Raw food has always intrigued me. I’m a firm believer that the healthiest diet you could have is a raw one. A few years ago, I was going to go on a month-long raw food challenge and bought a couple of books on Amazon, but the recipes either looked fiddly and time-consuming, involving dozens of never-before-heard-of ingredients or they didn’t look or sound appetising. The books went back to Amazon and I went back to my pizza.
MY Food do a plan that takes all the hassle away from you. Their 5 day Raw Blitz Body plan contains everything you need for breakfast, lunch and dinner and they even supply a selection of Dr Stuart’s teabags, a litre of almond milk, snacks and fresh fruit.
I was sent a sample 2 day plan, texted with a delivery date, then texted the day before the delivery date with a delivery time which was a very specific 10:46-11:46am. If you’re not in at the time they text you with, you’re given options to choose from to text back with a more convenient time.
Because I was doing a two day plan, all my food came in one delivery. For people doing the 5 day plan, in order to keep the food as fresh as possible, they’ll get two deliveries. My box turned up promptly at 10:50 and I ripped it open, eager to see what was inside. It all looked amazing and I couldn’t wait to get started.
The next morning I woke excited about going on my raw food journey (as short as it was; I’ve never been much of a traveller, anyway). You’re given a plan with your food and my breakfast on day 1 was “Love the Feeling” Red Berry Smoothie, served with 200ml of chilled almond milk.
Yes, despite being called a ‘red’ berry smoothie, it’s green. It’s made of mango, mixed berries, banana, orange juice, ginger, agave and linseed. This was thick, fresh and tasty. As I’m used to having smoothies for breakfast, I was pleased not to have anything too ‘scary’ to start me off.
As mentioned before, the plan includes snacks (so no excuses for raiding the chocolate drawer). This morning’s snack was some seeds and nuts from the packet of Seeds of Love mix.
This 100g packet contains almonds, hemp seeds, Incan berries, mulberries, pumpkin seeds and cacao nibs.
Lunch on day 1 was Oriental Salad with Thai Dressing.
I won’t list all the ingredients (or for any of the other meals), as there’s so many, you’ll get bored of reading them. All the ingredients are fresh, raw and natural with nothing you won’t have heard of (unless you’ve led a very sheltered life).
This massive portion of salad was fresh and spicy. I was a bit worried about the coriander as I’m not a fan but although I could taste it, it wasn’t overpowering. So far, so impressed.
After lunch, I – as usual – fancied a mug of hot chocolate. I scanned the plan but couldn’t see any hot chocolate on there, so I had a cup of herbal tea. The afternoon snack was fresh fruit. MY Food had supplied a kiwi fruit, but unfortunately it turned up a bit battered and split, so I had a satsuma instead.
Evening meant my first ‘proper’ raw meal. ‘Proper’ as in ‘not a salad’. My dinner that evening was Lasagne with Cheese Layers.
Obviously the lasagne wasn’t made from pasta but was a delicious mixture of courgettes, tomatoes, macadamia nuts, green olives, sundried tomato and a whole heap of other vegetables and spices such as onion powder and garlic. I’ve had raw cheese before made with cashew nuts and nutritional yeast, so I’m assuming that’s what gave this dish its cheesy flavour. If you’re wondering if it’s like vegan cheese, don’t worry, this is much nicer – it is made with natural ingredients, after all. There’s nothing artificial or processed about this dish.
Despite being ‘raw’, this lasagne can be heated up in your oven at its coolest setting, but only until it’s finger warm. To keep the food’s nutrients and vital enzymes as intact as possible, raw food shouldn’t be heated above 42C. Unfortunately, I got my Celsius and Farenheit mixed up and heated it up too much, which is why it looks a bit cooked in the photo. Still, this didn’t ruin the taste, I just killed off a few nutrients and vital enzymes. Oops.
This was also a massive portion and kept me full all evening.
Day 2’s breakfast was Raw Fruity Granola (buckwheat, golden flaxseeds, figs, raisins, apricots, cranberries, goji berries).
The instructions said to serve it with 200ml of chilled Almond Milk and leave to soak for 10-15 minutes. I’m used to granola and usually like it. I’m sorry to say I didn’t like this at all. For my personal taste, I don’t think I should have left it to soak, as the texture was slimy and after one spoonful, I threw it away and made myself a banana and raspberry smoothie instead.
Lunch on day 2 was Moroccan Carrot Salad with Avocado Salsa.
I hate avocado. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a minging ball of green slime, so I hoped the avocado salsa would be a little pot I could ignore but, alas, it was half the packet. Luckily it was sectioned off so it was easy to avoid. I tried a bit of the green sli– oops, sorry – avocado – and it wasn’t quite as disgusting as I remembered it being but I couldn’t eat more than one piece. If you like avocado, you’ll love this as there’s a huge amount of it. Luckily the other half of the salad was huge too and was a beautiful lunch for a sunny day, so I didn’t go hungry.
The afternoon snack of the day was an Energy Ball.
There were no ingredients listed on the packet but whatever it was, it was tasty and plugged that afternoon-munchies gap.
In the list of ingredients for the Coconut Curry with Lime Infused Vegetables that I was to have for dinner was the dreaded avocado.
I was even more scared when I saw that the avocado wasn’t in big lumps I could pick out but made the base of the curry. I tried a bit but, again, couldn’t eat it so I left the creamy bit and just ate the vegetables. As with the lasagne, this could be heated in a cool oven until finger warm.
I’d recommend the MY Food Raw Blitz Body plan for anyone curious about raw food or experienced raw foodists who want a break from ‘cooking’ (or should that be ‘assembling’?). Everything is provided, so there’s no shopping for ingredients, no thinking about what to have, no cooking and therefore minimal washing up. Because I only did the 2 day plan, I didn’t get a choice of meals but my friend Astrid did the 10 day plan (review here) and was asked if there were any ingredients she didn’t like, so they could omit those. I’m not sure if you get that flexibility with the 5 day plan but I’d definitely be specifying no avocado.
The 5 day plan costs £195. Okay, so that sounds like a lot of money (well, let’s face it, it is a lot of money) but when you take into account how many ingredients go into each dish (there are twenty three in the Moroccan Carrot Salad alone) and how much they’d cost to buy individually, along with everything prepared for you, it’s not bad value at all.
The MY Food Raw Blitz Body plan is seasonal and not available at the moment (keep checking their website or Facebook page for announcement of the next one) but they do have plenty of other plans, including vegetarian, gluten-free and lots more. You can see their range of Diet Plans for Women and their Diet Plans for Men.
