RAW FOOD POWER
Supercharged recipes from a jungle diary
Annelie Whitfield
First published in the UK in 2013 by
Ivy Press
210 High Street
Lewes
East Sussex BN7 2NS
United Kingdom
www.ivypress.co.uk
Text and recipes copyright © 2013 Annelie Whitfield
Design and layout copyright © 2013 Ivy Press Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage-and-retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78240-037-0
This book was conceived, designed, and produced by
Ivy Press
Creative Director Peter Bridgewater
Publisher Susan Kelly
Art Director Wayne Blades
Senior Editor Jayne Ansell
Design, Art Direction & Styling Simon Daley
Jungle Photographer Jennifer Harter
Food Photographer Ian Garlick
Home Economist Lorna Brash
Colour origination by Ivy Press Reprographics
Distributed worldwide (except North America) by Thames & Hudson Ltd., 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX, United Kingdom
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
While the publisher and author have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate and presented in good faith, no warranty is provided nor results guaranteed. The publishers and author exclude liability to the fullest extent of the law for any consequences resulting from reliance upon the information contained herein. Readers should always consult a qualified medical practitioner or therapist before undertaking a new diet or health programme.
Preface
my journey
Making the transition to raw food
Recommended equipment
Breakfast
Tropical Doorstep Smoothie
Morning Sun Juice
Apple and Date Granola
Cheesecake For Breakfast
Berry Crazy
Detox Pineapple Shake
Best-Ever Buckwheat Cereal
Creamy Banana Chocolate Breakfast
Morning Nut Milk
Raw Iced Mochachino
Mango Lassi Mousse With Berries
Pour Down The Pink Protein
Lunch
Tropical Salad of Love
Hempy Burritos
Mango, Avocado, and Tomato Burritos
Super Seaweed Salad
Protein-Rich Sandwich Bread
Kids Go Crackers
Raw Chocolate Chip Nutrient-Rich Cookies
Dairy-Free Fruit Yogurt
Sprouted Quinoa, Avocado, and Tomato Marinara Wraps
Cucumber and Mint Summer Soup
Magnesium Lunch Crunch Smoothie
Snacks & Treats
Cacao Shot Mix
Zella’s Best Chocolate Orange Balls
Crunchy Chocolate Hearts
Almond Crunch Cookies
Flax Hemp Jacks
Chocolate Tropical Kebab Sticks
Raw Vanilla Ice Cream
Full Spectrum Chocolate Birthday Cake
Buckwheat Snack Bars
Beetroot and Mint Choc Chip Dip
Pumpkin Pesto
Salty Sweetcorn Crisps
Adi’s Amazing Raw Courgette Hummus
Avocado and Strawberry Salad
Raw Healthy Pizza
Dinner
Ecstatic Smoothie
Quick Raw Tomato Soup
Guacamole
Raw Corn Tacos
Spiralized Courgettes with Nutrient-Rich Pasta Sauce
Raw Cauliflower Rice With Stir-Fry Vegetables
Raw Cannelloni With Red Cashew Cheese
Red Cashew Cheese Dip
Pineapple and Cucumber Gazpacho
Wild Green Salad and Citrus Tahini Dressing
Raw Lasagne
Coconut Cream Pie
Apple Aid
Gingered Watermelon Juice
Remedies
Creamy Aloe Drink
My Jungle Antibiotic Drink
AM/PM Magic Tea
Sleep Easy
Onion and Thyme Cough Syrup
Cocobiotic Drink
Let Chocolate be Thy Berry Medicine
My Indian Goddess Syrup
Ginger Tea
Stockists, recommended reading and useful websites
Index
Acknowledgements
Of all the gifts I received in my life, the most important was my childhood. I was always out and about, eating wild foods and loving the freedom of growing up on a farm. My early years were spent mostly barefoot and, today, I’m delighted to be able to gift my children the grounded, barefoot magic of living close to nature.
When I was four I decided that I was going to become a stunt girl and from the age of 23 I found myself doubling for the likes of Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz. I spent seven years jumping off bridges, being beaten up and set on fire and crashing cars. It was a wonderful but brief career, full of excitement, travel, fun and a fair amount of fear. However, deep down I always knew that one day I would be spending more time in nature, and I’d be doing something more likely to nurture my health than threaten it!
My turning time point came four years down the line when I had a serious car crash while working, which left me burnt, battered and somewhat disillusioned. This, of course, was a blessing in disguise and the shake up I needed to start me on a different journey. I spent almost a year healing, choosing natural alternatives to conventional medicine where possible, as it felt so instinctively wrong to be mummified in casts and be applying strong pharmaceutical creams. This year was a time of huge learning, which left me both humbled and in awe of the power of herbs, living foods, plant spirits, bone-mending monks, homeopathy, Chinese medicine and much, much more.
I am now a qualified naturopath and herbalist and have spent the last eight years running clinics, TV presenting on health, and travelling the world in search of powerful natural remedies and recipes.
I am not exactly sure why, but I have always had a deep-seated pull towards the jungle, which has intensified as I’ve travelled. I have spent many years reading about jungle medicine and am fascinated by people’s journeys into the jungles of the world; books such as Jungle Medicine by Connie Grauds and The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs by Leslie Taylor Square inspire me.
Then, one day, came the realization that my inspirations were more voyeurism – I wasn’t living those experiences. How had it come to pass that the ‘nature girl’ I so cherished inside had become part of the furniture in London’s urban jungle? In a remarkably casual conversation given the gravitas of what we were discussing, my husband Jamie and I decided that same night to completely change our lives. We wanted to remove our little girls from the big city into a more natural living environment, learn a new language, experience a completely different culture and no longer be in a nine-to-five existence. After a few months of plotting and planning, selling our house and putting over ten years of London life into storage, we went to live in the Costa Rican jungle. It was many things, from sheer blissfulness to borderline hell, but it was always highly stimulating.
The journey taught me so much, not just about how incredible it is to experience living such a different life, but also about my family. I feel like I have got to know each one of them so much better, and I now understand how such an experience can strengthen ideas about how you want to live your life. It also taught me something that I always knew, but hadn’t yet properly experienced, and that is the power of the natural world. Living so close to nature was at times intimidating and a real challenge, but also incredibly energizing.
As a health practitioner I have spent many years learning from courses, books and seminars; but from living in the jungle I have changed some of my previous ideas about diet and lifestyle, and I now feel that I know how I really want to live, what I want to eat, and most importantly, how to nurture my children. I have no doubt in my mind that taking my kids out of the urban jungle and into the real one has been truly amazing for their little spirits; nourishing and supporting them while they rise to the challenges of life.
I wrote this book to share my experiences of the transition we have made, the recipes and remedies I have used along the way, and the herbal, nutritional and lifestyle knowledge that I have learnt during this time. I am deeply passionate about feeling alive and creative, and hope I can inspire you to also feel this way by making the best choices for your mind and body, wherever you live.
‘Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you would never know who would love the person you hide.’ Unknown
I have always gravitated towards healthy food, and eating fresh, wild, seasonal food has been a deep-seated passion for many years. Before I became a fan of raw foods I had spent many years experimenting with vegetarianism and veganism, supplementing with an array of nutrient-rich foods and herbs and experiencing the importance of 100 per cent organic. However, the transition to raw happened when I experienced that inevitable exhaustion from having my first baby. The endless nights breastfeeding and dealing with a challenging child drained all my resources, so, after chatting to a raw foodie friend who claimed to need only four hours sleep a night due to his high raw diet I thought ‘That’s it, I’m going ALL raw’.
This was, without a doubt, one of the best choices I ever made. I felt better, looked better – I felt more energized. I spent less time feeling like a crazily hungry breastfeeding mum as all the raw food snacks were so nutritionally packed. I also spent less time thinking about what to eat and prepare. I lived off superfood shakes, big green and seaweed salads, dehydrated crackers, dips and lots of raw chocolate; it just felt very easy! And my little baby girl LOVED it! More breast milk, more calmness of spirit and, of course, a happier mama!
I continued along this path in my next pregnancy and kept both my little girls ‘in the raw’ until the age of two, when they naturally became curious about other foods. I’ve allowed them to make their own choices about whether to eat a wholly raw food diet, and, luckily, they have a very healthy palate, happily eating raw and steamed veggies, fruit, nut milks, raw dips, an abundance of green juices, raw crackers, smoothies and a ton of other superfoods.
My journey into raw food has certainly been the catalyst for a broader understanding of nature and a desire to experience as much as possible in its unadulterated form.
My advice to anyone interested in converting to a diet rich in raw food is not to put pressure on yourself. Like anything in life it is a personal journey and will evolve while you find your right dietary balance. It is also a way of eating that must inspire, so if you are keen to introduce your family and friends to raw food, start them off slowly with some of the delicious inventions in this book! Raw chocolate, dips and crackers are a great way to introduce people to raw food. It is a very different way of eating compared to the standard diet, though, and people can see it as restrictive. This of course is entirely untrue if you love eating highly nutritious living foods as, wherever you are, something is always available.
My diet changes as I experience different cultures, travel and, of course, become older. I am eating very differently from only six months ago. Currently I am juicing lots of wild greens, making lots of superfood smoothies, enjoying eggs and raw cheeses and also eating some cooked foods like brown rice, quinoa and steamed veg. Consuming just 50 per cent raw with additional wild and nutrient-rich foods gives you such an upgrade in health that this might be your starting point or maybe your perfect balance.
My husband found his way into raw food through drinking green smoothies and was very inspired by raw food expert and author Victoria Boutenko. He does a lot of travelling, and, though he doesn’t maintain a 100 per cent raw food diet, he keeps himself healthy and grounded via the huge amount of varied greens he consumes. This is his perfect balance.
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