The Banana Problem

So, because I’ve turned vegan and have been researching a lot, I’ve learned that of course in order for bananas to be ripe, they should have lots of spots on them. The bright yellow bananas are actually still very starchy and haven’t had time for the starch to turn into sugar yet. So I’ve been trying to let the bananas sit longer. But I noticed that I don’t like the bananas as much. I couldn’t figure out what was going on!

I was watching Freelee’s videos (as usual) and I noticed when she would peel a banana, it would stay upright like a normal banana should. My very ripe bananas were almost falling over! Yet the peels looked the same… How are the outsides the same but the insides are so different? I was very frustrated. I couldn’t eat the banana as a banana and so was making multiple smoothies.

Today, since I’m coming off the two days I spent eating cooked meals and going back on RawTill4, I knew I needed to have more than the 13 oranges I freshly juiced this morning. That wasn’t enough. So I looked at my bananas, and picked fairly spotty ones, though not as spotted/almost brown looking as I had been leaving them to ripen, and let me tell you, I ate 13, as is, no smoothies. They were like banana sugar paradise! I have found the right stage for bananas to be! Now I understand what they are actually supposed to taste like! Yahoo!

So here’s what I figured out. Different climates will cause things to ripen in different ways. My fruit is not sitting in the sun, I live in a very dry climate (whereas she lives in a tropical climate), and so they almost certainly are not going to ripen the same way. Duh!

I am seriously so happy I figured it out. It actually saves on time for ripening, and I love them! Such sweet goodness! Have you ever had struggles with bananas? Did you know about the proper ripening of them? Leave your answers in the comments below!

Sometimes Your Special Belongings Weren’t Meant to be Yours

Today was primarily a cleaning day. Not of my house, but my classroom. Seriously… you’d think a teacher’s job could be easily conquered and finished right after school’s out, right? Wrong! I’m still not done.

Anyways, I was looking for some cleaning clothing to wear, and decided on jeans and this brown shirt my husband gave me awhile back. On it states, “One Classroom At A Time.” The shirt is actually from a group with a mission of building classrooms in foreign countries, particularly those that have low support of female education, as well as low education ratings overall. It got me thinking about a shirt I once had…

During Christmas Break of my grade 12 year, my sister and I, as well as our youth group went on a mission trip to Peru. We were going to complete a church project, as well as sightsee a little while we were there. We spent months packing little gifts to give to the locals, fundraising, and creating a team name/logo. We called ourselves TYMES (Today’s Youth Missionaries of Edmonton South), and we were fortunate to have a graphic designer as one of our leaders who created these fantastic shirts. It was the only time that name would be used.

Of course we were all very fond of our shirts and took them with us to Peru. We loved our time working on the church and playing with the local children. In fact, we may have gotten in trouble for playing too much… But these kids were the happiest kids. They lived in cardboard lean-tos, knowing they could be kicked off the land at any time. And for the whole community of cardboard living spaces, the children had one ball. That’s it. No extra toys, just one ball. I couldn’t believe it. Rows and rows and rows of these cardboard things, so many children, and one ball. Even the sand had garbage and feces and hair mixed in with it, but these kids still smiled. Wow… that took me a few steps back… You really have no idea how lucky you are until you see firsthand what a third world environment is truly like.

The last day came of our time in this area. The church was completed, and we were attending the very first service with the locals. Of course, our neighbourhood children were there too, sitting on our laps, and just happy for a secure shelter over their heads. Saying goodbye to them was hard. They worked with us, sang with us, played with us, and even taught us a little Spanish. Thankfully, we were able to create big smiles with stickers, pencils, notebooks, lollipops, and little toys. But what really mattered was the extra we decided to give.

I don’t remember who started it, but I’m thinking it wasn’t me. Somebody in our group gave his/her shirt to one of the kids. As I said before, a shirt we were fond of, that would never be printed again. But I knew in that moment, that as special as that shirt was to me, it would mean so much more to these children. Yes, because they were poor and a new, good quality shirt would be wonderful to them, but also because they would always be able to remember the people who came and brought them gifts, even though we had no idea who they were.

It was then that I realized the truth: Everything in this world shall pass. God tells us so. We won’t be taking that shirt to Heaven. I won’t be taking my diamond rings to Heaven. Everything in this life will not be going to Heaven (objects… let me clarify!), but for the time we are here, we can make the most of what we have. Sometimes it will hurt out pride, absolutely. Sometimes, we may never get another chance at whatever item we give away. Sometimes, it may not even change a person’s life like we may have thought it would, but we can only do the best we can with what we have and what we know.

I don’t know if giving my shirt away made a world of difference in the child’s life. I have no idea. But I do know that at that moment, the smile and laughter and hugs I got in return were all that I needed to know for sure my shirt was going to the right place.

The First True Day – What Made the Difference!

I am so proud of myself today! Today is the first day I feel totally confident saying I ate a true Rawtill4 diet!

Here’s what I ate:

Breakfast/Snack : 2.63L of pulpy orange juice

Lunch: 6 Bananas blended with water and 1/4 cup of coconut sugar

Afternoon Snack: 1 cup dried banana

Supper: Burrito Bowl (Brown beans, black beans, brown rice, green pepper, pico de galo, mild salsa, cilantro, guacamole, lime vinaigrette)

I feel so good today! So good! But it got me thinking… what made today so much better than other days? One main answer: I had the equipment available and things ready to go!

Think about it: Drinking orange juice is easy. When a blender is clean and ready to go, it’s super easy to throw everything in and blend it up. And then for supper, when you have a little more time, throwing some things together in a bowl.

I’m so satisfied and happy with this diet, and my digestion has been changing today too… for the better I’m sure!

I’m excited! Feel free to ask questions about my change in food choices, and anything you may be curious about!

Beating Mind Tendencies

I’m going to be embarrassingly honest with you in this post. We are all human, and we all have our own struggles. But when you choose to do something, you better do it 100%, or you will never be successful. There’s only one major road block that will battle you daily: your brain.

Yesterday, I decided I needed to do this vegan thing 100%. I’ve had too many travelling days in the past 3 weeks where I’ve had little control over what I could eat. Now that I’m home, I’ve gotta buckle down and do this.

My goals for this new lifestyle are as follows:
-Get rid of acne
-Weight Loss
-Feel Better
-Better Digestion
-More Energy

What I’m going to do:
-Work up to 8 hours of sleep per night
-Increase water intake up to 3L a day
-Raw fruit until 4 (some days raw all day)
-Minimize salt intake

So yesterday, when I completely made up my mind, I still started the day off wrong. I had half of a leftover black bean burger in the fridge, and simply because my husband was eating his leftovers and it seemed convenient, I ate mine. Remember, raw food is much better in the morning!

Throughout the day, I did well on the vegan side, but not the raw side. I did eat 6 organic bananas for one meal/snack, and then black bean pasta with marinara and nutritional yeast flakes for lunch. I could tell I definitely didn’t eat enough fruit because then I cooked up some “dessert” of coconut oil, oatmeal, and brown sugar. Sure it tasted good, but that was way too high in fat, and was another cooked meal before 4.

I don’t recall eating too much else throughout the rest of the day, but for a late, late supper, my husband and I went for pizza. I thought the place only had one option for vegan pizza. It was a wood-stove cooked, marinara pizza with fresh tomato marinara, basil leaves, and some rosemary mix. As I was browsing through the menu at all the other delicious pizzas I used to eat there, I noticed a side option of Daiya vegan cheese! My husband jumped right up and asked them to add that to my pizza. I was feeling pretty excited!

Now I’m not sure if it was because my taste buds are reprogrammed to all the junk food I had the past few weeks, but if I could describe the pizza in one word, it would be “fresh”. It literally tasted like tomatoes, oil, and a bit of flavouring. The cheese sadly didn’t do much against the amount of oil I’m sure they put on that pizza. I ate most of it, but took two slices to go. It honestly was all I could do not to reach out and put that parmesan cheese on my pizza, knowing it would improve the flavour so much. I’m holding out on this vegan thing, I can do it!

Now naturally, this morning, I wanted to reach in and grab those two pieces of pizza. But I’ve been watching a lot of Freelee’s videos lately. I’ve started with her oldest ones and I’m working my way to the newest. When you have so much of that information running through your head, I can honestly say it makes a difference.

Now, the embarrassingly honest part is that I was coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why I should eat the pizza. I was thinking about my blog, and how I could just not talk about what I ate today. I was thinking about how I want to eat raw until 4, but I could just go one more day. I’m sure we all know about that “one more day” psychology… And as I sat there making up excuse after excuse, I put my foot down and said no. I need to do this right, right now, not later.

And so I’m happy to say that this morning so far, I’ve juiced 6 oranges, savoured every sip of that fresh orange juice, and in a bit, throughout the day, I’ll be eating pears, a mango, apricots, and nectarines. I would love to get into more mono-meals, but right now this is what I have on hand so it will have to do.

I hope you are all having an awesome weekend!