Raw Summer: Fun, Easy, No-Cook Summer Meals

Eat Healthy and Well, All Summer

The raw food movement is still on the fringe, but it’s gaining steam. Not everyone is designed to eat raw all the time, but we could all eat raw foods, especially fruits and veggies, more of the time.

Summer, with its warm days and abundance of garden-fresh produce, is a great time to give it a go.

Bonus: Eating raw is easy! All you need is some good fruits and veggies, a knife, a cutting board, and in some cases a blender. Raw foods are also refreshing, and great for a cool down on hot days.

To start, itemize the things you already eat that are raw. For instance, most salads are raw.

Fruit salad is easy; grab a nice, ripe melon, an apple, a banana, grapes, or whatever sound good to you, chop it all up, and mix. You’re done! See, that was so easy!

Green salads are also easy, and beautifully nourishing. Make a “chopped salad,” or start with greens and build from there. You can vary your green salad experience by adding in jicama, citrus, dried or fresh fruits, or fresh herbs. Citrus and jicama go great together, herbs go great with apples, apples go great with raw nuts. The options are endless.

It’s super easy to make smoothies with all raw ingredients too; just leave out the dairy, protein powder, and supplements. If you want it to taste creamier, you can add raw almond milk or the water and flesh of a fresh coconut. Add some ice cubes, and blend it to a froth. It’s better, and way healthier, than a milk shake!

If you want to get more adventurous, you can start looking at the amazing raw recipes that are all over the web. For starters, check out my Raw Tomato Soup, add a side salad, and make yourself a beautiful all-raw meal.

Lasara Firefox Allen is an author, educator, activist, and coach. Lasara’s first book, the bestselling Sexy Witch (Llewellyn Worldwide), was published in 2005 under the name LaSara FireFox.