The Reluctant Raw Foodist
"I used to be a' foodie' and now I am a "foodist'"
Welcome to my health and wellbeing blog.
I’m not a raw foodist by choice. I was recently diagnosed as having a complicated autoimmune condition including severe Histamine Intolerance and a form of reactive arthritis. I have become hypersensitive to high histamine foods, pollen, dust and some everyday chemicals. My condition affects every area of my life.
I have Mast Cell Activation Disease (MCAD).
I was prescribed a low histamine diet and then a raw food diet to ease my symptoms and over the past 2 years I have overcome my reluctance to a new way of eating and living. I have been experimenting to combine the two diets and I have been learning how to eat a diet comprising mainly of low histamine raw fruit and vegetables and how to change the habits of a life time.
I am starting to feel healthier than I have ever been before. I have also lost 35 lbs in weight.
I will be sharing with you how I got here and I'll be exploring low histamine raw recipes, natural beauty products, how to cope with being "allergic to everything" and generally how to regain health and fitness and live life to the full despite my unusual condition!
Please feel free to message me with any suggestions, questions, or comments. I'd love to hear from you!
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These are some ads for where I buy my coconut water and stuff like that :
I keep getting asked what equipment I use:
A knife - £3 or £4 for chopping up my fruit and veg.
A cheap grater for grating veg and fruit gives a different texture. I think mine cost £1
A cheap hand vegetable peeler - For peeling some veg as necessary and for making nice curls out of apples and carrots. again I think I paid a £1
Blender - For making smoothies. My best “big” purchase was a blender. I started with a cheap one. I live in the UK I bought it from Robert Dyas for about £16.99 on special offer. You can use a hand blender too of course. Many of my friends still happily use their cheap blenders after a year or more. I did a lot of experimenting and mine eventually gave up the ghost.
I do now have a Vitamix £450 ( they are a bit cheaper in the USA) but that was my 3rd blender when I realised this was going to be my lifestyle forever. My second purchase was a glass blender for £100 and this one still comes on trips with me and gets lent out to people trying out the smoothie scene. I preferred the glass blender jug in some ways but it is very heavy which is a disadvantage. The Vitamix blends anything so it is great.
Food Processor - This was my next best “big” purchase at about £170. I use mine, with the wicked looking ‘S” blade, quite a lot. I use it to make my cooked veggie mashes. I could use the blender but the food processor is easier to get all the ingredients out of the machine. A hand blender might also do the trick. My food processor is a Cuisinart. The food processor will also make smoothies too but the blender makes them better.
I did eventually buy a traveling food processor kit but I probably wasted my money as I do not use it much. We will see when I start to travel more.
Juicer - I have an Oscar 900 masticating juicer. it coast me about £200
It crunches everything up and makes good juice. I do not use this very often for juice, I prefer smoothies, but I do use it to make my fruit “ice cream” using the blank plate. (You can also make it in the blender with frozen fruit and a little coconut water or in the food processor). I also use it to make almond butter. It will apparently also make pasta strings but I have not tried that.
Dehydrator approx £220- the raw foodist’s oven
This is basically a drying box that operates at a low temperature. It is useful for drying my own fruit without sulphites, crackers, crisps, biscuits, bread and little cakes. I use mine very rarely now. You can try using the sunshine if you live somewhere warm or an ordinary oven on a very low heat and keep opening the door. I think I feel like it was a waste of money as I used to eat a lot of dehydrated food and now I don’t because often it meant that I was following I high fat diet. Now I tend to follow a high fruit diet and I prefer my fruit fresh not dried.
Mandoline slicer - I bought a mandoline slicer for about £30 but I found that I kept shredding my fingers so I gave it away and am looking for another. This is great for chopping up vegetables into matchsticks (vegetables julienne) but of course you can do this with a knife.
Spiralizer - about to make “pasta” spirals out courgettes and the like. It cost about £20. I really do not use this much so it was a waste of money. I can make nice curls using my vegetable peeler.
Vacuum flask - for taking a smoothie to go - £5.
Plastic box - £2or £3 at most- for taking a salad to go or some chopped carrots and celery.
I think that’s it! It all starts with a kitchen knife and a blender when you can afford it but as you can see I do not use all the equipment I have bought so do not be too eager to spend your money.
