Please welcome my friend Tess Challis who has five terrific Vegan Quick Tips for you!
Today, I’ve whipped up a batch of healthy, yummy raw food tips for my friend JL to share with you. Eating more fresh, raw foods is a great way to increase your immune function, feel satisfied, diversify your menu, and supercharge your diet.
However, keep in mind that you don’t have to make all of these changes overnight! It’s a process. Just keep eating more fresh and raw foods, finding healthy recipes you enjoy, and incorporating these tips, and you’ll enjoy higher and higher levels of health and vitality! Enjoy!
– Tess Challis (author, vegan chef, and wellness coach)
Vegan Quick Tips from Tess Challis: 5 Yummy Ways to Incorporate More Raw Foods into your Diet
- Focus on eating MORE raw foods, rather than taking all-or-nothing approach. Personally, I find striving for perfection to be demoralizing. And I’ll be honest here—I don’t even recommend a 100% raw diet anyway. Balance is a beautiful thing, and you’ll still be vibrantly healthy if you eat lots of fresh, organic, raw foods (say, up to 50% of your daily diet) along with healthfully cooked plant-based whole foods.
- Store delicious raw treats and staples in the fridge. You’d be surprised how long some of these will last, and they’re great for whipping up a snack or meal in a flash. We like to keep the following on hand in our fridge: Cashew cheese, raw cinnamon rolls, Rawcho Cheese Dip, and of course, lots of organic fruits and veggies! And again, it’s not all-or-nothing. You can pair a nice raw cheese with a cooked pizza crust, bread, or cracker!
- Invest in a food dehydrator. It’s worth it, I promise. Raw kale chips are the most perfect snack on the planet, and you can also make munchy goodies such as raw onion rings, crunchy eggplant chips, and herbed flax crackers. I usually dry my foods at 105 F or below to ensure all those fabulous enzymes are being preserved, and none of the nutrients are lost.
- Start your day with a green smoothie. If you have a Vitamix or Blendtec, this means kale. Otherwise, you can successfully add spinach to any green smoothie no matter what kind of blender you own. Try the following smoothie for breakfast: 2 cups mango, one banana, 2 cups spinach, and a little water or orange juice. Even picky kids will partake!
- For the most part, make your desserts raw. No, this doesn’t mean trading in cupcakes for coconut-rolled date balls. Which are not desserts in my book, by the way. I’m talking about Rawberry Starbars, raw vegan cheesecakes, and decadent cacao avocado mousse. Trust me, you won’t miss the other stuff. And the cool thing is, you’ll be satisfying your sweet tooth without any of the junk—just nutrient-dense real foods that nourish (rather than deplete) you.
Vegan Quick Tips on JLgoesVegan.com
Tess Challis is the author of four cookbooks, and teaches healthy cooking classes across the country. She’s also a wellness coach and speaker, as well as the co-founder of Get Waisted and the owner of Radiant Health, Inner Wealth. Tess’s greatest passion is helping others achieve excellent health while eating some of the most delicious foods on the planet!
