Bodhimed

I thought I could really go for the full 25 days that I had to do the Ejuva cleanse. I went with the ups and downs, energy level vacillating, observing hunger and moving past it, feeling good about myself for breaking habits and attachments. But last night I realized I was done. I was starting to hallucinate about junk food, and I knew that was a bad sign. I figured I should end it before I do something crazy like devour a bag of tortilla chips.

Practically speaking, it was the right thing to do. We're hitting the road for our end-of-summer road trip in two days, and I want to ease back into eating in the comfort of my own kitchen. As I've mentioned in previous posts and in my Nutrition article about Congee, Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine both view well-cooked, whole grains as being the easiest food to digest. So I began my day with congee and it was such a pleasure to chew! Warm, gooey, yummy and substantial.  I plan to eat mostly kitchari today, which I'll post a video of shortly. Kitchari is a traditional Ayurvedic dish commonly used during the cleansing and rejuvenation process called Panchakarma. Kitchari, sometimes called kitchadi, is a mix of basmati rice and split yellow mung beans cooked in ghee and plenty of water with spices such as turmeric, cumin, and coriander. It is nourishing but very easy to digest. It is so easy to assimilate, that the digestive fire can continue to work on burning off old toxins rather than focus on breaking down the new food coming in. It's the total opposite of the raw diet I've been on, but it will allow for further cleansing and a smooth transition back to eating cooked foods.

I'm so curious to see what habits I go back to and how my tastes have changed.  Will I still want chai every morning? Can I drink it without the traditional milk and raw sugar like I was used to?  Can I stay with the simpler flavors I've come to enjoy?

What eating habits would you like to break?  What do you feel you just couldn't go without? What foods make you feel best?

I'll be on the road for the next few weeks, but I'll try to post some fun stuff along the way. Happy nearly-end-of-summer!

Last night my determination and will power were genuinely put to the test. I never miss a Girls' Night Out, so even though I'm down to one raw meal a day, I accompanied some girlfriends to a swanky Santa Fe restaurant just for the conversation.

I ordered my green tea, which the kind bartender (we sat at the bar) served up in a beautiful Japanese carved teapot.  My friends were already imbibing some very summery cocktails full of fresh berries, which looked very refreshing but I was fine with it.  However, when the appetizers arrived on a long, slender steel platter, with all different kinds of sesame seeds as condiments, I started to feel like I was missing out a bit.  Only a bit.

Then the bartender replenished my girlfriends' empty glasses with even more beautiful concoctions, and I thought my green tea wasn't nearly as exciting. But alcohol has never been my greatest temptation so still I was fine with observing. Then their main course came, and the smell started to get to me. Fortunately I did a pretty good job of just observing these interesting sensations.

My weakness is always dessert, so when the tray of six different homemade ice creams arrived, I was really challenged. Fresh mint, basil, strawberry, what else.... The flaming absinthe over fresh rosemary cocktail was quite a show, too, but just a show when you're not drinking.

I've made it this far to Day 17, there was no way I was going to blow it even as the beautiful food kept coming out. The thing is, my attachment to feeling clear and light is now greater than my attachment to food. Desire for food is morphing into desire to keep feeling clean.  I'm thankful I'm not feeling very hungry with this Ejuva cleanse, otherwise I might not be so positive and lofty. Somehow I'm subsisting with less and it feels really good.  I realize that cleansing helps to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.  All cravings, ideas of what is comfort food, and yearnings for certain tastes and textures get erased and set back to zero.  When there are ultimately less options, we don't have to wade through the choices being swayed by emotions, and that is so liberating.  Forget "what am I in the mood for?" and eat for energy alone.

What do you think about choices?  Are they a blessing or a curse? What do you crave and do you know where that craving comes from? Share your thoughts about it and enjoy the dialogue.

One of the saving graces while on this cleanse is the cafe at Body of Santa Fe.  Besides being only a few blocks from my house, they serve up the only raw, vegan fancy food in town.  They have a decent raw section of the restaurant menu, and now that I'm on day 15 of this Ejuva cleanse, I've tried almost everything there. It's been such a gift to have a raw cafe nearby where I can enjoy someone else's raw food culinary skills.

Today I got adventurous and veered away from my original intention to have the Raw Thai Curry.  The server so enthusiastically recommended an item that was not on the menu that I had to order it. She stressed that she and the chef were graduates of a raw culinary institute in California, and that this raw enchilada with spicy chile sauce was incredible. (I'm told the Raw Enchilada will be on the new menus.) I, in turn, enthusiastically ordered it, while my girlfriend ordered the raw Thai Curry and said I could have some. The server also informed me that the Raw Enchilada was quite large, so given that lunch is to be my only meal today, the decision to change course was easy.

I was very pleasantly surprised when our food came to see that the raw form of tortilla, wrapping the veggies in my enchilada, was a beautiful, rich color of red from the puree of veggies dehydrated into a tortilla. The red chile sauce was amazingly spicy, especially compared to the blander foods I've been eating. It was truly more flavorable than anything I've eaten in 15 days. The chef had swirled raw pine nut cheese into the red chile adorning the whole wonderful mass.  I slowly devoured the two enchiladas, barely letting my girlfriend touch them. I found myself too stuffed after those to want to eat the accompanying salad as well, plus the leafy green texture just couldn't compare with the sensory delight I was experiencing from the chile.

Packed the salad up to go feeling so well fed and nourished.  One of the beauties, I realize, of the Ejuva cleanse, is the return to enjoying simpler flavors. Having simpler needs, and simpler desires. Enjoying the honest flavor of an organic carrot or a soaked almond is an awesome experience.  Now, I am a huge lover of Indian food, as well as all Asian food, except for insects. I love heavily spiced sauces and soups.  I love chai.  However, all habits need breaking from time to time, so for four weeks, I'm breaking my habit of eating cooked food. Hopefully in each and every moment I'm trying to break some habit, some reaction I'm used to, and instead trying to be fully present and open-hearted.  That's the goal, anyway.

My new "habit" I've forced on myself is this cleansing approach to eating.  I'm actually getting habituated to eating less and less, and not feeling overly hungry or deprived either.  I'm getting used to having a slightly lower but calmer level of energy.  I'm more aware of feeling an increase in the elements of air and space in my body due to the strictly raw food intake.  Raw foods are the highest in prana, the vital life force of Vata, so they are mostly air + space.  Some might call it spacey, and light-headed isn't exactly right either.  It's just an ethereal feeling, which is why it's particularly challenging to do any type of fast or cleanse while having young kids running around at full speed.

I won't say it's easy to do a cleanse while also working and parenting and living. But there's also always a reason to put it off, whether it's been a while, or whether you've never done any type of cleanse.  Even people with clean diets will have a tongue coating that reveals, according to Ayurvedic tongue diagnosis, that there are toxins in their digestive tract.  Summer is definitely the ideal time, because the warm Pitta nature of the season and the abundance at the farmers' markets balance out the Vata increasing qualities of a raw diet.  I strongly urge against doing cleanses in the wintertime, unless you have a serious illness that you are treating with a trusted health care professional.  Otherwise doing digestive cleanses during the winter is firstly eating out of sync with the season, but secondly also admits too much cold into the body.  Vata is cold and dry, so Ayurveda teaches to eat warm root vegetable soups in winter to keep warm, not salads, unless you live in Hawaii.

Thank Santa Fe for the Body cafe so I don't have to cook, I mean chop, all my own meals for four weeks.  I will absolutely order the Raw-Enchilada-in-Red-Chile-that's-not-on-the-menu next time.

My girlfriend just passed this recipe my way, and it is definitely worth sharing! If you've been following my account of the cleanse I'm doing (day 12 hurray!), you'll know that I've had a hard time finding things that are still appetizing on this raw, vegan diet. These Gough-Nuts are tasty and were fun to make. My almost-three-year-old helped push the buttons on the food processor and enjoyed the end result.  They're cute enough to bring to a party! Maybe I'll bring them to this raw luncheon I'm invited to.

1 3/4 c. almonds (soak and sprout them, if you have 2 days, otherwise just soak 6-12 hours)

2 c. chopped dates

2 c. chopped dried pineapple

seeds from 1 vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

dash sea salt

1/3 + 1/4 c. shredded coconut

In a food processor, process nuts until a fine powder.  Then add dried dates and pineapple, salt and vanilla.  Process until dough-like (you may need to add water, tsp. at a time).  Lastly, add in coconut, and pulse to mix.

Shape into little balls, roll them in your hands for a smooth texture, and then roll and coat them in shredded coconut.

Voila! Keep them refrigerated, especially in summer.