The final product, not a soup...not a casserole...I guess it's a stew?

I got the idea for this while visiting my sister over the weekend. We decided to make a soup and ended up using whatever was available. It turned out amazingly well! The awesome thing is that it took very little effort to make.

In my effort to recreate the soup this evening I did something wrong…and it turned out much thicker, more like a thick rice stew.  I think the reason mine turned out this way is that I added rice instead of quinoa (which my sister used). I also used about twice as much rice as I should have .

It still tastes incredibly good so I thought I’d share with all of you.

Cooking time is about 40 minutes and total time including all prep is about 50 minutes – depending on how fast you are at chopping stuff up. In fact, you could probably get by with less cooking time but I like to give it a while for all the flavors to soak into the rice.

Ingredients...use organic stuff where possible!

The key is components of the stew are:

1. a bunch of veggies
2. some sort of starch like a potato, yam or beet
3. a grain like rice, millet or quinoa
4. a protein like beans or tofu
5. some spice like fresh herbs, ginger, etc.

With this framework you can modify to your heat’s content! The recipe for the stew I just made is as follows. It makes a monster sized pot that will probably last for 3 meals for me! Instead of 2 cups of rice use 1 cup of quinoa and even more water for more of a soup instead of a thick stew.

• 3 medium sized red beets (use golden beets if the a red-colored soup scares you!)
• 1 cup brown rice (more makes it heartier)
• 1 cup white rice (ditto)
• 1 can (15oz) black eyed peas
• 12 ounces extra firm tofu
• 4 large celery stalks
• 2 small carrots
• 1 medium onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 3 dried red chilies (whole)
• 1 handful fresh parsley
• 10 fresh sage leaves
• 1 small avocado
• some salt
• some pepper
• enough water to cover everything completely (pure spring water of course!)
• a little olive oil

All ingredients in the pot....it thickens a lot when done cooking.

Directions: Stir fry the onions, garlic, celery in olive oil until the onions get soft. Add in everything else and fill up with water. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes. Check to make sure the rice is nice and soft. Add a little more salt and pepper to taste at the end. Spoon into a bowl and top with fresh avocado.

Enjoy!

p.s. if you try out any variations of this recipe, please post a comment and let me know how it goes! The great thing is you can pretty much throw in whatever you have on hand. Instead of beets you could use sweet potatoes. Instead of onion you could use peppers. Etc.

Today is Day 11 of my Raw Food 30 Day Challenge. I really didn’t expect it to be this easy. I feel absolutely fantastic and have absolutely no detox symptoms to speak of. In fact, this transition from my vegan diet to a 100% raw food diet is easier than my transition from lacto-ovo vegetarian to vegan.

I think difference is that I am both far more educated and also have connected into a support system of people that I have learned a ton from – from various raw food online forums like Give It To Me Raw and 30 Bananas A Day, and through a few friends (like Darrick) who have been walking down this path for a while. I’ve also been reading a ton of books and online resources (including Dr. Doug Graham’s 80-10-10 and David Wolfe’s Sunfood Diet).

When making any life shift, it helps not to go it alone!

What has shifted for me in the past 11 days? A lot! Here is a run down on what I am currently experiencing.

• I weight myself at the same time every day. I started this experiment at 142.0 lbs and 12% bodyfat. This morning, after 11 days I weighed 136.5 lbs and 11% bodyfat. So I have lost almost 6 pounds in 11 days. In fact, I lost the entire weight in the first 6 days, since then my weight has stabalized. I am not trying to lose weight, but it is happening.
• My strength levels feel the same on an absolute sense, but I feel a lot stronger relative  to my own body weight. This becomes obvious to me during my yoga practice.
• My cravings for coffee, hot teas or any other cooked food has diminished. At some points I do crave some crunchy snacks or vegan pizza/pastas, but these pass by quickly and are no more pronounced than when I was eating my standard vegan diet.
• I think far more clearly! Really it is hard to explain, but I can think a lot better and focus on a single topic without distraction even easier than before.
• I am less attached to others people’s comment and feedback: be it praise or criticism.
• My yoga practice feels incredible, my flexibility is improving on an almost daily basis. In fact, certain parts of my body (like my hamstrings) that have been tight for a decade (despite 8 years of yoga practice) are starting to loosen up in pretty deep ways.
• Perhaps most noticeably, my skin is super clear. My face especially, no blemishes at all. The rest of my body also looks far more clear. Even my hair seems to be thicker and my nails are stronger.
• I do not smell! At all…in fact, even before on my vegan diet, I never had any issues with body odor. However, now on a 100% raw food diet, I have no odor whatsoever. I don’t wear deodorant (actually haven’t for the past year or so) and have no need to! If you don’t like the way you smell – change your diet!
• I sleep incredibly well. I’ve still been sleeping the same amount, though I do notice that I can wake up earlier if I need to (to teach a yoga class for example) and feel wide awake. No groggy feeling in the morning.

So what does my diet consist of? Keep in mind that I both have a very active lifestyle (I teach and practice yoga every day) and also a very busy lifestyle (I have a career in high technology/software). So my diet focuses on getting enough total calories while also fitting into my work and yoga schedule. Here is what I do on a typical day. It goes without saying that everything is always organic!

• Breakfast: almost always my breakfast is a large fruit smoothie. Typically this would include 2-4 large bananas with some maca root powder, hemp seed protein and perhaps some cacao powder. Sometimes I will just stick with the fruits (usually bananas) and sometimes add some greens in (like kale).

• Snacks: I’ll usually eat 2-4 pieces of fruit during the day, usually a couple things in mid-morning and a few more in the afternoon.  On a weekend, I will eat even more. For example, below are 4 navels I ate before a two hour walk this afternoon.

• Lunch: A large bowl of field greens – a really massive bowl! This could be equal to half a large head of romaine; an avocado, a carrot and some nuts or seed either in raw form or in a raw food seed bar. I have a bag of goji berries and cacao seed next to my desk at work. I’ll usually have a small handful of goji and about 10-15 cacao seed during the day.

• Dinner: I’ll usually make a large vegetable soup smoothie, and eat this with some flax crackers or some other raw food cracker made from seeds. For my veggie soup, I’ll really throw the kitchen sink in the Vita-Mix! This includes typically a hot pepper, some green onions, broccoli, carrot, ginger and some avocado. Blended together it makes the most incredible creamy veggie soup ever! Just add some chunky salsa for some texture. In addition, I might eat some other fruits or greens (I love eating bok choy) later in the evening if I am still hungry.

In total, I shoot for 2500 calories per day. At first I was struggling to get enough, but now I am pretty happy with my overall caloric intake. I am never hungry!

I’ll post another update next week. In the meantime, if you have any tips for recipes I should try. Please let me know in the comments!

Those who don’t believe that you can be strong and healthy on a plant-based diet need to take a look at Robert Cheeke. Robert’s a good friend of mine, and is living proof that you can really achieve outstanding physical health as a Vegan.

Mainstream media is finally starting to take notice. The notion that you need to eat meat to be healthy and strong is completely bogus. In fact, Robert was featured in a recent cover story in Williamette Week, one of the larger alternative newspapers in Oregon.

Robert’s an inspirational motivational speaker, National Events Coordinator for a multi-national nutritional  company and founder of www.veganbodybuilding.com.

Those who are looking to improve their health, fitness and outlook on life should definitely check out the Vegan Bodybuilding website. This site also has further information about Robert’s amazing transformation from a 120 pound under-nourished teen to a 190+ lb rock solid vegan athlete (all-natural of course).

His personal site has further information on speaking engagements, articles and interviews he has done with local and national media.

Whether you are Vegan or not….its worth a look.

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