A week of salads
After coming back from my vacation, I went through a spot of “raw turbulence”. It sounds like a dramatic term but I think at best I would describe it as a period of internal conflict — I want to be more raw and I believe in it but I craved cooked food. Or I kept finding myself in situations where I could only eat cooked or the raw selections were just paltry and sad.
But I was still determined to eat better because I was getting more and more sensitive to dairy, and I’m getting quite porky (FYI – the weight I lost last year has been creeping back; I am now 3kg shy from my pre-raw self). *Sad trombone*…
My lactose intolerance goes through phases where I bounce from more to less to more sensitive and right now I’m very sensitive to dairy. Last Sunday I had two licks of mayo with veggie sticks at an izakaya (a Japanese bar restaurant) and I had to make a beeline for the bathroom once I got home.
I hate being like this honestly but I also hate appearing picky about food. It’s one of those situations where you wish it were a perfect world but of course you know it would be forever this distorted, stilted half-hearted existence.
It didn’t help that various family members, friends and the non-raw fiancé assumed that I was “coming out of this phase”, meaning I am leaving the “insanity” of raw food behind and easing back into the normal world. It was because I didn’t eat a lot of raw when they saw me over my two vacations. My fiancé has not been home in Tokyo for the longest time so he saw me eat cooked food 80% of the time while we were in Moscow.
Let me just say this: to me being raw makes me feel normal physically. Socially, I know I’ve yet to find a good balance for myself. I still feel a flash of anger when someone tells me that I should eat meat and that only eating veggies is dangerous for my health. Or people just laugh out loud at the notion of eating raw food, “Don’t be ridiculous! You have to cook your food!”
But I know that such comments come from a place of ignorance and deep-rooted beliefs from other ways of eating and living so I calm down. But I still get annoyed as my first reaction and I don’t want to even feel annoyed. Should these comments even bother me at all, because we cannot simply be beings defined by food? So what if someone thinks I’m raw or not, or “weaning off” vegetarian, right?
But the positive side to them thinking I’m “not raw anymore” is maybe because I stopped talking about it so much. It’s actually a relief to know that they don’t just see me as a walking talking piece of broccoli who’s got fruit cake for brains.
Anyway, the other problem I face when I come back from an overseas trip is that I am usually swamped with work. I don’t have time to labour over food so I went with my gut and made lots of huge, filling, nourishing salads everyday for lunch. I don’t adore salads as a main meal but last week was a glorious parade of salads in my kitch.
Pictured above is a nectarine salad with a pine nut dressing recipe adapted from Sarma’s Living Raw Food book. On the side are a huge glass of green juice and a few Italian flax crackers from Foods Alive.
Dressing recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 cup soaked pine nuts
1 clove garlic
Dash of thyme
Dash of sage
Drop of mirin (the recipe called for white wine so I replaced it with Japanese cooking rice wine)
Sea salt to taste
1 tbs of nutritional yeast
Juice of ½ lemon
½ cup water
Ooooo….aren’t those nectarines just DELECTABLE?
I used the same dressing over a pear salad with sprouts and other munch worthy thingies…
I’m sharing not one but TWO raw dressings in this post. Since I stalk Gena’s blog daily, I was inspired to turn her dilly sunflower cheeze recipe into a dressing.
Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 cup soaked sunflower seeds
1 handful of dill
1 clove garlic
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup water
Sea salt to taste
It was a thick creamy dressing that hit the spot and had such a refreshing flavour because of the dill — perfect for the steamy temperatures over here in Tokyo.
Thanks for listening to my rant. As they say, when there is internal conflict, you’re actually gearing up for something bigger and better. Work is kicking into high gear and it was busy before so now I’m even more so. I also won’t hide the fact that my wedding next year is a big incentive to step on the accelerator on keeping in shippy-shape and I’m loving the fact that I’m digging salads so much. Viva la raw!
Hi Yu Ming,
remember me? the singaporean girl living in yokohama who harassed you with questions on raw diet earlier this year. I’m still stalking your site and finding inspiration from your determination in pursuing a healthy lifestyle. I understand what you meant by being annoyed with remarks made by others because I faced the same things from family and friends when I share my beliefs in raw (and I’m only doing part raw!). And I hate my urge for wanting to defend my choices and beliefs because I shouldn’t even need to do that. Anyway, I just want you to know that I really admire your discipline and determination in your pursuit of a healthy life so “Jia You”!
Hi Cindy,
Of course I rem you! Thanks for commenting again. I think even if it’s not food and you choose a different lifestyle from others, there will always be people out there making unwanted remarks about something or other. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway. I don’t think I am deliberately being unconventional, but that this way of eating really works for me in terms of giving me energy and focus. I don’t have that food coma induced state when I eat raw.
Thanks for your sweet words and glad you keep coming back to read my lil’ blog here.
oh girl, I totally understand. I hate causing a scene about food, and hate to be picky, but sometimes I realized I have to be for my health. It sucks, but we got to do want is best for us! And honestly we eat a mix of cooked and raw foods….try not to put pressure on yourself if you go through periods of eating more cooked vs raw. Your body knows what is best, so just listen to it!
HUGS!
Thanks for the encouragement, pure2raw. I admire that you guys are strong about your health needs. I thought I would be, but certain social situations make me just throw caution into the wind. I suppose repeated experience will wean me off such weakness
We often avoid talking about our vegan/high raw ways to avoid too much. It’s hard to get everyone to see the reason why we do it and whenever some one gets concerned about it we just sort of nod along but still stand up for yourself. You never know, you might say something that will change their point of view. You’re def not alone in this
I do not eat raw, but I’m finding a number of recipes from your site that I feel will work well for me in the long run. (Those salads look DELISH.) I have only just started the yeast diet/candida diet, which is set up to *get rid of* candida overgrowth. I’ve been feeling bitter about my own dealings with the rest of the world right now, because so many foods just aren’t me-friendly. I am about to go to a family gathering tomorrow, which will be lots of food. That I cannot eat. And people with confused faces, asking about just what I can or cannot eat. It is often frustrating. But you are helping others rediscover the nature of their relationship with food every time you have to explain your choice. Which is helpful, even if it’s frustrating.
As for your lactose intolerance, it’s not what makes the mayonnaise experience bad for you. Mayo isn’t dairy, it’s eggs and oil. Perhaps you are allergic to eggs? Also, I’ve heard others who regularly eat low fat, vegetable diets, have similar reactions to eating something as rich as mayo after a hiatus.
Hi Jaclyn & Jennifer, good to know there are people out there who can relate to what I’m talking about. I agree with not talking about my way of eating and learned that very very early on when I first turned raw. Comments like, “you are endangering your health” to “your palms are yellow maybe because your diet is so limited” (hello, Chinese in da house) floored me to no end so I stopped talking about it. But even eating plain ol’ cooked vegetarian can get people’s attention because I’m almost always the only person who is veggie at the table.
But, I think I’ve converted some of my friends to drinking green juice and smoothies, so that in itself is something to be happy about
Hi sneakfuzz, interesting theory about mayo. It could be also the hidden fish stock (dashi) that is in many Japanese dishes, even veggie ones. The tummy trouble could have been due to some other dish I ate. Again, I don’t want to insist on going to say an Italian or Indian restaurant when everyone else wants to go to a Japanese place where the choices are usually very limited for me. I’m not bitter about it but it’s something I need to figure out and deal with.
I eat a mix of raw and vegetarian food (no mock food) most of the time. Found out recently there is term for people who eat like me, flexitarians. I eat vegetables most of the time as it really helps with my rashes and hives problem as I have bad shellfish allergies. Eating a plant-based diet solves the problem of checking whether the food I eat has shellfish in it. Like you, I get the ‘Is that the only rabbit food you are eating?’ or “Vegetables only?’ or ” You have to eat meat! Eating vegetables only is bad for your health.’ Yes, it does gets tiring explaining to others why you and I eat this way. You know the benefits you have reaped from eating a raw diet. Keep up the good work. BTW, the nectarine salad looks divine. Yums.