warming up to raw foods

I‘m heating my food!

The decidious trees are hitting the limelight with technicolour dream coats, snow has touched the mountain tops and although enjoying an indian summer, the hours that snuggle close to the darkness tempt us to light the fire.

I’m getting alot of folk asking, ‘How do you do it? I couldn’t eat salads all winter…my body needs cooked food.’ 

There’s a misconception about raw foods having to be cold.

 In fact, alot of our food is warm, either through gently heating or adding spice. 

When food is cooked, it’s boiled, fried, and roasted until it’s so hot, we have to wait until the meal is cool enough to stop burning the skin from the roof of our mouths! Preparing raw and gently heating, we get close to the same temperature, the bonus being we get to keep all the good stuff.

 I heat my food between 105-115 degrees in order to preserve the life-giving properties, when the food’s warm to touch, then it’s ready to go. 

The girls are getting excited now the nights draw in. It’s a cue to getting porridge and spiced juices in the mornings.

When starting a raw food diet, it’s natural to release toxins making you feel colder and tempting you to slide back to previous undesirable eating habits. 

It’s a temporary feeling. 

Your body temperature drops and it can take time to get used to. When eating this way, your arteries clear up and your circulation improves. You only need to look at how liberated young children are in their birthday suits, even in the winter months!

I love finding ways of warming meals. One of our cake making rituals is to dance. The cake goes in the freezer to set, we do the cacao dance, when we finish…we are flushed and the cake is ready to gobble up!

Another way to stoke your inner fire is to use spices. Ginger, cayenne, curry, cumin, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and chilli are beautifully warming. Adding these to sauces with soaked seeds or nuts will jazz up your salad. Another sure-fire way to glow.

We gently heat our raw soups or nut milks in a pan on the stove until warm to touch but you could just as easily pour into a preserving jar and steep in hot water. I blend my vegetables and add nearly boiling water to make soup. In the same vein, for our sprouted buckwheat porridge I also add spice and seeds for extra oomph! 

I warm up the bowls by soaking them in hot water.

The gradual journey to colder months gives me a yearning for snuggling indoors in front of the fire, playing board games and drinking spiced teas and kambucha ginger beer. Outdoor exercise is also a great way to keep our internal heating system going and the house is deliciously warm after a brisk afternoon walk and a treat of a ‘hot’ chocolate.

Celebrated raw vegan, physician, nutritionist and scientist Gabriel Cousins conducted a study on the continued success of Alaskan raw vegans. One of their answers was to pop cayenne pepper in their socks! A whopping 95% of these guys triumphed in keeping raw throughout the year. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that this is the answer…a hot water bottle may just do the trick…but knowing that they could do it sure gives the winter clouds a rainbow glow.

Creamy Orange and Cardamon Soup

2 avocados, peeled and stoned

8 oranges

1 tsp lemon peel

1tsp cardamnon

1/2 inch fresh ginger

1/ Juice the oranges and finely chop the ginger.

2/ Blend the juice with the rest of the ingredients.

3/ Gently heat until warm to touch if needed.

Share with a devoted friend and thank the sunshine for giving us such beauty.

5 Comments »

• shannon says:
  May 7, 2012 at 11:55 pm
  Is a kambucha ginger beer recipe possible please?Ta
  b says: 
• May 8, 2012 at 1:09 pm
  yumo!
  i experimented with raw food for the month of january and LOVED it. i continue to dip my toes in and eat a high raw diet but didn’t manage to convert my family… yummy recipes, though, where you don’t actually notice that the food hasn’t been cooked, are the way forward: smuggle the goodness in!
  thanks for the inspirational recipe~ winter’s going to be superhealthy!
  sarah says: 
• May 10, 2012 at 11:17 am
  Hi Shannon,
  I am currently writing an ebook with lots of yummy easy to put together recipes…kambucha ginger beer will be in there just for you xxxx
  and hello to b, i would love to hear how you go with your journey! winter is a challenging time to start raw foods, but keepig up with spices and soups ad blending these in with regular meals will make you feel great!
  Caro says: 
• May 10, 2012 at 4:40 pm
  yum….quick need to find some avocado, want this soup NOW
  sarah says: 
• May 11, 2012 at 7:43 pm
  caro…if you come over i will whizz it up…made a awesome barbeque tomato soup yesterday…YUM!