The temperatures are as high as 34-35 degrees C and I’m surprised I want stir-fried noodles and rice as early as lunch time. I’m trying not to feel bad about it and I know from experience it is better to eat instinctively than force myself to have something you should have.

Do you ever check with yourself what is going, in relation to your food choices? Well, I try to be analytical and honest with myself. I am sure I’m not depressed, in fact, I’m happy with all areas in my life, I’m not bored as I’m actually busy, but I’m working out alot so I do feel a bit more tired than usual, so I’ve been a bit less motivated to make food. I scoffed cooked dinner leftovers for lunch two days in a row.

What’s up with that? I think I’ve got other things on my mind other than food preparation. I even wished someone would come into my house to make me fresh healthy food for free and to make it exactly the way I like it, but of course, that was wishful thinking. I got my act together and made a huge salad for dinner and had it with some brown rice, stir-fried veggies, and a fried egg. I think my period may be approaching too, hencewhy the wonky food choices.

So while we are on the topic of cooked food, I went to one of my absolute favourite joints for vegan food — Chaya Macrobi Cafe. They state all their ingredients and indicate if it has dairy or fish. They only have one fish dish at the moment but everything else looks vegan on the menu.

This burger was made with soy meat and a delicious savoury sauce that I couldn’t put my finger on what was in it. It was a bit like ketchup with a hint of mustard…Big YUM.

It came with a minestrone soup and the set cost 1,300JPY (USD16.50). It was a filling lunch but I didn’t feel like I was bursting at the gills.

Chaya Macrobi is located in B2 of Chanti, a shopping mall in Ginza (info here). The menu is seasonal and they change it up quite a bit except the veggie curry which is a main stay. I once had a vegan lasagna and loved every bite.

I’ve been juicing a lot lately though and am loving this…

Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 grapefruit
1 carrot
1 celery stalk (including leaves)
1/2 head of chicory leaves
1 cup water

Add ice and slurp this baby up.

What are your fave veggie eats in this stinking hot weather?

#1 Raw Coconut-Frosted Brownie

#2 Raw Vegan Bibimbap

#3 Raw Pad Thai

#4 Raspberry Chia Pudding

#5 My Favourite Chia Seed Pudding

#6 Raw Lemon Cheesecake

#7 Overnight Oats: Where have you been all my life?

#8 My Pre-Workout Smoothie

#9 A Korean Vegan Affair

#10 High Raw Salad + Quinoa

Anyway, here’s what I got recently….

I got two packets of Two Moms In The Raw granola and I find them okay…Go Raw is way yummier…

International Harvest Cherry Bilberry Granola is pretty tasty…

I wasn’t so into their mulberry walnut granola but that’s because I don’t like mulberries…

Dehydrated salted sunflower seeds from Go Raw — a great topping to salads.

Would you believe that this bucket of protein powder is gone already? It is seriously my favourite among all the Vega Whole Food Optimizer series. I love having this before or after a workout…It is pretty expensive, I must say, but I would buy it again if I have the chance.

More Larabars….Okay these are not 100% raw but they are vegan. The non-raw fiance always gets me a bunch which are so awesome for travelling and grabbing when I’m on the go.

Vega Whole Food Energy Bar is almost like a meal in a bar — incredibly dense and delicious. It’s not as sweet or moist as the Larabars so they are great for keeping sugar levels steady.

My lifeline….Chia seeds!!

Hemp seeds….I love chucking them in smoothies to bump up my protein consumption.

I add Amazing Grass Green Superfood (berry) to my green juice every morning.

Raw iron is a supplement to my veggie diet because I had dizzy spells for a while and I think it could be due to anemia. After taking iron pills regularly, I felt much better and have not had vertigo anymore. I also take B12, calcium, magnesium, and zinc just in case I’m missing out on trace minerals, especially when I don’t eat optimally on busy days.

I get my raw products online from The Raw Food World all the time because their prices are the best and they ship internationally. They also have a discount code if you subscribe to their newsletter.

To be really honest, I don’t read their newsletters because I think the owner Matt Monarch is too extreme in his views. They may be inspiring for some folks but I find them downright nuts to put it politely. I’m not here to slag him at all and would recommend his store to anyone keen to buy authentic raw food products at a reasonable price.

Sun Warrior Raw Brown Rice Protein has become such a cult classic on raw blogs that I had to try it.

My nut milk bags get super mouldy quickly in Japanese weather…

I’ve never tried Lydia’s Organics raw cereals so I thought this would be something I would like….buckwheat and cinnamon are staples in my morning raw cereal…

The return of RAWEOS!!!! It was a splurge to get three packets but I think it is worth it. Sometimes I just don’t want to make food and I’d like to open up my raw food drawer in the kitchen and find food in there….These babies are made with carob which is super duper (I can’t really take much cacao because I’m hyper sensitive to caffeine).

Love….

Convenient raw food….

And this bad boy….Rawtella… I will have to ration this one out…It’s USD15.95 for a tiny bottle, though it looks like it will be hard…!!

What’s the one raw food product you love to buy and can’t live without?

Today, I thought I would write what I eat for folks who are interested in what a typical day of food is like for me in Tokyo.

It really changes all the time — I go through phases where I have alot of smoothies and soups but then I flip and want to chew on my food so today’s journal is what I consider the “munchy” variety…

Morning:

Green juice: parsley, lemon, celery

Cracktella smoothie…

Recipe:
2 frozen bananas
2 scoops Sun Warrior Protein (Vanilla)
2 cups almond milk
2 soaked dates
1 tbs maca
1 tbs Rawtella
1 tbs cocoa powder

My only complaint is that it’s a really small bottle for USD15.95….

Afternoon:

Lunch: Three large nori rolls with cucumber, avocado, broccoli sprouts and cheezy nut sauce plus a chai Raweo

Snack: Large green smoothie with mango, pineapple and spinach

Night:

Dinner: Gluten-free fusilli pasta with white bean ratatouille and a salad

Just thought I’d throw in a picture of our garden flourishing in late spring…

What does your typical day of eats look like?

Lately, I have been a bit dismayed that green smoothies are making feel nauseous — it’s so strange because I adore green smoothies. [And no, I'm not pregnant...]

I had a large serving of my raw banana split one night and the day after everything felt wrong. I couldn’t stomach raw food. I had a kiwi, celery, banana, spinach smoothie in the morning and felt completely ill so I had some bland brown rice porridge for lunch. I thought it would pick up but I just felt so sickened by the thought of a salad or smoothie or juice, so I had a hummus whole wheat wrap with some shredded cucumber, carrot, and avocado.

Things have improved slightly on the raw food front. Thankfully, green juice and chia seed puddings are still delicious to me and just now I had a savoury green soup which went down quite easily but I’m keeping away from very sweet green smoothies now.

It was such a strange phenomenon that I went online to check it out.

The only answer I could find was here and it explained it was possible was that I had a lot of fat (from the walnut ice-cream) so the sugar in my bloodstream stayed longer in my body longer than it otherwise would. This was stated by someone who is not a scientist or doctor so I’m not going to take this as fact, but I’m curious if any of you have experience something similar?

…I got a Blendtec!!!! I’m in heaven…

This is a second hand Blendtec Total Blender Basic for 27,000JPY (USD300; I understand that a brand new one would cost anywhere between USD400 – 500) from a fellow rawbie who is leaving Tokyo soon. It is still in excellent condition and she even bleached it before passing it to me. I have no doubt that this blender would last me for many many many years, if not a lifetime.

She also had a 9-tray dehydrator for sale but I actually don’t eat many dehydrated raw foods and I think the noise would drive the non-raw fiance crazy in our tiny apartment. He can put up with short bursts of noise but I think a constant drone for 12 hours just to dehydrate raw cookies or crackers would make both of us go bonkers.

I cannot wait to make nut butters with this speed demon. I’ve had it with my cranky Zojirushi blender (cost about 3000JPY and had it for almost five years) that stops stubbornly when I stuff in too many leafy greens or struggles with frozen chunks of mango, especially when I’m in a hurry. I tend to reach for large smoothies when I’m short of time so it didn’t help that my old blender couldn’t take the heat and ended up slowing me down. Also, the non-raw fiance noticed that one small part of electrical cord was exposed so I could accidently electrocute myself if it came into contact with any liquid.

What was the first thing I made with my new Blendtec? A green juice — apple, kiwi, lemon, celery, and curly parsley. With my old blender, you could still see the parsley in coarse chunks but for the Blendtec, the pulpiness looked much smoother but of course I still had to strain it through a nut milk bag. I put in as much veggie as it could hold and cranked it up to level 4 and it did the job within seconds. Yay… I cannot wait to make super smooth soups, smoothies, ice-cream, pie-fillings….!!!!!!

I’ve blogged about my raw food disasters here before, but I’ve never done a post on saving a failed attempt.

I’m not even going to post this recipe because it was kinda awful. Basically it was a walnut-cashew-lemon raw cookie that was supposed to be dehydrated, but guess what, I thought my freezer could be a great alternative instead.

They tasted like frozen citrus sawdust but I didn’t want to waste them because nuts are expensive.

So I whipped up a mixed berry “jam” which is just a cup of mixed frozen berries whizzed together with maple syrup in my food processor. It’s the same sauce I use to top my raw lemon cheesecake, too — simple but delish.

I’d say the sweet berry jam masked the cardboard-like taste of the cookies — mission accomplished.

…yet another chia pudding. This is a hemp seed milk one with raw buckwheat cereal from Raw Pleasure in Australia with strawberries, banana, and dried cherries. I had a few chia puddings in Singapore when I bought some from the organic section in local supermarket chain, NTUC. I was so surprised to find buckwheat and chia seeds there! It’s great that some Singaporeans know about these raw products.

And how I missed my chia puddings so…I’m having them in one shape or form daily this chilly winter.

I love my chocolate cashew chia version, and its berry sister, and my basic chia seed pudding that just has nut/seed milk topped with raw cereal, raisins, banana, and blueberries. I like my chia seed puddings with soaked dates the best but sometimes I don’t plan ahead enough…note to self to soak dates more…

Decorating chia puddings with interesting fruit like figs stirs up the mix wonderfully, or sometimes when I travel, I keep it really simple — nut milk, chia seeds, banana, raw granola. Or I could eat it out of a Tribest container if I don’t have a bowl handy.

More recently, I’ve taken to chucking chia seeds into overnight oats which are lifesavers in this chilly winter in Tokyo. It is more filling than a basic chia pudding and great for times when I don’t feel like making a nut-based one.

It snowed mushy snow this morning and I’ve got my floor heater on and the little electric heater going at full blast — c-c-c-c-cold.

The only tip I have to eat raw in winter is to let your produce warm up to room temperature before making any food. It takes about 30 minutes so planning ahead really helps. I think to myself, “What would I like to eat today?” and set about soaking nuts or taking salad leaves out.

And if it all gets too hard, I just eat cooked veggie food, though I must say that is not really happening much at all. I am surprised that going through my third winter, I have had a mini breakthrough of sorts. I no longer want something warm in the morning if it is cold out (below 5 degrees C). I usually drink hot water upon waking and then have a green juice. Perhaps it’s because I have gone through so many permutations of “changing things up” during winter that I feel the best starting my day with a green juice and being raw till dinner. Habit is quite a force to be reckoned with…

Also on hindsight, I was too hard on myself in the past and one should never force oneself to eat or drink anything you don’t want to. It’s been said before, but wanting to be raw will come naturally if you keep to it more or less.

Look what I got in the mail!!!

I stopped shopping for raw food online so much because the non-raw fiance goes to the US quite often so he’s my courier boy for all things raw. But he doesn’t do liquids because he doesn’t check in his luggage.

Once in awhile, I order stuff from The Raw Food World like raw almond butter (must-have!). This time, I also got some nut milk bags (my current ones are so mouldy…ew), raw cereal (the boy got me only two bags on his last trip because he mistook pumpkin seeds for cereal) and vitamins.

I know I mentioned I felt tired and suspected it was anemia. I know I should get blood-tested but I thought there was no harm in trying a few easy measures before trying to hunt down a clinic in Japan that could test for B12 and iron defiencies. Not fun.

While I waited for my raw stash to arrive, I loaded up on spinach, pumpkin seeds/milk, and beans to up my iron levels. My vertigo fits got weaker and weaker, and to tell you the truth, the day the vitamins arrived, I felt fine. In fact, no vertigo for several days already but I think it’s good to supplement these two vitamins anyway — just in case. And I’m actually sick of fruit-and-spinach smoothies, though I’m still into raw soups.

But first, I want to share a very lovely dressing for a salad. I adapted this recipe from The Sunny Raw Kitchen — I’ve added and deleted so many raw blogs in my RSS reader but this one has always been there; can I just say that Carmie is a “food magician”? By the way, I also wrote a post on salads, called How To Make A Seriously Amazing Salad, on my Beauty Box blog which featured this dressing, too.

Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 cup mango
5-6 cherry tomatoes
1 tbs white wine vinegar
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbs olive oil
½ cup water

The colour just makes a boring salad so much more enticing…

Okay onto my thought-ramblings. I’m not sure about the label, “raw food diet” or “raw vegan” anymore. I see myself as a vegetarian with a strong interest in raw foods. As mentioned before, focusing on labels is not worth the energy but I guess in a way they are helpful (Gena has a stellar post here on that) to give you boundaries in a positive way.

When I jumped onto the raw wagon, I wanted to be everything raw. I followed many gurus, listened to podcasts (Raw Vegan Radio and Rawkin’ Radio), watched videos, learned about the different branches of the raw food diet, joined forums and more, but in the last six months, I would say I’ve stopped most of that — I just don’t see myself in that community.

Perhaps I think it is a waste of time obsessing over raw or non-raw condiments, worrying if raw mushrooms are dangerous, wondering if superfoods really help or not and so on. The idea of cleansing and fasting alternately is also alien and unnecessary to me as I do not have any serious illnesses or chronic conditions. And most of all, that “cooked food is poison” mantra is just ludicrous to my jaded ears. The fear of letting any environmental and dietary toxins enter the body is something that I cannot relate to. I live in a city with a multitude of pollutants and doubt I would move to the boonies anytime soon just so that I can have access to cheap organic produce and clean air. Furthermore, I think some cooked vegan food is healthy and helps me to add bulk to a mostly raw diet.

But I still do see HUGE value in eating fresh, raw food to help your body regulate itself. I contemplated trying out DIY enemas but I just can’t bring myself to do so. Perhaps I don’t see a real need in my health at this point — I’m not perfect but I’ve got more energy and clarity than ever and I seldom fall sick. Everything feels better overall but I still get break outs once in awhile; I put on and lose weight (I’m not as heavy as before but I’m not super slim either); I get sick and tired sometimes; I’m still aging. There’s no replacement for whole foods but there’s no magical elixir either. For me, great health is about consistency, not perfection, in all aspects of your life.

Food for thought?