The 4-Day Raw Challenge

Yup.  Raw.  Raw vegan.  Anything heated above 47C/118F is not raw food.  So dried fruits, nuts, vegetables, sprouts, and legumes.



Why
Ok. Raw Foodists argue that cooking food can destroy certain vitamins and minerals.  Supposedly it makes you feel incredibly energized, it increases your mental alertness and it connects you to the earth.

Meh.

I pretty much agree with this article by Jay Raner:

"We are humans, ergo, we cook. The celebrated anthropologist Richard Wrangham recently published a whole book, Catching Fire, which argues it is cookery which made us human. Heating food makes it possible to extract the maximum amount of energy from ingredients. That meant our ancestors could waste less time foraging for stuff to keep them going and could instead concentrate on really cool things like inventing machinery, developing language, and becoming artists so they had something to talk about. Without the appliance of fire to food we really would still be hanging about in trees doing the fly-eating thing. "


I'm just doing this as a cooking challenge.  I'm not going to just eat crudites and salads, oh no.  Things will get creative. 

 So here are the rules:
I can eat all that's in the diagram above and it cannot be heated above 47C/118F.  So i can turn the oven light on and leave food there overnight.  I'm going to be soaking and blending up lots of stuff. 
One thing I'm not getting rid of is coffee, though.  I will have "cooked" coffee beans with hot water because I must.

So follow me on Twitter @mariasisci and see my next 12 meals.  Hopefully I won't spend too much money and I won't be too hungry.

I just came from the loveliest birthday party with beef wellington, venison wellington, lots of wine, cake and mousse.  Happy birthday Rachel -- love you loads and thank you.  It was a good transition meal for tomorrow.