Eat Dance Live

Four days of high raw and I feel like a new person. I can't get over how amazing the raw diet is. As I mentioned yesterday , I've been eating about 95% fresh fruit and veggies and I've regained the mental clarity I lost over the past 6 months. Like I used to in the beginning, I woke up bright and early today (at 6:45am) and felt totally alert and ready to go. I went upstairs to our super new loft that I'm turning into my yoga/dance harem and did 20 minutes of yoga from Yoga Download to get my day going. It was delicious. ( photo source ) Despite the fact that it's also super hot up here (yep, even Canadians get 35C/95F degree weather sometimes!), we trekked all around town and I managed to survive 30 minutes of sweaty jungle beast cardio at the gym later in the afternoon... All of that, and I still feel great! For those who have expressed curiosity on what my day looks like now that it's more 'structured'. It looks something like this: Breakfast: Frui...

Two more days to enter in my dehydrator giveaway , and thanks to all of those who already have! So despite the fact that we are officially leaving the country in less than a week, we kind of went nuts during our last trips to our two favourite local grocery stores: Roots Market and MOM's (you will both be very very missed). I think there is something very primal in a human being when it fears that it won't be able to get food... like stockpiling. We were like two weary travelers in an oasis after a long trip in the desert, grabbing at everything and anything that said "raw" on the label and putting in our grocery cart. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but we both felt this definite sense of urgency, like we didn't know when we'd be able to find these products or food ever again. The silly thing is, I've been to all the natural grocers in Ottawa and I love them all, yet I don't know if they have all the raw goodies that I'm used to buying here or if ...

I've always been all about good food pairing, the beautiful unions between the totally strange or the absolutely expected, from peanut butter and jelly, goat cheese and preserved figs, potato chips and vanilla ice cream (seriously, try it), to rainbow trout and raspberry jam (apparently, it's a Canadian thing... or so Andrew claims, but it sure is tasty)... I love it all! Recently, I've been trying to set up of my new best friend with a variety of potential suitors, and that best friend would be the Banana Whip. I'm guessing he's kind of a man's man, because as of yet, every option has worked amazingly well. I don't actually think it's possible for me to go wrong on this one! Whether it's been the banana whip with blended strawberries and spirulina, I've already raved about: To my more recent plain banana whip topped with my superfood mix: To Andrew's date, cashew, raw honey banana whip blend. But tonight, oh, tonight, a beautiful thing was ...

And by that, I mean sushi. If I haven't made it clear yet, I have something of a seaweed addiction. I always have a strong desire to incorporate more of it into my life. To celebrate, my day began and ended with seaweed. Breakfast was yet another spirulina strawberry-banana whip. This one was made by simply blending 1 1/2 frozen bananas in the Vitamix (or any high speed blender), then separately blending 3 frozen strawberries, and topping that magnificent mix in a bowl with 1 heaping teaspoon of spirulina. To end a wonderful day, I have just finished polishing off 1 1/2 rolls of my superfood sushi , one of the first recipes I ever blogged about. To make it more raw, this version had sprouted red quinoa instead of steamed quinoa. The rest was the same, though I did use a couple strips of tempeh as the protein and Braggs instead of soy sauce. I do eat tempeh on rare occasions because live/fermented foods are usually a-okay in my book. I also don't have to go into detail to re-e...

The beauty of a raw food diet is that you get to discover all sorts of fun new foods that people just don't ever think of looking into when on a SAD diet. While I know that I could thrive on a high raw diet on its own if I wanted to, superfoods are often way too tasty to pass up! So along with spirulina, maca, and mesquite powder, other favourite superfoods I have daily are a mix of: Turkish Mulberries: Sweet and a little tart, these little suckers are packed with vitamin C, iron, calcium, fiber and have a significant amount of protein. They're considered to be a blood tonic, but also benefit the kidneys, help with stress, fatigue and sleep, help protect against cancer and anemia, and is anti-aging... as usual with superfoods, that's only the beginning of a long list of its benefits! Goji Berries: My grandmother actually used to drink a tea with these in it when I was little and I already loved them then! Well enough, they've been used by the Chinese for centuries as ...

What bounces back after a workout? My new raw recipe of course! Here is my attempt at recreating the health benefits of Nature's Path Rebound Cereal for a quick post-workout snack. I took the cereal box and imitate as much of its ingredients as possible with their raw counterparts, and I got something I'm pretty satisfied with! If a raw counterfeit ever existed to that cereal, I think I just made it: Rebound Balls 3/4 C sprouted then dehydrated buckwheat groats (grind 1/2 of this amount) or ground oat/wheat flakes 1.5 tbsps flax seeds 1 tsp ground flax 1/2 C ground soaked almonds pinch of sea salt cinnamon (to taste) 1 tsp matcha green tea powder 2 tbsps wheat germ 1/4 C sunflower seeds, soaked 1/4 C raisins 1.5 large ripe bananas, well mashed 1 tbsp honey 1 tsp molasses 1. Blend/Mash bananas 2. Add all dry ingredients 3. Add all other wheat ingredients 4. Mix, if it's too dry, add tiny bit of water until you can form them into b...

I have often found since having gone raw that my desire for mid-day foraging has dramatically increased. I think moving to raw foods has dramatically increased. I think moving to raw foods has given me a deeper understanding for what squirrels feel like. Eating such small meals throughout the day really makes you just want to constantly be scavenging for more. I've gotta say it's kind of fun! But seriously, I have found that the answer to all my foraging needs has been to create quick and easy and super fun raw balls. These can come in as many colors and textures as you like, and I don't think I've ever made the same one twice. As long as they are super pact with nutrients and superfoods, you're good to go. Just bring a couple out to snack on during your day and you'll see the difference it makes! Here are examples of the three most recent ones I've made. Being me, I totally did not take down measurements, but you can figure it out on your own. All you...

I recently realized (merci Clémence!) that though I've now mentioned it a few times, I never actually specified what a raw food diet is, or more importantly, what the raw food diet means to me. In the simplest of terms choosing a diet in raw and living foods is choosing to primarily eat uncooked vegan foods combined in ways to be the healthiest, most digestible and tastiest meals! When you aren’t simply eating fruits and veggies straight up or in the form of salads, ‘cooking’ raw foods involves nothing more than sprouting grains and seeds, soaking, dehydrating, refrigerating (to solidify snacks and desserts), etc. Like I discovered with veganism, there is nothing you can’t turn into a raw recipe! I’ve seen it all: raw pizzas, cookies, ice cream, pasta, and more. Cooking-wise, raw foodism is in part based on the idea that heating food above 116 degrees F destroys essential enzymes and nutrients that assist in the digestion and absorption of food. In hippie terms (which ...

With the end of classes coming around and procrastination from papers increasing with the end of the semester, I'm hoping to be posting more frequently from now on (along the lines of twice a week). It seems like people are looking for all sorts of substitutes recently (myself included!) whether it is to make something vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, low-sugar, low calorie, the list goes on… this is why this week’s ode is to quinoa. Quinoa: it’s something of a grain, but it’s gluten free and you can use it for ANYTHING! It can substitute rice, couscous, breakfast oatmeal, you can find quinoa flour, you name it! Like I mentioned in one of my last posts, I always find it fascinating (but mostly scary) how far removed we have become from our food. When we consider that traditional South American diets understood the need for complete proteins, or that traditional Chinese cooking emphasizes the consumption of ‘internal body cleansers’ or 'energy balancers' like ginger...