The best Raw Cooking books: Reddit reviews

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The bowls in this book are slightly more indulgent (this recipe uses a lot of cashews). For healthier ones, I tend to lean on this book, which is actually my favorite cookbook (and admittedly I have a small library of vegan cookbooks).

Recipe is from this book, which is my favorite cookbook! Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about this book, I've loved every recipe I've tried (which is more than half at this point).

Sweet Potatoes:

4 medium sweet potatoes, washed, cut into spears

2 tbsp neutral oil

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp ground cayenne

Toss it all together, bake on parchment paper at 400F for about 35 min, flipping somewhere in the middle. Get them nice and crispy.

Cashew Queso Sauce:

1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

3 tbsp nooch

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

Blend until smooth, thin with water if needed.

Fixings:

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 small red onion, diced

1 avocado, peeled, cubed

1/4 cup cilantro

2 tbsp lime juice

1/2 tsp agave nectar

1/4 tsp salt

1 14-oz can black beans, rinsed, drained

Mix it all together in a bowl. Serve over fries.

You could try recipes from the paleo or Whole30 crowd, they are whole food based and don’t use any refined sugars or grains.

If you haven’t had dairy in three years or more, I wouldn’t go straight in to drinking milk again. Try cultured dairy products like kefir or yogurt in small amounts until you find you can eat them or not

Don’t fear fat, it’s vital to brain health and organ function.

I follow the principles outlined in this book. They discuss eating a wide range of whole food using traditional preparation methods to improve overall health and digestion

Best wishes

This and a grow light maybe? I really love this guy's ideas. Salads made purely of microgreens. Can you imagine the nutrients?

https://www.amazon.com/Year-Round-Indoor-Salad-Gardening-Nutrient-Dense/dp/1603586156/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=growing+sprouts+books&qid=1624512782&sr=8-4

If you like Italian food as much as me, I highly recommend Chole's Vegan Italian Kitchen. I have made almost every recipe, & have loved every single one!

I’m growing soil sprouts this winter. Super easy, no grow lights required. Ready to eat 7-10 days after you plant the seeds

https://www.amazon.com/Year-Round-Indoor-Salad-Gardening-Nutrient-Dense/dp/1603586156

When I say easier to digest, that includes getting more nutrients out of the meat you eat.

You can check this great bookout if you’re interested in learning more.

> I have to learn how to grow them now! That sounds like a fun project

Read Year-round indoor salad gardening.

Yes, LOTS of benefits and very easy.

A great cookbook that uses these exact principles is Nourishing Traditions: The cookbook the challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats.”

the recipe i use is from a cookbook i got as a child that is currently packed in a box, but i think the book is "Classic Indian Cooking."

it is a pretty typical indian recipe though. the biggest difference from online recipes is that you finish by making tadka by frying whole cumin seeds, garlic, and onions, then dump the whole thing in with the lentils. the book has a lot of small details like this that add to the end result that the google recipes seem to skip. overall you don't have to do anything too complicated to red lentils though.

personally i either use extra virgin olive oil (don't heat it above medium on the stove) or a mix of extra virgin olive oil and homemade yogurt in my own cooking. the book is also how i learned to make yogurt, coincidentally. obviously you can't fry in yogurt, but you can still mix it in afterwards. personally i don't like to have a ton of oil in my food, so i like to substitute yogurt for some of the oil if i have it on hand.

We evolved with food that was cooked. First by following the paths of wild fires where root vegetables and nuts were cooked by natural processes and then, with the control of fire, did it intentionally. The burned food offered nutrients that were easier for our bodies to process.

This book explains it in lay terms way better than I can, and I think I remember seeing a TED Talk by Daniel Dennett that talks about it as well.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465020410/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_kaU2Fb3VZV5ZF

I am pescatarian 95% of the time (I'll eat meat in social situations or when nothing else reasonable is available). Between fish 2-3/week (so like maybe 12oz total or so), maybe 2-3 protein shake days a week, and all the high quality vegetarian proteins: lentils, soybeans, eggs, nuts, split peas, etc. I think you are in good shape if you know how to cook good vegetarian meals. It is really rewarding once you free yourself up from using meat for every meal.

I will start with a recipe from this book as a proof of concept vegan meal. Then I will add cheese/eggs/fish as I see fit based on my needs for the day. I like bowls because there is a lot of leftover synergy and we have kids so it makes life easier.
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Plates-Nutritionally-Balanced-One-Dish/dp/0399579052

The flip side of that is that if you have a recipe you love, it can be a bit of work to figure out how to do it veggie/vegan. But IMHO it can actually be fun once you have the first step (know how to cook veggie) down.

Check out this method of growing "soil sprouts" indoors for salad. It's fun and so tasty. I've been doing sunflower, buckwheat and pea shoots. Link to Amazon book.

I’ve kicked the micro greens around since last summer when my wife showed me some at the farmer’s market. I spoke with the guy for a while and learned that there are starter kits online. I did find this book on Amazon, too:

Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603586156/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_AfqDEbFWD6Y3D

I’ve been kicking around a vertical hydroponic garden, that’s what led me to testing the UV lamp in the first place.

> Isn't it strange that we are the ones who are lucky enough to be in the world of technology?

Technology is 2 million years old: https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/0465020410/

Sure, I don't think that's /u/MeltingParaiso's point though. The fact is that there aren't many good vegan cheezes out there, and the good ones are hella expensive. Not that it's a big deal – cheese is one ingredient, and there are millions of vegan foods out there that taste amazing on their own. And you're right that in the future there will be amazing, cheaper ones.

Plus the homemade lemon-pesto vegan mac n' cheese recipe I make (full credit to chef Chloe Coscarelli's cookbook) is better than any non-vegan mac n' cheese I've ever had. Home-cooking expands the possibilities so much.

https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ This is the only book you'll ever need on Indian cooking. Every single dish I made from this book was just perfect. It has no pictures, only a few drawings but if you stick to the recipe you'll be rewarded with the most delicious Indian food.
http://www.juliesahni.com/

My coworker felt the exact same way. He was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease as well, about 3 years ago. He then discovered Nourishing Traditions, a book that taught him how to eat for the health of his body. He follows the thoughts and recipes in this book exactly and has not had an issue with his Crohn's flairing up for almost the entirety of those three years after the switch. It took about 6-8 weeks before he noticed it really benefiting him, but he hasn't gone back and says that as long as he is on this diet, he will never have to worry about medication and complications again.

I hope this can help you too. Goodluck!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476736073/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1476736073&linkCode=as2&tag=chechl-20&linkId=S6J36OAGZZ7OH3H5

This is definitely the one me and my family most often use. Delicious and easy meals.

> Cooking "denatures" the protein to make it more bioavaible but this seems totally counter-intuitive to all other foods where cooking reduces benefits.

This is just patently false.
There is tons of research showing that cooking increases our digestive system's capacity to extract nutrients from food, and Catching Fire actually takes it so far as to argue that eating cooked food allowed our ancestors to evolve larger brains by reducing the amount of energy required by our digestive tracts.

My first vegan cookbook, which is beautifully photographed, provided a delicious enchilada recipe that my omni boyfriend would not stop spooning out of the fresh-out-of-the-oven casserole dish. Burnt mouth and all.

Chiming in here with the most fantastic Italian vegan cookbook- Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen (it's an Amazon link, fyi)! I've made so many recipes, including homemade pasta from her cookbook and it's awesome.

I haven't had to convince anyone to become vegan before, but I do know some information you can use. The 80/10/10 Diet is a great book that approaches veganism in a very logical way. This is the book that tipped me over the edge and made me become vegan. It basically talks about how plant based is the optimal diet for humans. There is a lot about nutrients, benefits of the removal of animal products in the diet, and how your body is made to consume plant foods. It appeals very much to the biological/medical side of veganism.

This book makes a very compelling argument.

http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/0465020410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430156862&sr=1-1&keywords=catching+fire+how+cooking+made+us+human

There are 2 volumes and she talks about history, locations etc... recommended http://www.amazon.ca/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423194732&sr=1-9&keywords=indian+cooking

Hey OP, you may be interested in this: Weston A. Price Foundation. They are into the traditional food prep, and I like a lot of their recipes/food tips. There's a cookbook by their current head honcho here that I really enjoy a lot of recipes from (traditional sourdough bread, fermented ketchup and pickles, and more). Keep your skeptical hat on, though. They promote all sorts of pseudoscience and rank stupidity in with some actually sensible ideas, and some bloggers who use this style of eating also are involved in quackery like homeopathy and anti-vaccination. You have to have a good bullshit tolerance to get to the best stuff. Use your brains.

Yes! So many people get this confused. Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire. I had to read it for an evolutionary biology class and it was wonderful, if I remember correctly.

I just started raw myself a few months ago. There are two basic routes you can pursue: high fat or low fat. If you go high fat, you'll eat a lot of raw nuts and avocados, plus fruits and veggies. If you go low fat, you'll eat a LOT of fruit. Bananas are the cheapest.

Whichever route you choose, you may find benefit in using a site/app to track your macronutrient calories; I use cronometer.com but there are many others. It is really easy to under-eat when you're going raw, especially the high-carb route.

I'm on high carb, aiming for 2000-2800 calories a day. It's been quite a struggle to get even 2000 most days; I often am around 1600. The macronutrient ratio I'm aiming for is 80/10/10 (carb, fat, protein).

An average day's consumption might be:

• Breakfast: a liter of fresh-squeezed orange juice, then a banana or two after. (A lot of raw fooders are into food combining, which mostly means only eat fruit on an empty stomach, and don't eat anything else until the fruit has transited out of your stomach - 15-30 mins is what I aim for).

• Lunch: smoothie with 5 bananas + 100g of greens

• Dinner: As much fruit as I can eat (usually about 300g) of whatever I have available (grapes, melons, mangos, nectarines), followed by half an avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives (not sure if these are raw?), salad, then some cashews or pistachios to inch my calories up if necessary.

Many high carb raw people say you need more like 3000+ calories. I am working my way toward trying that but I've found it difficult. They say at the beginning it's best to let yourself move gradually toward that as the volume of fruit you need to eat is huge. Cooked and high fat foods are much more calorically dense.

This is where we would discuss/debate human physiology and protein requirements. However, from an ideological, "cut things out", perspective, cutting out meat from a Paleo diet would probably leave you with fruit, unless you want to live off of nuts (essentially pure fat), and/or vegetables (too few calories). Of course, you can incoporate all of these, but you will be getting mostly calories from fruit. For more info, I recommend reading 80/10/10

This looks fantastic, especially the rice. I know from experience it's not always easy to make the grains long and lovely like that. I recommend getting this cookbook. It's easy to follow and the finished product is always delicious. My boyfriend's parents used to have an Indian food catering business and they gifted us this cookbook! I think the trick to good Indian food is having the right spices and being REALLY patient when you're browning the onions.