Oranges are available year round in most places, so this is a great go to energy drink. Forget all those processed sports drinks and fake energy drinks. Fruit is where it’s at.

Ingredients

6 cups fresh squeezed orange juice
6 pitted medjool dates
6 fresh mint leaves

Method

Blend all ingredients and drink!

Tips

You can use any oranges for this, tangelos have the most juice and are the sweetest, Valencia’s have a lot of juice but aren’t as sweet and navels are sweet but have more fibre. Look for navels with a big belly button, they are sweeter! If you want to get a lot of calories in drink it all at once or you can drink throughout the day or make less if you just want a snack.

1060 calories

Okay, so I know some of you are looking at this picture and thinking ew that’s so green, I would never eat that! But let me tell you, this is the best tasting raw soup I have made so far. It’s fresh, creamy, tomatoey and so full of flavour. Spinach is one of the most palatable greens around, it blends really well and it’s actually quite sweet. Plus it’s 30% protein! This recipe has all those delicious italian flavours that everyone loves so much. And it takes less than 5 minutes to make. I like to use powdered garlic and onion rather than fresh when I’m making raw food as it’s not as harsh and has more of a cooked flavour. Adjust the amounts to suit your tastes as fresh ingredients are different every time.

Ingredients

Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup filtered water
1/2 lebanese cucumber or 1/4 telegraph cucumber
1 Large organic or heirloom tomato (something with a lot of flavour)
2 carrots
About 4 cups of baby spinach leaves
6 large basil leaves
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
pinch of sea salt
1/4 – 1/2 avocado

Method

Chop the cucumber tomato and carrots into chunks.
Add everything except the avocado to your blender. Add them in the order listed so that the juicier ingredients help to get the blending started better.
Once everything is blended up nice and smooth, add your avocado and blend for a short time just until it’s smooth. We add the avocado last because it can make the soup go fluffy if you blend it all together.
If you like you can also add some extra diced tomato and cucumber to serve.
Yum!

Tips

This also makes a great base for adding steamed vegetables if you don’t want a fully raw meal. Try pouring it over some steamed potatoes and broccoli and adding some extra diced tomato, or mashing some in with steamed potatoes for some clean comfort food.

After a big banana smoothie I made this for dinner just using whatever I had in the fridge. It can be made as a salad or wraps, you might even chose to blend some extra filling as a juicy dressing.

Ingredients

1 Mango
Fruit from 1 Thai Coconut
1 Tomato
Spring Onions
Mint
Lime Juice
Romaine/Cos Lettuce Leaves
 

Method

1. Slice up the mango, coconut and tomato into thin strips.
2. Chop the mint and spring onions and mix with the mango mixture.
3. Pile into romaine leaves, squeeze a little lime juice on top and enjoy.

Variations

You can also chop up the lettuce and have this as a salad, blending some extra filling ingredients together will make a great dressing.

I didn’t bring anything from home for lunch today so I just popped down to the supermarket and grabbed a few things. I wanted to show how easy it can be to make a raw lunch with ingredients from a standard supermarket without using any special equipment. All you need is a knife, a fork and a board or a plate. I managed to walk to the supermarket, make my lunch and sit down to eat in less than an hour. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be complicated or take a long time. Just watch, everyone in your office will be asking you about it and wanting some too!

Ingredients

1 red bell pepper
1/2 avocado
mixed shredded veges (this mix had carrot, broccoli stalks and beetroot in a prepacked bag)
6 brazil nuts
1/2 lemon
sea salt or himalayan salt

Method

1. Cut the red bell bepper in half and remove the stalk and seeds

2. Scoop out 1/4 of an avocado into each half pepper and mash in with a fork to fill all the nooks and crannies

3. Add some shredded veges and some chopped brazil nuts

4. Squeeze some lemon juice over the top and a sprinkle of salt

Enjoy!

Variations

You can use any veges or salad mix that you find at your local supermarket to stuff the peppers with. I prefer to use salad mixes that don’t have any dressing as you can’t be sure of what’s in them. I used brazil nut here as they are really high in selenium and they also have a really savoury taste, but use any other raw nuts or seeds that you like or leave them out altogether.

People often think that when you switch to a healthier diet you’re going to be missing out on a lot of those foods that you love. I prefer to think of all the new ways I can make the recipes that I love. Have my Pad Thai and eat it too! Pad Thai is not necesarily an unhealthy recipe. The rice noodles are gluten free which is great and there are always veges, but when you order it in a restaurant the sauce is often filled with lots of oil and sugar and as a vegan I always have to watch out for the hidden fish sauce. Now that I eat mostly raw foods that are full of fresh flavour if I’m eating out with friends and order a cooked version it usually doesn’t live up to my memories of when I used to enjoy that kind of food. It can just seem kind of dull and stodgy.

It’s really simple to make a healthier version of almost any recipe. One that is often much more vibrant and tasty. You just need to look at the flavours and use them in a slightly different way. The real flavour of Pad Thai comes from the sauce, it’s sweet, sour, salty, spicy, tangy and nutty. So I just look at how I can recreate that without all the added refined oil, sugar and fish sauce.

Young Thai coconuts make really amazing noodles and also give it that extra tropical flavour. If you can’t find them just use extra zucchini noodles. Both of these make great alternatives to wheat or white rice noodles that can sometimes make you feel heavy after a meal.
 

Ingredients

Meat from 2 young thai coconuts
2 zucchini
2 carrots
2 cups of shredded red cabbage
1/2 of a red bell pepper
1 spring onion stalk
10 almonds

For the Sauce

the leftover cores of the zucchini
2 pitted medjool dates
8 cherry tomatoes or 2 medium tomatoes
2cm slice of fresh ginger
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or more to taste
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp tamari
10 almonds

Directions

1. Open the coconuts, save the liquid for a smoothie and remove the meat.
There are a couple of ways to open a coconut. You can chop into it with a large cleaver but I like to shave the husk off the top and twist a knife into the shell. If you’re unsure how to open a coconut check out this video. It can be hit and miss with the quality of coconuts. You want to make sure the meat and water are not purple, that means it’s gone bad. Sometimes the meat will be very thin and a bit jelly-ish, that doesn’t make for the best noodles. When you get one with thick meat on the inside that’s the best kind to make noodles with. Unfortunately you can’t tell this when you buy one. To make noodles you want to scrape the meat out in one or two pieces. Start at the top with the back of the spoon facing down and gently push it down prying the meat from the shell. Make sure to wash the meat and remove and bits of shell that may be on there. You can also use a vegetable peeler to remove any brown pieces.

2. Slice the coconut meat into long thin noodles and place in a large bowl.

3. Use a vegetable peeler to create long flat noodles from the carrots and zucchini. Just run the peeler up and down as you turn the carrots and zucchini. With the zucchini stop once you reach the seeded core. Add these to the coconut noodles.

4. Add the shredded red cabbage and sliced red bell pepper and mix everything together.

5. Finely slice or chop the almonds and the spring onions and save to use as a garnish.

Making the sauce

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.

Serving Suggestions

Plate up the vegetable noodle mixture and pour the sauce over the top. Garnish with almonds and spring onions as shown.

Variations

The coconut noodles are a great feature of this recipe, but if you can’t find young thai coconuts the recipe will work fine without them. Just use extra zucchini noodles. The main flavours come from the sauce which could also be used as a salad dressing.

Other vegetables that could be added or substituted are mung bean sprouts, green beans, white cabbage and snow pea shoots. You could also add in broccoli and cauliflower for different textures.

Almonds are one of my favourite nuts to make milk from. They have a lovely soft sweetness and a very mild flavour so unlike sesame or sunflower seeds they won’t overpower the other flavours in your drink. Packages nutmilks are available to buy in the market these days and they are a great alternative to dairy milks or even soy milk which can often contain a lot of sugar. The problem with packaged nutmilks is they’ve been pasteurised, so they’ve lost a lot of valuable nutrients and life force. It’s so easy to make your own fresh nutmilk at home, it will save you money, you’ll use less packaging and ultimately, it just tastes better!

This simple recipe is just a fancier version of your standard almond milk. I’ve used Lucuma for a mellow, low GI sweetness. Lucuma is a fruit grown in Peru. It’s dried and ground into a fine powder which has a lovely caramelly maple syrup shortbread kind of flavour. I usually buy the Loving Earth brand which is available in New Zealand and Australia.

Ingredients

1 Cup Raw Almonds
1 Tbsp Lucuma Powder
Seeds scraped from 1 Vanilla Bean
1 Medjool Date
1 Ripe Spotty Banana

Instructions

1. Soak the almonds for around 6 hours or more in filtered water.
2. Drain and rinse the almonds then blend with 3 cups of filtered water until smooth.
3. Strain the mixture through a nutmilk bag or a fine sieve. (Save the pulp to use in crackers or cookies)
4. Return the filtered almond milk to the blender, add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.

Tip: If you choose to omit the banana for a thinner milk you might want to add an extra date for a sweeter drink.

Serving Suggestions

I like to drink this as is, but it would also be great milk to pour over some buckwheat cereal or you could add some chia seeds to make a chia pudding.

Sometimes when you think you don’t have anything left to make what you wanted for dinner you end up making something really delicious. Salads can be created from almost any fruits and vegetables that you have in the refrigerator, there are no set rules so just throw a few things together and see what happens. Sometimes it may not work out, but other times you might discover a combination that is unexpectedly delicious! So the other night, I had no tomatoes which is something I would often use in a savoury salad and the only fruit I has left was a big ruby grapefruit so this salad is what happend out of almost bare cupboards and it was delicious.

Ingredients

Shredded Cos/Romaine Lettuce
Diced Avocado
Diced Ruby Grapefruit or Regular Grapefruit
Sultanas or Raisins
Soaked Sunflower Seeds or Pumpkin Seeds
A squeeze of lemon Juice
Pinch of Himalayan or Sea Salt

Nuts and seeds are great for making dips. They provide that thick creamy texture that be a great substitute for cream and cheese based dips. It’s best to use raw, unroasted nuts and seeds. Just remember to soak them in water first. This brings them to life providing more available enzymes and making them easier to digest. People who have had issues digesting nuts may find they have no troubles at all eating them once they have been soaked.

Ingredients

2 cups soaked sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chopped celery stalks
1/2 cup chopped dill leaves
1 tsp sea salt or himalayan salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried garlic powder or 1 clove fresh garlic
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
a dash of water if needed

Method

Simply blend all ingredients in a food processor until it reaches a thick hummus like texture.
This dip should keep for around 3-4 days in a sealed container in the fridge

Serving Suggestions

I like this served on vege flax crackers, scooped up with cucumber slices or celery sticks or in a vege lettuce wrap. If you’d like to use it as a raw addition to your cooked dish it would be nice on some steamed potatoes or gluten-free vegetable fritters.

These delicious nutritious nori rolls can be whipped up in less than 15 minutes. I made these after getting home late after my yoga class and was too hungry to make anything that would take any longer. I’ve used a homemade raw brazil nut sesame tahini in these rolls but feel free to use store bought raw tahini if you can get it or just regular tahini. You could also mix it up and use some raw brazil or almond butter instead. By using another leaf inside the nori it will prevent it from becoming soggy, so these would be a great lunch snack too. When shopping for Nori sheets check the packet, if it’s not raw it will usually say toasted somewhere. Most brands are toasted, so if you want to keep it strictly raw try a wholefoods shop or an online raw foods shop. In Australia and New Zealand I usually buy the spiral foods brand nori.

Ingredients

Nori sheets
Swiss or rainbow chard (or romaine/cos lettuce)
Carrots
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Tahini
Himalayan or sea salt

Method

1. Lay the nori flat on a board

2. Remove the stalk end from a large chard leaf. The leaf should be around the same size as your nori sheet or a little narrower. Lay this on top of the nori.

3. Use a vegetable peeler to slice the carrot into long ribbons, cut the cucumber into long sticks and dice the tomato.

4. Spread some tahini along one edge of the chard following the direction of the stalk. Use as much or as little as you like. You may prefer to thinly spread it over the whole leaf or have one thick line of tahini.

5. Layer your carrot ribbons, cucumber and tomatoes lengthways next to the tahini so that the come to about 1/3 of the width across. Add salt to taste.

6. Now simply roll from the filled side over, pressing in as you do so, to form your nori roll. Wet the end of the nori with a small amount of water to help it stick together.

Serving suggestions

I like to just cut these in half and eat them as they are but you could also make a little dipping sauce from tamari amd lemon juice if you like.

Tips

Don’t limit yourself to the fillings that I have used. This was just what I had in the fridge at the time. There are so many other veges that would be great in these rolls. Try some red bell pepper, mung bean shoots, alfalfa sprouts, fresh herbs, grated beetroot, or even add some tofu. The tahini could also be substituted with avocado for a lighter tasting roll.

This is another great way of using up the almond pulp leftover from making almond milk. Turn it into flatbread! Mix with ground flaxseeds for binding and delicious savoury herbs for a distinctive stuffing flavour. Feel free to add or substitute the herbs with others like rosemary, sage, oregano or basil.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups almond pulp
1 cup ground golden flaxseeds
1 tsp dried thyme or 1/4 cup fresh chopped thyme
1 tsp dried tarragon or 1/4 cup fresh chopped tarragon
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp sea salt or himalayan salt
2 medium sized tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp lemon juice
350ml water

Method

1. Blend the tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice and water together in a high speed blender

2. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl

3. Fold the blended liquid into the dry ingredients

4. Spread the mixture onto a lined dehydrator tray a little less than 1cm thick (I filled one excalibur tray with this quantity)

5. Score with a knife into the sizes you would like. I did 4×4 to create 16 squares.

6. Dehydrate 4-6 hours on 41°C/105°F, once they are dry enough to pick up with a spatula flip them over and dehydrate another 2-4 hrs or longer if you prefer them as crackers.

TIP: If you are storing these for longer than a few days then dehydrate until completely dry.

TIP: If you dehydrate the bread too much and still want a soft bread rather than a cracker place the bread between two damp teatowels and place back in the dehydrator. This will ‘steam’ the bread a bit to rehydrate them without the bread becoming soggy again.

Serving Suggestions

You can use this any way you would use a savoury bread. I like my fresh veges most of all so I like to make a salad sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and avocado to balance out the dehydrated bread. You could also use any savoury dip or pate and pair it with your favourite toppings.