How to make the switch to raw veggies and fruits!

[rachie]

I really want to get myself and my entire family eating more of a vegetarian diet rather than the "typical" American diet.  Let me first say that we try to eat healthy already and I'm already learning to cook in some varieties that are unusual because my son cannot have cane sugar, wheat or white rice.  We also have greatly reduced cow's milk and would like to only drink/eat milk products from safe, raw milk.  But I grew up eating only a few COOKED veggies, as did my husband.  We're not used to healthy food tastes.  We are going to need, I fear, some GOOD and yet easy recipes.  My husband and kids are WAY more picky than I am.  I'd like to do as much raw as possible (salads and such) but am open to soups and cooked meals too if I can get as much of foods in them that retain healthy stuff even when cooked.  ?? 

Any suggestions to start?  Any blogs I can go to.  I figure I'll just begin to phase in more and more of these more healthy meals until one day that's pretty much all we eat :)

[kcparker]

Cooked doesn't equal less healthy - some foods like carrots are actually made more bio-available if they are cooked. Vegetarian/vegan cooking is awesome and easy. Go to the public library for cookbooks to give you inspiration. Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook is very unintimidating and easy to follow. Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is full of tasty, easy recipes for cooking every vegetable you can imagine. Epicurious is good for all sorts of recipes, and I love 101cookbooks.com for tasty ideas too, though it's a little shi-shi. I just read an interesting blog post recently that posits that humans evolved to eat cooked foods; fire makes foods easier to chew and digest, and we have much smaller jaws and molars than apes, and we spend less time per day eating than do other primates (though food collection would take a hunter-gatherer much of the day). So don't feel like you have to go raw!

[rachie]

Originally Posted by kcparker 

Cooked doesn't equal less healthy - some foods like carrots are actually made more bio-available if they are cooked. Vegetarian/vegan cooking is awesome and easy. Go to the public library for cookbooks to give you inspiration. Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook is very unintimidating and easy to follow. Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is full of tasty, easy recipes for cooking every vegetable you can imagine. Epicurious is good for all sorts of recipes, and I love 101cookbooks.com for tasty ideas too, though it's a little shi-shi. I just read an interesting blog post recently that posits that humans evolved to eat cooked foods; fire makes foods easier to chew and digest, and we have much smaller jaws and molars than apes, and we spend less time per day eating than do other primates (though food collection would take a hunter-gatherer much of the day). So don't feel like you have to go raw!

Thanks!  I think I'd just like to benefit from certain things that are better raw - almost all our current diet is cooked - I'd like at least some raw in there.  What helpful info about cooked foods being good for you!  Thank you so much!  Oh - and on this note - my husband has an allergic reaction if he eats raw carrots but can have them cooked - ?? 

[hasya]

You'll find many suitable recipes for raw "cooking" in Mediterannean cookbooks. East and South Asian recipes are very vegetable heavy. While Chinese/Thai etc. cooking cooks vegetables very less, Indian cooking cooks them more. However, while in East Asian cooking, protein comes mostly from soy or meat (as I understand it), South Asian cooking using various lentils and beans extensively. I know of someone with a cow's milk protein allergy but can eat clarified butter with no problems, perhaps because what's left after clarification is only fat. So, if a recipe calls for this, you could try to use it (with appropriate controls, of course!).

[germin8]

Most of these are all raw:

goneraw.com

gonevegan.com

rawmazing.com

kristensraw.blogspot.com

sweetlyraw.com

Check out all the links from My Blog List and Free Recipes... there are several raw websites there:

thesunnyrawkitchen.blogspot.com

[MamaMamaMama!]

The Traditional Foods forum here on MDC has a lot of great info on healthy eating--not vegetarian, per se, but there is a lot of information that is very useful in the vegetarian diet regarding soaking, fermenting, making nutrients available to the body in the best way, which foods are best cooked and which are best raw, etc.: http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/list/365

The Weston Price Foundation has a wealth of information on the same topics: http://www.westonaprice.org/healthtopics.html

And I love this article on vegetarianism: http://nourishedkitchen.com/what-vegns-can-learn-from-traditional-foods/

[Bisou]

There are some great benefits to raw foods, and I've done some reading on that myself.  Some people aim for at least one raw meal per day, and this might be something to try.  Also, while it's true that some nutrients are more "bio-available" in cooked foods, as one poster noted, if you can get away with even lightly grilling or steaming your veggies, that will be better than cooking them into mush, which can destroy many of the vitamins.

Salads with a great variety of veggies is one great way to get in a good amount of raw veggies.

Another thing that is good in the morning is a green smoothie.  Now this might sound gross, and I thought it was COMPLETELY nasty when I read about it, but decided to try it anyway.  You use raw spinach or another leafy green (I have also used baby romaine or the other dark, bagged lettuce mixes; the darker the lettuce, the more nutrients) and a banana and some other fruit, like frozen cherries, blueberries, and mango.  I used to fill a blender with an entire bag of spinach, one banana, and about a cup or two of frozen fruit, and I swear, you can't even taste the spinach!  The only thing that might be hard for your hubby or kids to get past is the color.  But if you have the balance right, it will just taste like a fruit smoothie.  Yum!  And super healthy!  When I was making these, I felt really energized and healthy, and the weird sore spots on my tongue I always have (geographical tongue) disappeared completely.  Unfortunately my blender is on the fritz, but I am hopefully getting a new one for Christmas.  :o)

I have been a vegetarian for years, and there are tons of great cookbooks and now even lots of free recipes online!  I'd check out some that sound good and have lots of good reviews, then keep the ones you like.

Good luck!

[germin8]

Great tip on the green smoothie.  Here's some more info on that:  Ode to the Green Smoothie