--Victoria Boutenko, 12 Steps to Raw Foods
***********************************
Welcome to Day 4 of Casual Kitchen's seven day raw foods trial! As I've done on previous days, I'll first give the foods I ate as well as the eating schedule I kept, with explanatory notes where necessary. Below, I'll share my closing thoughts on the day. [See the full archive of posts on my raw foods trial.]
Breakfast: 8:00am
2 apples
Second Breakfast: 9:30am
Smoothie: 1 apple, 4 Tblsp wheat berries, 4 Tblsp lentils, water. Yield: enough to fill an 8 ounce glass. Yep--I've turned into a hobbit.
Lunch 1pm
A huge smoothie: 2 huge handfuls of spinach, 1 apple, 1/3 of a cucumber, about 1/2 c of red raspberries, 4 Tblsp sprouted wheat berries, 4 Tblsp sprouted lentils, and about 4-6 oz water. Yield: about 20-22 ounces.
Snack, 4:00-ish
2 cups of pineapple chunks. (PS: here's a tutorial on how to reduce a whole pineapple into edible cubes in minutes).
Dinner: 6:00pm
A huge salad, similar to Day 3's lunch: spinach, green pepper, broccoli, cucumber and a lime-tahini dressing, with a couple of pineapple chunks for dessert.
Concluding Notes/Thoughts on the Day:
1) Today was the first day that I'd describe as somewhat difficult. I'm definitely still craving cooked food, but fortunately the cravings are not overwhelming and they are pretty easy to resist. Mainly I'm just not in the mood for chewing on fruits and veggies all day long. And the last thing I want to eat/drink is a smoothie.
2) Oddly enough, however, I don't miss coffee at all. All along, I had assumed that giving up coffee would be the worst part of this raw trial. It turned out to be the easiest.
3) I'm finding that my body is handling these grains more and more efficiently each day.
4) I've had a weird taste in my mouth for most of today. It's a metallic taste, like I'd been sucking on a penny. Not that I'd know what sucking on a penny would be like of course.
5) Jaw soreness: One thing you quickly learn about a raw diet is you need to relearn how to chew thoroughly. And today my jaws really started feeling it. Raw food isn't pre-processed and made extra swallowable with various fats and oils like many foods manufactured by the food industry. You're going to work your jaw muscles when you eat fresh greens, nuts, grains and veggies all day. I was even thinking what a shame it was that my wisdom teeth had to be removed years ago--I certainly could use a few extra molars this week.
Onward to Day 5!
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7 comments:
Thanks for continued updates!
I love the quote at the top of this post. There's an (almost) vegetarian place near my house and I had heard about this amazing huge salad they had with candied walnuts and lots of fresh vegetables and this great sweet dressing. Anyway, I got it, along with a cup of soup. And man, I had the soup and half the salad for lunch and thought I was going to explode. I had the other half of the salad for dinner and was also so, so full. It's a crazy reminder how filling that kind of food can be. Food most people call "light" eating. Yeah right!
Nice thing about chewing; keeps your teeth clean and you won't get any 'double-chin' that's for sure.......
Also, you can always grate up the vegetables which makes them easier to chew; cuts down on breaking them down yourself.
Actually, you can do the same with any fruits you find difficult to chew, but for the most part, I pick fruits that are easy for me to ingest since at my age, my 'toofies' aren't the best.
Keep it going - I think you'll like the new diet the longer you're on it.
I had the dry mouth/metallic mouth thing for months last fall. I never figured out what it was, but it coincided with the worst fire season on record, and my ENT thought it was either just dehydration or allergies or a reaction to particulate matter in the air. Either way it eventually went away with a combo of some Nasonex, lots of water, and the onset of the rainy season, and never came back.
In your case it may be another side effect of dehydration.
Melissa, yep, that quote really resonated with me too, and I think it's one of the keys to why going raw really helps people get to their optimal weight.
Happy: Grating veggies is an excellent idea, thank you for sharing.
Diane: Hard to say: I don't think it was a function of dehydration, but there were so many unusual things happening with my body over the course of this week that it would be hard to choose a single driver. Either way, that metal-mouth feeling wasn't fun.
Long time vegetarian here... I wonder if the metallic taste was a B12 deficiency? I sometime get tongue numbness or tingling which a few days of B12 supplements clears up nicely.
Hi Anon,
Entirely possible. Although, do you have context on how many days of B12 deficiency one needs before this symptom manifests? This was only a one week trial and the metallic taste happened early on in that week. It then went away by Day 7.
DK
I believe a metallic taste in one's mouth is a sign of liver detoxification.
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