Raw Food Diet Diary

Today’s Menu

• Grapes (64 oz.)
• Green Smoothie (12 medium bananas/10 oz. blueberries/1 bunch spinach/12 oz. water)

(I also ate one black bean burrito containing black beans, rice, tomatos, chiles, and a tortilla.)

I decided to try a new strategy aimed at helping me comply with a strict

raw food diet.

Years ago, I attended a series of nutrition classes given by a naturopathic doctor in Boulder, Colorado (yes, I’ve been down this healthy eating path before).  One of the things he gave participants is an outline of what one should eat daily.  He cautioned us against approaching dietary change from a deprivation viewpoint (i.e. we shouldn’t be “punishing” ourselves by taking things away).  Instead, he encouraged us to eat everything on his list every day, and then we could eat whatever we want . . . if we had room left over.

I’ve been adopting that strategy in my transition toward the raw food diet.

The past few days, I’ve eaten a huge, four-pound box of strawberries for breakfast.  It was filling, and it held me well until lunch.  My problem, though, is that by evening, I’ve been craving starchy food . . . even if I had a green smoothie for lunch.

This morning, I ate four pounds of grapes, instead.  This effectively doubled the number of calories I’m eating in the morning.

At lunch, I did a practice run of making green smoothies to go (for work).  It takes me between 10 and 15 minutes to get the job done.  Looks like I’m going to have to push myself to get up earlier so that I can have a good lunch.

I tried eating the dozen bananas for lunch.  It takes me an hour.  Technically, I have only 30 minutes for lunch.  Fortunately, my preparation period is right after lunch.  I can choose to take a long lunch, but my preparation is going to take a hit if I do that all of the time.  Having a blender in my office is impractical at this point.  So, I’m packing smoothies in thermoses and taking them to work with me.

The forumula above makes about five pints of smoothie.  I need to buy a third thermos . . . maybe one that holds only a pint (to minimize oxidation).  Today, since I drank the smoothie immediately after making it, it wasn’t necessary.

However, I’m not sure that drinking five pints of smoothie in a single sitting was a good idea.  I’ll leave the results to your imagination, but suffice it to say that I was in a great deal of discomfort for a couple of hours afterward.  That won’t work for me when I have to face groups of 20-30 teenagers every afternoon after lunch.  So, I’ll be splitting that smoothie in half; I’ll drink half at lunch and half at the end of the school day.

I set out four pounds of strawberries and some loose leaf lettuce for dinner, but the thought of eating any more fruit today wasn’t appealing.  So, I had half of my usual (lately) dinner.  The strawberries will keep for one more day, and I’ll try them (with the lettuce) for tomorrow night’s dinner.