In The Raw @Home
Since my pregnancy nausea has settled down (which didn’t take long, thankfully! so long as I steer clear of onions) I’ve been eating more raw foods and trying out recipes.
A lunch of raw spinach dolmas full of pine nuts, dill, dried tomato, raisins, olive oil dressing – a variation on the Mediterranean dolma recipe from Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Kitchen.
A breakfast of raw flaxmeal (linseed) coconut pancakes, with bananas and orange-date syrup, also from Ani’s book.
I can’t recommend Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Kitchen book enough – perfect for gluten-free eating as there’s not so much as a trace of offending grains or processed products, as well as anyone interested in incorporating more crisp, fresh, raw food into their diet. Her stuff is so creative, and much quicker to make than one would expect. Check out Ani Phyo’s videos on Youtube for examples of that.
Snacking @Out&About
Combo meal at Kuan Yin Teahouse – talk to the owner Michael if you want info about gluten in their stuff. If, however, you’ve been eating more raw food at home as we have, you’ll find your tolerance for small amounts of gluten in the diet will noticeably go up pretty much immediately, particularly if you’re simply gluten intolerant rather than allergic… Healthy eating = health improvements = like magic. I haven’t had a trace of cold, flu, or hayfever for almost a year now, which still surprises me given my chronic hayfever and sinusitis history. Ani Phyo, author of the book mentioned above, hasn’t had a cold or flu for over 10 years now. This seems common among mostly-raw and high raw folks, and in statistically significant numbers. (The best raw nutrition info is probably in Raw Revolution Diet, co-written by two dieticians.)
Gluten-free Chocolate Macadamia Cake, made by Jane at the Forest, who also made our wedding cake. We sometimes get free samples of her new creations these days… Free gluten-free cake? From the best baker in Brisbane, and probably in the entire country? Yes, life is wonderful.
The Other
For those keeping tabs, I’m 14 weeks pregnant now – only 26 weeks to go! My iron levels and everything are great, unsurprisingly, and my cholesterol is lower than the Mariana Trench. I’ll be getting a “4D” ultrasound in around 6 weeks time.
Recently I’ve been reading several books, including Raising Vegan Children in a Non-Vegan World, Raising Vegetarian Children, and My Mother Wears Combat Boots. On the net I’ve been surfing around articles on VegFamily: Vegan pregnancy and Vegan Babies & Toddlers. Also checking out vaccine information, having heard mixed opinions and having personally seen immunisations fail for whooping cough, measles, and hepatitis. Vaccines are far from 100% effective, not 100% risk-free, and certainly contain non-vegan ingredients. My husband is educated in several science fields at advanced tertiary levels and, from his research, he has decided he’s not keen on vaccinating in general, particularly the overly aggressive immunisation schedules pushed in western nations. Some sites I’ve looked at recently: VegFamily: Are Vaccines Really Safe and Effective?, Immunise Australia Program, Australian Vaccination Network, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein Vaccine Lecture, HealthSentinel.com, WAVE: Vaccine Ingredients, an interesting peer-reviewed journal article: “The polio vaccine: a critical assessment of its arcane history, efficacy, and long-term health-related consequences” by Neil Z. Miller, among many others…
