This is not so much a recipe as a technique. I learned this from Jennifer Cornbleet. She has a youtube video where she demonstrates her recipe called Mediterranean Kale. This technique is amazingly simple and yet fantastically effective. And deliciously raw! I will call my version simply Kale Salad.

Kale Salad

big bowl of kale, thinly sliced or chopped small
1/2 lemon
couple T of olive oil
1 clove of garlic
sea salt
whatever else you want to add!

Put the kale into a big bowl. Drizzle the olive oil and fresh lemon juice over the kale. Sprinkle with the salt. Rub and massage it with your hands for a minute or two until it reduces in size and starts looking “cooked.” Add the other ingredients, toss, and serve.
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If you watch Jennifer’s video she will demonstrate the process of making thin strips (chiffonade) of kale. I didn’t have the large leaves on hand, only a bag of curly kale. So I just chopped it up into finer pieces. It worked great!

She explains that the oil, lemon, and salt start to break down the kale and soften it up, much like cooking would do. You then rub it and massage it with your hands to break it down even further. It is a fairly tough green, and that’s why most people think it must be cooked. I am not a huge fan of cooked vegetables in the first place as I don’t like the mushy texture.

Ms. Cornbleet’s recipe consists of adding chopped red bell pepper, pine nuts, and sliced olives to this dish. Sounds yummy but I didn’t have those ingredients on hand. Today I made this dish and simply added a clove of minced garlic and some chopped red onion. Delicious! I am eager to make this again and again, varying the ingredients. Try it with your own ingredients and tell me what you think.

 

Edit: 8/14/09
I have been eating this type of salad for weeks now and have really been enjoying it.  Here is a picture of my raw salad that I eat every day. It consists of kale, red leaf, romaine, tomatoes, onions, radishes, and chopped raw cashews.

Okay, not completely raw but getting closer and closer all the time. There is no argument that raw vegetables are better for you than cooked. But what about all the other stuff? You can drive yourself crazy looking at all the foods in your kitchen that have had some degree of cooking added to them. Even nuts.

Lately I have been experimenting with a pure raw food diet. Without going into all the details, I have concluded that I don’t want to be fanatical about 100% raw. For a couple of days I had myself convinced it was the healthy choice. I watched a lot of youtube videos and read a lot of articles and recipes, and thought wow, this is the way to go!

Then the other day I was talking to a Doctor of Oriental Medicine (during a routine breast thermogram visit) whose opinion it is that mostly raw is a good thing but that we do need some cooked food in our bodies. It was a short conversation as our appointment was almost over, but some day I would like to pick her brain further on her advice.

So, to recap. Obviously as a vegetarian I am not going to eat raw meat. And at this point I am not planning to delve into making sure that every aspect of every ingredient of every meal that I eat is 100% raw. For example, raw nut butters. Raw honey. Raw agave. Etc, etc, etc. Nothing against those things (except maybe the higher price tag) but at this point I am comfortable with simply adding more raw vegetables into my diet. In terms of quantity and variety.

Then there is the issue of dairy products. Pure raw foodists do not eat dairy. I’m not sure that I can give up cheese. I keep going back and forth with the issue of whether dairy is good for us versus whether it is simply okay in moderation versus are humans really meant to consume the milk of another species at all. I don’t have any answers, only questions. I have been researching this issue, with varying degrees of intensity, for over 2 decades now. My opinion keeps changing.

For now I will be comfortable with keeping dairy products in my diet, but perhaps cut down the percentage. Two weeks ago it would have been unheard of for me to eat a salad with no cheese, but lately I’ve been doing it! I suppose all these years I assumed that it was important to add cheese to a vegetarian diet for the added source of protein. Despite the fact that I try to eat as many eggs and beans as I can fit in. But now I am rethinking this angle. I will keep cheese in my diet but will try not to feel the need to add it to every meal. I will try to like meals with no cheese (while silently crying inside). (Just kidding about that last part). 

Please forgive my ramblings. I am not a professional writer and am not going to agonize over how well-written this is. It is just my diary, if you will, of my thoughts and opinions and findings as I try to sort through the mysteries of good health. Hopefully it will suffice that my words are spelled correctly and that I use the proper punctuation! That means a lot to me in my writing, even if I am not so accomplished in the mechanics of it all.

Look for some new recipe postings soon! As I discover good raw dishes and techniques, I will post them here. I just made one today, in fact. Did you ever think that you could eat raw kale? Stay tuned!

Eat Real

These days you hear so much talk about numbers with regard to nutrition. Everyone is monitoring something and trying to achieve that perfect number range.

My philosophy is simple: eat foods as close to their natural state as possible.

Here are the guidelines I generally follow. And please keep in mind that I am not a professional nutritionist. These guidelines are my opinions based on years of reading and absorbing information. But mostly they are just plain common sense!

• Eat foods in as close to their natural state as possible.

Raw vegetables are the best, but cooked is okay too as long as you don’t cook them to mush. I like to steam cabbage-family vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts) with salt & pepper, and then toss with butter. Yum! It is simple and delicious and you can heap them on a plate as the main food and put a small pile of protein and/or starch to go along with it.

• Don’t use prepared foods for every meal.

Make it yourself! It is satisfying to buy the basic ingredients and whip up a dish yourself. And it is not hard at all. I am no gourmet cook but just knowing the basics is enough to make yummy meals.

That said, there are some prepared foods I allow myself to buy. Cold cereals, guacamole, hummus, bread, to name a few. I could make these foods myself, and have done so plenty of times in my life, but in the interest of not spending 12 hours per day in the kitchen I can easily find healthy versions of these foods with no questionable ingredients. Just read the labels carefully and if there is anything in there you wouldn’t put in yourself, stay away! And occasionally treat yourself to making something from scratch, just for the fun of it! If avocadoes were cheaper I would make homemade guacamole more often, but as long as I can find a good brand with no junk and it’s actually cheaper than making my own, that’s what I do. Same with hummus. Tahini is so darned expensive, and I have found a brand of hummus that contains no junky ingredients and is actually cheaper than making it myself. Of course, one could argue the nitty gritty details that foods make from scratch are going to be healthier by definition due to their less than processed state, but hey I am trying to feed my family here, not build rockets!

• Buy around the perimeter of the grocery store.

Picture your typical grocery store. If you walk in the door and turn left or right, that is your starting point. As you walk around the outside edges you will find fresh produce, fresh meats, and the dairy section. That is really all you need to be healthy! Everything on the shelves is just fillers to make our food more interesting and palatable.

If you consciously try to buy as few things as possible from the inner shelves, you will automatically be buying less prepared foods which are full of junk and fake ingredients. Avoid like the plague any of those boxes of rice dishes and pasta dishes. Those boxes contain such a tiny amount of real food for such exhorbitant prices. And full of nasty chemicals that your body is not even designed to be able to digest!

I am not saying do not eat rice or pasta. Starchy foods like that are okay in moderation or to fill out the healthier parts of a meal (the vegetables and protein). But do try to get the best starches you can. Brown rice is better than white rice. There are better choices for pasta than the doughy white pasta that fills the shelves. I will expand on this in another post.

• Avoid ingredients that are a substitute for the real thing.

No artificial sweeteners and no fillers to replace fat. Beware of any label that claims “low fat” or “sugar free” or “no trans fat” blah blah blah. They are gimmicks trying to lure you in to buy their product by eliciting an emotional response to the latest fad science claims you hear in the news.

Just read the ingredients! For example, if sour cream contains any ingredients besides cream, don’t buy it! If butter contains any ingredients besides cream and salt, don’t buy it!

• Avoid the two big no-nos: hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup.

If you buy prepared processed foods, chances are they will contain one or both of these ingredients. These are dangerous, zero-nutrition replacements for real ingredients that food manufacturers have discovered are cheaper and have a longer shelf life than using real ingredients. At the cost of your health! This makes me really indignant! I do not respect any food manufacturer who would stoop to this level, and make a point to never buy any prepared food containing either of those nasty ingredients. Not to mention the harm it can potentially cause to your body.

Again, I am no scientist nor nutritionist. These are just my opinions based upon lots of information gathered through the years. To me it seems like common sense.

I believe we can all be healthier by following these guidelines. If the bulk of your diet is vegetables and you make sure to eat enough protein (whether it be meats, beans, eggs, or fermented soy products), and as little grains and starches as possible (not necessary to the human diet), to me that sounds like optimum nutrition.

And if you follow these guidelines and you are not losing weight or feeling better, than you are probably eating too much quantity of these good things (me!) and/or not getting enough exercise (also me!). Our sedentary lifestyles and our tendency towards big portions are huge culprits in the fight to stay trim. A great book on this subject is called Body Clutter by Marla Cilley and Leanne Ely. I love these ladies and anything they write. Check it out for yourself!