Three Years and Counting...

Three years ago around this time, my most burning desire was to be in shape, be fit and physically strong, and have that envious endurance I had seen in my dad and some athletic friends while growing up. Being in top physical form seemed to be the gateway to all other long-cherished dreams and aspirations. Does that resonate with you?

In my case however, it wasn't a capricious pursuit. It had etched its way deeper and deeper ever since I turned into the tumultuous teen years realizing that being heavier than other girls had been an integral part of my identity all along. The sports field was the arena where other kids effortlessly outshone my lackluster talent.

For nearly two decades, my BMI ranged from 24.9 to 26. There was an intrinsic resistance to most physical activities, including walking more than a few blocks. The thought of breaking a sweat was unpleasant and required much self-negotiation, leave alone any vigorous activity that might test my physical limits. Any adventurous sport was beyond consideration.

As a result, most social situations centered around fitness intimidated me to the extent that I subconsciously precluded my involvement. Many shopping trips ended in disappointment when that pretty dress wasn't available in my size or didn't look flattering. The shape I saw in the mirror wasn't what I wanted to see. Loving myself took a lot of effort, at times.

Amid the gamut of things that each one of us inevitably gets to 'deal with', these were the skeletons in my closet.

My normal vegetarian diet -- and packaged boxes of 'healthy' foods -- didn't help. Phases of unwillingly exercising for several weeks didn't tip the scale by an ounce =(. A visit to a nutritionist found me reading calories labels on every food item I bought, but that wouldn't make the cut either. Needless to say, 20 years of being overweight witnessed numerous failed attempts at getting leaner and stronger.

Fast forward to today, my BMI has been ~21.7 for more than 2 years now (that's exactly midway in the normal range)! I am two dress sizes smaller. Forget walking; when I am in the running wave, I run a couple of miles 2-3 times a week. Breaking a sweat makes me feel lighter both physically and mentally. In fact, not sweating every couple of days feels itchy and yucky.

As I lost weight, the desire to get stronger quickly followed. With the help of a personal trainer in the last 18 months, I can now do 3 sets of 15 squats with a 35 pound kettle weight! I'm on my way to bike ~100 miles this month, including pedaling the uphills in my neighborhood. Those biceps, triceps, abs are beginning to peek from underneath layers of fat =). They need more work though.

But where do I stand in the statistics of endurance? About three weeks ago, I dropped in to a core power yoga class -- read fast paced yoga set to music and done with weights. Only 3 out of 8 folks made it to the end of the hour without any major breaks. I was one of them! The other two were omnivores! To my astonishment, I saw the most muscular, regularly working out men take breaks from exhaustion while I kept up with the class. Then I biked back home 4 miles with a 15" laptop strapped to my back...

In those moments, my mind inevitably cycled through those mental images with my childhood classmates when the playgrounds had been ruthless to me. Triumph is too insignificant a word in describing this journey of personal transformation.

Quantifiable accomplishments might feed to conceit; immeasurable ones only bring humility and gratitude.

Beyond the obvious gains in physical health, there have been many others. In the last 3 years, I have fallen sick exactly twice -- ironically both times when I ate something bad. Quite a leap in immunity levels; fingers crossed. I have written about several other benefits throughout this blog.

What would a similar transformation in your life look like? =)

* * *

So what was the catalyst that brought about my metamorphosis?

I changed the way the ate.

I transitioned from eating vegetarian meals and buying boxes of 'healthy' snack to no-animal-product, minimal-to-zero processed food. Who knew this would be much more than a random stumble into the raw vegan world.

Instead of spending my time at the grocery store deciphering 'nutrition' content on boxes of packaged foods, I run around filling my cart with naturally nutritious whole fruits and veggies and nuts and seeds. The time I save at the grocery store is now used towards peeling, chopping, blending, and juicing.

Here's my typical organic purchase from a local grocery store and farmer's market about every 3 weeks. Oils and condiments less frequently, of course.

Grocery cart

$25-ish worth of organic produce from the farmers market.

That nutritionist did her best to guide me; sadly, she didn't know the potential of whole foods plant-based eating. Unfortunately, most folks in the medical and health and fitness realms today don't! That's why educating ourselves is inevitable. This is the cultural change this blog intends to facilitate.

The more I incorporated organic, fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds in my diet, the more my body and taste buds rejected the pervasive highly processed foods -- breakfast cereal, dairy milk, off the shelf juices, butter, cheese, jam, protein bars, cliff bars, microwaveable foods, pre-made salad dressings, yogurt, chips, pizza, pasta, cup noodles, chocolate, muffins, cakes, ice cream, you name it.

Yes, the list of what I have nearly eliminated from my food repertoire is rather exhaustive. To most people, this way of eating probably sounds like a perfect recipe for starvation, emotional erosion, tremendous sacrifice, and an invitation to unnecessary hassle and restriction in their lives. Simply put, it probably sounds undoable. And, perhaps even insane!

The truth is sometimes I can't believe it myself! =) Just a few months before I started eating the raw and vegan way, if someone had told me that I would be eating mostly uncooked, plant foods and would keep at it for 3 years, I would've educated them of my 'healthy' food choices and then pondered the conversation from a safe distance :p. Instead, today, some of my closest friends are those who eat this way! Yes, it's not undoable and we are not insane.

This petite woman who lasted that yoga sculpt class is in an equally sound mental health ;)

Yet, amid a culture drowned in processed foods and in the shimmer of their plastic packaging, commitment to eating natural foods can sound more overwhelming than a second full time job. So why keep doing it and go to great lengths to find that intricate choreography in my daily routine to balance this pursuit among all others?

Because feeling good in one's own mind and body trumps all other considerations of convenience, superficial emotional fulfillment, and social fitting in. It is a gateway to all other long-cherished dreams and aspirations, remember?

Of what use is convenience when that sugary snack bar only provides you with empty calories? Can you be a good sport in social situations when you're tired and feeling crappy because you ate something your body doesn't approve of? When you have some time at hand, aren't you naturally drawn to work on projects from your bucket list? But what does it feel like when you don't have the energy or motivation for them?

This is what has been fueling my commitment for 3 years.

* * *

Now, let's talk about some minutiae of this lifestyle. One of the big differences since last year has been in the way I portion and space my meals. Up until around two years ago, I still ate mostly 3 square meals a day -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a mid afternoon snack.

But now, my meals are usually smaller in portion and more frequent -- at 3 to 4 hours. This way, I don't overstuff myself in one meal and don't get starving hungry by the time for next meal.

One of the time proven ways of sustained healthy and mindful eating is not waiting to eat until you're starving. When we are starving, the urge to satisfy the pangs of hunger with the first thing that we can lay our hands on is hard to curb.

On the other hand, when we grab a meal while being reasonably hungry -- but not starving -- we have the time and energy to make a more informed and healthy choice. Overtime, this can make a day and night difference between wishfully aiming to eat healthy and actually eating healthy.

Another big change for me has been around re-weighing the different meals in a day. Overtime, lunch has become my biggest meal of the day and dinner, the smallest. When you think about it, we're most active during the day, so a major concentration of calories ought be to taken during day time.

Further, since cooked food is generally richer in carbs and fats, it's easier to eat a cooked meal at lunch time with coworkers and partake in the social experience at the same time.

Dinner is meant to conclude a long day and provide the body with just enough energy to rest and rebuild for the night until next morning hits and it's time for a break the 8-10 hour long fast.

* * *

Introducing the green juice dinner

In my second anniversary post, I wrote extensively about the benefits of green juices. Little did I know that green juices would become my elixir for life. Last fall, I began to break up my lunch into two parts and replaced an early dinner with a late green juice.

That is, half of the lunch around 12:30 pm, remaining around 4 pm and a 32-40 oz fresh, homemade green juice around 8pm. Boy, did I sleep well? =) I slept like a baby and woke up with unprecedented freshness and clarity of mind the next morning.

Some of the other changes include bringing seasonal fruits to work and snacking on them throughout the day. Keeping a jar of mixed raw nuts and seeds at my desk is another way of avoiding those roasted, salted cashews and pistachios.

Fruit and herb infused water is another way of sipping small amounts of natural sugars and nutrients all day and feeling satiated. Lemon water is quite cleansing as well, actually.

All in all, as you've probably concluded from my yearly posts, it takes time and patience for old habits to be unlearned. Big changes are best initiated in small steps. As new routines begin to set their roots, finer adjustments play an integral role in sustaining a major lifestyle change such as this one.

* * *

The rise of the activist in me

When I first went raw and vegan, I was vegan by the way of being raw. About a year and half into this lifestyle, I stumbled upon the heinous practices employed by the poultry and dairy industries to maximize their profit to cost ratio while meeting the tremendous demand for animal foods. Not to mention the strain this puts on the environment and our health care system.

I will refrain from making this port graphic by providing links to these practices. But being unable to condone them gave birth to the vegan activist in me.

If you've been following me on Facebook, you probably know how some of this activism has manifested itself in spreading awareness about the multi-faceted consequences of an omnivorous diet. Today, I'm proud to say that I am raw and vegan in equal parts and I eat vegan even when I don't eat raw. =)

Make every single calorie you eat count towards nutrition, satiety, and strength, and you will thrive on a plant-based diet. Recently, I customized this recipe for a yet new breakfast option.

Raw vegan muesli.

Key ingredients: rolled oats, pumpkin, sunflower, and chia seeds, coconut shreds, goji, mul-, and golden berries, almonds, walnuts, and chopped dates, all soaked and refrigerated overnight in homemade raw almond milk.

Taste test? Creamy, sweet, rich, delicious, and colorful. Find me a brand that can beat this breakfast in nutrition or flavor or calorie density. Too bad, no brand would sell this to us because it's perishable and can't be manufactured in a factory hundreds of miles away.

* * *


I hope this write-up inspires you to give a serious thought to what you've been eating and start out with making very small changes.

Think of it this way, if your body doesn't feel and perform at its best, where will your heart and brain reside? We first live in our bodies before living in a house in a community somewhere on this Earth.

Treat your body like you would treat your God's temple. If you are a non-believer, well, this body still carries your heart, brain, and mind. Where would you go if this vessel of yours began to rust and leak sooner than it ought to?

Wishing you a lifetime of radiant health and spiritual awareness.
-Shine

Cravings: Explained and Tamed

Cravings need no introduction. We've all experienced them, suffered from them, and often, given in.

No matter if we stash that bag of chips in the topmost shelf of that cabinet, or bury that dark chocolate deep in the fridge or promise ourselves not to buy "comfort food" in the next grocery trip or shut off our senses when passing by that steakhouse or pizza place, we inevitably end up using that step stool, ravaging the fridge, sneaking in trips to the corner store =), or indulging in the deep fried goodness on Friday evenings. Cravings are relentless.

The Internet is littered with tips on how to handle cravings. So is your nutritionists's office, personal trainer's studio, and, of course, the local supermarket with "low calorie," "low sugar," "low sodium" snacks to 'satisfy' your cravings. The latter thrive on the satisfaction we derive as we sink in our chair, having chowed down their snack; the former aim to latch on the guilt that accompanies afterwards. None, however, addresses the root cause of cravings.

The biggest part of our cravings resides in our taste buds. Other factors like smell or sight of food, happy memories, ongoing stress, and genetics play smaller roles to varying degrees from person to person.

The good news is, taste buds are adaptable!

If you find that hard to believe, consider this: do you feel like eating a mildly-spiced, cooling salad right after a salty, hot snack? Likewise, are fritters as tempting right after a healthful morning smoothie? These may be temporary changes in preferences, but a spicy food lover will usually find mildly spiced food 'bland'; a fried food lover, sautéed food 'less tasty'; a donut person, fruits 'less sweet'.

Point à noter: our taste buds adapt to -- and ask for -- the food we feed them over a long period of time.

So what can we do to "reboot" our taste preferences? If we can (re-)train our taste buds on finer, truly naturally-occurring flavors, before you know, they will stop asking for foods that accompany restraint and guilt. You might still have cravings but they will be of the joyful, healthful kind, not the suffering one. Healthy eating IS highly addictive too! Just that no one is telling us that.

Of all the naturally occurring foods, green leafy vegetables are the most rich and diversified in taste (and micronutrient value). When eaten raw, without significant amounts of processed additives like oil, salt, pepper, sugar, etc., they grow on our taste buds. Even a relatively short-term, but consistent, consumption of leafy greens changes our taste preferences. Three to four weeks is all they ask for!

How do I start incorporating more raw greens in my food, without throwing up, might you ask. For me, green smoothies paved the way for a high raw-vegan lifestyle that I would live on for two years. The first year of smoothies would lead to more green juices in the second year. The first juices with more fruit to mask the flavor of greens would make way for purely green juices. I'm still working on the latter, though =).

If a high raw-vegan lifestyle were merely a diet for me (and countless others walking the planet), I (and we) would've fallen off long ago. Two years is not a very long time, but you know eating this way is 'home' for your body and mind when, after eating 8-10 slices of pizza on a crazy, 17-hour day at work, you find yourself making a quick green juice before heading out the next morning!

Would you rather spend the rest of your life suffering and slapping down individual cravings or would you take a month to work on redefining what your body and mind crave for?

If doctors, nutritionists, personal trainers, and food companies and advertisers told you to eat natural, plant-based foods, they would mostly go out of business as the general population would be much healthier. So would the pharmaceutical industry. Would you rather wait for them to tell you what to do or be judicious, take charge, and transform your life before it hits the hospital run?

So Why NOT Eat a 100% Raw?

So. If eating raw has so many benefits, why not go a 100% raw? Why eat only a percentage of your food raw as opposed to eating ALL food raw ALL the time? Most people that I meet in my local raw food community eat raw in variable percentages - 30-80% being the most common bracket. I, too, eat an average of 70-75% raw (and vegan) (average taken over a week, though my daily intake of raw food is about the same as well on most days).

Well, first of all, being a 100% raw IS possible - and sustainable - both physically and biologically. Victoria Boutenko, who I have mentioned several times in this blog, and family, is 100% raw vegan and an inspiring example for today's health science research (and very embarrassing for the pharmaceutical industry!). Kristina Carillo-Bucaram also has been a 100% raw vegan for about 7 years now and is quite a success in restoring her health and running a local, organic food co-op movement in Houston, TX. Annette Larkins, dubbed as the Ageless Woman - boy, she looks fabulous at 70!

Besides, several M.D.s openly advocate the live foods nutritional regimen - Dr. Gabriel Cousens, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. T., etc. Cherie Soria, who I wrote about before, has a Science of Raw Food Nutrition program taught at her Living Light Institute that draws from the contemporary scientific research and studies on nutrition. There are notable vegan bodybuilders who are also raw to variable degrees. Venus Williams recently went raw vegan to cure her Sjogrens syndrome. However, 15 months into this lifestyle, so far I've chosen to relinquish some of these benefits to eat about 30% of my food cooked. Here are my reasons -

Being raw & vegan is easy and convenient as food preparation is usually fast and cleanup is easy. But it is also hard as the prepared dished don't have much of a shelf-life! Raw juices begin to disintegrate right away and must be consumed almost instantaneously. Green smoothies, when frozen, can last for up to a day, but don't taste quite the same - yuck! Salads become soggy when different ingredients are tossed together, even sans dressing. Raw soups are no longer yummy. Even raw ice cream, stored in the deep freeze, is not quite the same (from personal experience). This 'ephemerality' means that we need bursts of time available at hand right around when we're ready to eat. At times, that can be too much to ask for. And that's exactly when cooked food comes in handy.

Thinking about it, the short shelf-life of raw preparations makes complete sense - there are more enzymes and nutrients, so there is increased 'chemical' activity in the prepared dish! Cook the ingredients and they have lost most of their nutrition anyway - there's little left to spoil the food. Add preservatives, and voila, you have the isles after isles of ready-to-eat foods at the local supermarket. Use genetically-engineered ingredients and you have the 30-day survival kit for the Doomsday Preppers =). While we may not be in for an apocalypse yet, we're still doomed, albeit at a slower pace, if we continue to eat the way we do...

Raw food is nutritionally-dense. But not calorie-dense. Two bananas or a mango or a few peaches (the more calorie-dense fruits), won't fill us the same way as a large, baked potato. But we can't feel hungry all day, everyday, no matter the nutritional density of our food. Today, I simply can't eat the same amount of cooked food as I could before. However, even with my regulated portions, I do feel hungry earlier in the afternoon when I have had a salad for lunch, as opposed to a lean veggie sandwich - with bread. I get past this by keeping around more fruit and raw snack to munch on. But it can be a liability at times. It's unfortunate - just how easy it is to keep non-perishable, junk food around. The bacteria won't eat it, but we do, and expect the bacteria in our gut to just play along!

It's worth noting - a large baked potato, in turn, won't fill us the same way as one greased with oil, and loaded with cheese and salt. That, in turn, won't be the same as a plate full of deep fried chicken wings. In other words, getting enough nutrition and feeling full are two very different things. Lifelong social conditioning plays a subtle but significant role when it comes to feeling full. What can one do if deep fried chicken wings feel more satiating than heck, two avocados (which is too much of fat for one serving, BTW)?! We've all had moms shove three slices of bread down our throats when we really wanted to eat only two. In fact, these are exactly the food fads that our society needs to get rid of.

Further, most raw food dishes can be made more calorie-dense by adding avocados, nuts and seeds, coconut meat, olive oil, and more fruits. 

Certain fruits and veggies are best eaten cooked. For example, squash varieties, particularly, acorn. Beans, such as fava, kidney, soy. For others, heating releases nutrients from the cells they're bound to. For example, cooking a tomato releases lycopene, an important cancer-fighting antioxidant. Heating carotenoid vegetables, like bell peppers and carrots increases the bioavailability of their nutrients. Cooking mushrooms can dissipate some of their toxins. So why be headstrong and lose out on the added nutrition by cooking our food occasionally?

Did you know - bell peppers are one of the richest sources of vitamin C. Yes, way more than oranges! Red bell peppers also have a sweet, fruity flavor and taste great in salads and soups. They're the most ripe form of peppers - progressively after green, yellow, and orange. That explains their rich nutritional profile (and high price) in the family.

Another aspect that swings the balance in favor of cooked foods is Ayurveda, the system of ancient medicine from the Indian subcontinent. It might be rather surprising to learn that Ayurveda doesn't quite recommend eating a large percentage of raw foods! Particularly for vata and pitta dosha people. Kapha or kapha-dominant folks are the most suited to raw and vegan eating, according to it. Here's an online quiz, off of Deepak Chopra's website, that you can take to find out your dosha and exercise your judgement if a predominant raw food diet doesn't feel right to your body. For the sake of completeness, I must mention here that I am predominantly kapha. Good to know Ayurveda has my back covered ;).

Next, let's candidly address our selfishness and personal weaknesses - it's just too much of a sensory deprivation to give up all cooked food for the rest of our lives =). Being healthy, living eco-friendly, and riding the crest of the fountain of youth are all very desirable. But so are the joy and pleasure that come from doing (or in this case, eating) what we want, not merely need. For me, I have my favorite cooked vegetarian 'delicacies' that I am not ready to relinquish completely - yet. Maybe raw food will take their place in the upcoming times, or maybe it won't. I don't know. Until then, I will eat everything vegan in the remaining 30% of my diet. No animals will be hurt in the meantime.

Last but not the least, simply put, cooked food is much more accessible. That's what most of the restaurants serve. That's what we're (implicitly) expected to eat in social situations. Even when raw food is available in the form of salads and juices, at most places it's a fixer-upper menu item. No, Jamba Juice is no exception either! This makes eating 100% raw simply too socially restricting! To extend that, no matter how cleanly we eat, we're still exposed to a ton of pollutants and toxins in all walks of life. Do we really want to make our digestive system so sensitive that it can't take anything cooked, greasy, deep fried, even when feeding oneself supersedes everything else? Probably not.

This last argument comes from several personal experiences in the last 15 months. Most recently, while traveling to the western United States, I was appalled by the lack of fresh, organic produce at the local supermarkets. Particularly dismal was the (availability of!) limp, pale, green leafy vegetables. So fruit smoothies replaced my morning green smoothies. Rest of the day was all cooked food =/. 

Before that, I spent most of July 2012 eating 100% raw. Then one day, milk and cereal expected replaced the morning smoothie and yikes, I felt inflamed, heavy, and 'sick' all day. The message from my body was loud and clear - it did not like diesel in place of high octane gas =). There was my lesson - I could not rely on having raw food at hand at all times for the next 50 years of my life; I had to keep my body attuned to cooked and processed foods as well to survive optimally...

So as we end the celebrating cooked foods in this post, I'll leave you with this picture of acorn squash that I baked a couple of weeks back.

• Cut the squash vertically into two pieces. Be sure to use a sturdy knife. 
• Scoop away the seeds to roast them later. 
• Sprinkle salt and lay the pieces face down on the baking tray. 
• Preheat oven to 400F, bake for 40 minutes, turn the squash pieces over and bake for another 20 minutes. 
• Bring it out, sprinkle with honey/agave/maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, and possibly more salt. 
• Scoop and relish.
• Note that most recipes call for butter and brown sugar, but hey, don't we know better as raw foodists?! =)

Baked acorn squash with wild huckleberry honey and spices

Raw Vegan Desserts! :)

Alright, we've covered the raw vegan options for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacks by now. So it's time to move on to desserts - something we all absolutely love! =) Wouldn't it be quite nice to eat a dessert guilt-free and not feel weighed-down by the sugar and heavy cream and flour afterward?

Why choose raw desserts over cooked and baked ones? Well, first of all, they don't usually contain any processed sugar - white or brown! Yes, we just avoided the number #1 killer food - even while eating a dessert. Secondly, since the ingredients are not cooked, they are still nutritionally very dense (see this old post about the benefits of eating raw foods). Imagine trading all the empty calories for some real ones even when you are on a dessert binge. Third, they're WAY simpler (and, in most cases, quicker) to prepare than traditional desserts - no pre-heating the oven, baking for several minutes to hours, and scrubbing the bakeware thereafter. Fourth, if you happen to be vegan, you also get to avoid all the heavy cream that later weighs us down. Concocting a raw sweet, yet healthy, treat in a jiffy is super simple!

So what are the usual ingredients in a raw dessert? Typically, dates are the primary sweetener. If the dessert involves fruit, ripe fruit is the best form of natural sugar. Honey and stevia are other viable, minimally processed sweeteners. Sometimes, organic, high quality agave syrup / nectar or Grade A maple syrup are used, though overuse of these is discouraged as they're processed too. The major source of fat and creaminess in raw desserts is coconut meat or avocado (believe it or not). For chocolate, organic raw cacao powder is used. Imagine eating chocolate, sans sugar, in desserts and still maintaining your weight! Yes, raw cacao powder is a great aide in weight loss - check out the superfood catalog. Pie and tart crusts, cookies, cake mixes, etc are typically made with nuts and seeds or shredded and dried coconut - compare that to white flour tossed with dollops of butter or margarine in conventional desserts!

Equipment-wise, raw desserts are typically done in a food processor. That takes care of crusts, mixes, etc. A blender is used in preparing, for example, cream cheeze (the 'z' in cheeze indicates it's a vegan "cheese", made of cashews, almonds, etc.), frosting, filling, ice cream, etc. Funkier raw desserts, such as fruit lather, cinnamon rolls, and tart, cookies, etc. are done in a dehydrator - agreed that a dehydrator does take longer that an oven but we still bypass the soaking and scrubbing chore ;). Of course, tart and pie pans are used where needed. An ice cream maker is quite useful to make real raw ice creams.

Finally to the fun part - recipes with pictures. I must say I don't have a whole lot of personal pictures of raw desserts but I shall add what I have. In other cases, I'll pull something from the Internet and say so.

Raw vegan chocolate mylk - 2 cups homemade almond milk, half cup water as thinner, half banana, and 1-2 tbsp raw cacao power to taste. High speed blend. My personal favorite =) (and a copyright recipe :p). I swear, you'll never feel the same about any branded chocolate milk.

Raw vegan chocolate mylk

Fudge brownie topped with fresh berries - Followed this recipe by Ani Phyo

Brownie with fresh berries

Raw banana ice cream - Followed this recipe with my own tweaks: 1.5 raw banana if large or two smaller bananas, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/4 tsp vanilla bean powder, and 1 tbsp agave. 

Raw vegan banana ice cream

Trail mix cookies - recipe courtesy Ani Phyo, again.

Trail mix cookies

Peach crumble - Crust made of pecans, medjool dates, virgin coconut oil and pinch sea salt. Filling made of peaches and pinch vanilla powder.

Raw peach crumble

Carrot cupcakes with raw cashew cream cheeze - Here is the recipe. The picture here is not as beautiful as one on that link but mine has a candle on it, to mark my birthday! =)

Carrot cupcake with cashew cream cheeze

Raw vegan chocolate fondue - 1/2 cup dates, 1/2 cup agave nectar or maple syrup, 1/4 tsp vanilla powder, 3/4 cup cacao powder, organic, raw, 3 avocados, mashed, 1 cup water or to desired consistency. Add the first three to a food processor. Blend until smooth. Add cacao powder and avocados and run until blended. May need to scrape the sides from time to time. Drizzle water gradually while running to get desired consistency. It gets thicker and sweeter when let sit for a while. Adjust ingredients accordingly. Recipe courtesy Heather Haxo Phillips.

Chocolate fondue from simplyrecipes.com. Compare their recipe with the raw one and hail raw vegan desserts =).

Raw vegan mango lassi - 1 cup homemade almond milk, 1-2 mangoes to taste, and ice. High speed blend. Add a couple of dates if the natural sweetness of mango and almond milk is not enough. Concocted it very recently while experimenting with homemade almond milk and fresh fruit. I'd like to believe that I invented it!

Raw vegan mango lassi

I will leave you here, making you want to appreciate and adopt healthier eating options. This post also concludes the series on the various food options in the raw vegan lifestyle. Click the 'What do I eat?' label in the word cloud on the right to check out all posts in this series.

This also happens to mark my first year with this lifestyle - I started eating raw vegan in late May 2012. So, in my next post, I'll talk about the enormous benefits I reaped. Then there are some more matured topics planned for this blog - optimal body weight, blueprint of our food choices, deep dive into green leafy vegetables, and much more. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for all the exciting stuff!

Snacking on Raw

Snack time is probably the hardest for a healthy eater. It's hard not to reach out for our favorite chips, soda, chex-mix, roasted nuts, etc. when plastic packaging is being ripped open all around you, chips ruffling, soda cans popping and bubbling, and roasted pistachios cracked open. Oh, so tempting...! A year into this lifestyle, and planning my raw vegan lunch and dinner fairly well, I still struggle with morning and afternoon snack times at work when I hear Hawaiian chips crackling in the next cube.

So how much worse are we if we eat fairly healthy breakfast and meals but lax on snacks? Well, do you really want to eat a 500 calorie snack laden with several grams of sugar, carbs, and engineered chemicals (or toxins, as I call them), when you're replacing olive oil with the healthier fat in avocado and white sugar with dates in your meals? Why would one want to go backwards with greasy and salty chips and sugary soda to compensate for the salt after a green smoothie and hearty lunch added a spring to their step?

But how about the low-calorie, low-sodium, zero-sugar snacks? They're healthy, aren't they? Think about it - how does a food item get to have lesser calories than its labelled ingredients?! Do the calories magically disappear or are the ingredients artificial? How does our body know how to breakdown these engineered foods and, possibly, even 'release energy and nutrients' out of thin air?! If you're skeptical of my claims, read for yourself - top 10 cancer foods, truth about diet soda, and the list goes on. The problem is we're not eating food anymore, we're eating food-like products!

Unfortunately, these food-like products are not only unhealthy for us, they're also an environmental hazard - if you didn't realize already! Just imagine how much waste we're adding in the form of plastic wrappers, non-recyclable lids, industrial byproducts, etc. to the already teeming landfills. Sure, soda cans are recyclable, but setting up the recycling infrastructure in itself is an industrial process, with its own environmental issues and byproducts. And how often do we care to separate recycle from trash in the first place? So much just for snacks! Thanks to the food industry for making us such slaves to them!

We need to continue springing forward, eating nutritious, natural snacks that will want us to take an evening swim, instead of throwing us on the couch after work. These shall be grown locally, transported short distance, bio-degradable, and should generate minimal artificial byproducts. Above all, these shall be delicious and addictive, and yet need minimal preparation. What would these be? Read on for some ideas.

Well, fruits are an amazing finger-food! Reach for a banana or a couple of juicy, navel oranges, a mango, slices of pineapple or watermelon (esp. during summer). Pack a bowl of some washed red and green grapes alongside cherries or other berries to work, keep it at your desk, munch all day - you'll be too full for chips and soda and gain a glowing skin in no time. As a bonus, colleagues walking by your desk will notice and grab some fruits themselves - leading by example is extremely effective! Partner with a colleague, take turns to bring different fruits to work to share and double the fun. I bet, more folks will want to join your clique =).

My fruit plate at work one afternoon.

How about something more interesting? Throw together some blueberries, pomegranate seeds, and raw cacao nibs and toss them in flax meal (recipe courtesy Ani Phyo). You'll be amazed how well the flavorless blueberries fit with crunchy, sweet-sour pomegranate seeds and chocolaty cacao nibs! Make sure you grind flax seeds fresh as flax meal goes rancid in no time.

Blueberries, pomegranate seeds, cacao nibs in flax meal

Nuts and fruits together make a delectable and filling combination. Here's a snack with apple pieces topped with cinnamon and crushed pecans. Remember, some nuts, like almonds and walnuts, are better consumed soaked to activate the enzyme inhibitors (more on this in a different post).

Apple and crushed pecans, topped with cinnamon.

Feeling queasy after a greasy lunch and want something cleansing and citrusy?

Grapefruit wedges sprinkled with cinnamon and grated ginger

Here's something even more interesting - cashew carrot pate and sunflower pate served with celery and carrot sticks. This is almost a mini-meal. Love hummus? Here is a no-bean zucchini hummus recipe.

Cookies are possible too! No white flour, no sugar or preservatives, no baking and later scrubbing the bakeware. These trail-mix cookies keep for up to three weeks in an airtight container.

Raw vegan trial mix cookies

How about energy drinks? Well, mila, a form of chia seeds, is a great source of energy. Hydrated mila, whether in plain water or coconut water or a green smoothie or almond milk makes a great energy drink.

For chips lovers, as mentioned in the last post about raw lunch and dinner, a dehydrator can make chips of a variety of veggies like carrot, kale, beets, etc. It can also make raw vegan breads, bread-sticks, fruit lather, roasted nuts, etc. Checkout a pic of onion rings in the making in that post.

If you don't have a dehydrator, head to the raw food section of Whole Foods; you'll be amazed at the variety and possibility the raw food world offers for snacks. As a word of caution, I'd limit off-the-shelf products even when they're labelled raw. That's simply because they've been mass-produced and have lived on the shelf for a while - not as good as something fresh and homemade.

I'll conclude this post with another of my all-time-favorite raw vegan snack =). I bet you'll crave coconut water right now! ;)

Meat and water from a young thai coconut

Eating Raw for Lunch and Dinner

So I mentioned in a previous post how green smoothies extensively benefited me. Among other things, most importantly, they paved the way for my ~70% raw vegan lifestyle by essentially resetting my taste buds and getting a handle on the all too well-known cravings we often give in to! In fact, this has been my lifestyle consistently since the 20-day detox in July '12. So what have I been eating for all these months? Certainly not just salads ;). Read on... Be sure to checkout the pictures, too, of my food that I've been clicking over the last several months.

Raw food is much more diverse than salads! Even when we do eat salads, we tend to overload them with highly-processed, preservative-laden dressings to make them "tasty." This essentially negates the benefits of the nutrition-dense, fresh, low-calorie, easy-on-the-body salad. So how about fresh, raw, vegan dressings instead? At the start of every week, I make several servings of one to two salad dressings that I then use during the week.

Here are a few very simple salad dressing recipes. None of them takes more than 10 minutes. All of them taste delicious; uncannily similar to their cooked counterparts!

Lemon-Avocado Dressing: 1 avocado, 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1 tbsp water, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, dash cayenne pepper, black pepper, pinch salt. Whisk together. Keeps for a couple of days. Makes one to two servings.

Olive Oil Vinaigrette: Whisk together 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp apple-cider vinegar, dash salt and pepper. Voila!

Raw Vegan Ranch: Quarter cup cashews (soaked for a couple of hours, ideally), 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tsp dried dill, salt to taste, a couple of dates if you want slight sweetness. 2 servings. Yummy.


Raw soups are great accompaniments to salads, a hearty snack by themselves, and even a complete meal when made consistent and creamy (hail the avocado). No, one does not have to go cold turkey on a raw lifestyle. Let your Vitamix run for an extra 60 seconds on high and you have a lukewarm soup. Let it run for 2 minutes, and you have a steaming one. Over-blending should be avoided, though, to keep the nutrition and desired texture intact.

Raw soups can also be heated on a stove. Heat them until you can still dip your finger in the soup - that's about 105F. Stir intermittently to heat uniformly and avoid burning/thickening of the contents at the bottom. Another option is to use a food dehydrator, if you have one (and space for it on your kitchen counter). I have not used one myself but pouring the soup in a metal bowl and warming in the dehydrator for ~20 minutes works wonders.

A yet another great thing about soups is that the same ingredients can be used with different spices to vary the flavor and experience the world cuisine! Top your soup with one of the several superfoods and you have a home run meal. Here are a couple of my favorite soup recipes:

Red Bell Pepper Soup: 1 red bell pepper, 1 tbsp miso, 1-2 tbsp lemon juice to taste, half to 1 avocado, salt to taste, dash cayenne / black pepper, 1 clove garlic, chipotle or curry powder or turmeric powder to taste. Blend them all.

Carrot Ginger Soup: 2 cups of carrots blended in 4 cups of water, mixture strained to remove fiber (this step is optional - carrots never blend homogeneously, so straining the fiber away gives the soup a smoother texture). Add 1/2 avocado, 1 tbsp miso, 1-2" ginger depending on taste, 1 tsp curry powder or another spice for desired ethnic flavor and blend again.

Raw vegan carrot ginger soup topped with dried parsley and hemp seeds

Yes, there's more. Ever imagined a fully raw burrito? How about a lush green wrap? Green leafy vegetables with large leaves, such as red-leaf lettuce and collard, are perfect for making wraps! Layer the leaf with sunflower or another seed pate or even simply mashed avocado, top with shredded carrots, beets, red / green cabbage, sliced bell pepper, jalapeno, grated ginger, sprouts, etc., and roll 'em up. Stick a toothpick to hold it together and the funky look will have your friends salivate!

Red lettuce wraps with veggies and marinated mushrooms

When the leaf has a rough texture and is rather tough, like collard, steaming it for 30-60 seconds makes it pliable and gives it a real tortilla-like texture. Missing meat? Marinate portabella / crimini / shiitake mushroom in a blend of toasted sesame oil, agave / maple syrup, and soy sauce and they taste exactly like meat. Add ginger / garlic / grapefruit juice to the blend to further enhance the taste of the 'meat'. Stuff them in the wrap!

Collard leaf wraps with more pate, veggies, and avocado on the side.

What about pasta? Well, that's possible too. Zucchini, when run through a spiralizer, tossed in dash salt and let sit for a few minutes, looks and tastes exactly like pasta. Make a raw marinara / alfredo / pesto sauce and you have your pasta for dinner.

Zucchini pasta with raw marinara

Another (r)awesome option for pasta is kelp noodles. A sea vegetable rich in iodine and very low in calories, Kelp offers luscious tangles that would satisfy anyone's noodle cravings! Rinse them through cold water 2 to 3 times, let them sit in warm water for 30 to 60 minutes and they are ready to go.

Kelp noodles tossed in raw marinara, served with raw vegan alfredo sauce and shredded carrots on the side

If you have some more time, sushi is possible too. Checkout this one I made some time back =). Agreed, my knife skills suck! But still...

Raw vegan sushi =)

But wait, many food items are still missing from this list! There are raw options to even breads, empanadas, quiche, falafel, fritters, and many other foods. Really. A food dehydrator works by 'drying' foods over several hours using hot air. Dehydrating is fundamentally different from baking in that it is done at a much lower temperature and uses circulating hot air instead of typical convection. It's the lower temperature - only up to 105F - that still keeps the dehydrated food 'alive' or 'living'. See an old post on why we should eat raw for more details on the lower temperature part.

As the name suggests, dehydration reduces the amount of water in the food, thereby, impeding the growth of food spoiling bacteria. Many ancient Asian cultures still make pickles by drying fruits and veggies, marinated in salt and spices, under the Sun. Same goes for many a snack items popular today, like potato and other chips, onion rings, fruit lather, etc. Then the 'fast' and pre-packaged food industry took over and began using chemicals instead of the Sun to achieve the same results but making us addicted, obese, and sick in the process =(.

I don't have any personal pics of dehydrated foods to share - yet - thanks to my small, crammed kitchen. But here is a picture of raw onion rings in the making from a demo at my local raw food meetup group. This tray is ready to be inserted in a dehydrator for about 8-10 hours of dehydration.

Raw onions cut in rings, tossed in sauce, spread on dehydrator tray

So this is how we're well stocked up for eating raw for lunch and dinner. I hope this blog post inspires you to consider this lifestyle with greater credibility and confidence. Stay tuned for much more on this blog. Thank you for reading.

How Green Smoothies have Benefited Me

In my last post I wrote an extensive treatise on why green smoothies are, scientifically, a must-have food, regardless of whether one is living the raw food lifestyle. Before we move on to the many more exciting posts planned for this blog, I want to write a quick journal entry on the benefits I have personally reaped by incorporating green smoothies in my daily diet.

I first began making green smoothies for breakfast in late May/early June in 2012. Like many people, I was replacing ready-to-eat (and in my case, also freely and readily available at work) cereal and milk with something that I had to make at home. In the beginning this was not simple - I had to spend time on the weekend to plan, additionally, my breakfast for the week ahead, spend money to shop accordingly, and then store the ingredients carefully so the produce didn't perish half way through the week. Then, every morning, I had to wash/cut/blend, bring the smoothie in a jar to work, wash the blender, knife, cutting board, and lastly, wash my jar at work. It seemed to be a lot of additional effort.

So, 10 months down the line, why/how did I keep doing it?! In fact, the more regularly I drank green smoothies on a daily basis, not only did the whole 'chore' of making them become easier, a green smoothie a day became a vital need of my body! Today, I almost have a 'physical dependency' on green smoothies --- in a good way... For many months now, there are days on which I drink more than one green smoothie. In my stumble in the raw food world, I talked very briefly about what green smoothies have done for me; it's time to elaborate on that in this article.

First off, in only a week or two of getting started on this breakfast, I began feeling refreshed and energized. Even though my stomach was full in the same way as it used to be with cereal and milk, I felt lighter than usual. It's almost like I was using a better quality oil to run my machinery. As I felt lighter after breakfast, I could focus better on my work and my productivity increased. I knew I was getting more done than before, and at a faster pace. Days on which I missed a green smoothie, the heavy, clunky feeling that came with going back to drier, processed foods weighed me down. That, in itself, was reason enough to continue with my daily chore...

A couple of more weeks down the line, I realized green smoothies had actually begun affecting my food choices for the rest of the day! Days that I started with a green smoothie were days on which I naturally preferred salads for lunch (I hadn't quite been a salad eater before =)), fruits for snack, and a lighter supper. Anything that was deep fried, or just fried, creamy/cheesy/oily, or sodium- or sugar-laden did not appeal me on those days. Those were 'good' days - I got more work done, I had more spare energy, I was mentally more alert, I ate better, I felt better. On the other days, I was okay eating my usual lunch and snacking on roasted cashews, peanut butter pretzels, wheat thins, etc. Those were the days on which my exhaustion and general dissatisfaction with my routine came back.  

Heather did mention that green smoothies had the potential to impact our food choices for the rest of the day in her Introduction to Raw Food Cuisine class. Her statement made me quite cynical; it appeared that she was trying too hard to sell her food philosophy to have people sign up for more of her upcoming classes! But seeing this happen to me for real, amused and struck me and I had a new-found respect for her (she is a great teacher; I have taken many of her classes by now). A detailed account of her class is in an older post of mine. More about her is on her website - http://www.rawbayarea.com.

Soon after, I could predictably play around with my food choices every single day by having a green smoothie in the morning - or not. As I chose to continue with this regimen, with more passing weeks, it dawned upon me that I ate better even on days on which I occasionally missed a green smoothie. In other words, there was a shift in what was tasty to me and what wasn't; my taste buds had begun changing! What can be a more promising passport to healthier eating and, thereby, better health than all of us actually finding apples, oranges, romaine, and kale more delicious than burgers, pizza, nachos, soda, sundae? Would the processed food advertisements around us continue to be as effective as they are today? Would the Olympics have approved sponsors like McDonald's and Coke? Would we continue to be a nation victimized by obesity and a myriad of health problems that plague us today? Would our children have a shorter life span than us?

Beginning in July '12, I was taste bud-wise (and mentally) prepared to experiment with a 20-day raw food detox. Since I grew up vegetarian and had generally been a conscious eater (just not a salad eater, though =)), my body did not have much to detox. But that detox triggered my metabolism such that I began losing weight - something I had been aspiring for since my teenage years! What had never happened before happened now - I have lost ~22 pounds since, my BMI has dropped from 24.9 to 21.5!! Post detox, since August, I have been eating ~70% raw vegan and have never had this kind of energy and vitality before. I resumed swimming after 14 years in September and started this blog in November. Life has changed in many more profoundly positive ways...

What other benefits could I have reaped by making one single change - drinking one green smoothie a day? What else should I have to say to stress enough the importance of green smoothies and raw foods?

First Step towards Eating Raw: Green Smoothies

Okay, now I do understand that food, when eaten raw, claims to work unparalleled miracles for my mind and body(!) and is also lighter on our planet. I am also aware that there is a lot more to the raw food world for variety and nutrition than just the regular produce I see at my local grocery store. But what is the simplest thing I can do to start reaping the benefits of this regimen with minimal effort and time?

Fortunately, there does exist a "5-minute breakfast" in the raw food world. It is called a Green Smoothie. Whether or not this is a new menu item for you, this article discusses, in great details, why it is a key ingredient in our daily food palette. By the end of it, I truly hope to convince you to start your own one-green-smoothie-a-day routine for real.

To allure you into reading further, here is a picture of my VitaMix jar from one of these mornings.


In the jar: apple, purple kale, lemon, and alfa-alfa sprouts.

A "Complete" Meal

What would the nutritional chart of our ideal meal look like? It'd have to be rich in fiber, contain the recommended doses of vitamins, minerals, and proteins, and be low in fat and carbs. All this while keeping sugar low and, most importantly, still tasting delicious.

We absolutely need to care about getting enough fiber in our diet. Among other things, it helps control blood sugar, keeps bad cholesterol low, regulates bowel movement, keeps us full for a longer time (so we don't pile on empty? calories every hour), and thereby, helps us maintain an optimal body weight. A fiber rich meal in the morning keeps us full until lunch but does not weigh us down like many oily and greasy commonly preferred processed breakfast foods.

The best sources of fiber are natural, plant-based foods - vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts. (Animal products are not rich in fiber - bad news for hardcore meat eaters.) It is also worth noting that most fruits are not particularly rich in fiber (berries and a few others being an exception). When we juice an orange or apple, we essentially get concentrated sugar (with a small amount of vitamins/minerals). That's why The Holy OJ and AJ are not proving to be good accompaniments to the American breakfast table =).

While consuming fruits in their juiced form alone is not healthy, whole fruits offer a wide array of nutritional value. Additionally, they taste great, often beating vegetables that have an equally good nutritional profile. When grown organically, many fruits can be eaten with their peel on; most peels supplement the nutrition that their fruits offers (and reduce prep time).

Why Add Greens?

If I say "Green is Life" and leave it at that, you'll probably roll your eyes and skip the rest of this article. So here is the elaborated version: greens are nutritionally very dense, calorie for calorie. They are rich in almost all essential minerals and vitamins, including proteins. Pull up the nutritional profile of the most common green leafy vegetables - kale, spinach, collard greens, romaine lettuce - using your favorite search engine and take a look yourself. Here's my favorite one - kale. The darker the green color, the richer the nourishment.

If you're into the evolution theory, you might be curious to know what primitive man ate all these centuries before the Industrial Revolution came and trampled on our food preferences beyond resemblance with our ancestors. It is interesting to know that chimpanzees, our closest kin, consume 40% greens in their diet. Since their food pyramid has been far less modified than ours, there are reasons to believe that that's how many greens we really need in our diet (I'm looking at you, USDA!). Not sure if this also how we got to the 60 to 40 ratio of fruits to greens for smoothies, as a general rule of thumb.

So, after all this ado,

Essential Morning Meal => Fruits + Greens

But where does a smoothie fit into the picture?

Why Make a Smoothie?

All the nutrients that the greens possess are stored inside the cells of the plants, well, of course. These cells are made of cellulose, one of the strongest molecular structures on the planet. (It is this tough material that helps plants to survive outdoors.) For valuable nutrients to be released, these cell walls need to be ruptured. These wall are not ruprured unless we masticate our greens very well. Failing to do so jams our digestive system and makes greens unpalatable for the longer term.

Once again, an evolution-enthusiast reader would agree that our jaw muscles have frailed over past several centuries as we started eating cooked and other heavily processed foods. We biologically evolve to adapt to changes in our environment; we simply no longer need strong enough teeth and jaw muscles to masticate on rough fiber as our next of kin, chimpanzees, do!

So we resort to blending to do the "chewing" for us. Thus, is incarnated, a smoothie.

Another advantage of eating a blended food in the morning is that our digestive system is still waking up and we need to function at full throttle to get through our busy day. A holistic meal like this releases tremendous amounts of nutrients and energy in the body without engaging the digestive system heavily to break it down.

Have you ever juiced a celery and had to clean up the tangled mess of long, strong threads stuck in the juicing auger? That's fiber. It is the pulp left behind by our juicer when we juice fruits and vegetables. We saw the benefits of a fiber-rich diet above. In fact, it is the presence of fiber that makes a smoothie a complete meal.

Finally, in a nutshell,

Fruits + Greens => Blending => Green Smoothie (a holistic meal)

Now let's spend some time on getting started on green smoothies.

Delicious green smoothie recipes

These are some of my most favorite green smoothie recipes. (Yes, I'm very partial to kale.) Blend approximately 60% fruits, 40% greens, and water to the desired consistency to enjoy these combinations.

Apple + lemon + kale
Strawberry + banana + romaine
Pineapple + kale
Pineapple + parsley
Orange + banana + parsley
Kiwi + banana + celery
Banana + kale

orange + banana + parsley green smoothie

A Note on Equipment

Buying a VitaMix is not a precursor to making smoothies at home! A personal blender does just fine, in the beginning at least. I had to run my personal blender for much longer to blend the ingredients well. As I started enjoying these smoothies and they became an essential part of my everyday routine, I was motivated to invest in a VitaMix.

Green smoothie resources

Recipes

• http://www.rawfamily.com/recipes - The app didn't work very well on my Android phone but there are recipes as you scroll down on this page
• http://www.rawbayarea.com/raw-resources/recipes/#greensmoothie
• http://www.oatmealinmybowl.com/the-kitchen/30-delicious-green-smoothie-recipes/
• keep looking online, there are more recipes than one can try in a lifetime =).

Books

• Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko
• Green Smoothie Recolution by Boutenko, again
• Countless books on Amazon.com for {green smoothie recipes}

Next Steps

I will be writing a follow up post to revisit green smoothies to talk about many other ingredients that can be added to them for further enrichment, variety, and taste. In a second post, I'll be talking about all the positive changes these have brought in my life. For now, this extensive treatise should suffice to generate some serious interest in this promising breakfast option. To good health for everyone!

References:

• 12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Foods by Victoria Boutenko
• Rigorous online reading...

Deep Dive into Nutrition: The Superfood Catalog

So now that we know why raw foods are good for our body and mind, it is time to explore the nutritional gamut of the raw food world. When I first got acquainted with these superfoods, I was absolutely flabbergasted by the kind of nutrition Nature has provided us with in the herbs growing in the Peruvian Amazonas to China and the sea vegetables in our oceans, seas, and lakes!

Let's start by talking about 'Superfoods.' Simply put, superfoods are foods with high nutrient or phytochemical content that have huge health benefits. Blueberry (for anthocynanins, vitamin C, manganese, dietary fiber, etc.) and fish (for omega-3 fatty acids) are the two most common superfoods from the plant and animal worlds. In the recent years, this term has reduced to a mere (and misleading) marketing tool; but that's a different topic altogether for now...

In the rest of this journal entry, I will be introducing a large variety of superfoods that we can incorporate in our food rather easily to make it nutritionally dense AND delicious. It is worth noting here that these superfoods are in addition to the already well-known nuts, seeds, sprouts, etc. that are typically consumed raw.

Proteins

Hemp protein powder: Great nutrient profile - 45% protein, 43% fiber, 9% beneficial fats.

Buckwheat groats: High quality protein. Acts as a wheat (gluten sounds familiar?) substitute. Sprout and dehydrate to use as crispies to top salads, soups, sprinkle into wraps, etc.

Brown rice protein powder: Substitute for milk proteins. Somewhat chalky texture.

Spirulina: Microscopic blue-green algae. Tastes like seaweed with strong ocean aroma. High amounts of proteins, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

Boosts immune system, aids in digestion, makes body environment alkaline. Available as flake powder and pressed tablets.

Wheatgrass: Complete protein with about 30 enzymes, most vitamins and minerals needed for the human body, increases red blood cells, excellent detoxifying power, and the list continues. Best taken as "shots," though powder form can be used in smoothies (watch out for some nasty flavors - coming straight from my personal experience! =))

Golden berries: Originally from the Incan land. 16% protein, high in phosphorous, excellent source for vitamin A, C, B Complex, and bioflavonoids. Sweet and tart, enjoy as any berry or raisins in trail mix, cereals, cookies, salads.

Antioxidants

Matcha: Finely milled green tea packed with antioxidants - reported to boost metabolism, enhance mood, lower cholesterol, help balance blood sugar. Easy add to smoothies for anti-aging. In fact, half a teaspoon of matcha is an essential ingredient in my green smoothies every morning.

Goji berries: Comes from a shrub native to China. Increases longevity, has antioxidants and vitamins for brain health, prevents Alzheimer's. I personally love the flavor these berries add!

Alfalfa grass juice powder: Potential source of antioxidants and phytochemicals. Used in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine to treat poor digestion, arthritis, kidney stones, other digestive issues. Sweet mild flavor. Super alkalizing. Use in smoothies and shakes to boost immune system.

Immunizers

Chlorella: Fresh water algae. Believed to boost immunity, help detox heavy metals, eliminate constipation, and body odor. Contains mostly protein, vitamins (E, B, C), and minerals (zinc, iron). Snack on tablets. Tastes like seaweed and green tea.

Maca: Peruvian superfood that rebuilds weak immune system and re-mineralizes poorly nourished bodies. Awesome source for increasing energy and building endurance.

Omega 3s

Hemp Oil: 3:1 ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids, rich in amino-acids and vitamin E, helps in hair and nail growth, anti-inflammatory.

Sacha Inchi: Peruvian plant that grows small nuts rich in oil that is cholesterol free and Omega 3 rich. Tasty source of vitamin A/E. High in protein, rich in nonessential amino acids, strong nutty flavor similar to hemp oil. Can be used as any oil in dressings, sauces, soups. Use sparingly due to strong flavor.

Fat Blast

Coconut oil: It has special fats called medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) that can break down health fats leading to burning of energy. Also increases HDL and resistance to infection causing viruses and bacteria. It was quite a surprise for me to see coconut oil being abundantly used in detox plans. Stay tuned for a post on detoxing.

Cacao nibs and powder: Yes, chocolate, in its purest form, is a great aid to weight-loss. It has certain enzyme inhibitors that dimish appetite too. Also a great source of sulphur and manganese.

Sea vegetables

Nori, kelp, hijiki, wakame, kombu, dulse: One of the best sources of iodine, health-promoting vitamin K and folate. Nori has also been known to assist in weight-loss. In general, these see vegetables decrease inflammation, decrease LDL, anti-coagulate the blood, help fight cancers, and the thyroid in hormone balance.

Oils:

Flax oil: Low in cholesterol, anti-inflammatory, cancer fighting, etc.

Sesame oil: Helps in diabetes and lowers high blood pressure. Also known to assist in multiple sclerosis and cancer.

30 times for Vitamin C than oranges and lemons?

Camu Camu: Plant growing along the rivers and lakes of Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela. 30 times more vitamin C than oranges and lemons. It's a Dry pink powder - add to juices and smoothies for fruity, semi-sweet, acidic flavor.

22 times more iron that spinach?!

Barley grass juice powder: 22 times more iron than spinach, calcium, protein. Everything from aging to weight-loss, mild sweet flavor for smoothies, shake.

References:
"Ani's 15-Day Fat Blast" by Ani Phyo
Countless other material that I read in last several months...