Friday, November 30, 2007

Going raw

So as part of my experiments over the course of this year I have been trying out the raw diet this week. I've been mostly doing it at breakfast and lunch. Its near to impossible to be completely raw without only eating salad unless all your friends are raw...

I started off the week with raw smoothies: acai, soaked hemp and flax seeds for protein (I've been trying not to eat "processed" foods including protein powder which seems very processed). I've also added raw eggs to them. So far, no salmonella. I've been hearing the salmonella is in the shell anyway, not inside the egg and as long as you wash the egg off you should be ok. So far, I am :)

The smoothies keep me full usually till 1pm or so. I've been trying different salads and sashimi with no rice and no soy sauce because it contains wheat usually unless its tamari or shoyu - but again this is hard to find in your typical sushi take out place. So yesterday I had salmon and tuna sashimi with cucumber, avocado, ginger and sesame seeds. Quite tasty and I wasn't missing the soy sauce or rice. I don't know for how long these diets are sustainable, but I do have to say I've had an incredible amount of energy this week and I don't sleep a lot, nor do I drink caffiene.

I'm not going any percentage raw. I am however going to try some raw food restaurants just to continue the experiment. So far I have been to quintessence in the east vilage. I actually went y myself for saturday afternoon lunch because I was just in the neighborhood and I thought - why not. I found it quite tasty. They had this lovely almond curd/cheese they called fofu - it was so much tastier than tofu and had almost a velvety texture. Delicious. There was some sort of spinach puree with nuts and some sort of vegan/raw hollandaise sauce. I have no idea what was in there, but it tasted very good. I find raw food kind of expensive, but then again this is New York and most restaurants are fairly expensive, but I wonder what it is about raw food that would require it to be so expensive. I am still investigating this.

I am beginning to think more seriously about wider consulting opportunities outside of 1:1 counseling such as corporate wellness and advising fledging health and wellness businesses. I also have some business ideas of my own and would love to be in touch with anyone interested in developing similar businesses. Please find me at meredith@sobelwellness.com.

2 comments:

S. Cottam said...

Have you tried the restaurant Pure Food and Wine at 54 Irving Place? I was there a few years ago and was rather stunned by the variety of flavors--this from an admitted carnivor! Pricey, but in this instance you are no doubt paying for the aesthetcis of the entire dining experience.

Meredith S. said...

Not yet. I've heard mixed reviews so far. I've met the owner. She spoke at school and it appears she has a wonderful mission, just right now with limited resources, its not in my horizon of reality, but eventually I would like to try it. Counter is on my list as is Bonobo as well as raw soul all raw/vegan restaurants which are a bit more reasonably priced and Counter has a large variety of biodynamic wines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_wine) which is related to organic winemaking but even more ecologically inclined.