Proper Prior Planning
I briefly mentioned planning as an important element of a raw food diet in my last blog post. I’d like to expand upon that just a bit in this blog post.
First, when I go to work, I’m there for quite some time. I work twelve hour shifts at a pop (and almost left out the “f” — a Freudian Slip? 
). To make it even more challenging, it’s a night shift — and I work at a U.S. military base in Germany.
German stores close at 8:00 PM (and are closed all day on Sundays and holidays), and the only store on the American base that’s open all night doesn’t sell anything raw and fresh. So if I want to eat during my shift (and trust me, I do), it requires planning.
Thankfully, I realized this from Day 1 and have made the adjustments. I have a huge insulated bag with a small ice pack that goes with me to work. It holds a smoothie (in a glass jar; I found that the plastic ones sometimes left an after taste), several bananas, and some apples and oranges in the large compartment. The top compartment, which is smaller, holds my salad vegetables and a one pint (half liter) plastic box, which almost always holds grapes. I’ll throw a couple of nuts in the front pouch, along with a fork and a spoon, and I’m good to go for the shift (and usually end up hauling some back home with me).
I’ll use the same bag for shopping excursions but make a few changes. Since I eat the salad late at night and we shop during the morning, I don’t need to use that top compartment. It has a zipper to contract it so that it doesn’t flop around. I also have a .75 liter / quart bottle that I reclaimed from the recycling pile (it once held juice) that I use for smoothies on those shorter trips. Throw in a few bananas and a couple of grapes (my little girl LOVES grapes and always helps me eat them) and we’re good to go.
I’ve also come to realize that there are certain foods that simply must be kept in the house at all times. Here’s my “essentials” list:
- Bananas
- Apples
- Pears
- Grapes
- Oranges
- Clementines
- Kiwis (usually)
- Lemons (my wife also uses them for tea; I use the juick to season other stuff)
- Lettuce (I buy different types)
- Celery
- Bell Peppers (Red / Orange / Yellow; I don’t care all that much for the green ones)
- Mushrooms
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers (I prefer the long European ones)
- Nuts (walnuts and/or pecans)
I’ll occasionally buy something that looks good (like a pineapple, mango, strawberries and raspberries — which will soon be in season — or avocado), but the above list is what I consider my bare essentials. Those items must be in the house at all times. Other times things just tend to “show up”, and if I like them and can use them, I’ll eat them. For example, my wife made a rhubarb cake for her and her friends the other day and she chopped off a few chunks and put it into one of my smoothies before I could stop her. It actually tasted fairly good!
Some items tend to go bad after a day or three (like grapes), so I buy them almost daily. I also end up buying bananas daily but will try to keep at least two days worth in the kitchen because they tend to be green when you buy them and need a day or two to ripen. Other items keep well in the refrigerator but not at room temperature, so I’ll buy as many as my small refrigerator will hold, then put them out in the fruit bowl a day or so before I’m going to eat them.
Refrigerator space is an issue. We only have a small refrigerator in our house (at least compared to what we were used to in the States), so we have to plan our use carefully. But it simply “is”, so we live with it and make the best of it.
I’ll also buy some “flash frozen” fruit, as I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past. We now let it thaw completely before eating it because it’s simply too cold otherwise and bothers us. Other than a bit of snacking, almost all of that fruit ends up in smoothies.
So I guess I do plan a bit more than I thought I did. It’s nothing all that special, and to be honest, it all came kind of naturally, without much conscious thought. But I offer what I do here in hopes that it might give you some ideas for your own planning efforts.
I have officially decided that I do *NOT* like green smoothies (you know, the ones with vegetables in them). Perhaps it’s because I didn’t try one until now but started making all fruit smoothies over a month ago? At any rate, I’ll continue to eat my vegetables “a la carte” and stick to only fruits in my smoothies.
We celebrated another birthday today in our house. This time I didn’t touch the cake, although my five year old son noticed this and asked me why I didn’t eat any. He seemed to accept my answer and is starting to realize that “Daddy eats differently” than the rest of the family. I think he’s doing quite well with understanding a complex concept.
Smacznego,
Tom