Raw Foods: Taste Buds That Shout With Joy

Do the words “raw food” take your mind back to the 70’s, where raw salads with white cabbage, raisins and carrots were the main ingredients with a good portion of garlic as the only flavour enhancer?

Well if you haven’t tried the new trends – you and your taste buds are in for a surprise. The idea behind raw food is not only that raw is good – it must also taste good and look appetizing. Not completely convinced?

If Leonardo Da Vinci did it, New Yorkers do it, the Chinese and Japanese have done it for centuries then it’s really time the rest of us jumped on board and did it too – slow but sure we’re getting our feet wet. The raw food and living food trends are upon us and I for one welcome them.

No boiling. No cooking. Just carve – and eat. The idea is to drop the oven, saucepans and pots and keep the food as natural as possible. But the question is, why is raw so good?

A brief answer to this is, that the content of enzymes in each food we prepare ‘the old way’ are ruined after cooking, baking, frying etc., when the food in one way or another is heated and it’s precisely the amount of enzymes that are crucial to how much we actually get out of the food we eat.

The enzymes help the body to break down the food and extract the essential nutrients. Which means, that the higher the levels of enzymes in the food, the more we get out of it.

There are many new trends today and not only raw food or raw foodist, as they are called. There are fruitarians who mainly eat fruit. Juicearians who mainly live from fresh juice. And a new one on me are the sproutarians, who eat sprouts – or live food.

I’m getting used to it now, but to start it sounded really peculiar. The idea of living food, which is the little sister of raw foods, is to activate the enzymes in the food we eat, thereby getting even more out of it.

What are living foods? Let’s look at an example. Put almonds in water for 24 hours to soften before you eat them. When the almonds begin to sprout, this activates the enzyme content, and doubles many times the content of enzymes in relation to raw food.

If you’re wanting to call yourself raw foodist or living foodist, 75% or more of your diet should consist of raw food or living food. Or do you still like a good steak with your salad once in a while? There’s still hope for you.

Hop aboard in this fresh and tasty summer salad – and make room for what’s about to become your favorite food. Raw Food isn’t just good for your body – your taste buds will simply shout out with joy, so try this recipe for “Wakame salad with guacamole” next time you barbecue!

The ingredients:
1/4 fennel
1 green apple
1 small handful wakame seaweed laid to clean, soak and soften in water, then drained and cut into strips
Some dill and mint

The dressing ingredients:
1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil
1 cm fresh ginger crushed and minced
1/4 cloves of garlic crushed and minced
1 tablespoon of water
1 tablespoon rice vinegar

Guacamole ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 stalk celery
3 crushed garlic cloves
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Juice of a lime
Salt and pepper

How to prepare:

1. Grate the fennel and apple with a large grater, then mix with the soaked, softened and drained Wakame

2. Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the fennel, apple and Wakame.

3. Blend in the dill and mint

4. Slice and dice the celery and mash the avocado with a fork then add the crushed garlic cloves

5. Mix the two parts together with sesame oil and lime juice

6. Season with salt and pepper

7. Server the guacamole in a small bowl next to the salad

Recipe source in Danish by courtesy: www.fitliving.dk