Raw Food Diet on Stored Foods?

My health is horrible. I eat junk, even though I'm supposed to be getting healthy by changing my eating habits. I'm a cheeseburger and pizza junkie. I love cookies and cakes and ice cream. I try to eat a lot of stored foods, but I need to get out of the MickeyD's cheeseburger/Big Mac mindset to enjoy them. I'm a really picky eater; I don't like most cooked vegetables but I'll eat them raw. However, the taste of them changes when they are dehydrated, which is necessary to make them last over the Winter.

A wonderful lady, Susan Schenck, is considering donating her book "The Live Food Factor" to our blog contest but that got me thinking. I did the raw food diet a few years ago, and felt great while on it. Then I slipped and couldn't get back on for various reasons.

Now, I'm wondering. Is it possible to get back on the raw food diet and actually survive on it via stored foods if confined for a long while?

I went over my list of stored foods. Here's what we store that qualifies as raw:
-dehydrated fruits
-dehydrated vegetables
-beans/peas/lentils/soybeans
-rice and corn pasta
-rice? cornmeal? oats?
-pre-ground flax seeds (40 oz container-expires 2 years unless opened)
-frozen walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, peanuts

I'm sure I missed a few things.

And I'd have to grind the vegetables into a powder (all-vegg powder) to make them palatable (to me).

Our garden can/has produced the following, which we can either freeze (not preferred in case of loss of electricity) or dehydrate:
-peanuts
-corn
-sunflowers
-eggplant
-beans, including string and soybeans
-peas
-tomatoes
-okra
-peppers (bell and hot)
-greens
-radishes
-carrots
-etc.

On our homestead we'll plant lots of fruit and nut trees so we'll have those to freeze or otherwise store (almonds, pecans, walnuts, filberts, apples, pears, nectarines, etc.). Bushes of cherries, blueberries, cranberries and elderberries. Vines of grapes and passionfruit.

Plus we have growing inside year round a couple of tomato plants. In the Winter we grow carrots, radishes and greens like lettuce and spinach. We just started adding sprouts to our indoor "gardening". Could possibly add blueberry to year-round. Possibly strawberries. If we get/build a house with a big south-facing room with lots of windows, we could grow even more, like the lime/lemon/tangerine tree, banana tree plants, and more.

So... I could, depending on the availability, eat a fresh salad every day from our indoor and outdoor garden with a variety of veggies to go in it. I could eat my special crackers (below) with a variety of nut butters, salsa, guacamole, or raw hummus. Fresh or rehydrated fruit drizzled with homestead honey. Gazpacho (raw soup with tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.).

When I was full-on gluten-free a couple of years ago, I learned how to make a raw flax cracker. (Will post recipe soon - I made one that was unbelievably delicious.) Could grind the beans/peas/lentils/rice and add as "flour" to the cracker, along with the cornmeal/corn masa. Maybe even oats. Could add powdered veggies - the ones I don't like - and spices/herbs to change up the taste. This is a cracker that's dehydrated so it would qualify as raw.

I'm going to look into this and start posting raw-recipes as soon as possible. Perhaps this would help my myriad of symptoms if I'd just get off the junk food. Does a diet that has 85% raw food interest anyone besides me? Vikki

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Vikki, I have the same "SAD" taste buds as you described and have been wanting to get on the raw 'path' for several years due to health problems. I have a greenhouse, a fruit/veggie garden and some good books but for some reason it seems like I'm programmed to cook everything! I would love it if you'd post more on raw related food storage ideas and recipes to inspire me. Deb

Trashdigger said...

eating raw is simple. If you dont need the stove or microwave eat it.
grab an apple and orange and if you need a cracker, I slice a fresh potato and eat it raw. with dip.