so that's four days eating over 50% raw.
but how do you calculate x% raw? lots of people go the 80-20 route. how do you know? is it by weight, volume, what? i had some mozzarella with my lunch salad today and by weight it was about 50% of my salad, by volume less than a third, so i don't know if that means my lunch was 50% raw or nearer 70%. and surely you need to consider nutrional density. i mean, if you ate carefully selected, raw vegan food, really healthy, optimal nutrition choices, for 4 days then ate at pizza hut/mc donald's/kfc on the fifth day... surely that's worse than adding a little cheese or yoghurt or a jacket potato to your daily food. but it would still be 80-20. there. one to ponder.
there's definitely, for me, a downside to eating raw. you end up having to eat the same thing for three or four days because it lasts so long. one head of romaine lettuce and a bag of spinach have lasted me all week. it'd be great to have more variation but eating raw for one (boo joins in occasionally, but not enough to make that much difference) means i get bored. for all the wonderful recipes out there, and i have a big pile of fabulous raw recipe books (my first ever, from 1990, Leslie Kenton's Raw Energy, and since then: Karen Knowler's ebooks, Shazzie's Detox Your World, Sarma Melngailis and Matthew Kenney's Raw Food, Real World, Gabrielle Chavez's The Raw Food Gourmet, Jordan Maerin's Raw Foods for Busy People....) as well as the wealth of info out there on the www (Freshtopia, WLIR, multitude of blogs) you know, you're only able to make recipes with ingredients you have to hand. I just can't have something different every day without having to throw away unused produce at the end of the week. i do try to dehydrate leftovers, or fruit that's going to go soft before i get round to eating it but that's not always feasible. dehydrated carrots anyone?
then there's the time it takes to make everything. making nut milk, which i love to drink, is a painful process. it takes a lot of cleaning up afterwards, but the milk disappears in seconds. sprouts require lots of attentionm so it's more worthwhile sprouting in batches, from a time point of view. but they need eating in the space of two days, and i find there's always too much.
so a solution is definitely needed. and i can't work out what it might be.
i've got three days of eating out coming up, but then i'll spend a few weeks trying to answer my own questions. getting that mix of variety and speedy meals.
today's tally
pineapple, blueberry, mango and spinach smoothie
coffee with milk
grapes, apple, mandarin, date, few macadamias
big green salad with radish, sweetcorn, turkish green pepper, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and balsamic vinegar dressing
green smoothie (mango, spinach, bit of chocolate)
