Everybody has to eat. But sometimes, life gets moving way too fast and we just grab what we can here and there – sometimes even eating fast or junk food. When we eat without thinking, we are not only consuming unhealthy fats, preservatives, and artificial ingredients, we are missing out on all kinds of healing benefits food can offer.
One of those benefits comes from enzymes. Enzymes are not only crucial for good digestion, they also help our body properly use nutrients, assist with our bodies functions such as cell regeneration, and elimination of toxins. In fact, without enzymes, we wouldn’t be able to eat, swallow, digest our food, or breathe. Enzymes are life! And raw, living fruits and vegetables are full of these necessary enzymes.
The problem is, when food is heated the enzymes are destroyed or damaged. We recommend juicing in order to get an efficient, super dose of essential enzymes in their perfect state. Here are a few other ways to fit raw foods into your busy life:
- Carry an apple, some raw carrots, or other non-perishable raw snack with you whenever you leave the house.
- Raw nuts and seeds make another portable, enzyme-rich food for on the go.
- Top your soup, salad, or sandwich with a handful of tasty sprouts – pea sprouts are especially delicious!
- All kinds of things your family already loves are raw: Think fresh salsa, guacamole, fresh fruit salads.
- Try topping celery with raw nut butter and raisins. It is great tasting and gives you an extra boost of protein.
- Keep plenty of easy-to-grab raw foods in the house. If it is easier to find and more available than other snacks, your family will likely reach for the raw snacks. Try preparing carrot coins, celery sticks, apple wedges, and raw nut mixes ahead of time for easy snacking during the week.
- Start browsing raw recipes online. You will see that preparing raw meals can actually save you time.
Here’s a great recipe from the Rawritarian that anyone can start with. It tastes like dessert so even your kids will love eating raw, plus prep time is only five minutes!
Raw Chocolate Avocado Pudding
INGREDIENTS
- 1 medium avocado (ripe and at peak of perfection please!)
- 1/2 cup dates
- 2 1/2 tablespoons raw cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup water + 1/8 cup water
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
- 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
Directions:
- Throw these raw chocolate avocado pudding ingredients into a high-speed blender. Start blending on slow and then crank up the blending speed to high.
- Blend this sucker until puddingy and gooooood! You might need to start and stop this a few times to get it to blend properly because the dates will require more blending than pudding recipes that don’t contain dates. If you have a good blender (AKA Vitamix or Blendtec) then you should be able to get this super smooth.
- You may need to add a tiny bit of extra water to facilitate blending. But if doing so only add TINY bits at a time! Try not to add extra water or it’ll end up watering it down and changing the consistency.
If you’d like to learn more about how nutrition affects your health and how eating the right things can actually help you heal, talk to Dr. Winegar at your next dental visit. The Trade Winds Dental team in Georgetown is here for more than your teeth – we are here for your total health!