Back in the Saddle Again

I was a holy rollin' raw vegan for 10 days.  Then I tried some cooked food.  It tasted OK.  Each day for the next 4 days I had some cooked food.  Just some.  I was still eating mostly raw food and drinks.  By the fourth day I had a cooked dinner with salad.  It was too much.  It tasted good.  I enjoyed it.  But I missed the feeling of the lighter raw food, so I have returned to the high-raw (i.e., mostly raw and most days all raw) life.

I went to the store I will lovingly call Holy Foods.  It is a very expensive health food supermarket.  I wanted some interesting fresh greens, organic lemons, and ginger from Hawaii.  I strolled around the produce section where there is both organic and conventional produce.  I found the most perfectly ripe, large avocado.  It cost $3, but the little organic avo's I had been purchasing at the grocery store cost $2, and they were small.  I purchased the large $3 avo.  It was the tastiest avocado I have had in a long time.  Just divine.

I also found some large leaf rainbow chard.  I juice the chard, stem and all, with carrot, celery, cucumber, a little beet root, and a small piece of ginger root.  Basically, I juice what I have in the fridge.  Usually I add one or two stems of chard per pint of vegetable juice, so as not to have the green overpower the other vegetables.  In lieu of chard, I may use lettuce (romaine works well) or spinach.

The avocado, chard, one lemon, and a generous amount of ginger root cost me over $10.  It was a small amount of food, but I am enjoying the quality.  This organic food could become one expensive habit.  Maybe I will be so fortified by the organic produce that I will be able to eat less. 

I read a small book about raw food by Joe Alexander.  Joe is an artist and claims that his art changed after he became raw.  The colors became brighter and the style of the figures was more elegant and beautiful.  The name of the book is Blatant Raw Foodist Propaganda!  How could I resist that title?  It was hiding in a used book store.  Although the book is copyrighted 1990, Joe encourages quoting the book so that others may learn of these ideas.  I hope to do that in future blogs, but now I want to go to Holy Foods and see whether there are any more of the wonderful super avocados.

Back in the Saddle Again,
Southwest Desert Blogger  P.S. check out this excellent link for raw vegan info, FREE juice and smoothie recipes e-Book, videos, and a super 7 Day Raw Food Challenge and 10 Day Juice Feast.  I have learned so much from this info.    http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1383344
C. (c)2011 

Fallen Vegetarians

Day 14 of no coffee.  Day 10 raw food vegan.  It is a comfortable 97 degrees outside with humidity up to 19 percent.  Been so dry I had to water the patio plants today.  Maybe it'll rain on Friday.

I read some interesting information on Dr. Mercola's website:  Most vegetarians are female.  Most of them laps after an average of 9 years of vegetarianism.  This pool of fallen vegetarians outnumbers current practicing vegetarians 3 to one!  They may fall off the vegetable wagon and board the meat truck for reasons such as declining health, cravings for meat, social pressure, etc. Bottom line: 75 percent of vegetarians fall off the wagon, i.e., they are former vegetarians.

They have traded wheat grass for grass fed beef.  Some are just chowing down on commercial greasy burgers and fries, ribs, filet mignon, rib eye, sirloin, bacon cheese burgers, pork chops, ham, you name it.  They crave it.  But I digress.

Back to the website article:  If you want to ensure that your cattle were grass-fed, look for the "USDA Process Verified" label.  That means they were not fed any grain or grain by-products, except for perhaps cow milk, until slaughter.  Apparently that USDA certification is pricey, so many small farmers / ranchers cannot afford it.  There may be some nice grass fed beef in the butcher shop that simply lacks certification.  Tough decision-making for those fallen vegetarians, omnivores, and carnivores -- save a buck or buy USDA certified?

It is not clear whether that USDA grass-fed beef has antibiotics or hormones.  But at least the cattle got to eat grass and hopefully enjoy some nice outdoor grazing in a pastoral environment.  I suppose if demand increases, they will create the grass-fed feed lot.  The concept boggles my mind.

I do not crave meat.  I am thinking about whether I have enough greens in the fridge to get me through tomorrow.  That head of butter lettuce might not be big enough, but I have a good supply of organic celery to fall back on.  I also have cucumbers, carrots, mangoes, nectarines, beets, a green bell pepper, ginger from Hawaii, bananas, blueberries, apples, almonds, one little avocado, and a handful of cherries. What have you got?  Got beef?

Raw veganly yours,
Southwest Desert Blogger
C. (c)2011  P.S. check out this excellent link for raw vegan info, FREE smoothie recipes e-Book, videos, and a super 7 Day Raw Food Challenge and 10 Day Juice Feast.  I have learned so much from this info. 
  http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1383344