hello friends !

i've been raw vegan for about a month...hooray! so far i've seen and felt only amazing things .. besides feeling good about making positive changes in my diet, my skin is looking good, my energy has increased, i've lost some weight and i feel so content! i think one of the greatest experiences i've had thus far happened last week while i was riding my bike to campus and i had this beautiful amazing mystical experience .. full of immense joy and love (and delicious a.m. green smoothie!) .. i could not help but laugh and smile .. not to anyone-or-thing in particular but feeling happy and ALIVE! what MORE good can come from eating raw besides feeling healthier not only physically,but mentally and emotionally as well .. !?? what great sustenace from live foods i have been receiving! okay, sorry for the anecdote .. on to some questions i am hoping to get some help / ideas with!

i am thinking of purchasing a blender (my first big wow-i'm-actually-going-to-do-this!! type purchase) and i'm really quite excited.. i've been making smoothies with my regular blender, it does the job for now but (i have not been incorporating greens into my smoothies and.. ) from what i've read on the board, i'm thinking of getting a ktec from 2-life.com which seems to have the best price out there .. if you know of somewhere cheaper (or are selling one!!), please let me know .. i am a college student who must spend monies very very carefully.

what do you think / suggest the next "big purchase" should be? i am thinking of a sprouter (hey! ! what are your favorite sprouters??) or a dehydrator (i think the only dehydrator in "question" would be an excalibur) .. and yes, i am aware this is a very open ended question and entirely subjective to my personal needs but i would still love to hear from those of you who have had experience making similar purchasing decisions or have suggestions!

second, i've been reading some things about adding celtic or himalayan sea salt to water .. i know sodium makes one thirsty, will adding the celtic or himalayan salt make one thirsty also?? regardless, the benefits of adding it to my drink seem to outweigh being thirsty anyway. on the topic of water, i've been using sink water for everything .. i read in my earth sci class that some of regulations on bottled waters allow traceable amounts of not-so-good things like fecal matter and bacteria .. (sorry, i don't have an online source but if you would like one i could perhaps find one for you) which are of course evident in tap water but why buy the stuff when i can get it out of my sink? am i being silly.. should i be drinking filtered or store bought water .. i've been drinking tap water for at least a quarter and haven't seen any negative effects .. this also relates a bit to my next question..

.. i bike to campus every day of the week and am up on the hill from 10 am to at least 5 pm daily .. meaning, i can't lug around jugs of water with me (which makes using tap water a benefit so to speak) and i also can't go home and blend up a smoothie or make a salad etc .. i'm trying to incorporate more GREENS into my life but i find it difficult to prepare green salads, smoothies and the like before class and bring them with me as they will shift in my pack and get warm throughout the day.. i have access to a refrigerator only twice a week otherwise, everything i take to school with me stays in my pack / on my back til consumed.. taking a cooler would just be too heavy (maybe some light ice packs would do the job??), especially with text books! i have been resorting to taking larabars almost daily and although these are raw and healthy, i feel they do not have the same effects as do fresh salads and fruits so, any suggestions on what i can do considering my circumstances would be very helpful!

lastly, i'd like to clarify that i cannot ..well technically, i could but it would be best that i JUICE wheatgrass instead of blending it..

i apologize in advance for the scattered / random / multiple question-unfocused thread

love and positive energies
lilpawwws

Your post was so beautiful - filled with the joy of life rightly lived. Please don't apologize for the anecdote. Its beauty was food for us all!

Re salt - I have been adding salt to my water for about a month now - thanks to Marcos' recommendations. It does not make me thirsty. Adding salt to my food does. It has cleared up a scaly skin problem that even all raw did not do for me. That was fascinating to me.

Best of joy with your raw adventures. I feel your essential spirit. It is so beautiful.

Love,

Piano Gal

hey lilpaws, welcome!
I haven't had any experience with adding salt to my water, I hardly drink any water at all, at most a small glass a day. I know that doesn't sound good, but since about five days a week all I eat is mono-combined fruit, I am never thirsty, and feel pretty well hydrated.
I am currently a student, and totally feel your pain. My best advice would be to make pates out of heat-stable ingredients, I make a yummy one by blending carrots, soaked flax, sesame, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, miso and/or dulse flakes, and cayenne til creamy. (it gets goopy too, because of the flax, but I like that.) I pop this in a plastic container with a lid, and bring it in my backpack along with one or more of: celery stalks, carrot spears, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, soaked alaria fronds, soaked kelp fronds, baby greens, or whole leaf lettuce leaves. There are tons of good recipes availible online (including on this site) for yummy pates. I'm soaking almonds now, as I'm going to try the raw veggie toona next.
Also fruits like apples, pears, pomegranates, grapefruits, cucumbers, and bell peppers, as well as most veggies and greens travel very well on one/two day trips without refrigeration. I recomend trying something like this rather than depending on Luna Bars, they are extremely uneconomical, as well as being a bad food combination. They will also contribute to your thirst since they are dehydrated. At the very least you should make you own, and that does not requir a dehydrator.
I responce to your inquiries about what equipment to buy, I would advice you not to buy a dehydrator. I really, really wanted one for my first ten months of raw, thinking about all the wonderful things that I could make, and how well it would all travel. A couple weeks ago, I got the oportunity to use one for a couple days, and I realized that after eating fresh food for months, my body didn't want dehydrated food at all! It tasted good at first, but I could feel it drying me out, and I was thirsty for two days after, as well as feeling a lot heavier, and as if I was retaining water. I'm not trying to scare you, just to share my experience.
A good blender or food processor might be very useful. I use my cusinart food processor all the time, and I love it. However, I never use my blender, as my food processor blends smoothies far better, and it easier to clean. I recently was given an old 3600 model Vitamix for free, and I have yet to try it out.
Good luck!
~mallow

Hi Lilpaws, sounds like you are having a great experience with raw -- excellent news! We have been raw for about 3 months and have been figuring things out as we go along as well. I commute to work (either by bike or by subway) and do not have the space to bring a big cooler of food. I do however bring a Nalgene of juice every day -- we LOVE our juicer. Each morning I juice my greens (and toss in some carrots, apple and ginger) and that's my lunch. It is delicious, nutritious, hydrating and gets you all that green goodness without the need for a lot of space. We don't have a high speed blender, just a regular one, and have been considering a Vita-mix...father's day??? Anyway, we do use our dehydrator a lot and like it very much -- with kids we find that they enjoy the mixed textures and flavors of prepared foods much more than whole foods -- so we make things like red-pepper and corn tortillas and "refried beans" using the dehydrator. It is also a good way to flavor nuts -- we soak them, coat them and dehydrate them...delicious snacks. As you can see from above, everyone has different opinions on this. If I had to choose between a juicer and a dehydrator, I would choose a juicer -- you can get really good ones for about $90.

On the water issue, I don't add salt to my water, and I tend to drink about half from the tap, half from the filtered tap (we have a filter on our tap). I haven't noticed a big difference, and I drink a LOT of water (I love water, weird I know, but I'm an aqua-addict).

By the way, do you go to Cornell? So rarely do I hear "on the hill" used except for talking about Cornell. Just wondering.

Keep up the healthy living!

Raw Daddy -- livin' raw and lovin' it

cfd,

Don't do it. Get a ktec total blender. It's a more powerful blender at 3hp, compared to 2, and it blends everything. I gave up my vitamix years ago and have never looked back since getting my ktec champ hp3, now callled the ktec total blender. Of course, if you can find a ktec champ hp3 then buy it. It's the prior model that comes with an 8 year warranty.

Peace,

Marcos

Go Vegan for your life, your health, the planet and, most importantly, the animals that we share this wonderful world with!

Ah, Marcos thank you for the advice. I have been quite literally salivating over the Vitamix, but I will look at the Ktec.

Raw Daddy -- livin' raw and lovin' it