D's Raw Food Detox

From travelingcupcake.blogspot.com

I'm a little piggy. My buddy Kit lovingly calls me a fatty. I think we've all got a little fat kid inside.

I don't diet. And I don't portion control. Which means once in awhile, I start bloating up like beached whale. Whales are cute because they're round. Me? Not so much.

This is where raw food detox comes in. I started doing it about 3 years ago, and it's super simple. It goes like this:

1/2 cup of fiber cereal in the morning with soy milk (recipe below)
all the fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts you like throughout the day
1/2 cup of fiber cereal in the evening with soy milk
8 glasses of water throughout the day

The problem with a lot of cleanses is that (1) if you do a store-bought detox, the pills and fiber drinks can be harsh on your stomach and body, and (2) you're so damn hungry all the time.

One year, I tried a co-worker's 24-hour fast, lasted about 7 hours, felt starved and wanted to eat my own face. Another time I tried the lemonade/cayenne pepper/maple syrup thing. That sure tasted bad, so I dumped it, too. Suffice it to say, I'm not a great candidate for cleansing.

What I like about this detox is that you're not starving yourself. Mostly it's the nuts-- it helps keep you full. Also, this particular detox utilizes all-natural fiber to help aid digestion. And you're not limited as to what fresh fruits and vegetables you can eat (some cleanses forbid bananas or tropical fruit, etc.).

Pretty much, you're eating a vegan raw food diet for a week to cleanse yourself of all the meat, dairy and processed foods that tend to weigh down a person's system.

Cons include headaches for the first day or two and regular (VERY regular) bowel movements.

Bonuses include feeling lighter, having more energy and (for many) glowing skin and hair.

There are tons of raw food recipes online. So you can mix up your diet. Just be careful with the salt. And here are some great raw cookbooks:

Raw Food Made Easy
Ani's Raw Food Kitchen
The Complete Book of Raw Food

And, of course, if you live in a city where there are raw food restaurants, you can still go out to eat! Last week I went to Pure Food in Gramercy and had an oyster mushroom "scallop" that was to die for. You can check out this raw food directory for a complete listing on detox-friendly restaurants.

If you like the cleanse, let me know! And if you have tips on how to improve it, please share!

Happy noshin',
The Traveling Cupcake



RECIPE: FIBER CEREAL (courtesy my buddy alexia)
1 cup wheat bran
1 cup oat bran
1 cup milled flax seed
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 cup dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, whatever you like)

sugar: it's for kids

Yesterday, during a long stretch on the 6 train from Spanish Harlem to Chinatown (I wasn't feeling great, so I thought maybe some noodle soup would straighten me out. It did), I watched a woman feeding her two kids a series of snacks:

Oreo cookies
(then) peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
(followed by) fruit roll-ups
(ending with) apple juice

Which, in my mind, translated to:
Sugar
(then) sugar
(followed by) sugar
(ending with) more sugar

I don't judge this mom. This is how we're taught to feed our kids in the U.S. Pre-packaged food-like products that give our kids "energy." Stuff that our kids "will like."

Growing up, I ate two kinds of food: stuff that was tasty, and stuff that grown-ups put in my bowl and told me to eat. Things like: spicy fermented tofu, salted egg and pickled veggies with rice porridge for breakfast. Chicken curry with fried rice for lunch. Sauteed veggies and braised pork with noodles for dinner. Mangos or lychees for dessert. My diet ran the gamut. I was healthy.

After we moved to the U.S. and started assimilating to the lifestyle here, I was introduced to a different kind of diet. Big huge portions with lots of fat and sugar. A kid's dream come true. When I first tasted a croissant, I thought I'd discovered heaven. Mmm, fat carbs. Love fat carbs. Still do. My skinny jeans always complain.

But then something started happening to me. I started gaining weight. Lots of it. So much my siblings started calling me "The Blob." I didn't understand why. And I would cry in between large bites of Whopper with cheese. Why am I fat? Why are they calling me fat? Why does this Snickers bar taste so good? Gobble, gobble.

It was a difficult, confusing time.

Fast forward and here I am on the 6 train wondering how we can get moms to replace the oreos and fruit roll-ups with, say, bananas and whole wheat crackers.

One concern, obviously, is access to nutritious food. Many communities don't have that. The other is nutrition education. Many parents don't have the information they need to feed their kids a more complete diet. And then there's the underlying cultural desire for gigantic portions (the snacks this mom fed her kids probably had all the calories contained in a meal) and the fear that parents have of making their kids eat something "they don't like." Come on now.

Had I been calling the shots as a kid, I would have just had a giant Pixie stick funneling blue sugar directly into my gullet 24/7. Which, come to think of it, is kind of what we're doing now to our kids. It's hard being a mom. And it's hard to focus on health when an entire culture and industry is built around exactly the opposite. I want to know: how can we make it easier for everyone?

-the traveling cupcake

quote of the month

"A diet based on quantity rather than quality has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species."

-Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food