Marisa's Healthy Kitchen

As you know, I love my everyday Green Juice and I also love to juice feast/fast. I am just finishing up another 9 day long juice fast and as always loved it! I found myself wanting to munch a little bit, but other than that, totally painless. I was never hungry, just had the desire to snack. Since buying the dehydrator we have not turned it off so there are always delicious munchies around and they are so tempting! But I kept with it and when it ends, I am going to have a delicious smoothie for lunch from FreeFoods, Mathew Kenney’s midtown restaurant. Then a big, tasty avocado salad for dinner. I am so excited!

This month has been a big experiment for me. For the last 2 years or so I have mostly eaten “raw til dinner” – sometimes raw all day, but most nights I would have something cooked. I noticed this really wasn’t working for me and I wanted to try something new. So when I finished my last juice fast I went all raw for this whole month and ended with this juice fast. It was one of the best months ever!! I felt amazing and my body and mind were really happy. I knew I was on the right path. So although I don’t want to be too rigid in my life, I will continue to eat primarily raw. And when my body or mind really wants something else I will allow that. I want to always listen to my body. I am such a foodie I don’t think I could give up all other foods forever, so I will still have a treat every once in a while. I am very excited about this primarily raw diet. I do not remember a time when my body has felt so good and my mind has been so clear. My dreams are super vivid and I know it is because I am not weighed down by the heavy foods that I always ate at night.

Raw foods and juices are just so amazing! I love that they are totally unprocessed and full of life force and enzymes. Plus you can be super creative with them which is always fun for me.

I will still be cooking many vegan, vegetarian and meat meals for my amazing husband but also many, many raw ones. My husband likes raw food too, but not every night. This is not a problem for me as I love to be in the kitchen and there is nothing better than preparing my wonderful husband a meal full of my love!

Just a side note…A funny question that I have been getting my entire life (I have been a vegetarian since I was 7, so this is not unfamiliar territory at all!) has been, “Where do you get your protein?”. So ironic that people think you need to get protein from animal tissue. Greens are actually one of the best sources of instantly absorbable and alkaline proteins! Greens are loaded with amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. Cows eat grass in order to get all these nutrients, but we can just cut the cows out altogether and eat it ourselves. More importantly, as I am sure you have heard since it has been talked about so much these days, is that cows are rarely grass-fed anymore. So the once upon a time benefit of getting these phyto-nutrients from your meat is far reduced.