Tuesday, June 25, 2013

5 Tips for Adding Raw Foods to Your Diet

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing a talented raw food chef for GoodLife Magazine. Pedja Milosavljević, RHN, is a vegan raw food chef at Nature's Emporium wholistic market. He shared with me some of his great tips for painlessly introducing more raw foods to your diet. His tips are simple yet powerful enough to make a meaningful change in your diet. Here they are:

Keep it simple, keep it tasty:
Chef Pedja's 5 tips for introducing more raw food to your diet

1. Don’t eliminate—add instead.

No one likes feeling deprived. Add healthier choices to your diet and they will
naturally begin to replace the unhealthy foods by sheer volume.

2. Surround yourself with fresh fruits and veggies.

Fruit is the best fast food available to us. Create a visually compelling environment
in your living space full of fresh produce and you will increase your chances of reaching
for a piece of fruit over other snacks.

3. Keep your recipes simple and limit your time in the kitchen.

Choose foods that taste great without much preparation (if any at all). Green
smoothies are a great example. The magic formula consists of fruits, green leaves and
water. Blend away and you’ve got a delicious breakfast beverage.

4. Plan ahead and prep your food in advance.

Wash, cut and store your veggies in the fridge ahead of time and you can whip up
a great salad in a matter of minutes. The same goes for dressings and delicious raw
food desserts.

5. Incorporate health-promoting practices.

Explore exercise, meditation and positive psychology—these practices will cohesively
inspire you to keep your diet in line.

You can find the full issue of the magazine here. Look for my article, with many more insights from Pedja, beginning on page 60. There are a few great raw food recipes to get you started too!

Linking up to:

the veggie nook


  1. Need to do number 4!

  2. OMG I am so printing this out and giving it to Jeremy. I've been trying to convince him to try it for a while now & this is fantastic {and painless} advice. I'm never going to get him to give up pork, sadly. He's Tennessean. Its sort of mother's milk to Tennesseans. Sigh. But this is just wonderful. Make this a series girl!!

    1. And AHHHHHH YEAH GURRL on the article. Just FYI.

    2. You are so cute! Thanks, I will suggest it to the editor. ;)

      Good luck with Jeremy. It's definitely hard to make a big change in diet after many years of eating favourite foods! :)

  3. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but I did go on a great diet a few years ago and lost over 40 lbs. I read your article and a lot of what was said is how I felt too. You feel more in tune with your body and what your body sort of craves when you're not filling it up with unhealthy foods. Great article Jo, I agree that you should write a regular series along these lines. Wendy

    1. Wow, 40 lbs. That's great!

      I know that when I eat lots of healthy whole foods, I start to crave sugar less.

      Thanks Wendy! :)

  4. Adorei as dicas! Em Julho começo o meu regime (dieta).

  5. These are great tips. I am not much into raw foods, but I know it is good for me.

    1. That's why I like Pedja's idea of adding a bit more raw food instead of taking away your favourites. :)

  6. Great tips! I always want to eat raw more, but I'm a sucker for a hot meal. No better time to try it out than in this heat though!

    1. I love a hot meal too! But it's nice not to cook in the summer. :)

  7. What a cool opportunity! And I love the tip to add rather than eliminate. I do the same thing with my health coach clients!

    1. Makes it so much easier than feeling like you are depriving yourself, right? :)

  8. I'm currently doing points 1-4 but don't have any free time for point 5 as I've just had a baby and any free time would be filled with sleeping if I had any! So I'm managing to eat loads of healthy food but unfortunately loads of unhealthy foods too. Massive green smoothies followed by loads of bread and cereal and massive fruit salad followed by 10 chocolate bars! It's time to knock this bad habit on it's head!
    Thank you for sharing this with Healthy Vegan Fridays!

    1. At least you are doing the first four points! That's awesome. All bets are off when you have a baby, right? Just do what you can and try to treat yourself well. :) A little chocolate is necessary for sanity sometimes. :)


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