Trying a new way to cleanse with Raw by Chris
Posted by | Categories: Featured, Paleo, Perth, Raw Food, Vegan, Vegetarian
For as long as I can remember, I have always felt like I never have enough time. I struggle to relax and seem to thrive on fast paced hyperactivity. It wasn’t until I hit my thirties that this lifestyle started to take its toll prompting me to seek medical advice when I could no longer even run without collapsing on the couch. As a direct result I was diagnosed with iron deficiency anaemia which then led onto discovering my gluten and fructose issues.
I stick to my gluten free diet religiously and find this is easy to do as there are life threatening risks for me if I don’t. Coeilacs who eat gluten raise their risks of intestinal cancer significantly along with risking developing a bunch of other horrible diseases. In contrast, I find following my fructose friendly diet much, much more difficult to adhere to. Whilst eating fructose does cause some unpleasant effects, it doesn’t causing any permanent damage to my body. I consequently wax and wane from being vigilantly fructose friendly to chancing the risk of a gut ache for something tasty to eat.
I can guarantee that this macaron “burger” was worth the risk of fructose overdose!
To mitigate this ongoing strain I place on my gut, once a month I will set aside a few days to concentrate purely on nourishment and digestive health. Some months I will do a strict 3 day juice only cleanse, and on other months if my work load is high, I will add in some raw, vegan food to supplement my caloric intake. Working full-time and running a business means finding the time to prepare healthy and balanced raw meals can be tricky and I am forever searching for like-minded small businesses that are willing to cater not just for this need, but to adapt these meals to be fructose friendly.
From the archives: My original Raw by Chris basket back in March included these raw delights. Four berries superfood jam, Coconut butter, raw vegetable stock & marinated mushroom spread
Some time ago, I was lucky enough to receive a gifted Raw by Chris basket containing a collection of fabulous raw goodies adapted to be fructose friendly that she wanted me to taste test. I was so delighted by my gift that I returned her favour by blogging about it.
After a few more months of perfecting dishes in her kitchen, Raw by Chris launched a more comprehensive option to the people of Perth of one, two and three day raw baskets containing all the food you need to give your digestive system a well-deserved rest. She offers these baskets with a fructose friendly option on request. Perfect!
My raw lunches for the two days.
I chose to try the two day Raw by Chris Nourish basket, here’s what it included.
Day one:
Morning: • Chia pudding with coconut milk and seasonal berries. Chris subbed the honey to maple syrup. I loved the creamy texture of this pudding, much better than what I tend to make myself! • Inner Ego cold pressed juice which I saved for my morning tea.
Breakfast: Chia pudding with coconut milk and seasonal berries.
Inner Ego has two fructose friendly juices (adjust quantity as per your own personal tolerance for juice)
Day 1 lunch: Kale, avocado and grape salad served with salad dressing & raw bread crackers
Afternoon snack: Kale chips
Day one dinner: Mixed noodles bowl made from kelp, zucchini and carrot with a ginger dressing
Day one dinner: Mixed noodles bowl made from kelp, zucchini and carrot with a ginger dressing
Chocolate coconut maca cup
Day two
Morning • Chia pudding with coconut milk and seasonal berries. • Inner Ego cold pressed juice
Breakfast: Chia pudding with coconut milk and seasonal berries. (GF, FF)
Day 2 lunch: Kale, orange and sprouts salad served with salad dressing & raw bread crackers
Day two dinner: Falafel plate with spinach salad, capsicum hummus served with a tahini dressing & raw bread crackers
Dinner day two: Falafel accompaniments capsicum hummus & tahini dressing
This was a cleanse that didn’t leave me constantly hungry and is certainly one that I would recommend for those people who have struggled with adhering to a straight juice fast. Eating raw and vegan is a wonderful way to ease your body into the whole concept of fasting without actually missing out on food. It also has the added benefit of meaning no animal is harmed in the making of your meals!
Personally I have no difficult sticking to a three day juice fast most of the time as I have been doing them every month for nearly a year now. But when the heat is on at work and I’m faced with those dreaded long 12 hour days without time to sit and rest, I find that drinking juice only can leave me short of my usual oomph and sparkle. This raw food cleanse was the perfect compromise for those busy times. I have already booked in my next cleanse for next week, getting myself ready for the Christmas time silly season and all the potential hidden fructose that this time of year may bring!
Chompchomp paid Raw by Chris in full for this Nourish Raw basket and didn’t receive any payment for this review. She has been a convert for the benefits of raw food and juice fasts for some time, and was delighted to let someone else do the hard work for her while she was busy working in her own day job! Raw by Chris | http://rawbychris.com/ | FacebookMy Top Five Winter Gluten Free Indulgences
Posted by | Categories: Chocolate, Fast Food, Featured, Perth
When I find something I love, I complete submerge myself into a level of addiction that often needs to be controlled by an external party, usually the Boy. Or sometimes it is controlled by the increasing numbers on my bathroom scales. Nevertheless, over the years I have come to accept that this is part of my personality and provided I have someone to check me into line when I get too carried away, it is a quick way to brighten up my day. Some of my obsessions are long lasting and others come and go like fashion so I thought I would share with you my top five gluten free indulgences for Winter 2014.
1. Manjimup Black truffles
I am not a fan of winter, I really feel the cold and spend a large portion of this time of year huddled in front of a heater reluctant to move. However there is one highlight of winter which is the truffle season. For the duration of the three month truffle season our household goes truffle mad; chasing degustations, festivals and buying any fresh truffled product we can get our hands on. My fridge will be continuously stocked with truffle butter, truffle mustard, and truffle aioli and sometimes even some real fresh black truffle. One of my favourite ready made products is the truffle aioli made by the Truffle and Wine Company. It is knee-staggeringly truffilicious and fortunately I can purchase it throughout winter from a local Vic Park store called Nosh Gourmet.
2. Hot Pot Popcorn
Popcorn would have to come in at a close number two for this winter. It’s somewhat healthy, naturally gluten free and incredibly moreish. But when you add the fact that Hot Pot’s popcorn is popped locally in Perth and is not mass produced, it ticks even more boxes for me. Hot Pot Popcorn have a number of addictable flavours with their Peri peri popcorn being one of their most popular. I am a slightly sweet, slightly salty fan but I recently tried their cinnamon flavour and it was tha bomb! It’s available at the Manning Farmers Market and a few independent grocers, head to their website for more information.
3. Pana Chocolate Sour Cherry + Vanilla
Chocolate has been a staple food for me since I could walk but more recently I have seriously got into eating raw chocolate and prefer it to the more mainstream stuff. The problem with this is that most raw chocolate is sweetened with agave syrup. Now whilst this is gluten free, agave is about 90% fructose and whenever I eat significant quantities my gut becomes very unhappy. Pana Chocolate is a Melbourne based company that makes handmade raw chocolate using all natural ingredients. One of their flavours; the Sour Cherry and Vanilla 60% cacao is made without added agave and uses coconut nectar as a sweetener instead. Totally fructose friendly, woot!
4. Au Naturale juices
After initially trialling a three day juice cleanse complementary of Au Naturale Juice back in February this year, juice cleansing has become a monthly routine for me. I never thought I would be able to survive for three days without eating solids as I am the type of person who is already planning what to eat for dinner in the morning as I’m eating my breakfast. Food spends a large part of its time taking up my subconscious thoughts and I imagined I would be one of the LAST people to be up for a juice cleanse. Let alone repeating one every month! Yet now, each month I look forward to the energy it injects into me and the “rest” that I give my overworked digestive system seems to do wonders for my allergies, skin and gut health. I have continued to stick with using Au Naturale for my cleanses as the company’s owner Jac is always happy to adapt her juices individually to be more fructose friendly. Her cleanses are all-inclusive with everything you need and you can also include extra options such as herbal teas, miso paste, flavoured broths and nut milks.
5. Warm Spiced Rice pudding from the Tapas Man at the Vic Park Farmers Market
I cannot describe how happy I am that we now have our very own Farmer’s Market in Vic Park. My progression to become someone who takes eating seasonally and locally as a way of life has become so much easier. The Boy and I look forward to a market stall breakfast each week, come rain or shine, and enjoy that we can plan our week’s meals based on whatever looks good at the fresh produce stalls. The Boy will alternate between a number of the different food vendors each week and has worked his way around many of the options trying vegetarian Banh Mi’s from Baguette Me Not, Mexican baked eggs from That Little Mexican Place and Perfect Poffertje’s Dutch pancakes. In contrast I have been very repetitive with my breakfast choice. Call it my final addiction for winter; my breakfast every week is the Tapas Man’s warm spiced pudding with poached fruits and toasted almonds. Once you have tried it you will struggle to order anything else. Unfortunately they are not at the markets every week so check their Facebook page before you get your hopes up!
Chompchomp did not receive any payment or gifts in lieu of this post and it is written purely because she wanted to share her obsessions with her readers. Chompchomp accepts no responsibility for any subsequent addiction that may develop in any of her readers in the aftermath from reading this post. She advises that the purchase of any of the above mentioned products is done at the individual’s risk.Going on a three day juice cleanse with Au Naturale Juices
Posted by | Categories: Featured, Perth, Raw Food, Vegetarian
A few years ago my dearly beloved husband was inspired to go on a month long juice fast after watching the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. After a full month of strict juicing not only did he lose a lot of weight but it left him feeling invigorated and much more energetic. Back then I was never keen to jump on the juicing bandwagon with him. Whilst I realised that juicing could provide more benefits to me than just weight loss, being a relatively normal body weight I didn’t feel the need to juice was urgent. To add to my reluctance, I found that juicing at home was always such messy work and quite time consuming especially because my juices had to be adapted for my fructose malabsorption. Our Breville juicer is one of the traditional centrifugal style ones that most people have and in order to gain the maximum nutrients from the juice you need to drink it immediately. I now much prefer using my new Omniblend blender for juicing as it is much more efficient and far easier to clean.
The Boy prides himself on educating me on anything non-veterinary as he believes that if I’m left to my own devices I become very one track minded and only learn about food and felines. There is nothing REALLY wrong with that is there? One night earlier this year he put on a documentary called Eat, Fast and Live Longer. This Michael Moseley film explores the benefits of fasting on our longevity and health. It’s definitely worth a watch if you haven’t already and it opened my eyes to the fact that you can be slim and still be unhealthy. Wanting to live long and happy lives together we both made a pact to try and fast for one to two days week. We each implemented our fasting in our own individual ways but the boy defaulted straight back to juice fasts and found the whole process far easier than I did.
Eat, Fast & Live Longer HD by limoslight
My own version of the fast was a struggle and after a few weeks of unsuccessfully trying to satisfy myself with piles of raw vegetables and packets of Slim Pasta I turned to the Boy for advice. Like some sort of answered wish within the same week I was contacted by Jac from Au Naturale with offerings of some cold pressed juice samples.
Cold pressed juice is different to that made with my juicer at home. With cold pressing there is no heat created by friction or grinding thus the fruit and vegetables remains raw and do not oxidise or degrade. This means much more of the nutrients and enzymes remain intact. After having a chat with Jac about my fructose malabsorption I was relieved that she was more than happy to adapt the ingredients of her juices to avoid any high fructose fruits so that my gut would remain happy.
My juices were delivered direct to my front door which gave me the chance to talk with Jac and learn more about her newly founded business. We stood out on my porch in the sun sharing stories about how closely we have found our diets to be linked to our own health and well-being. We really are what we eat. Having over five years’ experience as a chef she has a strong interest in using raw, organic and locally sourced products. I loved hearing that she supports our local farmers and purchases her produce from our local Farmers markets in Subi and Fremantle in addition to sourcing some direct from growers in the Swan Valley. LOVE!
The samples didn’t last long and I had already knocked back all three by midday. My interest was well and truly sparked and I was keen to give her more intensive three day extreme juice cleanse a go. In exchange for writing about my experience she kindly offered to provide me and the Boy with a buy-one-get-one-free deal. She emailed me an information pack detailing how to prepare for the three days.
Normally during our working week, the Boy and I eat a predominantly vegan diet and avoid eating animal products, processed foods and grains. Consequently I only really needed a day or two to prepare myself for my juice cleanse however for people who are used to regularly eating meats, grains, sugars and dairy products I strongly recommend taking a couple of days or more to prepare yourself. If you have quite a high amount of processed foods and sugars in your diet you may even want to consider doing a couple of single day juice cleanses first to get your body used to the process. If you don’t, I can guarantee you will not get a very positive outcome and risk making yourself unwell.
The following week Jac arrived on my front door with a whole eskie full of juice. It was hard to believe that my entire next three days of meals were contained in there and I was keen to see what it included. Basically, for each day you are given a 500 ml bottle of juice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, a veggie shot for each morning, a fresh young coconut for an added bit of energy with lunch and two 250 ml “snack” juices. There are three different types of “meals” and two flavours of “snacks”. The cleansing juices are much lower in natural sugars in comparison to some of Jac’s other juices and contain vegetables such as cucumber and celery which are claimed to help with the body’s cleansing process whilst still being gentle on the digestion. The veggie shots are designed to give a concentrate of pure vitamins and health. Jac is a big fan of juicing fresh turmeric and includes it in one of these shots in addition to some of her juices.
The eve before I started my cleanse I dreamt about juice all night. I kept dreaming that the Boy accidentally drank all my juices by mistake and I got half way through my three days and didn’t have enough left. This bizarre dream kept on repeat loop in my brain all night giving me a fitful broken sleep. Once morning arrived I bolted up out of bed and grabbed my first bottle of “Green Caterpillar” made with celery, cucumber, ginger, kale, lime and parsley with the green apple being replaced with grapefruit to make it more fructose friendly. I quickly gulped down the first half of my bottle before I remembered that I was supposed to start my morning with a hot lemon drink. Being a huge breakfast fan I wondered to myself how on Earth I would cope with drinking just liquids for three days.
Jac had advised me to avoid all caffeine starting from the day before the cleanse but I confess to you dear readers that I’m not that strong willed. I reduced my intake to one small black coffee each morning and drank herbal tea for the rest of the day. Later that day I had a business meeting in the city and afterwards we stopped in at The Terrace Hotel for a coffee and bite to eat. Well not for me of course! I brought my “Clean Paws” lunch juice with me in a cold pack to keep it cool. This juice contained coriander, celery, cucumber, ginger, kale, lemon and lime with the papaya replaced with grapefruit and pineapple. I watched on in hungry envy as my colleagues devoured their cake and coffee. I remained very hungry all day. Despite not eating, I had an insane amount of energy for the whole day. My work mates joked that they doubted I would stay like that for the full three days and it must be the high before the low.
I had the Ginger Yam juice for dinner which was made from celery, cucumber, ginger, lime, sweet potato, turmeric and grapefruit. Afterwards I enjoyed a bowl of miso soup as suggested by Jac using gluten free miso paste and hot water without all the trimmings of tofu and seaweed. I was thankful for the warm goodness in my belly as it helped ward off my tummy’s grumblings and let me sleep. The Boy caved and ate a couple of buckwheat crackers and a bowl of frozen blueberries as his hunger was unbearable. At well over six foot tall he is nearly twice my size so I can understand how much more hungry he must have felt. In hindsight I think he will need an additional large juice bottle per day to see him through.
As my first day drew to an end I was surprised that I was only slightly bloated despite drinking over two litres of juice. Fructose malabsorption sufferers are recommended to limit their juice intake to about half a glass per serve which I had obviously exceeded. Jac had kindly ensured to adapt all the ingredients to leave out all the high fructose veggies and fruits which made a huge difference but I knew I would be bound to getting mild symptoms by the end of the day. As I lay in bed my tummy let a few loud gurgles before I fell into the deepest sleep I had in weeks.
Day Two I woke up to find my skin was noticeably cleared and my weight had dropped by 600 grams. My hunger was not as unbearable as the first day and I felt buzzed and full of energy albeit a little light headed. My bloating from the night before has settled down surprisingly quickly. Usually if I have an FM reaction it will last for at least 2-3 days. My hyperactivity lasted for the whole day despite working a long and late shift that didn’t get me home until after 9 pm that night. I was still pretty hungry all day but being the second day I was starting to get used to it.
Day Three followed on from a night of less satisfying sleep as the Boy had tossed and turned all night which in turn kept waking me up. I awoke feeling tired and struggled to get going compared to the other two mornings. I found my gut reactions and bloating had stayed at bay and was amazed at how I hadn’t buckled under the pressures of hunger and eaten real food. I weighed myself and I had lost a further 500 grams.
My skin was literally glowing with health and was even clearer than usual feeling velvety soft to touch. My breakfast juice picked me up more than I thought but by late morning I was starting to lose steam again. I opened up my young coconut before lunch and drank the cool refreshing water along with some of the softer jelly like meat inside. Jac had advised me just to drink the juice but told me some people still eat the flesh. As the coconut meat does contain some fats it isn’t ideal to have while on a cleanse. I am glad I breeched protocol however because the extra energy gave me a new lease in life and I was back to the pumped up, energetic juicing freak I had been for the past two days.
By the afternoon I felt absolutely fine and being on the home stretch I knew I was going to make it. I started making plans for my first meal the next morning and decided on trialling coconut flour paleo pancakes. Seeing the finish line always makes a race easier and I found that last night was actually the easiest.
Oh my, I DID enjoy my food the next day though!
I highly recommend giving a juice cleanse a try. You will feel healthier, more energetic and may even lose some weight in the process. I will not lie to you, you WILL be hungry. For someone like me who eats a lot and eats often, this was the most difficult part and there was a significant battle of wills at play. Thankfully, if you stick to your guns you will find it actually gets easier each day that goes by. But yes. You will be hungry!
Despite the hunger and internal struggle that it created, I really enjoyed my juice cleanse and I’m now hooked having already booked a second one with Au Naturale that just I completed on the weekend. I hope to try and do one once a month just to reset my overworked gut, immune system and overall health back to a baseline. I am even considering trying a five day cleanse…is that crazy? Juice on!
Au Naturale | www.aunaturalejuice.com.au My three day “Extreme Juice Junkie” cleanse normally costs $166 plus delivery however I received a buy one for the price of two in return for writing about my experience. I was happy to pay full price for my second cleanse. I feel I have been truthful and accurate in my post and always strive to ensure that my sponsored posts remain unbiased and factual.
