venix's Journal

It took me about 3 years from first going raw to ever buy a dehydrator.  I ate dehydrated raw foods from various sources, but only in restaurants or from packages.  I was really excited about all the great things I'd be able to make, and after a while my "decision cup got full" and the opportunity came for me to get a 9-tray mildly-used Excalibur.

So I experimented a whole lot.  I made things like chocolate bread (raw cacao, ground flax and sunflower seeds, honey, and coconut), pizza crusts based on vegetable pulp from juicing greens, and dried mango with sweet chili coating.  These were tasty and fulfilled certain cravings, but didn't really digest well, and honestly weren't as fulfilling as the fresh foods I had already come to love and establish as my staples.

I needed it just to get beyond certain cooked foods I was growing wistful about.  When I realized how unnecessary (and time-consuming!) these foods were, and how much more I enjoyed fresh (non-dehydrated) meals, I kinda stopped using the dehydrator at all.

Honestly, if your main detraction from going raw is the idea of missing out on the tastes and textures of cooked foods, you will be better off not getting a dehydrator or getting into dehydrated foods at all, and instead just following the "harm reduction" path of going as raw as you want while incorporating nourishing cooked meals whenever you feel you need them.

Start to eliminate cooked high-protein and high-sodium foods, because those are the most addicting and most damaging (as a generality to keep things simple).  Keep cooked starches and veggies (like boiled sweet potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, baked squash, etc), using as much fat and spice in the dish as you like.  As much as you can, eat these things because you choose to make a meal of them and you believe they will nourish you -- not as a reaction to a craving.

Meanwhile, just keep increasing the amount of raw in your diet.  Don't deliberately get rid of cooked meals; just deliberately add raw meals.  The good pushes out the bad pretty effortlessly, especially if you keep tracking how good you feel every day and over time.