BigBlog

It’s too early for me to judge but I’m starting to think that the 80/10/10 diet could be the real deal.

I’ve had a dilemma with breakfast for some time now as I would always feel hunger pains soon after a breakfast of cooked brown rice or quinoa with a piece of fruit. After moving on to eating 360+ grams of fruit for breakfast I no longer have that problem.

I’m also eating fruit for lunch which feels a little strange as I used to enjoy my lunch-time salad but again a similar quantity of fruit seems to sustain me very well throughout the afternoon.

Dinner was also a dilemma for me as I had grown tired of the options of steamed veggies, stir fries and soups. Now I start dinner with some fruit followed by a green smoothie including a whole cos lettuce or 3 large silverbeet leaves with some fruit and then finish off with a salad including tomatoes, capsicums and other items.

At least that’s the plan and for the most part I am sticking to it, but I have persisted with my daily habit of soy, rice or oat milk cappuccino and anything goes when I’m out with family or friends.

I have read that when eating predominantly fruit with a big salad at night time you don’t need to drink water as you’re getting enough from what you’re eating. I’ve tested this out and it’s certainly happening for me.

In the past, I have generally woken at least a few times during the night and have had difficulties getting back to sleep. A friend suggested that I might be dehydrated so I tried drinking more water during the day and particularly before going to bed but the pattern of waking up stayed.

When I’m eating close to the 80/10/10 diet, I might wake once during the night and then easily go back to sleep. In the past week I’ve also had one night where I went to sleep at 11pm and slept through to 6.30am which I thought was brilliant.

If I stray a little too far from the diet in a given day then I’ll drink a small amount of water just to balance things out but for the most part I’m rarely reaching for a water bottle.

I thought I’d find the quantity of fruit and vegetables that I need to eat a little overwhelming but it doesn’t seem to be fazing me at the moment. That could be because I’m not sticking to it 100% as I have had some cooked chick peas, tinned salmon or steamed whiting fillets with night-time salads. In the past week I have ranged from 40% to 90% raw and for two days out of seven I have met the 80/10/10 guidelines of a minimum of 80% of total calories from simple carbohydrates such as fruit and vegetables and a maximum of 10% from fat and 10% from protein.

But I can understand why some people might have a problem with eating this way. I really felt like something different this afternoon so I cooked some brown rice and had a few tablespoons with some honey. Then I was quite happy to go back onto the program for my evening meal.

Bless Thermomix’s Rawlicious cookbook!

I was a little overwhelmed last night as I ploughed through the 180g cos lettuce along with the other ingredients of the salad I had made. So today I’ve been wondering how I can handle the need for a significant percentage of daily calories from greens under the 80/10/10 diet.

I bought some silverbeet and as I pondered how to use it, I remembered the recipe Beet my Nana Smoothie from the Rawlicious cookbook and have just made it up. I varied the recipe by using 3 silverbeet leaves and 4 small bananas and drank it down quite happily.

It looks pretty much the same as the last time I made it, but this time it has solved a problem for me.  

This is so much easier than eating a whole lettuce. It looks like I might have finally cottoned on to the idea of daily green juices!

I’ve almost finished reading the book “The 80/10/10 Diet” by Douglas Graham and have trialed the diet today by eating according to the 80% carbohydrate, 10% fat and 10% protein rule.

I like this way of eating. I’ve had a sweet tooth since I was a young child and I’m finding that I have no noticeable sweet cravings when I eat a significant amount of fruit. Who would have thought it would be so easy to fix that problem!

If there’s any downside it is the huge volume of food that needs to be eaten from fruit and vegetable groups in order to fulfill the 80% carbohydrate requirement. Fortunately it makes it easier that foods that we call vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers are actually fruits, so they and others like zucchini and squash can be eaten as often as preferred. Greens are also very important for their mineral content and I need to ensure that I have a significant amount of greens each day.

So here is what I’ve had today:-

Breakfast

5 prunes

300g pears with 105g bananas

Morning tea

Rice Milk Cappuccino

Lunch

190g pineapple, 75g tomato and 320g pears

Snack

100g bananas

Dinner

170g pineapple and 180g grapes

135g pineapple, 180g cos lettuce, 150g tomatoes and 150g capsicum

This amounts to over 2kg of food which is a phenomenal amount for me, however I must remember that this volume is replacing the bread and cooked grains, beans and chick peas that I have been eating.

I have tallied all of this on the Nutridiary web site which tells me that that the foods that I have eaten today fall within the 80/10/10 guidelines, even including the rice milk cappuccino. However, drinking the cappuccino has meant that what I have eaten today hasn’t been entirely raw.

I do wonder how I’ll go eating this way into the longer term. This week I ordered a fruit box from Food Connect rather than a combined vegetable and fruit box, and I placed additional orders for some lettuce and tomatoes. Next week I’ll do the same again and also request some celery and cucumber. But what I receive from Food Connect won’t keep me going the whole week so either I’ll need to buy extras from organic food stores or else increase the size of the fruit box. There will be heaps more food scraps going into my worm farm and I’m wondering whether it will get swamped.

But overall I feel pretty good after a day of following the 80/10/10 diet. And being 91% raw – it’s a pity about the cappuccino! It will be interesting to see if I lose interest in this daily habit of cappuccinos as I continue playing with eating this way.

I’m having lunch with friends tomorrow and will aim to have a salad but won’t be too worried about whatever I end up eating. I still consider that I’m transitioning into this way of eating and even if I adopt it as my preferred eating regime there will always be times when I lapse. However from what I’m reading, my body will let me know what it thinks about the lapse, so perhaps it won’t happen too often.

In the past months I have experienced many new things including real ginger (as compared to the dried powder variety). But it seems not all gingers are the same. Food Connect very kindly included some new season ginger and even more kindly mentioned in their newsletter that it needs to be kept in the fridge as it doesn’t have bark and so can dry out easily.

I have generally found real ginger to be quite strong and so haven’t used up a piece very quickly. But this new season ginger seems to be a bit more subtle and I’ve included some finely chopped ginger on both my lunch-time salad and my evening meal and ended up enjoying both. This isn’t at all like me as I have shied away from ginger in the past but now I seem to have found a variety that sits well with me. A web site suggests that for thousands of years, ginger has been used to aid digestion, nausea, menstrual cramps, and flu symptoms, and it's also traditionally been used to treat arthritis and heart conditions. I am really pleased about this as I’m concerned that my sore knuckles could be a precursor to arthritis.

In the same way, I’m pleased with the path that I’m on and what makes it even more comfortable is that I seem to be treading a path already taken by others, even though my path is happening much later…

In 2005, Steve Pavlina wrote about reading “The China Study” which at that time was one of the top 500 selling books at Amazon, with a 4.5 star rating. If I’m reading its current sales rank correctly then it is much lower in the list but still with its 4.5 star rating and it seems to have remained very topical as I have noticed this book mentioned often in blogs or articles that I’ve been reading lately.

One of his most telling statements was that when he ate a whole foods vegan diet (as opposed to a more junky vegan diet that includes refined or processed foods), he could eat as many calories as he wanted and not gain weight. I must remember that I can and most likely need to eat much more as I experiment with this way of eating.

Another interesting comment he made was that many people now recommend giving up dairy before giving up meat as dairy products are among the most unhealthy garbage you could possibly want to put in your body. I’m now 3 days into giving up dairy as I’m no longer drinking cow’s milk cappuccinos and it has been some time since I brought a carton of cow’s milk into my home. It’s too soon to know how well this is working out but I’ll have a better idea a little further down the track.

At the end of 2007 Steve announced he would kick off 2008 with a 30-day trial of eating a 100% raw vegan diet. He mentions his experiences with raw food diets in the past and also about reading books and listening to audio programs from long-term raw foodists, including Dr. Douglas Graham who has written “The 80/10/10 Diet” book. I found that Steve's final post at the end of the 30-day trial made interesting reading.

It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one going through this process. Changing one’s eating habits can be challenging particularly when they emanate from deep-seated, long-term patterns. The best part is that trolling the web shows me that there are definite personal rewards for taking the time to work out what’s best for me.

I really enjoy getting my Food Connect box. With the vagaries of weather and other conditions on the farms, one can never be sure that the items in the box will match up with the list published on their web site. But even when it does, I still get surprised as I pull the goodies out.

Basil was on the list today and I was delighted when I saw the lovely big bunch even though I’ve been growing it on my patio over summer. You see, I’ve become so used to the cut-and-come-again approach that I’m always just cutting off leaves.

A few years back I planted basil and tomato in the same pot and then completely forgot that the basil was there. One day I noticed how prolifically it had grown but when I tried to make pesto in the Vita Mix that I had at the time, it just didn’t work. So I haven’t really bothered trying again until now.

This time around the Thermomix has helped me to produce a credible basil pesto based on a recipe from a brand new raw book I received today called “Raw Food Made Easy – for 1 or 2 people” by Jennifer Cornbleet. I didn’t have any pine nuts so I replaced it with sunflower seeds which didn’t break down as easily as the pine nuts would have. But I really enjoyed this pesto and was still licking my lips after I had washed the dishes.

I also received the book “The 80/10/10 Diet” by Dr. Douglas N. Graham and have checked to confirm my recollection that his book recommends a low-fat diet and weaning oneself off salt amongst other things including garlic. He very kindly includes an FAQ section on his website that explains his reasoning.

So three of the five ingredients of this pesto are not recommended which is really sad because it tastes so nice. I think that’s a big part of why we eat the way we do, as items like salt, garlic and oil merge together so well into an almost addictive taste. It will be interesting to see where I head as I read through the 80/10/10 book – or as some people call it, the 811 diet.

I believe I need to change what I’m doing as I have sore knuckles on my fingers and a ring that used to fit onto the middle finger has now been relegated to the index finger. This could be considered a precursor to arthritis which won’t happen to me as I’m quite happy to change what I’m doing if I need to.

I’ve decided that I’ll move towards the recommendation in the book “The China Study” to follow a whole foods, low-fat, plant-based diet as a stepping stone to the 811 diet. A whole foods diet excludes meat, poultry, dairy and eggs, so I am now having cappuccinos made from soy, rice or oat milk instead of cows’ milk. I still have some eggs in my fridge so once I’ve used them up then I won’t buy any more. This will only be difficult when I want to make muffins or bread but I have read about egg substitutes and will experiment with incorporating them.

In the meantime I’ll take my time to read and consider what I’ll do about the 811 diet. The good part about all of this is that there is no timeline for change which means that I can feel my way along this path and enjoy the journey.

Note to self: if you want a pretty cabbage, corn and apple soup it would probably be better to use a white cabbage rather than a red cabbage.

Ah well, it’s always easy in hindsight but perhaps I’m judging the dish too harshly as beauty (or otherwise) is supposed to be in the eye of the beholder.

Actually I enjoyed this dish as I ate it. I kept thinking that if this were a beetroot soup I’d be very happy with the result, so perhaps that’s the answer. I must try a beetroot and red cabbage soup, or perhaps red cabbage with sweet potato (red or orange) would work.

I deliberately used as few ingredients as I can. With my Mum slowly recovering from shingles and various other things happening at the moment I’m finding that I’m not interested in trying out recipes with an extended list of ingredients. So I’m very happy to potter along seeing how well a few ingredients mesh together into a soup, which is just as well as I sometimes read a book that recommends minimising the use of condiments.

So this soup included:-

Niblets from a corn cob (100g) with some kept out for garnish

Red cabbage 100g

Green apple 85g

180g water

The vegetables and fruit were blended together for 30 seconds on speed 8 and the extra corn niblets added afterwards. As I ate the dish I also included some recently cooked chick peas just to finish things off nicely.

Wow! When I look at some of the raw food blogs that I find on the web I become so inspired!

One blog that I particularly like because there are fabulous photos of raw food is called “What The Hell Does A Vegan Eat Anyway?” and they have a Raw Food Wednesday tradition.

If I didn’t have a basic aim to simplify my life then I’d be elbows deep trying to repeat their dishes.

I’m starting to wonder whether tending towards the simpler/easier way of doing things could very easily become boring but I know within myself that I need to continue on my own path. So I still seem to be on the journey of trying to work out how I can best approach a raw food regime, and just know that it is important to allow things to happen in my life at the appropriate pace.  

I was idly googling one day, looking for a comparison between the raw and vegan diet, when I found myself at a discussion on a 100% raw vegan diet that effectively said that the author felt better on 100% raw and was recommending it as the way to go. But I didn’t feel inclined to move in that direction.

Then a couple of weeks later I found a blog that explains why a high raw diet is very helpful. The most compelling point that I read was that elephants, bulls and buffalos get their protein from eating plants. So I couldn’t help asking why we couldn’t. As this blog points out (along with similar messages from significant books such as “Diet for a New America” by John Robbins and “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappe - both permanently on my bookshelf), protein can be found in all natural foods ("natural" as in unrefined). The blog goes on to say “Vegetables and fruits have protein. Nuts, seeds (especially hemp seeds), algae, as well as higher protein greens and sprouts, which have up to 50% of their calories from protein, can satisfy even the higher protein demands of pregnant women, athletes, and people trying to gain lean muscle mass.

In between I have been reading the book “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II. This book in part describes the findings from a survey of diet and death rates from cancer in more than 2,400 Chinese counties that provide a lot of credible evidence to support the recommendation to eat a whole food, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats. The most compelling statement I read in relation to cancer was that “nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development”.

So you would think after reading all of this information that I would really know what I want to do! And I think I do because I found another book!

I visit Wrays Organics at Newmarket each week and a month or two ago I noticed a store copy of the book “The 80/10/10 Diet” by Dr. Douglas N. Graham. I flicked through it and while it looked interesting none of it gelled with me. Then in the past week I found an excerpt of an interview with Doug Graham on the web and all of a sudden I started hearing a lot more in it. So I went back to Wrays Organics late last week and flicked through the book again and then happily placed an internet order for it.

The basic premise of the 80/10/10 diet – apart from it being a raw food diet - is that a minimum of 80% of your calories will come from simple carbohydrates, a maximum of 10% from protein, and a maximum of 10% from fat. This works out naturally if 90 - 95% of your calories come from sweet fruit, 2-6% from leafy greens, vegetables and non-sweet fruits, and 0 - 8% from nuts and seeds. This is generally accomplished with two or three large fruit meals during the day with a large salad in the evening.

The emphasis here is on measuring calories and it has been a long time since I last measured calories. However, once I receive the book then I’ll buy a calorie counter or else find a web site that can help me. Actually a couple of web sites with such counters have been recommended to me so it’s only a matter of time before I fix this problem.

I really like the concept of this way of eating. At the start of this weekend I was so tempted to just jump into it and start doing it but caution prevailed as it must and I have decided to finish off things in my fridge that might not work with it. Then once I receive the book, I can read it thoroughly and then work out how I incorporate it into my life in the future.

So in the meantime, I have made an Almond Dip based on the recipe Almond Pate Style Dip in the Taste of Vegetarian Thermomix cookbook.

I soaked 60g almonds and after they had been soaked noticed their lovely sweet taste which combined very well with half a tomato and a third of a small onion both chopped. The mix was blended with a teaspoon of olive oil for 10 seconds on speed 5 and then consumed with some zucchini matchsticks as an entrée. When I ran out of zucchini matchsticks I instead added some sultanas which really hit the spot.

I reckon apple goes with most things in the same way that avocado merges in very nicely with soups or salads.

So tonight I have made a raw sweet potato and apple soup using ingredients of 160g peeled sweet potato, 60g apple, 50g tomato with 210g water blended in the Thermomix on speed 8 for 30 seconds and dished out with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Later I remembered some cooked chick peas and they merged easily into the mix.

The sweet potatoes contributed to a very pleasant tasting dish while the apple gave the soup a nice sweet slant. All in all, I was very happy to eat this for my dinner.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in an episode of Ready Steady Cook. I had some broccoli, a beetroot, a tomato and some lemongrass along with other ingredients that I keep in my fridge and pantry.

Fortunately I found a Raw Broccoli Salad recipe that would fit the bill along with some raw beetroot dip made along the same lines as the beetroot hummus from earlier this month.

First in preparation for the beetroot dip I covered 30g of pumpkin seeds with water in a sprouting jar and set it aside.

Then I made the broccoli salad. I milled some lemon grass, a small piece of ginger and a clove of garlic for 15 seconds on speed 9. Then sprigs of parsley and basil from my patio were chopped for 2 seconds on speed 6. Two cups of broccoli florets, 1 tsp of cumin seeds, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 lemon ice cube from the freezer and 1/2 tsp salt were added and chopped for 4 seconds on speed 4. The mix was placed in the fridge to allow the combined ingredients to soften the broccoli.   

An hour later it was time to make the beetroot dip. I rinsed the pumpkin seeds and placed them along with 65g peeled beetroot, 60g tomato and 1 lemon juice ice cube into the Thermomix bowl and processed on speed 4 for 5 to 10 seconds.   At which time I noticed the difference between chick peas and pumpkin seeds as the pumpkin seeds kept their shape while previously the chick peas had gracefully merged into the hummus. Perhaps I need to soak the pumpkin seeds overnight rather than just for 1 hour… After tasting the dip I knew that I was quite happy with the taste of it but I still tried blending again at speed 5 and repeated at speed 6 which gave me what I thought was a better looking dip.

When I tasted the broccoli salad I decided that it was too salty so I combined the salad and dip  together very nicely for my lunch which didn’t end up being entirely raw as I added some cooked chick peas.

I think I could safely say I’m having difficulties in letting cooked grains, beans and chick peas go. I’d like to say I’m working on it, but in the meantime would you believe I have weighed what I eat over an average day which comes in roughly at 1 kg of food, and have worked out that I can safely call myself a raw foodist – who is someone that eats 75% or more raw food - if the only cooked items in my day are the cooked grain (100g) with my breakfast, 2 mini muffins (35g) for morning tea, some cooked beans or chick peas (50g) with my lunch, and some more of the cooked beans or chick peas (50g) with my dinner. I can’t see myself managing this when I’m out for lunch or dinner, or visiting family or friends, but this is certainly do-able for the much of the time. I suppose time will tell…

I already regularly sprout seeds and beans along with chick peas and I have recently become interested in soaking and sprouting grains after attending the Brisbane Organic Growers meeting earlier this month. Graham Sait from Nutri-Tech Solutions spoke on the decline in human nutrition over the past three generations. My ears perked up when he mentioned raw food and after subscribing to his newsletter read that we were supposed to eat a large percentage of raw food. It seems earlier cultures soaked or sprouted grains and he suggested we do the same to get rid of phytates and enzyme inhibitors.

So being curious about how well grains sprout, I decided to try the Buckwheat Tabouleh recipe from Thermomix’s A Taste of Vegetarian cookbook which includes buckwheat soaked overnight with tomato, cucumber, some herbs and a few extras. And then I noticed on the web that buckwheat is not a grain. But I soldiered on and after chopping for 3 seconds on speed 4 in the Thermomix and then spreading over a bed of alfalfa and lentil sprouts, the mix provided a nice light raw lunch.

The consistency of buckwheat after soaking was quite pleasant and edible and has now become a breakfast option that can be combined with some fruit. And so it made me wonder which of the other grains or rather grain equivalents might be suitable for soaking or sprouting. I have tried sprouting the occasional grain in the past and found the result to be too chewy but I’m willing to try the alternatives particularly considering my interest in raw foods.

But as I mentioned buckwheat is not a grain. Wikipedia tells me that “despite the common name and the grain-like use of the crop, buckwheat is not a cereal or grass. It is called a pseudocereal to emphasize that it is not related to wheat. ” and I have italicised this and other Wikipedia quotes in this post.

Quinoa is the same, being a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. I currently cook quinoa to enjoy with fruit for my breakfast, but just out of curiousity I have tried soaking it to see how it turns out. What I particularly like about quinoa is that it contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source...unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine).

I decided to test Wikipedia’s suggestion that only 2–4 hours resting in a glass of clean water is enough to make quinoa sprout and release gases. I tried some soaked quinoa after 4 hours and I’m pleased to report that I could see sprouted tails on the quinoa – and I realise that it’s probably hard to see the same on the photo below after I had added some chopped banana. I added some honey after taking the photo and I was more than happy to finish off my dish.

So since I’ve moved off talking about grains, I can mention that I regularly soak 1 tbsp of Chia seeds with ¾ cup of water and stir for a minute or two to make sure the seeds have separated properly and then store the mix in my refrigerator, using a few teaspoons of this mix each morning in my grain and fruit breakfast.  I found the idea on the web and unfortunately didn’t keep the link. However, I have found a new link that explains the process here under the heading of How To Make Chia Seed Gel. I’ve also ground chia seed occasionally and have noticed that chia seed can also be sprouted.

After all of this I haven’t forgotten about my interest in working out how to successfully soak or sprout grains. I have found another web page supporting the soaking or sprouting of nuts, seeds and grains. It seems that this softens them, removes harmful enzyme inhibitors, and enhances their nutritional value prior to eating so now nuts will go into my list of things to play with.  

PS In the spirit of being honest, I just have to mention… There was an eggplant in my Food Connect box yesterday and unfortunately I’ve developed the habit of enjoying slices of eggplant cooked in my frying pan along with some onion rings, some chopped mushrooms and a fried egg – yes, yes, I realise it’s completely against the idea of a raw diet and I’m really sorry to say I did really enjoy it and will no doubt have the same tomorrow night and then I promise I’ll be back on to predominantly raw meals for the rest of the week… Have I ever mentioned I do guilt very well???

This really hit the spot - a lovely cool soup at the end of a particularly hot day. It’s the night before I pick up my next Food Connect box and I had some cabbage in the fridge and a punnet of strawberries in the freezer. What better way to use them both than to combine into a summer soup!

200g strawberries with 100 g cabbage along with 20g mint and basil were blended together in the Thermomix with 200g water. A sprinkle of mint leaves adorned the top.

 You know, I’ve been growing beans for the past few years and while I’ve heard of snake beans, I had never seen a photo of them. So when they appeared in my Food Connect box this week I was completely bamboozled. These things looked like beans but were unlike any beans I’d ever grown or seen. So I rang Food Connect and they very quickly filled me in. Now that I know what I’m working with, some sliced snake beans have contributed very nicely to my lunch-time salads.

Another item in my box this week has been a beetroot. Considering my interest in becoming more raw, I just couldn’t see my way clear to cook it. So I googled beetroot and found a recipe for raw beetroot dip that looked really nice but had a long list of ingredients. Perhaps there really is something to the popularity of the “4 Ingredients” books. 

Then I remembered that I had soaked some chick peas overnight with the thought of enjoying them on my salads. Perhaps a beetroot hummus would work. I knew I had already made a raw hummus some time back and figured that it would be easy to add some beetroot to it. 

But dessert was tugging at my brain cells and I kept thinking of the beetroot and chocolate puddings that I had made. So I decided to experiment but not with all of the beetroot so I sliced off a small section of the beetroot for later inclusion in the hummus. It probably goes without saying that a little bit of beetroot goes a long way.

It had been a while since I had bought chocolate, but I just happened to this morning. Even better it was Rawganic chocolate so my experiment would be completely raw.

I also knew that I needed some sort of binding agent as the beetroot and chocolate on their own would probably be too crumbly. Banana or avocado seemed like possibilities and I decided to go with banana.  

I grated 100g peeled beetroot in the Thermomix on speed 8 for 5 seconds, scraped down the sides and then repeated the step. 

I added 30g raw chocolate and grated it in on speed 8 for about 10 seconds.

Then I added half a banana and blended it in on speed 7 for 20 seconds.

The remainder of the banana decorated the final dish.

I really enjoyed this. The texture of the beetroot and chocolate mix wasn’t smooth but quickly melted in the mouth. This will be a quick way to satisfy dessert cravings in the future and certainly goes into my list of how I can use beetroot when I receive it in the box.

So I still had a small piece of beetroot to use up and I had planned it for the hummus.

I placed 65g of the chick peas sprouted for 1 day, 35g peeled beetroot, 75g tomato and 1 lemon juice ice cube into the Thermomix bowl and processed on speed 4 for 5 to 10 seconds. 

This all went down very well. Well, to be really honest, it wasn’t as good as the beetroot and chocolate dessert from earlier in the day but for a dinner option it certainly presented well.  I tossed up adding some basil but thought that the beetroot would overshadow anything I tried to add so stayed with these basic ingredients.

After I had enjoyed the beetroot hummus on bread and with zucchini sticks, I then retrieved some tinned fish and avocado from the fridge and enjoyed both with the rest of it.

 So what does one eat for dinner... My standard response in the past would be a stir fry, steamed vegetables or soup.  But now I’m looking at how I can become predominantly raw, as in 75% or more raw food most days as compared to the 50% plus raw I do at the moment.

So I’ve just found out that someone who eats 75% plus raw food is called a raw foodist. I’ve had a few labels in the past and I do give some thought to the label that might be assigned if I move in a particular direction. And I can say I am comfortable with a label of raw foodist if I meet the criteria.

I imagine that the easiest way to meet the criteria would be to start most meals from a perspective of it being a raw meal and then allow the occasional non-raw addition to the meal. Or snacks in between meals might be non-raw like the precious mini-muffins that I make for my Mum and myself.

So tonight following on from my success with the raw cabbage and apple soup, I have made some Raw Zucchini and Corn Soup.

I put chunks of zucchini, niblets from half a corn cob, a small tomato, a small apple peeled and cored and a thin slice of onion which amount to 360g into the Thermomix bowl. A dash or two of tamari along with 210g water was added and all blended together for 30 seconds on speed 8. Some sesame seeds were sprinkled on top for aesthetic appeal.

I keep meaning to warm any raw soup I make to 37 degrees C which is acceptable under a raw food program. But I forget and then I find that I’ve really enjoyed the soup as is, which is exactly what happened again tonight. While the apple was the only common ingredient between tonight’s soup and the Cabbage and Apple Soup made the other night, the consistency of the two soups are very similar. I suspect that the types of vegetables used in both soups are very similar. There was a little bit left over after filling my bowl which I happily finished off.

So now I’m considering how I could continue replacing my standard dinner options of a stir fry, steamed vegetables or cooked soup. What I’ve come up with so far are salad, soup or a whole food such as a mango or some grapes.

It’s becoming clear to me now that raw soups are fairly easy and can be basically made up from whatever ingredients are available at the time - or should I say that raw soups are fairly easy to make in the Thermomix. I’d like to think that I can make up an appetising salad after a few years of including salad greens and tomatoes from my patios into my regular lunch-time salad. I’ve included the idea of a whole food or fruit because this idea was mooted by Victoria Boutenko in her book "12 Steps to Raw Foods".

It will be interesting to see what dinner options I’m actually using in a month or two’s time...

After enjoying the cooked cabbage soup, and receiving the thumbs up from my Mum who has made her own variation of cabbage soup in the past, I decided to try a similar combination as a raw soup.

I milled 2 dates for 15 seconds on speed 7. Then I added sprigs of mint and basil along with 100g cabbage, a small apple cored and 130g water and blended for 30 seconds on speed 8. A sprinkle of mint finished the bowl.

I really enjoyed this. It probably helps that I like eating cabbage raw, which I was doing as I cut the cabbage into chunks. Perhaps that explains why there wasn’t enough, which I’ll fix next time by including more. The cabbage and apple melded together very nicely. I won’t worry about the dates in the future as they seemed superfluous and the soup would have been smoother without them.

All in all, I consider this a successful lunch, albeit as an appetizer as I didn’t make enough and even with more of this soup I would most likely supplement with another small dish.

My Mum isn’t well. She has overdone things for not the first time. After pulling out sliding wardrobe doors to put some new shelves inside, an annoying pain developed in her hip. Just to confuse matters, some blisters developed on her left foot which happened to be the same side as her hip pain. Perhaps something had bitten her on the foot while she was outside. As a result her foot was throbbing. She was able to move around her home on a pair of crutches, but even then her speed was snail’s pace.

In the past similar problems with her back have been easily fixed by her chiropractor. But after getting an all clear from a back x-ray and as the pain became unbearable, she finally agreed to visit the doctor. After a brief examination the diagnosis was shingles in her foot with referred pain moving up to her hip. Unfortunately the diagnosis came long after the 72 hour timeframe within which anti-viral medications can be taken to help clear up the disease. So my Mum went into hospital for just over a week and has now returned home. While she’s a little more mobile than she was, she is still dealing with the pain – particularly just after she’s been on her feet too long.  She’s starting to hear this as a message to slow down.

One way I can help my Mum is to provide some meals and fortunately I have the Thermomix to help me. So I trolled through my recipe books and some blogs that I often visit and found the perfect comfort food – Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup a la Thermomixer.

This time around I have been very obedient and made it according to the recipe, well, with just one variation. I’ve made a note to self to not add any additional salt as I have used Thermomix Stock Concentrate with its strong salt content in lieu of the chicken stock. This soup tasted delicious, in fact enough for me to chow down a second small helping, and I’m sure my Mum will like it as well.

But I had a remaining dilemma. Last week I made some soup which Mum really enjoyed. I modified the pumpkin soup recipe from the everyday cookbook by replacing carrot with potato.

When she heard that I had some cabbage she decided that next she’d like some cabbage soup. So again I trolled through the books and blogs and found a recipe in the Taste of Life book by Julie Stafford for a cabbage casserole. Since I still wanted to make a soup, I borrowed the main ingredients of cabbage, onion, apples and potatoes and used them in a simplified version of the pumpkin soup recipe.

I peeled and cut 1 onion along with 700g of cabbage, potatoes and apples into chunks, and then chopped in the Thermomix for 15 seconds on speed 7. Then I added 1 tbsp oil, 1 tbsp stock concentrate, 500g water and a pinch of sugar and cooked the mix for 20 minutes at 100 degrees C on speed 1. For 15 to 20 seconds, the mix was blended by increasing from speed 1 to 9.

The resulting soup was an unusual consistency and equally unusual but very appealing taste. My Mum says she has made cabbage soup in the past so it will be interesting to hear her comments after she has tried it.

I’m going to keep trying different ingredients using this simple soup recipe. I have a feeling that when the different vegetables or fruits complement each other then the soup will work, which is why I borrowed this cabbage combination from an existing recipe.

I also use a similarly simplified jam recipe which has produced tomato, apple and now peach jam. To be honest, what I make is probably more like a sauce than a jam as I’m not concerned about whether the jam has set. I tend to put it onto my salads or waffles when I make them, so the consistency isn’t a major issue.

After I’ve peeled and de-seeded the fruit, I weigh it as it goes into the Thermomix. Then I puree the fruit for 30 seconds on speed 7. After scraping down the sides, I add an equal weight of sugar and then blend the mix for 10 seconds on speed 7. Then the mix is cooked for 40 minutes at 100 degrees C on speed soft.

After it has cooled, the jam goes into the freezer and because I have used equal quantities of fruit and sugar I can take spoonfuls out of the container straight out of the freezer. So I never have any concerns about the jam going mouldy.

Making jam like this might not be to everyone’s liking, but it certainly works for me.