popping un-beckoned into my mind . I performed a chakra cleans from the meditation CD put out by Swami Shankarananda who’s ashram mt Martha, Victoria I spent a night at. I am not sure if it was this or reading some of his book but I felt particularly spiritual for half an hour after while sitting meditating on the sofa, and this continued while driving to Choku Bai Jo to get onions, sprouts and carrots. I suspect I have never been so in touch with my inner self while performing such a mundane task. I think the girl who served me thought my philosophical musings on the “perfect” carrot where a touch strange.
This of course lead to the excitement of dinner. I now I must admit to feeling a bit “let down” for lack of a better word. My leg is sore, I am questioning the amount of fat in my diet (50% calories from fat is a lot no matter which way you cut it) and I am feeling a touch lonely. This is not loneliness that would be solved by a pleasant night out with friends but rather a loneliness that needs something deeper. If I knew what exactly to do to fix it I would do it. Perhaps the secret is not to know but just to experience the feeling and trust that in time it will become obvious what it is there for and what I should do. I suspect that is my only option, unless one of my readers (hi mum :P) has a much greater insight than I. Or, another option, maybe if my slightly neurotic musings amassed a readership in the thousands I would feel fulfilled. Ah the questions, the endless questions. On that theme maybe I should nab my twitter account before I famous.
So tomorrow is a new day, I will endeavor to spend more time on the stool, and more energy on my spiritual journey, and less time judging what is and can not be altered.
Lifestyle Over Cancer 
Jez I am impressed with the photos, you put my food porn pics to shame, but more so with the presentation of the food. I don’t remember your meals ever looking so good. It is uncanny how much the burgers look like raw meat. What were they made of?
I don’t know if you are eating tomatoes, but they used to sell the most amazing tomatoes at Choku Bai Jo. Philosophical musings are great whether about the perfect carrot or something else. Speaking of which: ‘Today’s adventures in the realm of raw food were much more planned. And as a result I suspect a bit less special.’ – Perhaps the reason the experience felt less special is because the idea of adventure and planned are juxtaposed. Planning has the potential to remove that element of spontaneity that produces the association of an act being exciting or unusual. Usually we do not describe something that is planned as being unusual. Also the idea of something being special is intimately tied to something being adventurous, they both come into the category of the unusual. So perhaps the mind repels against planning when what it seeks is an adventure.
Of course that interpretation might be completely wrong given that it seems to conflict with the fact that you had not made raw garden burgers before, and so the creation seems adventurous.
Thanks mate. My meals never looked that good before as I was never taking pictures and putting them on the internet 😛 That being said I have got a lot of satisfaction over the last year in meal preperation and presentation. Much more so than before.
You are definatly on the right track when it comes to planning and adventure. Depending on your definition planning and adventure and not necissarily juxtaposed. For example a large multi pitch climb is definitely an adventure, however it requires a very large amount of planning. However it is difficult to say whether the “amount” of adventure would be in increased by reducing the planning, or having a problem half way up the wall and having to improvise. One suspects that a greater degree of spontinaity would lead to a greater amount of adventure. I suspect for me it is a matter of expectations. The Moroccan sushi was completely unexpected, and so when it turned out well it had been perfectly created out of nothing. However the Burgers, because they were planned existed in my mind before they existed in reality. A burger that does not exist is by definition the least perfect burger possible. Therefor any burger created in my mind, be it mediocre or even down right awefull is more perfect and therefor a harsher comparison. So, at least in the realm of food, a well thought out meal can be many things, however I suspect that it can never be as special or as adventurous as one created on a whim. Then again perhaps this is over thinking food preparation 😛
The burgers where basically chick peas, almonds, carrot pulp and a little bit of beetroot pulp (obviously in there is also lots of spices, garlic, herbs and onion). The beet obviously gives it its color. I have seen some pictures of burgers looking much more brown, I am not sure how to achieve this, however I will come up with something.
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