I Love Raw

There has been some big changes lately in my diet. Over the years of eating a healthy both cooked/raw diet I noticed that I felt better after a raw meal rather than a cooked one. But I never really thought about this other than in the moment I experienced it. Cooked meals make me feel heavier, less sharp and I started to experience intermittent signs of acid reflux which led to some swallowing issues. Which were mostly solved with something called "Manuka Honey". It not only healed my throat and stomach but allowed me to eat properly again. But I continued to eat mostly cooked foods.

So over the last few months I've been really doing some research and exploring the world of raw food eaters. It's not surprise that eating a natural plant based diet that is totally raw is far better than the standard american diet. Most Raw food eaters had issues like obesity, which I don't have, but they also suffered other problems that were solved by going mostly raw. And the more raw food they ate, they claimed to feel better.

I somehow came across 'green smoothies' from youtube and since we have had a blender here for years now I decided to get it from the cupboard and use the thing. My first smoothie was the one I posted about earlier on. Now it's a bit different and I mix it up too. I loved it instantly and I wondered why I haven't been doing this for years. It takes around 5-10 minutes in the morning and I have it everyday for my breakfast. A salad for Breakfast? No I don't feel like it, but putting my greens into blender and making it a liquid is far better. So a few examples of my smoothies that I have in the morning are;

Green Smoothie1
150g Banana
150g Pineapple
100g Red Apple
100g Mango
150g Spinach
100g Kale
200-300ml Water
(I put in the water and the fruit and then put in the spinach and kale last).

After my smoothie I have a few walnuts to include fat so I can absorb some of the nutrients, and I have a whey protein shake.

Green Smoothie2
150g Bananas
150g Red Apple
150g Frozen Blueberries
100g Spinach
100g Kale
200-300ml Water
(because of the blueberries it turns out a bit dark green and sometimes brown, but it's mild tasting and very palatable, I very much enjoy it).

Fruit Smoothie

Water 300-400ml (depending on how thick you want it)
150g Tesco Frozen Summer Fruits (Rasberries, blackberrie, red currants and black currants)
150g Frozen Blueberries
1 or 2 medium sized bananas (this thickens it up a bit and gives it a sweeter taste)
(very simple, but nice and cold and delicious)

Still refining/experimenting with them and hopefully get a higher amount of greens in there without making the thing awful to eat. And by the way, I don't swallow these smoothies down right away, I take my time and drink/chew it slowly. Not sure if it's a good idea to consume very fast due to a possible spike in glucose and insulin. Not good.

After my green smoothie in the morning I feel so energized, very sharp, light, hydrated. My digestion is so much better, I've had zero pimples since drinking these smoothies. Now what will be interesting is to see how my body is reacting to this change when I get my test results. I am going to leave it until April, so this will be one year from my previous one and see how things are going on in my body. Some people are concerned about the higher intake of fruit (large majority of it is just in the morning) in my diet, but I think I'll be fine. Introducing your family to green smoothies is one of the best things you can do to encourage them to eat healthier. My father, Mother, My niece and nephew who are 6 and 7 both love the smoothies. Getting them involved in the making of it really helped too! I gave my cousin a tropical green smoothie, and he also liked it. You can barely taste any of the greens in there. But one important thing to make sure you do is only use leafy greens, not things like broccoli because this doesn't go together with fruit that well. I would encourage you to use 'youtube' and type in "green smoothies" to get some ideas.

There are many other changes I've also made too, which I'll mention in seperate posts.