NO!
It's lovely to have a dehydrator. Believe me. But you *can* dry/warm things in your oven. I did it before I had a dehydrator. Don't let that stop you. For one thing, you don't need to eat warmed/dehydrated food on a raw diet. It's fun and its nice, but it's not necessary.
TIP: Set your oven below the lowest setting (most ovens seem to start around 200? you're aiming at around 100) and crack the door about 4-6 inches. If you pop some veggie or fruit scraps on a baking sheet and stick a 'meat' thermometer in there, after about 15 minutes you'll have an accurate idea of the internal temperature of your oven at that low of a setting. If it's too high, turn it down even lower, or crack the door more. A little experimentation will get you the knack of your own oven, and you're all set!
The other thing that is actually super good and fun to have is a food processor for easy shredding, pulping and mixing. You can, of course, do it old school and just do it all by hand! Yes it takes longer, but what were you doing anyway? Put on some tunes and get shredding! I almost always make my guacamole by hand- mashing those mofos with a heavy fork and listening to Mexican punk rock is the greatest way to chase away a bad day.
Honestly, I would seriously recommend getting a blender. You'll want smoothies and other blended products, I assure you. If you're on a budget, check your local thrift store, they often have wee appliances like blenders for crazy cheap. However, I find that most people have a blender (or two) squirrelled away for umbrella drink season anyway. Haul that bad boy out and install it proudly on your kitchen counter, you'll be using it every day.
I'm interested in doing a raw cleanse. What do I need to get started?
OK.
First off if you're doing a cleanse, DO a cleanse. Yes, this means no alcohol. I would advise no smoking, also. (tobacco is super gross smelling when you're on a cleanse, more than usual FYI)
AND, no caffeine. OK, I know. I did mine with no caffeine and it sucked large. I was seriously considering only sticking to green tea, which is also one of nature's super foods, dammit and should be allowed. Ultimately it's your body, your rules. I'm just saying what I did.
TIP: Take a few weeks to a month lead up. Eat the foods in your fridge and cupboards that will spoil if you don't touch them for 30 days, or are less than optimally healthy for you. Get rid of those suckers. You don't want them staring you in the face for a month while you're cleansing, it won't help and if they go bad, you wasted food which is super disrespectful to the planet that worked so hard to make it for you.
(if you've ever grown your own vegetables, you'll never waste food again I assure you.) You might also have quite different food habits, desires and cravings after your cleanse, so eat that stuff beforehand!
TIP: Scope out the grocery stores in your neighbourhood to get a sense of where has what, and for how much. You'll likely be spending more than usual on produce and you don't want to go broke feeding yourself. Find out if there's a local farmers market in your neighbourhood, those guys are GREAT. Remember, if you're putting it into a smoothie, it doesn't have to be beautiful produce- just plentiful! Often the fruit that looks a little scratch-and-dent is the juiciest, I've found. Go by smell, not look. Also, Bulk Barn is your friend, that place has things you wouldn't believe, and the raw stuff is labelled.
TIP: you will NOT want to run out of certain things. For me, this included (but wasn't limited to) in roughly order of importance (but don't hold me to this!)
- bananas
- spinach
- oranges
- apples
- strawberries
- almond milk
- carrots
- dried fruit of some kind (raisins were top of the list, followed by dates)
- sugar snap peas
- kale
- lemons or lemon juice
- raw nuts, especially almonds or cashews
- himalayan sea salt
- flax meal
- agave nectar
- raw cocoa
TIP: Especially if you're coming at this fast from a omnivorous perspective, and you're eschewing meat for a month, be prepared to be hungrier WAY more often. You will not want to be without stuff for a morning smoothie, ASAP. Meat takes much, much longer to digest than fruits and vegetables so after a few days, you'll have way less reserve floating around in your intestines and you'll quite likely be hungry as soon as you wake up. Hungry leads to HANGRY much faster on a cleanse, so be careful, especially if you're already not a morning person! Keep track of whats in your fridge.
'baby' carrots can be pulped whole in a blender, but are more processed. The larger carrots are better run through a juicer or eaten as, you know, carrot pieces of some kind. Bags or bundles of 'adult' spinach are often cheaper, but I find that baby spinach has a much milder flavour in smoothies, and prefer it to it's more mature relatives. I EAT BABIES. There, I said it.
TIP: you'll want to use a diet tracker of some kind, at least at first, to make sure you're getting all of everything, nutritionally, that you need. I personally don't sweat it if I don't get 'all' my iron or protein or fat or vitamin K or whatever one day, I find that my body naturally gravitates to what it needs and I'll just catch up the next day and I'm all good. But I wouldn't have known this without first doing some serious tracking. I use My Fitness Pal, and I've also used Calorie Count.
TIP: You'l be spending a LOT more time thinking about your food this month. It's inevitable, embrace it, live it, love it. Food is your new hobby, congratulations! Bring a knapsack places in case you see great produce deals when you're out and about. Keep a mental tally of what's in your fridge and what needs eatin' up.
SLEEEEEEEP more. Promise, this is a great idea. Treat yourself and turn in early as often as possible.
I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this later, stay tuned!
