Raw Lunch

Welcome to Lunch!

This weekend is going wonderfully! March Madness from noon to midnight every day, and enough fresh raw food to be satisfied the whole time. I couldn't resist taking some pictures of our BEAUTIFUL lunch that we had today and sharing them with you. The colors were so wonderful. Angelina (have you seen her adorable new hairstyle yet?) and I were talking about how it is neat that fruits and vegetables love to be picked, eaten, and shared, and it is true! They project themselves in such bright and vibrant colors, and they taste so good in their natural, unmutated form. They want to nurture us!

Alicia is watching a set of DVD's featuring Dr. Graham and Dr. Rozalind Gruben in which they talk about some of these things. Something that Alicia picked up on that I didn't really hear when I listened to the DVD's earlier this month was that we shouldn't shun our sweet tooth. The fact that fruits are sweet and we tend to like sweet is not a coincidence! This relationship began in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived as fruitarians. It is not an addiction like it is with some other foods. These foods are the best that we can eat, and they grow in abundance for us. I hope to one day live in a place that is more tropical so that I can have access to an even larger variety of fruit than is already available to me and my family.

The connection that we can have with our food is simply awesome.

Darius' Plate

Our lunch was a big salad. I learned from Dr. Graham that it is good to combine avocado and any citrus or high-acid fruit to make a salad dressing. So I imitated a recent recipe made by my mother and made a grapefruit juice and avocado dressing. We drizzled it over greens, tomatoes, green onions, and then topped it with a few orange slices and some previously-made Parmesan cheeze.

I must say, it was VERY good. I recommend that dressing to anyone, raw vegan or not. Angelina said that it was her favorite meal ever and asked if we could have it on her birthday. I am not sure if that means she no longer wants blueberry pancakes, but I think she does because I think she is aiming towards 3 specific special meals that day. Two down, one to go! This next picture was taken by her:

Angelina's Plate

By the way, that drink in the cup in the first picture is freshly-squeezed juice from a freshly-PICKED grapefruit (it is one of the only things we seem to know how to grow right year-in and year-out).

Low-fat Lunch

I just have to share a picture of the colorful lunch that I had at work today. The best part? It was tasty AND low-fat, which supports the direction my family and I are trying to go in keeping with the theory of the 80/10/10 diet (see "80-10-10" tag below).



The lunch consisted of some spring mix, apple slices, orange wedges, raisins, and sliced banana. No dressing needed!

Now of course I like raw salad dressings. I got to try a new type of guacamole this weekend--one that conisted simply of mushed-up avocado and grapefruit juice. It was so wonderful. And I absolutely love the ranch dressings that we've come up with, especially the caesar ranch!

Fruit dressings are great too though. They give you tons of energy and don't bog you down like some of the nut-based dressings that can make your diet more like 10/10/80 (80% or more fat), if you catch my drift. With this "fruit salad dressing," as I like to call it, no nuts are needed!

In case you are interested in the caloronutrient distribution, the meal was // calories from carbs/fat/protein. Here are the details:

Total calories: 578
% Calories from carbs/fat/protein: 92/3/5

The lettuce is about 12-13% calories from fat, but it is a low amount of calories in the overall meal (19!).

I got my information from http://www.nutridiary.com, which is a great place to keep a log of your meals and calories, or if you just want to look at the calorie distribution. It is really cool--you can create an account and save meals that you enter so that you don't have to enter them all over again later. If you have any questions, just ask!