Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Coco-gurt.

Hey everyone.

Thanks, first off, for your amaaazing response to my last post. I’m happy that so many of you were able to affirm your love of food. Thank you!!!

As you can imagine, I’m frequently asked if there are any non-vegan foods that I miss. For the most part, I’m hard pressed to think of responses. I’m too happy with what I eat now to think about the (significantly less health-promoting and awesome) things I used to eat, but don’t anymore. One notable exception? Greek yogurt. This was the last non-vegan food I stopped eating, and it’s pretty much the only one that I still fondly reminisce about. No matter how much I love the stuff, though, it does not love my IBS-prone little belly. And it certainly doesn’t love the animals who produce it.

My solution, thus far, has been…well, I haven’t had a solution. I’ve tried soy yogurt, but at this point in the game it’s a bit too processed for my liking. Coconut milk yogurt from So Delicious has a slightly prettier ingredient label, but it’s likewise not quite as homemade and wholesome as I like (though I do think it’s awesome for those of you who are transitioning into veganism). Some raw foodists like raw goat’s milk kefir or yogurt, but, that’s not a vegan-friendly option.

So I’d pretty much resigned myself to a yogurt-free existence. Until a few weeks ago, when I was perusing Lori and Michelle’s blog, and saw that the twins–little wizards of culinary creativity and energy that they are–had made coconut yogurt. And, with their typical flair for making the seemingly complex look easy and painless, they’d pulled it off with a simple and stress free recipe: blend coconut meat, water, and probiotic powder (which can be gotten simply by opening up your probiotic capsules at home!). Keep it covered in a warm space overnight, and voila–thick, creamy, tangy yogurt!

It seemed, I admit, too good to be true. But one of my goals this year is to get a little more ambitious and inventive with the kinds of raw foods I prepare (this is going to include making fermented foods and more dehydrator recipes, in addition to my usual easy-peasy stuff), and with such inspiring ladies as the twins to guide me, why wouldn’t I?

With that in mind, I made my first foray into raw yogurt-making last weekend. I began with the meat of six young coconuts, which was about four solid cups, and the water of one coconut. Following the twins’ instructions to the letter, I added one teaspoon probiotic powder (which I got from my normal MegaFoods supplement) and a packet of stevia (in lieu of the lucuma that Lori and Michelle used). I blended it all up in the Vita till supersmooth, like so:

Poured it into a bowl:

And then covered it in a paper towel and left it in front of my radiator for the night.

Late the next morning, I uncovered it, to find a perfect bowl of thick, creamy, tangy-sweet yogurt. It’ll have a thin crust on top (crust! ew! gross word, sorry), which is perfectly fine to eat, very soft, and you can scrape off if you really want to:

All I can say is WOW. Wow, people. This is shockingly authentic. Not drizzly and drippy the way vegan yogurts tend to be, but thick, rich, and a dead ringer for traditional Greek yogurt. I literally exclaimed “oh my God!” after I tried it. My only apology is that I had my first full serving at the office, snapped a photo there, and left my camera in my desk drawer over the weekend. So I don’t have a photogenic shot of the ‘gurt in a little bowl, but I’m sure you can use your imaginations.

The downside? Well, the recipe is expensive. Young coconuts don’t come cheap, friends, and you’ll need 4-7, depending on how ripe they are, to make this recipe (which serves four) happen. Opening the coconuts will also demand some arm muscle and work, so I’d say that this is a fairly labor intensive process.

On the other hand, my coconuts were $2.50 a pop, and I used six (a few were really young, and didn’t have a lot of flesh). This means that each serving of yogurt was worth about $3.75. Expensive? Yes. Infinitely more expensive than a $2.50 chobani or Fage in an NYC deli? Not really. Worth it, for dairy free, cruelty-free, 100% raw and totally incredible yogurt? I think so.

While I doubt I’ll be making a batch of the stuff every single weekend, I do think it’ll become a fairly regular “special occasion” recipe for me. And the cool thing is that the recipe leaves you with a nice big vat of coconut water, which ought to stay fresh for at least a few days.

Yum!

Up next? Oatgurt!!

xo

“I Love to Eat”: Embracing Our Appetites

Hi guys!

Happy hump day — or Raw Wednesday, as it’s known here on Choosing Raw.

The other day, I was speaking with a client who has struggled—as so many women do—with cycles of dieting, guilt about food choices, and body hatred. Over the course of our session, she had a revelation. “I love to eat,” she said. No sooner had she said it, than she recognized the enormity of those words. “I guess that’s a really big deal for me to say,” she chuckled, “because I’ve spent so much time trying to pretend it’s not true. And it’s something I’ve always felt so ashamed of.”

She’s not alone. For many, many women, nothing is more difficult than to admit to having an appetite. It may be OK to say we’re hungry after a workout, or because we haven’t eaten all day, or because we were super busy doing this or that, but rarely will a woman feel 100% comfortable admitting that she’s hungry for no other reason than that she desires food.

In case you haven’t seen it mentioned on other blogs, it’s National Eating Disorders Awareness (NEDA) week. What does this mean? Well, according to the National Eating Disorders website , it means this:

Our aim of NEDAwareness Week is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.

According to me, it means this: it’s a great time for us all to pay a little extra attention to the very real and painful consequences of eating disorders, and for us to show extra compassion to those we know who are suffering. It’s also a great time for us to do our part in battling these all too common and constantly multiplying afflictions. How? Well, we can show sympathy or understanding to someone who’s battling the condition. We can bravely and boldly share our own stories. We can set a good example by trying to live healthy lives, in which we seek out and maintain a positive and reasonable relationship with food. We can inspire others to enjoy meals by coming up with innovative, nourishing, beautiful, and balanced meals. Perhaps we can inspire others by taking a fun and joyous, rather than competitive, approach to physical fitness. Whatever your strengths are, whatever you have to give, you can find a small way to give it.

Back to desire. In Hilde Bruch’s The Golden Cage–which is, in my opinion, one of the finest books on eating disorders–the author posits that eating disorders have a great deal to do with the willed suppression of desire. They involve the negation, the defiance of appetites: appetites for food, for sex, for physicality.  Women are particularly susceptible to this tendency, she argues, because we’ve been socialized to attach shame to our appetites, especially for sex and for food. Historically, and even now, we’re encouraged to be chaste, restrained, clean, and austere: to express carnal desire or a voracious appetite for food is distinctly un-feminine, at least in so far as femininity has long been dictated by a misogynistic culture. And sadly, we women (and some men) have become all too adept at denying our appetites, our hungers, our yearnings.

While I battled disordered eating, this urge was an enormous part of my illness. I’m often asked if what I wanted from the disorder was to be thin. The answer, naturally, is yes: of course thinness is what I wanted. But it was, in retrospect, only a surprisingly small part of what I wanted. When I look back on those years, I see that a lot of what I wanted was to quash my own needs. Overcoming this–connecting with my hunger for food, for sex, for vitality, for physicality–took a long time. Being able to declare to myself and to others that I not only needed to eat, but wanted to eat–and all that eating implied–demanded that I overcome a great deal of unconscious shame.

Of course, it’s not just women with eating disorders who feel this shame. It’s most women. Sure, we might open the pages of Maxim and read about how much men like a girl who can devour a plate of chicken wings and wash it down with a pint of beer, but this is a rather typecast exceptions to the rule, which is that women are and always have been encouraged to want, but not to want too much. We should to eat, but only in moderation; to desire, but never so much that we behave unseemly, or–God forbid!–slutty; to be assertive, but never so much that we’re bitchy or aggressive. Not that. To utter the words “I love to eat” feels like a shocking confession, a guilty secret.

In my travels through the raw community, I’ve encountered what I think are both the best and the worst kinds of attitudes towards this issue. On the one hand many raw foodists promote what I believe is a truly exuberant and healthy attitude towards eating. On the other, there are some who approach raw foods and fasting with what I believe is too much asceticism. Me? Well, being a vegan and eating more raw food have certainly helped me to realize that there are many things I thought I needed that I really don’t: an endless rotation of cute new clothing, carefully applied makeup, painted nails, and various other accoutrements of beauty. When you live healthily, beauty and vibrance radiates from within. But veganism and raw foods have also helped me, more than ever before, to embrace my appetites: for life, for experience, and, lord knows, for food. I’ve always liked to eat. And when I’m eating foods that I believe are not only optimal for my body, but optimal for the environment and for mother nature, too, I like itmore than ever.

Of course, we should always guard ourselves against excess. Appetites have limits, and food is just food. But let’s also try to embrace the very real hunger that nature has given us, even if it’s sometimes a little unruly. Desire is a part of life–and a pretty great part of it, if you ask me.

So today, in honor of NEDAwareness week, I think we should celebrate our hunger. In good ole AA fashion, I’ll go first:

I’m Gena. I love to eat.

Do you?

If this post speaks to you at all, I encourage you to echo this statement. Say it on your blogs, to a friend, in writing, or out loud–I like to eat. I enjoy food. Say it in your head, if you want to. Say it in private, or in public. But if it’s true–and I hope very much that it is–say it. Say it with pride. Our hunger makes us human.

Before I bid you goodnight, I’d like to announce the winner of my Tribest giveaway. The winner #397, Lisa Amendola, who told me,

I know exactly what I would use it for!!! I am taking my girls to Disney World in a few months and I am freaking out about how to feed them during the trip. I would use it to make them green smoothies for breakfast everyday and for quick late night snacks of blueberry- pomegranate smoothies. That blender would help me so much!!

Congratulations, Lisa! Now you can make those smoothies for your girls!!

Have a greatnight, everyone.

xo

Swiss Chard Leaves Stuffed with Middle Eastern Rice

One of the very first vegan dinners I prepared for myself without the help of a cookbook–and one of the meals I’ve enjoyed most consistently since–was stuffed cabbage. I’d cook bulgur wheat with currants, celery, carrots, cinnamon, and cumin, and I’d stuff it into steamed cabbage leaves. It was always a wonderful meal, and it still is! It’s a standby whenever I have guests over. Lately, I’ve been contemplating how to raw-ify it, or create a sister dish that shares the Middle Eastern spices and general effect, but demands no cooking time. And from that, my Middle Eastern chard rolls were born.

This is one of my favorite raw dinners to date. In place of the bulgur, I use cauliflowers and pine nuts to make a raw “rice,” and it alone is worthy of a blog post! It’s a delicious dish to serve stuffed into wraps, on top of salads, or simply to eat on its own. In this dish, I stuffed the rice into Swiss chard leaves and topped them with my raw marinara sauce. It’s a hearty, comforting, and delicious raw meal–a perfect antidote to the winter doldrums.

Swiss Chard Leaves Stuffed with Middle Eastern Rice (yields 8-12 wraps)

For the “Rice”

4 cups cauliflower
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 tbsp agave, or a sprinkling of stevia
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins or currants

Process all ingredients but the raisings in a food processor fitted with an S blade, till it’s finely diced and resembles rice, like so:

Transfer rice to a bowl, add the raisins, and mix well:

For the Wraps:

8-12 Swiss chard leaves, lightly steamed if desired.

For the Marinara:

1 very large red or yellow bell pepper, deseeded
¾ cup cherry or roma tomatoes
¼ cup sundried tomatoes
1 Tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Generous sprinkle dried thyme
Generous sprinkle dried oregano
¼ cup basil
Stevia to taste

Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender till thick and smooth.

To assemble the wraps, cut each chard leaf in half and remove the thickest part of the stem. Place 2-3 tbsp rice mixture about one inch from the bottom of the leaf, like so:

Roll the wrap up, and place it on a serving platter with the seam side down. After you’ve plated your wraps, dress them with a few tablespoons of the raw marinara sauce. Dig in!

I served these delicious wraps with some steamed broccoli and beets and a bit of leftover salad from lunchtime:

It was a perfect meal.

The next day, I scooped about a half cup of the “rice” over my lunchtime salad:

It was, again, perfect.

This is the kind of meal I love: creative, but not time intensive; filling, but not dense; savory, but a little bit sweet. It’s a little more innovative than my usual rotation of salads, soups, and grains, but it’s easy to prepare and doesn’t demand extra fancy kitchen equipment. I hope you all give the recipe a try soon, and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

And of course, I hope that your weeks are off to a good start. It’s raining and gloomy here in NYC, but at least it’s not as frigid as it has been recently. Happy Tuesday!

xo

Winner of THRIVE FITNESS

Hey guys!

It’s a little late (and I’m a little tired) to post, but I just wanted to announce the winner of Thrive Fitness and a sampling of the Vega Synergy bars. The giveaway winner is #159, Ariela!!! Ariela commented

I have tried a bunch of Brendan’s Vega products and have loved them all! It is so nice knowing that I am putting whole foods into my body that will fuel and nourish it! It is just as nice to see that the man behind the products is so compassionate about a nourishing, vegan lifestyle.

Thanks for this great post, and for the chance to win!

Congrats, Ariela! I’ll email you soon to get your mailing address.

And I’ll be back tomorrow with a fabulous new dinner recipe!

xo

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