Ease into Summer, What is raw food?

Feel it coming. Summer eases in with a warm embrace as spring showers subside into a full-on sun and the occasional afternoon thunderstorm. You reach for sunglasses and sandals and have a desire to run away from it all, to escape to white sands and ocean breezes. Things slow down as the heat and humidity press in, and no matter what your lifestyle, you need a break from the action. It’s time for a vacation—to explore foreign cities, soar across the bay on a sailboat, or hike way up into the mountains and set up camp. Summer calls you to travel somewhere, anywhere, to put your feet up and relax.

If you’re more the staycation type, the prospect of quiet days at home feels easier, almost intoxicating. I’ve given myself several staycations at our farm over the past few years, enjoying a Mediterranean-style life filled with fresh, local foods and long, sunny days in which to enjoy them. My type A personality seems to subside come June, July, and August, as I savor la dolce vita. Sometimes I feel downright lazy.

Nothing makes me happier than keeping a gorgeous bowl of summer fruit sitting on my kitchen table, including small green apples from our apple tree, for my son and his friends. I adore being able to add garden-fresh mint to my iced tea or smoothies, or blend freshly picked tomatoes into a raw sauce for gluten-free or raw zucchini pasta.

I love walking down our country road after dinner or driving out with my husband to see the latest summer movie after a blistering hot afternoon. My gardener girlfriends begin to reap the rewards of their great spring planting, showing off raised beds bursting with fresh, colorful produce, and the unwelcome weeds they continuously tackle. (I prefer perennial herbs and the low-maintenance container garden approach.) The back porch with my Mac, two dogs, and three kitties is my favorite place to be. It’s my summer office, and I begin each day with a morning tea before the air gets too sultry and the sun too high.

Many businesses, even in the United States, quiet down as executives and assistants alike take their long-awaited time off, or at the very least, dash out the door early on a Friday. Water cooler talk revolves around airfares, beach traffic, and the challenges of sunburn, or whose kid is going to which summer camp. There’s a sense of letting go that permeates this time of year and allows you to kick back. Even my high-powered Manhattan executive clients let go this time of year. I highly recommend you grasp the season, as well.

Work With the Season, Not Against It
Even though summer seems like a time for the good life, it can have its downside when it comes to how you feel about your looks, your body weight, and finding your ideal nutrition plan.
Most people’s lives bear no resemblance to what we see portrayed in a magazine ad—a perfectly coiffed model dashing off on the Hampton Jitney toting a trendy bag. The high heat and humidity can lead to water retention and swelling from an increased salt intake, and fat belly bloat from too many margaritas or diet soft drinks. And since you’ve sworn off Brazilian straighteners, your hair’s frizzy. Swimsuit season can create a disappointing realization of weight gain. Whoops. Summer’s the time every year when I come face to face with how much I’ve been working out . . . Or not.

Like birthdays and holidays, summer vacations are the time to have fun and indulge a little.

Those go-to foods of summer, like creamy ice cream, seem to be available everywhere, and it can be hard not to cave in and indulge. Your body craves foods to cool down, but having this treat too often can add pounds and cause inflammation from all that sugar and dairy.

The summer heat makes you sweat more. Your body naturally wants salt to help prevent dehydration and replace needed electrolytes. Reaching for tortilla chips and salsa is easy, but some days, within minutes of eating them, you’re staring down at puffy hands and fingers.

And when you’re on a summer vacation and spending a lot of time outdoors in the heat, it’s hard not to give in to cravings. When I was growing up, my family vacationed at the Jersey Shore (yes, I’m a Jersey girl), and I had a daily craving for vanilla soft serve to work its cooling magic. The relief was short-term, however. Inevitably I’d feel sick to my stomach within an hour—it was only years later that I realized this came from my intolerance to dairy and eating too much sugar.

I remember my sister coming in from a day at the beach, grabbing a bag of potato chips, diving in, and saying, “I need salt!” The next morning, she held up her swollen fingers and declared.
Like birthdays and holidays, summer vacations are the time to have fun and indulge a little. If you want ice cream from that great little stand on the boardwalk at the beach, go for it. I love to indulge on those special days, although I go for organic sorbet or non-dairy treats instead of ice cream. But what happens on vacation stays on vacation. I’ve learned that if I behave every day as I do when I’m on vacation, I won’t feel and look the way I like. I’ll begin to feel lousy, with aches and pains, a foggy brain, and reddish skin.

Get Raw
Summer provides lots of opportunities to give in to your cravings, so let’s talk about how to satisfy those natural tendencies without gaining weight and feeling grumpy by September.
Imagine biting into a ripe, fresh plum, or getting a waft of blueberries as you pass by fragrant cartons of them at your farmer’s market. Imagine slicing into homegrown strawberries that smell and taste sweet, unlike the mealy out-of-season berries you bought last winter. Feel the peppery, early arugula of June, the intoxicating aroma of July watermelons, or the understated scent of cucumber fresh from your garden in August. Slice into a fresh tomato and remember what a plant is supposed to smell and taste like. It’s easy to forget if you’ve been eating the grocery store kind all winter.
Summer offers an abundance of delicious fruits and vegetables that can be eaten raw or very lightly cooked. To take advantage of what’s near and local can be the best thing for your overall health, your looks, your energy levels, and your taste buds.

What is raw food?

A fresh food or a raw food diet refers to foods that are eaten mostly uncooked. If they’re cooked, it’s very gently—they’re not heated to above 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The primary reason for eating raw foods is to preserve intact the natural enzymes in the food. Enzymes are natural proteins made by living cells or animals; enzymes make the normal metabolic processes of the body, such as digestion, happen faster.

Think of raw foods as a complete health kit, with no added ingredients needed for them to do their magic. Plants, like fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, and seeds, contain enzymes that, in an uncooked state, will help your body to digest them. Because of this benefit, your body doesn’t use its enzyme reserve to break down and absorb the food, so it doesn’t have to work as hard at digestion. If you did the Cleanse with Style protocol outlined in chapter four, you’ve at least experimented with increasing raw foods in your diet.

Digestive system health is the key to overall health. Seventy percent of your body’s power to resist disease rests in your digestive system, making it your first line of defense against bacteria, viruses, and pathogens. Complex processed foods and toxic pesticides and sprays weaken the digestive tract. Because of this, our bodies produce fewer digestive enzymes as we age—enzymes we need to allow us to absorb food’s nutrients.

SARAH  Fruit Instead of Ice Cream
My client Sarah, a Healthy Omnivore, was addicted to the cold, sweet creaminess of ice cream. Even though she knew she’d feel better if she cut back, Sarah struggled with her craving. She tried switching from high-fat gourmet ice creams with funny names to the popular 100-calorie cones and bars, but she would eat the entire box while driving home from the store. Sarah wasn’t terribly overweight; she was more concerned about her health and overall nutrition than the extra 15 pounds she carried. After eating the ice cream, she felt like crap—swollen, puffy, and nauseated. She wanted to break that cycle and ramp up the quality of her nutrition to feel, in her words, “amazing.”

We decided Sarah should try swapping fresh fruit for ice cream. I told her, “Take your biggest fruit bowl out of the cupboard, or go buy a huge one, and place it on your kitchen table. Next, visit the farmer’s market and buy an assortment of fruits that you love. Smell them, and make sure you get in touch with their sweetness and freshness. Fill the bowl, and when the craving for ice cream hits, have a piece of fruit. If you still have that craving, have another bite. In fact, eat an unlimited amount of fruit for now, whenever that craving strikes.”

Sarah was soon carrying fruit around with her everywhere she went. She had containers of fruit in her car, her handbag, and in a bowl on her desk. Every time that sweet, intense craving hit, she’d eat a piece of fruit.

After just a few days, Sarah began to feel great. Fresh fruit crowded out her ice cream cravings, and she quickly dropped a couple of pounds. Her face lost its red, inflamed appearance and her skin had a healthy glow. The happy thing for me to see was that she was eating seasonal, locally grown fresh fruits and remembering how good real food tasted. And the ice cream? It’s not gone forever, but she enjoys it now only as a special occasion dessert.

Raw foods are easier to digest because they come with their enzymes. If your digestion is even slightly compromised, adding in more raw foods can help. Blended smoothies and liquid nutrition are particularly useful, as they save your body the effort of breaking down the food from a solid form. (See the recipes in chapter ten for some great ways to get your liquid nutrition.)

The outward result? People who eat an all-raw diet, or a high percentage of raw foods, often experience a high-level, “go-for-it” kind of energy. They have clear, glowing skin, focused thinking, and an overall sense of well-being. Raw food is anti-aging, pumping in active phytonutrients to your skin cells to provide a vibrant, youthful look.

For some, a fresh food diet can be the best way to eat all of the time or almost all the time. This isn’t true for everyone. You won’t know how much raw is good for you, however, until you try it. Start gently by adding just a bit more raw food into your daily meals—a salad of fresh greens with both lunch and dinner, some fresh fruit as a snack. In the same way, that you tuned into your body to help discover your Nutritional Style, listen to how you feel after eating more raw foods. If you’re feeling great from the added fresh food, gradually move toward a mostly raw or even an all-raw diet.
Summer is the ideal time to experiment with “going raw.” We naturally reach for cooling foods in hot weather. In the abundant days of summer, the local markets are bursting with fresh produce. We’re instinctively drawn to this array of food to help us stay calm and also for their cleansing properties. And who wants to cook when it’s that hot?

Raw foods are cleansing because they’re free of additives or chemicals. A cucumber or tomato or watermelon doesn’t come with a label listing the added ingredients. Fruits and vegetables pass through your digestive system with ease, allowing you to assimilate all their nutrients.
Raw vegetables and fruits cool the body naturally. If you’re craving sweets, the fruits of summer are here to help. With natural sugars and high-fiber content, fruit sugars are absorbed into your system slowly—you don’t get the sugar rush and glycemic spike from sugary snacks such as cookies. Also, you’ll find that fruit is much more filling and satisfying. You could probably eat a dozen Oreos at one time, but you most likely can’t eat more than two juicy, fresh peaches in a row.
If you’re craving the sugar lift and the cooling effect of ice cream, now’s the time to reach for some fragrant fresh fruit instead. If you want something cold, try freezing some grapes or orange slices—they make a great snack.