I often encourage you to sneak a raw day into your cleanse, and I wanted to elaborate on what that might look like. To plan a raw day properly, though, you should schedule it about 3 days out. This is because of the need to SPROUT! More on that later…
Raw Food is absolutely PACKED with enzymes and nutrients and it makes you feel seriously alive. Unlike cooked food, raw food retains all of its nutrients and all of its enzymes. When we cook our food, we lose 30% of the nutrients and 100% of the enzymes. Enzymes are needed for every single function and activity that the body does. When you eat raw food and your body absorbs those enzymes, it functions more efficiently, and your cells regenerate and heal at their deepest level. Adding raw foods into your diet can cure chronic disease because of how they flood your body with enzymes, oxygen, and micronutrients. I usually try to eat raw at least one day during every cleanse, and sometimes two days. Even if you can just do 2 raw meals in a day, it is worth it to flood your body with these enzymes.
I’m planning a raw day this cleanse and here is going to be my menu for the day:
Breakfast: Lemon water, hot tea with honey (ok on a raw day), and the Blue-Green Coconut Power Smoothie.
Snack: Macadamia Coconut + Oat Energy Bites, and Green Juice
Lunch: 1 whole avocado, sliced, in a bowl with sprouted mung bean + lentils, and lime crema, topped with black sesame seeds
Snack: Dulse, and a couple of sun-dried plums
Dinner: Raw Mushroom Soup and Massaged Kale Salad. You can serve this alongside some sliced radishes and cherry tomatoes, if you’d like.
Dulse (a seaweed) is also a great addition to a raw day as a snack. It’s packed with minerals that are valuable to your health. Dulse improves vision, protects the immune system, builds bone health, improves the thyroid gland, increases growth and repair, optimizes the gastrointestinal system, lowers blood pressure, strengthens the brain and nervous system, and boosts circulation. Fermented foods (kimchi, saurkraut, pickles) are another great raw food to add in–they are super helpful to your digestion!
The sprouting may seem intimidating, but it just takes moments (spread over a few days), and is very worthwhile. The reason for this is that, in order to get protein while eating raw, we need to eat legumes. You obviously cannot eat them cooked (which is how they are prepared before canning), and you cannot eat rock-hard dried lentil beans. Soaking them not only makes them edible, but it also brings life into them, which is why you see the sprout/tail form. Eating sprouted legumes is incredibly energizing. They taste especially good with some of the raw sauces.
See the raw recipes page for more ideas, but I hope you try it out!