3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community

Hi Zaraya-
You're making a wonderful decision that will change your life. It changed mine in a big way. I have had a lot of health issues plaguing me. I had already lost the weight that I needed, and put about 13 lbs back on....lost a couple more and only have 10 left, but the raw food diet is about a whole lot more than losing weight!
The first thing that it did is cure me of the most horrible asthma and allergies....and I mean COMPLETELY....I'm off all allergy and asthma meds....in a period of 8 months. It's not an overnight cure for anything, but within 8 months to a year you will see unbelievable changes to your health. Things sometimes get worse before they get better as your body expels years of toxins when you make this change, so be prepared and keep powering through it no matter how hard it gets. The interesting thing is that I was allergic to a lot of things, but I was NOT allergic to foods! However, it was omitting some foods and adding a lot more of others that cured me of the environmental allergies that just made my life impossible.
That being said, the easy part is finding an incredible wealth of new dishes to make and eat. I just LOVE the food! I still eat a very small amount of mostly raw protein, because I'm trying not to use soy as the main protein source in my diet. I was first on a low carb plan so I was already used to giving up the starches, sugars, flours, etc. I also pretty much gave up dairy except for a little raw, organic goat feta that I love to use on greek salads that I make. I use lemon instead of vinegar--your body really doesn't need vinegar, so that's a healthy switch.
There are 2-3 tools you'll need if you want to make this switch permanent and REALLY enjoy food preparation. First is a decent food processor. Most people already have one. That leaves 2. One is an Excaliber dehydrator. They are worth their weight in gold. Since I hardly ever use the oven and microwave any more (only for my husband's occasional needs, since he's not eating raw), this takes the place of both and is in use almost constantly at my house. I bought a large one with 9 shelves so that at the same time I can be making flax crackers, seasoned raw nuts that have been soaked first, kale chips, dried berries (I have a blackberry patch and have enough dried blackberries to get me through the winter) or tomatoes, raw cookies or just using it to warm up a dish that is raw but that I'd prefer to eat at 115 degrees rather than cool. This costs about $200 or less if you want a smaller one.
Next is a really high quality blender. I would highly recommend a Vitamix....used on Ebay if you can't afford a new one. I had one for a couple of weeks and adored it. Somebody then recommended the KTec Blender as being more powerful and I'm sorry to say that I took back the Vitamix and ordered the KTec online. It IS powerful, but doesn't have the versatility of the Vitamix. I even notice that all of the raw foods restaurants in my area use the Vitamix. I bought my sister one last month and she adores it.
If you are into juicing you might also want a juicer. I have one but I don't use it that much because I prefer making smoothies to juices and for those I can just put in the whole fruit and juice it in the KTec (Vitamix)....I like getting my fiber and see no reason to get it out using a juicer. Juicers are great for fasting/cleansing but I don't do it all that often. This was my most expensive purchase...usually around $300 new or a tester unit if you look for a deal on Ebay.
Other staples that you should have on hand:
* Himalayan Crytal Salt....expensive but well worth it. Incredibly healthy and it's so powerful that I only use a fraction of the amount of any other salt. I bought 2.2 lbs for probably $27 or so and it's over a year and I still have well over half of it left....and I like salt!
* Raw cacao powder, cacao nibs, unsweetened coconut, various kinds of nuts...and especially flax seeds. I compromise a bit when it comes to sweeteners--I avoid all splenda and aspartame, but still can't get used to the idea of loading up my desserts with things like Agave Nectar and Dates. So I use stevia (which is really healthy, but I don't love the taste), and mix it with erythritol and xylitol which are low-calorie and help improve on taste. Not raw, but not as dangerous as the other low-calorie artificial sweeteners.
* Always keep LOTS of raw veggies and fruits on hand. When you're hungry those are always the best things to go for. I plan my use of nuts and the treats because they do tend to be very high-fat/high-calorie even if healthy. I probably eat 1.5 oz of nuts/seeds a day on average (from flax/seed crackers and seasoned or plain nuts), and maybe get another 200 calories from other desserts that might be made from raw cacao, coconut, nuts and sweeteners.
* Flax Oil - high lignan/organic. This is one of the healthiest foods on the planet. I almost always use it where oil in its liquid form is needed in raw foods such as salad dressings, pates, purees. I also keep extra virgin organic olive oil on hand.
* Coconut Oil/Cacao Butter - these are used in desserts and coconut oil is used in a WIDE variety of dishes. Coconut oil melts at 76 to 80 degrees and then firms up very quickly. So you can easily make a lot of dishes congeal and firm up quickly using this trick.

I could go on endlessly, but hopefully this will get you started. Once you have the excaliber dehydrator, you can make your own organic flax crackers. These are SO easy to make and CHEAP, although they are quite expensive to buy in the stores or online. I get organic flax seeds for about $1.50/lb. You can make a LOT of crackers from a pound of these. Just soak them in water for a couple of hours, drain them and put them in the food processor with other spices and/or veggies that you might want to add and add only a small amount of water just so that you have a thick, muciligous substance. You will need to buy Teflex Sheets when you buy the Excaliber--get them all at the same time from the same source--you then lay the sheets on top of the racks and no moisture will pass through them. This makes it easy to start with moist mixes that will then harden into crackers. The flax stuff that you process can be spread either thick or thin on the teflex sheets, depending on how you like your crackers. You then wait for the top to get kind of crusty and then put another rack on top of the crusty flax mixture, flip it over and carefully pull the teflex sheet off of the top and then just put the cracker in to finish dehydrating. At the time that you flip them over you can score them slightly so that they break easily into the desired size at the end.
The key to dehydrating is to never get the temperature over 115 degrees in order to stay raw. With moist dishes you can put the dehydrator at 135 degrees for up to 2 hours at the beginning without heating the foods over 115. This speeds up the process some.
Get a good raw foods cookbook or just start hunting down recipes online. There are endless things you can do once you get the hang of it. For instance, if I want crackers that don't look like they have seeds in them but are still made of seeds, I use ground flax powder instead of whole soaked flax seeds. You can buy the powder (more expensive) or make your own using a high-speed blender or even a coffee bean grinder. Mix it with a little water and seasonings and you can still get crackers. I make tortillas using flax powder, spinach, water and seasonings. I shape the batter into thin circles (depending on the size tortilla that I want) and don't dehydrate it to the dry point....this involves flipping it over a bit earlier and a lot less dehydrating time. I use other seeds as well--sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, etc. and also soaked buckwheat groats (these are great when you want more of a thick pizza crust or more breadlike texture). I make some killer onion crackers mixing flax powder with some flax oil, water and slivered onions. Anyway, there is an endless world open to you....Enjoy!!

Laurie