Looking for Ideas for Incorporating More "Raw Foods" into Diet/meals

I applaude you for taking this step. I only wish I had the willpower to do the same. I have even written a few articles about how whole food nutrition can help prevent disease: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-Whole-Food-Nutrition-Helps-Pr...

I am not much of a cook and it's been a struggle for me since I started having children to try my very best to feed my family well. I was very happy a few years ago when I discovered Juice Plus - it's a capsule (or gummie) which is a whole food supplement made from 17 fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. I immediately became a customer and a distributor and I am a huge believer in its benefits. Dr. Sears is a huge proponent http://hubpages.com/hub/dr-sears-healthy-eating . You can read more about it at http://JPGotHealth.com

Best of luck to you! I hope some of this info helps.

I always try to include something fresh with each meal, like a banana or grapes with breakfast, a sliced apple or pear with a sandwich for lunch, and then sort of fresh (sometimes cooked. sometimes frozen, pretty much never canned) veggie for dinner, like last night was roasted brussell sprouts. I'm vegan, so my kids get a big variety of vegetables!

Cook up some quinoa or brown rice and mix in oil and vinegar and chop up your favorite veggies into it. I usually do this with quinoa and make it like a taboule with the quinoa replacing the bulgar wheat. So I can use a lot of parsley if it is available, or I'll put in carrots, celery, tomato, olives, etc.

There is a store in Cape Coral called Back to Nature and they have a specialist that teaches 'raw food' culinery classes. In our house we always have raw veggies cut up. Every lunch box gets a little bag of carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, and cherry tomatoes in our house. Kid are 'required' to eat them at school. Sunday evening is cleaning/prep time and then we're ready for the week. I also wash things like grapes, cut up melon, etc. and those go in lunches as well. It's a matter of habit I think.

I recently picked up The Sneaky Chef book at my local library, great ideas of how to puree certain foods and hide them in everyday foods, your kids will never know! Great recipes like Breakfast Ice cream! It has veggies and fruit in it! My kids loved it! If your local library doesn't have it have them request it for you, EXCELLENT book!
Good Luck mamma :)

hi J.,
we eat a lot of salads and there are lots of things you can do to make it a meal of its own. first off, you can add many things to salads that are yummy and more caloric, so that you are getting enough to fill yourselves. i add olives, nuts, feta cheese, avocado. not all together necessarily but those add heft to the food and are fatty (but still healthy) so you don't feel like you are depriving yourself. if we are only having a salad i will put marinated chicken on top. i usually marinate the breasts overnight and then i cook them while i am making the salad. i either chop them and add into the salad or slice a whole breast for each person and put it on top of their salad on the plate.

there are many salad recipes with grains that use raw veggies but it's not lettuce, it's beats or carrots and raisins and other stuff. quinoa, lentil, bulgur are all great grains for cold salads. you may want to invest in a cookbook that is specifially tailored to this topic. we eat a lot of raw fruits and we snack on veggies like baby carrots with humus, or cukes with a bit of salt. a yummy side salad that is easy to make is just cukes, tomatoes, fresh herbs (like dill) and some feta cheese. add some olive oil and lemon juice and you're done.

hope this helps, good luck, it's a worthwhile pursuit!

Hi J.,

I have been a vegan for 25 years, a conflict coach and hippocrates health educator. This training allows me to support others to make healthier choices.
You may find it helpful to attend a local raw food pot luck, to see all the variety of ways it can be used.
You can make great vegan mashed potatoes and shiitake gravy, tempeh tacos, lentil loaf,
raw desserts. I think that making your own humous and other dips, put into salad/veggie
wraps using sprouted grain wraps or dipping carrots/celery...real easy.
buying cookbooks and experimenting is helpful and taking some cooking classes.

I frequent this website alot www.whfoods.com or www.mypyramid.gov. It has helpful tools and healthy recipes and ideas.

We have a salad for dinner a few times a month and incorporate cut up chicken, steak for the "don't feel like we are missing anything" items. I then add canned garbanzo beans, peanuts, hard boiled eggs, canned (or cook yourself) pinto beans or navy beans, and cheese which are all full of protein, and give the salad a rounder taste and fill us quite good. My husband is a huge meat eater, and a plate of salad with all the goodies fills even him up. I don't make one whole salad, I put lettuce on the plates, then all the fixins' in separate bowls and then you can pick and choose what you want on it. That way if you want to go healthier you choose what you want on your own salad and the rest in your family can go healthier a little at a time. I hope this helps. Side note: my girlfriend has gone completely raw and they drink a lot of shakes made of raw fruits and veggies. I can give you her e-mail address if you want more info. on that.

In my opinion, eating fruits and vegetables is very important, but making sure they are raw is less important. Some vegetables (I can think of carrots off the top of my head) are actually more nutritious when cooked.

You might want to try the South Beach diet cookbooks. I am not a diet person. Period. But they have some yummy recipes that are mainly vegetables. One of my favorites is spaghetti squash (cook the squash and remove the "meat" and serve with cooked tomatoes, onions, and zucchini). It's sort of like spaghetti, but there is nothing in it but veggies. I have cooked this for lots of people and it's always well-received.

I also try to put fruits and veggies in everything. I made pancakes this morning with grated apple. I put zucchini in lots of things because it's moist and doesn't change the flavor too much. Even if I cook macaroni and cheese, I mix in cooked broccoli and put tomatoes on top.

I make sure every meal has some fat to keep everyone satisfied (but it doesn't have to meat or cheese, it can be something like olive oil). There was a study done ages ago that tested people's blood after eating vegetables, and they found that more nutrients were absorbed by the body when they ate them will full-fat dressing instead of fat-free. So it's important to keep fat in your diet, just in moderation.

Good luck! This can be a good move for your kids for life. I credit my good eating habits to the way my parents raised me!

What helps me to eat healthy is my daughter! We eat pretty much the same things.... she loves green pepper ( well all peppers) and ants on a log (celery, peanut butter and craisins) carrots... sometimes we have a meal of just that! oh and raw corn on the cob is sweeter and juicier that cooked w/out any butter!! I love V8 Splash (fruit and veg juice) although that Juice + that the other moms mentioned sounds interesting.

Dear J.,

We are SO on the same page! This is so exciting and it is such a joy to see that what we have in our JuicePlus+ core nutrition addresses your concerns as it perfectly bridges the gap between what we should eat and what we do eat.
Of course it is still important that we do exactly what you are suggesting which is transition to a plant based diet.

I invite you to check out my website
http://www.juiceplus.com/+ck49780

Best in health,
C.

PS. It would be my pleasure to meet with you to share more about my passion which is clearly becoming yours!

Healthy foods to our kids from sneaky moms...
CARROT BALLS FOR KIDS
1 (3 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. finely shredded Cheddar cheese
1 tbsp. apple juice concentrate
1 c. finely grated carrots
1/2 c. finely chopped nuts or wheat germ
Cream together first 3 ingredients; stir in carrots. Roll into small balls. Allow kids to roll in nuts or wheat germ

• Core an apple and stuff the inside with peanut butter. Top with raisins, nuts, sunflower seeds or toasted coconut. The filling will keep the cut apple from turning brown.
• Cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, or spread bread with cream cheese and top with dried fruits like raisins, apples or apricots.
• Mash a banana together with cream cheese and top with fresh apple, pineapple or peach slices.
• Pack fresh fruit with yogurt dip.
• Make fancy sandwiches by cutting shapes out of the bread with a cookie cutter (use the crusts and scraps to make breadcrumbs or croutons). Kids love the novelty and will be more likely to finish their lunch.
Tiny boxes of raisins

Pair vegetables, grains and protein-rich foods
• Cut, fresh vegetables, cheese cubes and whole-grain crackers
• Hummus with pita wedges and vegetables for dipping
• Hard-cooked egg and whole-grain roll.

Serve leftovers - Many leftovers taste great served cold!
• Cold spaghetti
• Chicken pieces
• Baked ziti or other casseroles
• Pizza slices

Send soup or chili in a thermos
• Add a small bag of shredded cheese to sprinkle on top

Make it yogurt
• Yogurt in a tube or drinkable yogurt with a muffin and fruit
• A carton of yogurt with low-fat granola and fruit to mix in
• A smoothie in a thermos along with a banana and graham crackers

• As a rule-of-thumb, make sure lunches include at least three of MyPyramid's Five Food Groups.
• Consider likes and dislikes. Have your children help you create a list of foods they like for lunch. Take them to the grocery store and ask for lunch box suggestions
shared with other moms:

J.,

I can understand that you don't want to go vegan or vegetarian, we are meat-eaters ourselves - but my best suggestion is to use those way of eating as a guide to help you eat raw foods. We use cookbooks from Vegetarian Times as a way to incorporate more whole foods in our diet and less meat. It gives ideas and inspiration.

Here are a couple of suggestions since you are doing this gradually:
start with a smoothie in the morning instead of processed cereal
try eating cut up veggies with hummus or another bean dip
make musseili for dessert
make a side of mixed raw veggies with a meal.

Tahini Blueberry Blender Ice Cream (Raw Food)
http://www.recipezaar.com/Tahini-Blueberry-Blender-Ice-Cr...

Cranberry Orange Smoothie (Raw Food)
http://www.recipezaar.com/Cranberry-Orange-Smoothie-Raw-F...

Jicama "fries" (Raw Food)
http://www.recipezaar.com/Jicama-fries-Raw-Food-328064

I didn't make this menu, but looked it up for you:
http://www.recipezaar.com/menu/view.php?menuid=25115

Just remember to incorporate something like this once a day and it will become another habit :)

Good luck!

Personally, I cannot digest raw. I have to cook my veggies. Depending on the ages of your children, I would suggest cooking the veggies first.
Also, Smoothies are delicious, using fresh fruit and apple juice, also freezing them into popsicles, which kids enjoy.

Hi, J.. Sounds you and I are facing a similar challenge. I second the smoothie idea, but you can add in spinach and kale, raw cashews or almonds, and use almond milk instead of cow's milk The greens are completely masked by the fruit, especially if you use fruits like pineapple and mango. You can also add in omega oils--the benefits of which are innumerable. Try a tempeh or just a black bean chili. It's tasty and goes a long way. Also, peppers, onions, tofu, edamame with a peanut sauce--peanut butter, soy sauce, coconut milk, green onion, ginger, chili pepper paste or red pepper flakes, and maybe a little raw sugar to taste. Also, I make a bastardized African stew type of thing, with sweet potatoes, eggplant, peppers, onions, spinach, even broccoli if I have it (basically, whatever's in the house), garlic, cardamom, garam masala, clove, salt, pepper, coconut milk, served over brown rice, or jasmine. If you're feeling non-vegan, shrimp makes a great addition. Good luck.

Hi J.,
There are tons of raw food cookbooks. One that comes to mind is called Raw. You may want to just go to the bookstore and look at a copy and see if it looks like food your family would enjoy.Lots of main dish ideas. My two year old and husband do not eat meat, so mealtime is always a challenge in our house!

Not sure if you are near the Tampa area, but you may want to consider joining a CSA. Sweetwater Organic Community Farm is also a great resource.

Good luck and good eating!

Danielle

A couple of my favorites are veggie pizza and veggies and dip..

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Well, I'm going to talk about cooked vegetables instead of raw ones, if that's ok. We eat a lot of vegetables at dinner time, and a lot of fruits for snack. I will get a pack of curry sauce and a can of coconut milk (lite or regular), and instead of strictly following the guidelines on the pack, I add a ton of vegetables instead. Usually I try for a 4:1 or a 5:1 ratio of vegetables to meat. So you put in two tablespoons of olive oil, heat it a bit, add a pound of meat, lightly brown it, add a pack or almost a pack of baby-cut carrots (no prep time for you and almost a pound of veggies right there), then say a couple of peppers (I like orange or red or yellow but they are more expensive), a couple of stalks of broccoli, and you have about a 4:1 ratio of veggies to meat right there. Add your coconut milk and curry, two or three minutes and you're done. Make some rice on the side and you have a good one-dish meal that's balanced and not too fatty. Lite coconut milk won't give you the thick sauce that I prefer but it's healthier. You can do the same with Indian food using a jar of Patak's prepared sauce. I usually add so many veggies that I need to add water to the sauce, but that's fine too.
To make salads easier I get whatever bagged salad is on sale and add a few walnuts and some dried cranberries to it. It's the way for us to eat a salad with every meal.
Really the training starts at the grocery store. Buy fruit you like and then put that in lunches along with sandwiches. Don't buy cookies or crackers as snacks. Use them sparingly as treats. Meat is fine if you aren't eating too much of it, and in the stir-fry meals you won't miss it if you still get full from plenty of vegetables. Cooked vegetables are just as healthy, and in some instances more so, than raw vegetables, and to my mind they are easier to incorporate because that's how I cook. It's all a matter of proportion. If you make casseroles just add veggies and reduce the amount of meat. If you make roasts then throw a bunch of root vegetables in there.
Since my husband and I both work I have to go for the quick and easy cooking, since we have two kids and neither one of us gets home before 6. At least once a week I do salmon with succotash and use frozen succotash. Quick and easy!

In the freezer section of the grocery - you can get "veggie" burgers, ground meat, chicken etc. We sub these in every so often. There are lots of brands - Morning star Farms, Boca, and others. I use the "crumbles" in pasta, chili, & tacos. I make the "burgers" - they are best in a pan on the stove, on whole wheat buns, same with the "chicken patties" - on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomato, and with or without cheese, but the "chicken patties" are better in the cooked in the oven. We always have veggies of some sort on the side. I know that's not raw - but it may satisfy your craving for "meat" without actually having meat. Another veggie dish that I like alot - is to take a baked potato - put a little butter in it, add fat free plain yogurt, and then steamed mixed vegetables. So yummy, and filling! Raw almonds are great on salad too!Good luck!