Juicing, Rebooting & Raw Burgers

After my last blog entry last Monday when I’d been inspired from watching ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead’ I decided to go on a sort of juice diet for 5 days. I say ‘sort of’ because I made a few compromises. Due to always having a lack of sleep from Sunday - Thursday (I usually get 3 hours max sleep on Sunday nights which then screws me up for the rest of the week) I kept my energy drink in the morning in my daily diet. I know that’s cheating but if you had only 3 hours sleep I’m sure you’d need a bit of caffeine too. I imagine the reboot programs are more for people who get adequate amounts of sleep - not people having three hours a night. Anyway, after signing up on www.jointhereboot.com and doing the questionnaire to find out which reboot I should do, it told me to go for the 5 day Reboot Express - which is 5 days of eating and drinking fruits and vegetables only.

I decided I wanted to make it more liquid based though, so made my Reboot Express JUST juice and smoothies. I decided I didn’t want to eat whole fruit or vegetables. I wanted to see if I could just do it in liquid form. Being that I constantly eat junk food, this was a challenge. So for the next few days I took a bottle of juice and a travel mug of smoothie to work to have while at work - I then came home and had more juice and smoothies. You can get enough nutrients from juice to not need to ‘eat’. Vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals are greater in juice than in ‘hard’ food.

I ordered a juicer on Monday night. It arrived on Wednesday and I made my first ever home-made juice. I opted for apple, kale and ginger - and later tried apple and carrot. It was better than I thought. You picture green vegetable juice as tasting bad (or maybe it’s just me that does) - so I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted decent. The problem came when I then decided to add some plums. After taking the stone out of the first plum and putting it in the juicer, I thought to myself ‘do I need to take the stones out, or will the juicer do it for me?’ I mean, it takes the juice and throws the rest away as pulp. I’d read that you can put whole apples in and don’t have to cut them up - so not thinking properly, I put some plums in without taking the stones out. Damn. Not a good idea. (Hey, I’ve never had a juicer before!) Ten minutes later I realised there was a bit of fiberglass in my bowl of pulp, the fruit wasn’t being juiced properly - and yes, it seems part of the fibreglass had been broken, I guess from the power of the plum stone(s). Damn.

I’m in the process of getting a replacement lid/food shoot for the juicer. In the meantime I have tried to replace it by gaffa-taping part of the glass piece back on, Blue Peter style. But I really need a new lid/food shoot.

I did manage to last 5 days. I decided that my 5 days would be up on Saturday evening (I decided to buy the juicer on Monday night). I had a festival on Saturday so figured that would be tough. I’m used to going to festivals and eating crisps whenever I get hungry, and eating pieces of Tofutti cream cheese on toast before leaving the house at the weekend. Also, since Lakeside Ethical Treats was at the festival I wanted to buy a couple of Sweet & Sara Smores (these are heaven). I ended up cementing the completion of my 5 day juice/smoothie diet by having a Smores at the festival at around 8pm.

Since then… well, I’m back to eating ‘junk’ food. I’ve eaten chips, crisps, all the usual things that I like - although I’m also trying to include more juice and smoothies into my diet. I’m trying to make every day half healthy as well as half unhealthy. Monday I made a smoothie for work (adding in some soya protein powder) while then having chips for tea at home.

Yesterday I decided to make my first ever home-made raw vegan burger. This was something I’d been thinking about for a week or two. I started craving a raw veggie burger. Back in May when I went to Houston, I tried my first ever raw veggie burger courtesy of Pat Greer’s Kitchen. I’d never eaten a raw burger and if you haven’t, you probably imagine it doesn’t taste good and don’t imagine it tastes anything like a ‘real’ burger. Well, I tried Pat’s raw veggie burger and was really impressed. It tasted great. I was amazed that you could make burgers that tasted as good as ‘real’ burgers. It didn’t need to be cooked, yet it tasted great and like it WAS cooked.

I decided last week I wanted to try and recreate that burger. I had no idea what ingredients were used, but googled ‘raw veggie burger’ online and checked some recipes (there are a bunch out there). Some used walnuts, some used flaxseed, some used sunflower seeds, some used sundried tomatoes. I managed to get some walnuts, sunflower seeds and sundried tomatoes. I actually got the ingredients while on the juice/smoothie diet so I was itching to make a raw veggie burger but not wanting to actually eat any ‘proper’ food, I had to wait until my 5 day fast was over.

With Sunday being too crazy busy (all day band videoshoot, interview and gig), Monday editing photos all night and Tuesday writing gig and festival reviews, I only decided to make time for the burger last night. I couldn’t wait any longer - so got the ingredients out when I got home from work having watching another raw veggie burger recipe on youtube, and finally made my own. I added some carrot, kale and mixed everything together. As I don’t have a dehydrator I had to use the oven at the lowest gas mark. It takes forever to dehydrate the burgers which is a bit of a pain - I was starving while I was waiting - so ended up eating crisps and Tofutti cream cheese on toast in the process (kind of defeating the objective of trying to make healthy food!). Eventually, it looked like my burger was just about ready so I took it out and tried it (after a photo of course). I used a couple of cabbage leaves for the ‘bun’ - like Pat Greer does… and then took my first bite.

Wow. It was good! I was amazed that I had actually made something that tasted great. It tasted as good as the burger I’d had at Pat Greer’s in Houston. It was so good that I then decided to make five more! :D Today I’ve brought two to work. One I’ve put on wholemeal bread (as I had no bread rolls) - just to see what it tastes like on bread. I’ll taste it later. I’ve eaten the cabbage leaved bun one already and again loved it. It’s awesome to be able to bring a ‘burger’ to work that you can just eat and doesn’t need to be cooked, but tastes great as it is.

If you’ve never tried a raw veggie burger, I recommend it. That’s coming from one of the world’s most pickiest eaters - AND worst cooks! If I like them then you will. Or should. On one hand you may think that they’re not as convenient as eating burgers from a store/diner, and if you’re as busy as I am, you don’t want to be in a kitchen putting ingredients together, but the great thing is that you can make numerous burgers and save them for later. Unlike when you just put one burger under the grill, you can make five at the same time, and then just eat them whenever you feel like one without needing to cook it. It is there, ready, and tastes awesome.

Try it. Reboot your life.

Shari’s Raw Veggie Burger Ingredients:

Sunflower seeds

Sundried tomatoes

Carrots

Walnuts

Kale

Celery (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

Water

I didn’t measure anything - just added a suitable proportion of each. I juiced the carrots and just used the pulp (drank the juice!) - then mixed everything together and put them on tin foil, making into a round ‘burger’ shape. If you don’t have a dehydrator, put on the lowest gas mark in the oven. Dehydrating takes a while. Turn over when one side is done.