My First Raw Pot Luck and Juicing Vs Blending
Hiya everyone! How has your week been? I am back at work 1 and a half weeks earlier than I was supposed to be, but it doesn’t matter. I am now away on another top secret work trip for 2 weeks, but it looks like being a great trip for many reasons, but I’ll share them with you later.
On Tuesday night I had my first ever Raw Vegan Pot Luck dinner. It was a blast. But the night before I was up late making stuff to take along.
I’m such a messy chef – check out the benches!
I need a bigger kitchen – and a kitchen assistant! Love my salad spinner tho! (check out the RAW sticker on my fridge)
As I had just come home from Boot Camp at 8pm, and had hit the kitchen straight away to get some food sorted, at around 10pm I baked an Amy’s California Burger and topped it on some spinach, bean shoots, sundried tomatoes. It was delish and didn’t even need any dressing. Then I got back to food preps.
So the plan for the following night’s Pot Luck was that everyone had to bring a Raw and/or Vegan dish or else contribute to the cause by a donation. Most people decided to contribute but a few people did bring along some delicious eats, but first of all the lovely and gorgeous Voracious Vegan, Natasha herself, gave an informative talk on the reasons to go vegan and backed it up with some interesting facts.
Some of the delicious eats that people brought along were tomato & basil soup, five spice tofu, pumpkin spice cookies (thanks Voracious!!!) peanut ginger tofu and veggie loaf.
Becci helped out in the kitchen by making a delicious fruit salad. Isn’t she just gorgeous?
I made my Banana & Chocolate Milkshake with Almond Milk, Kristen’s Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, Kristen’s Garden Guacamole, Gena from Choosing Raw’s Raw Peanut Noodles, Mini Pizzettes, and Virgin Colada: 2 whole pineapples, half a frozen pineapple, blended with coconut milk.
My attempt at the mini pizzettes and veggie crudites.
The night was definitely a hit, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Thanks for everyone that came and thanks to Raood for allowing us to use her house. Mine’s a little too small.
When I got home, rather than packing (which I should have been doing!!! Why does it never get any easier?), I played around with my new shelving which I had put into my ever expanding pantry. This is the most organised I have ever seen it. I am always picking up superfoods and hard to find specialty items when I leave the Kingdom on work trips, but I think I need to start finding some uses for all these items really quick smart. I am not even going to show you my fridge because it never looks this tidy. I wish mine would look like Sheri’s here!
The following day between packing, sorting out the furry family for the next two weeks, and cleaning up from the night before, I got to get some down time by watching the community theatre production of Mamma Mia. I live on quite a large compound in Saudi Arabia (too large to comprehend for most people) so you can imagine there was quite a lot of talent available and after 6 weeks of rehearsals we were delighted with the end result. I had goosebumps through the whole show. 5 nights and 1 matinee of sold out shows. I feel really lucky to know such talented people.
The following morning it was up super early for me to get on a jet plane for a 2 week work trip. Here are some views from my window coming into land yesterday.
What I have planned is some more Body Pump and spin, some sightseeing, catching some shows and chillaxin. Is anyone else going away for Eid?
On another note, recently a friend of mine was asking me the difference between juicing and smoothies and I promised to write something in return.
JUICING
Juicing is a fantastic way to get a bucketload of nutrients as juicers essentially separate the juice from the fibre of the vegetable and the juicers do the chewing for us, which means the nutrients are delivered faster. Oxidisation is quick however, so it is recommended you drink juices as soon as you have made them or in the very least within a day of making. Different juicers offer different kinds of technology for handling different fruit and vegetables. Most of the cheaper supermarket brands (and some of the more expensive like a Breville) are centrifugal which means they spin the pulp very fast, but there are claims that it oxidises the juice much quicker by heating it which damages delicate enzymes.
A masticating juicer (like a Champion or a Green Star) uses a slower motor and is believed it can enable the release of more minerals from hard fibres and keeps more enzymes intact.
Juicing tends to speed up cleansing and detox reactions much quicker than smoothies and it is believed that juice which still has some pulp in it, may be more taxing on the digestive system than properly chewing fruits and vegetables, due to the lack of salivation that is produced with proper mastication.
All in all though, my thoughts are any juicer is better than none because when was the last time you sat down to eat a bunch of apples, some carrots, a plate of spinach and some kiwi fruit? Sometimes it is just much easier to juice all of these up and drink the glass to get the goodness.
Juicing is ideal when you are ill as the nutrients are more condensed and there is no no time wasted in digestion. However if you are juicing too many sweet fruits, and consuming (even beets and carrots) you can put significant stress on your blood sugar and insulin levels resulting in diabetes or other complications.
BLENDING
Blended foods such as green smoothies (blended salads) and raw soups, are digested much easier than solid foods, as it destroys the cell walls of the fruits and vegetables, making the nutrients more available to our body but not as efficiently as juice. Smoothies are much heavier so can keep you fuller for longer and have been known to take away cravings for sweet sugary processed foods. Whenever I feel like a craving for something ‘naughty’ I make myself a green smoothie and it tends to be satiated immediately.
It is thought that blending fruits especially, rather than juicing, with the fibre kept more intact, allows your body to regulate the pace at which the sugars are released into your bloodstream.
THE VERDICT:
Whether you choose to blend or juice your fruit and vegetables consider one thing, try and ensure the majority of what you do blend or juice is vegetable, with perhaps some sweet fruit added for flavour or sweetness.
Also I do tend to blend more than I juice, purely due to effort factor. My blender is way easier to clean, I don’t need to cut my fruit and vegetables into as smaller chunks and it seems more effortless than the juicer. However after writing this post, I certainly want to pull out my Champion Juicer when I get home and start consuming more veggie juice. Maybe I will try and alternate my juicing with smoothies each day.
My Favourite Green Smoothie Recipe
Quarter of a whole Green Cabbage
2 small cucumbers
2 zuchinnis
1 banana
1 Apple
2 Kiwi Fruits
2 cups of Spinach/Swiss Chard
1 peeled Lemon
1 tablespoon of Spirulina Powder
Blend all with water to desired consistency. The thicker the better for me. This usually makes a whole blender full which I drink for breakfast and keep the remainder in the fridge which I ‘snack’ on if I am at home, throughout the day, sometimes lasting me until dinner sometimes I make a salad for lunch.
If the smoothie is not sweet enough, I might put a couple of blended dates in to taste. This smoothie is VERY tasty, a great way to get an amazing amount of greens into your diet which you may not have, and a kicks a better punch than coffee. What a great way to start your day.
If you want more information on Green Smoothies, you should check out this site, that a friend got me onto. Really great reference tool.
Happy Blending/Juicing!!!!
See you tomorrow 
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I am soooo sorry Isle Dance!!! I was once again using my iPhone to moderate comments and with such a tiny screen I accidentally deleted what you said :
Here is what Isle Dance said: What fun! It is so great to see all of this. After about a month of juicing, I'm alternating with smoothies a bit, too. But I confess, this is the first time I've really enjoyed juicing, so it's hard to give any of it up…even for a green smoothie!
A messy kitchen is the sign of a good cook! So, embrace that messy kitchen
The potluck sounds so fun, nice that you have people to do that with! Mamma Mia looked like great fun too — a fun distraction from the packing, huh?
The pics from the plane window are amazing and I hope you have a great trip! girl, you travel a LOT…such an exciting lifestyle!
I just watched Kristen's videos regarding juicers, and was glad to come here and read your juicing vs. blending thoughts. I am hoping the Birthday Fairy brings me a juicer. I will have to drop hints to that little fairy
Thanks for the shout-out re: my fridge (which is no longer that tidy because my kids have trashed it
Glad you enjoyed the show and thanks for the info on the juicing vs blending. It definitely helps me get the good stuff into my system as I never have time to keep check on that and even got my parents doing it last time I visited (my dad grows his own vegetables). Thanks also for your recipe for the green smoothie, I think I will give it a try – can we get the ingredients here for that? I am in the UK next week if you need anything or can recommend ingredients I could bring back especially for the next pot luck!? xxx
Glad you enjoyed the show and thanks for the info on the juicing vs blending. It definitely helps me get the good stuff into my system as I never have time to keep check on that and even got my parents doing it last time I visited (my dad grows his own vegetables). Thanks also for your recipe for the green smoothie, I think I will give it a try – can we get the ingredients here for that? I am in the UK next week if you need anything or can recommend ingredients I could bring back especially for the next pot luck!? xxx
Great post Robyn! I love juicing primarily but I blend every other day also. Sooooo good and makes you HIGH!! Hahaha xx
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