How To Prepare Raw Food

 

You can virtually eat the same on a raw food diet as you would on a cooked diet. What is
the most striking difference, besides de ingredients, is the preparation of your food. The
following preparation methods are to:

1. Ensure that your food remains below 42 C/118 F degrees
2. Get a preferred consistency
3. Make your food easily absorbable and/or
4. Conserve your food

Preparation Methods

Here are the most used preparation methods for making raw food dish.
1. Juicing
2. Blending
3. Dehydrating
4. Cutting

Juicing

Juicing is a way to get the liquid (juice) out of a vegetable or fruit. The fiber is taken out,
the juice is left. This is a way to get concentrated vitamins and minerals that are extremely
easy for your body to absorb. The nutrients may enter your blood stream within 20 minutes.

There are three kind of juicers:

1. Citrus juicers (orange juice);
2. Centrifuge juicers (carrots);
3. “Slow” juicers (greens).

Citrus juicers are the ones you use for lemons and oranges. You can buy some hand juicers
for about 5 USD. I have cheap glass one I use for quickly juicing lemon juice.

Centrifuge juicers are quick and easy to use. They work well for harder fruits and vegetables
such as apples, carrots, cucumber, celery, ginger, beets. You can also use them for whole
lemons and oranges (peeled!). You may try to put in some greens, but they don’t get much
juice out of them. They range in price from 50 - 500 USD. I like the Solis or Breville brand.

Slow Juicers are best used for green leafy vegetables and grasses. But they also work for
apples, carrots and cucumbers. They are the most expensive, generally are more work to
juice (may have to pre-cut) and to clean. But they are quit and extract the most juice.
Moreover, they generally give you the best quality juice and nutrients because of added
magnets and or a gentler way to treat the produce.

Blending

Blending is a way to cut produce so small that it becomes a smooth soup, or “smoothie”.
High quality high speed blenders such as Blendtec and Vitamix cut the food so tiny that they
the cell wall is broken. This makes it easy for you to absorb tough vegetables. Blending uses
the whole food, thus the fibre remains.

You can blend fruits, vegetables, greens, super foods, water, nuts, seeds, etc. You can make
cold or warm smoothies, sweet or hearty.

Blenders are very easy in use and quick to clean. A very popular way to prepare raw food.
My first raw food year I used a hand blender (700 watt). Relatively inexpensive and it
worked really well and I still use one when I travel. Obviously, it doesn’t make the food as
smooth (especially greens like spinach) and it won’t break the cell wall of greens so it is not
as easy to absorb the smoothies.

Vitamix and Blendec are the best blenders. They are quite an investment but well worth it
because you will use them often.

Dehydrating

Dehydrating is a way to dry your food and take the water out. Once dehydrated, you can
store your food in a air tight container or plastic bag. It is also a way to make the food
crunchy and often used as an alternative to conventional baking.

Since the food should remain “raw” it cannot be dehydrated in normal oven though. Best
ways to dehydrate are to let the food sun dry or use a special dehydrator (i.e. Excalibur).
Other ways are to use your radiator or your conventional oven on the lowest temperature.
If you would like to make gourmet food, I would certainly get one. Otherwise, this appliance
wouldn’t be on top of my list. It’s big, expensive and dehydrating at low temperatures takes
generally 6 - 24 hours for your food to be ready.

Cutting

You can cut your food with sharp knifes, a cutter, mandoline or food processor.
Sharp knifes are important when preparing raw food and of course a cutting board.
A hand cutter is easy when you need to cut many onions or nuts. Its a bit a hassle to clean
them.

A food processor is nice if you want to make a pesto. Thus something not completely
smooth (which it will get if you put it in your blender) or for using smaller quantities. I use
my hand blender for this and pulse, or use the food processor part of my hand blender. I
would only use a food processor for larger quantities. (I generally prepare raw food for just
for 1 or 2 people).

A mandoline are for fun. You can make nice shapes, such as potato shapes, ribs, or very
thin slices. Relatively inexpensive and nice to have, but not a must.