A few days ago, I was walking through Costco, sampling some foods...shrimp scampi here, chicken shu mai over there, fruit-flavored carbonated soda by the toilet tissues...(and yes, I have slacked on the vegetarian eating lately...)As I headed through the frozen food aisle, I spotted a crowd in front of a store demonstration on the VitaMix 5200. This guy was making a fruit smoothie, and the first ingredients he put in it were cabbage, spinach and yellow squash! Then he added the carrots, strawberries, bananas and other goodies. I was leary to taste it, but I waited to test out my skepticism. It was DELICIOUS!
30 minutes later, I was still standing in front of the demo, now having tasted a mocha frappucino, tortilla soup, thai ginger soup, chocolate ice cream, garden vegetable cocktail and so much more, all made in this little machine. And almost all of the foods he prepared included the hidden cabbage, spinach and yellow squash combination!
I stood there contemplating all the possibilities. I now could make my own foods and know what's exactly in there...no guessing what those additives or preservatives are, being able to measure my own salt, and plus I get to eat all the healthy parts of the fruits and vegetables, like the watermelon rind, the green leaves on the strawberry tops, the skin of the carrots, the entire stalk of the broccoli. I also get to have hot soup that's cooked in the VitaMix merely by friction! I had this vision of me and Art as raw foodists. I immediately returned the Odwalla SuperFood smoothie that was in my cart back to the refrigerator.
I stopped by Trader Joe's afterwards and was sharing my new found discovery to the cashier. She was excited and told me that her mom had been using her VitaMix for years, making her own fresh multigrain breads and waffles. I had no idea there was this subculture of VitaMix fans out there!
And so for the past few days, I've been making whatever I could with the VitaMix. Today I made fresh pesto for my whole wheat linguine pasta. Yesterday I made a mango corn salsa for my green chili & cheese tamales. And everyday I've been drinking a smoothie of some sort with whatever I could find in my house.
The only downside, though, is that I'm running to the bathroom more frequently. Eating all these raw fruits and veggies seem to be cleaning out my gastrointestinal system. And I've been dreaming about cabbage, yellow squash and spinach the last few days. A little odd, but all worth it to cleaning out my body and feeding it what it deserves.
