Posts Tagged ‘office’

How To Stay Raw At Work

So let’s say you have taken care of being raw at home; your fridge and your pantry  are rid of anything that might tempt you or throw you off track. That’s super! But what about when you leave home? So many of us have to venture out our doors for various reasons, most commonly to go to work. Well, your office might have a vending machine stocked with manufactured snacks, or that person who always decides to bring bagels and sweet goodies to leave in the break-room. Talk about temptation!

We need to arm ourselves with ways to maintain the raw food diet and lifestyle while in the work environment. This means sticking to your raw food intake percentage and doing it in a healthy and balanced way. There are a couple challenges when working in the office on the plant-based diet:

1. You may be tempted by refined sugar and refined carbohydrate “office-treats.”
2. You have to plan ahead (meaning you have to create more time) to think about and make food.
3. You have to have food and snacks in the office five days a week (i.e. you can’t run out of food and you can’t forget your food at home).
4. You have to deal with various social aspects.

Planning Your Raw Food Stash

Planning is key when nutrition becomes such a high priority in your life. There are several different ways you can plan and prepare your at-work meals. The first, and most important, thing to do is to create a stash of dried foods and snacks in your desk, locker, car, or wherever you work. Some good ideas for this stash are goji berries or some other dried fruit, dried nuts and seeds, sea veggies, bee pollen, sea salt, and/or a jar of green powder (and a glass shaker jar). This food can be used as a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack, or for supplementing a plain salad that you didn’t have time to dress up. This stash will also come in handy on those days where you are hungrier than usual and have already eaten all the fresh food you brought for the day. Last, you will save valuable time spent planning and packing into baggies daily quantities of nuts, seeds , dried fruits , and/or sea veggies. Now you will have a 3-4 week supply of snacks there for you at work!

As long as you have some delicious raw options with you, you will be more immune to wanting to eat those office treats loaded with refined sugars and carbohydrates. Sure they smell great, but you know that what you have in your desk drawer, locker, or car will taste so much better! Even if it means having some raw chocolate or raw cookies nearby, it’s very important to have something with you that will satisfy you in the way cooked foods used to satisfy you when that craving hits.

Fresh Raw Food Options:

Now, for the fresh food preparation. Although this can take some mental time, physical time, and muscle to carry to work, you CAN do it and it’s completely worth it. When you want to make the food will be up to you and your work/sleep schedule. Some raw foodists like to make the food in the morning because it will be at its freshest. Others may not have time in the morning and may prefer to make an extra large salad, or soup for dinner for the next day’s lunch. Here are some ideas of what you can make or bring for breakfast and lunch:

Breakfast options:

• Fresh green juice
• Green smoothie (60% fruit blended with 40% green leafy vegetables)
• Superfood smoothie (with some fat and protein added to it like flax seed oil and hemp seed protein)
• Fresh organic fruit

Lunch options:

• Big green veggie salad
• Superfood smoothie
• Green soup with flax crackers
• Raw entrée (perhaps leftovers from last night’s dinner)

Now you can create your own combination depending on the below considerations:

1. Am I running on time this morning or running late?
2. What does my body feel like today? Examples would be: it feels like more liquids (smoothies and soups), it feels like more protein (hemp seeds, raw protein powder), or it feels like some extra superfoods.
3. What do I have to eat in my refrigerator?

What If You Are Running Late?

All of this considered, if you are running late in the morning and didn’t have time to make anything the night before for lunch–no problem! Pack some clean fruit in a bag, grab a container of leftover salad or green soup from last night, and be out the door. If you have more time, you can still grab the fruit for breakfast and then make a superfood smoothie in the blender in 5-7 minutes throwing in fruit, greens, and a bunch of superfoods (some fat and protein of some kind should probably be in there as well to sustain you for the rest of the afternoon). If you are not running late and have some time to spare in the morning, you can make a green smoothie for breakfast and a superfood smoothie for lunch. You get the idea here. You can use clean, old glass jars full to carry your smoothies, soups, and juices around without fear of them leaking out.

More tips to save you time making your work meals are to: 1) Make everything in batches. It’s best to make more than enough food so you can eat the rest another day without having to go through all the prep and cleanup time again. This can apply to superfood smoothies, salads, green soups, and green juices (if you have a high-quality juicer that makes juice that lasts up to 48 hours). And 2) Bring a bag of organic fruit to the office on Monday’s and store it on your desk or in the office fridge (if there’s space). This way, if you’re running super late, or if you completely forget to bring your food with you, you’ll have some fruit to snack on when you get there.

Embrace The Challenge

Yes, it is a challenge to be raw when you’re away from your kitchen for 9-16 hours a day, but if you can master this, nothing will stand in the way of your health and nutrition goals. And if eating more raw foods means that you are more focused, energized, and creative at work, isn’t it completely worth it? Just remember that planning, making food in batches, and adjusting according to your schedule and body-intuition will be key in your raw success–at work and beyond.

This article was written by Lenette Nakauchi, a raw foodist in Chicago who is passionate about teaching, coaching and demonstrating to others how to go and stay “raw” in a fun, healthy, sustainable way. Visit her website Go Raw Have Fun.