On my crawl towards raw foods, I've noticed that eating raw gets to be a whole lot more expensive than eating cooked foods. Also, I need to cook in a way that it will keep in a backpack for a few hours before I get to it. Does anyone have any tips on how to overcome these problems?

Opinion:

-Doesn't HAVE to be expensive. Stick to non-organic, dented, discount and on-sale produce. Shop around for special sales. Stick to the less expensive kinds of fruits and vegetables....and avoid high-end stuff. Grow your own sprouts.

-David Mason

Dried fruit is reasonably priced at Trader Joe's (if you have one near you) and it packs GREAT!

I totally agree with the grow your own sprouts thing too.

I've found with being raw, most of what I eat is high in fiber. I'm fuller longer and eat about half of what I used to. most things will do great in ziplock baggies with maybe a small cooler gel pac in a pocket of your back pack.

Build your diet around bananas, they are cheap, filling, and very nutritionaly complete. Make friends with produce managers, ask them to hold the "overly ripe" (usually perfectly ripe) and damaged stuff for you. You can buy these at a deep discount. Also, seek out produce stores and ethnic stores to shop at, these are much, much cheaper than grocery stores. I'm also a student, it can be done!!

Take care,

Audrey
www,rawhealing.com

I'm a full-time student and I work 30+ hours a week. From the time I wake up until 10pm, I'm out of the house. I'm not currently 100% raw, but I did spend 10 days doing a 100% raw project, and I still eat mostly raw during the days. Here's what I do: I eat smoothies or fruit for breakfast, both of which are inexpensive--especially if you use filtered water instead of juice or nut milk in your smoothies. I buy produce from the farmer's market. I keep my meals simple and travel-able (i.e. an apple or two; a big bag of carrot sticks, celery sticks, zucchini, cucumber). If I want something besides basic fruit and vegetable, I bring along a raw "granola" bar, which is dehydrated and can hang out for long periods of time unrefrigerated. I like the ones from goraw.com. If you splurge on the dehydrated snacks (enough for one a day, perhaps), but spend the rest of your money on basic produce...and eat simply...it's definitely affordable.

oh, and grow your own basics, like sprouts, parsley, cilantro, and basil. they're expensive to buy, but so versatile and easy to grow. so cheap that way!

Dave? Are you saying that I've been spending all this ching on organic produce unnecessarily?

I've been really diligent in purchasing only organic celery, lettuces, spinach, kale, apples, beets, pears and bananas especially. I will eat conventionally grown watermelon, avacados and grapes because (1) these fruits are hard to find organically grown in my area and (2) in the case of avacados I am relunctant to spend over $2.00 a piece for organics.

What is your opinion on organics and to what do you base this opinion on?

Kath

organics are undoubtedly a better choice, but if they aren't available, take what you can get, I guess. Here in Iowa, we have very little in the way of organics available to us, unfortunately.