i have been raw vegan for only 5 days now.... and i've been eating my veggies plain... but i would like to make salads with dressings....

i have read that raw vegans can use olive oil...so would an oil and vinegar dressing work?

any help is greatly appreciated,
jamesgirl

Vinegar is not really recommended.
Of course some use it...
Seems to me those who: "say if you can't make a meal of it,
it's not a food", are close to the truth.
For oil, unshelled nuts and avacodoes are also probably
better than a prepared bottled product like olive oil.

Neither of these choices are do or die matters,
and you are just starting out & may feel you need something on your greens.

As raw food purifies you body you may come to love greens as they are,
meanwhile another alternative is Tahini and lemon.

At first I used tahini and lemon on my salad. I Use braggs vinegar I think that is a good vinegar. I have been using olive oil lately and I think it is o.k. but I have not been losing weight like I use to.

Vinegar is a fine transitional food. Use one of the healthier ones, like Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar. However, the acetic acid, while diluted, is a poison and it will cause some stimulation as your body works to remove the poison.

Oils are also a transitional food, and if you are to eat one, get a high quality one like Barianis. However, oils are low in nutrients other than fat, so their consumption is best kept low (like 1 tablespoon or less a day).

I've been raw 6 weeks now and I use Raw Apple Cider Vinegar that is organic. I get it at the health food store. If I use it, it is only a splash. I think maybe 3 to 5 times a week I use it.

As for oil, I get Extra Virgin Olive Oil that is Cold Pressed. But it's better to have stone pressed, but I can't find that anywhere. I use oil everyday, I love a lot of it in my salads.

I make dressing; 1/2 cup oil,splash vinegar, 1 lemon juiced, herbs and some cayenne pepper!

deegarry@yahoo.com,

You might want to look at your fat consumption by entering in your daily menu into a nutritional calculator like fitday or nutritiondata. 1/2 cup of oil is 950 calories of pure fat, and if you are eating a 2000 calories a day diet, your fat consumption is over 50% fat. If you are eating more like 1500 calories a day, your fat consumption is around 68% fat.

you're right Bryan, but I still feel new to raw and rather consume too much oil than eat something cooked. But I think as of lately I have just been wanting to have a lot of oil in my salads. I think eventually I will slow down with it as soon as I find something to replace it, or may just tire of it.

just start using less and less degarry i went through a period of overoiling everything and was amazed in the end how far a tablespoon of oil in a bowl of salad goes

its great you are making strides towards your goals !

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Here are some ideas for a oil free salad dressing.

Dr Graham explains how to make easy salad dressing from whole foods:

1. You take an acid fruit: lemon, limes, tomato, tamarind, orange, tangerine, grapefruit, pomelo, pineapple, passion fruit, etc.

2. You take a fatty food: sesame, hemp, sunflower, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, macadamia, cashews, avos, coconut, etc

3. You take a filler veggie: celery, cucumbers, sweet bell peppers, etc

Blend. Given than you could easily find 20 acid fruits (there are easily 20 varieties of tomatoes alone), and 10 sources of fat, and 5 fillers, this would give you 1000 different salad dressing combinations.

If you want to get fancy, you could throw some fresh herbs into the mix, like cilantro, parsley, basil, etc.

thanks bryon for the info. I started using oil and vineger for a salad dressing but I did not lose the weight like I should have. I will conserve on the vineger and oil use for now. I have to start making green smoothies for a while because my teeth are so bad and they hurt so I will have to blend my salads.

Thanks Bryan, I made a copy of that. I think you gave me some great ideas to replace oil, fantastic! We'll see how it goes!

I use lemon juice instead of vinegar. It's not raw vegan food. It may be raw vinegar, but vinegar itself, is rotten. But hey, use it in transition.

I gotta back up Bryan on fitday.com and also keeping track that way of your fat intake. I've seen fitday recommended and had it recommended to me. I resisted it for a long time. I wouldn't want to do it every day for the rest of my life, but keeping track for about a month really helped me to see what I was taking in to my body. I have liver/gallbladder damage from a life threatening, longterm bought of hepatitis a long time ago. I was shocked to see how much fat (using fitday) I was actually consuming. I also have some particular nutritional needs as a result of the scarring of these organs and fitday has helped me to figure out if what I am eating is working for me.

Thanks for the "dressing" ideas Bryan. I know commercial dressings are not healthy for me and I like the simplicity of the formulas you posted. There are so many possibilities there yet what you posted was really straight forward and simple. (If it isn't simple... I know I won't do it.)

Thanks everyone!