A Simple Vegan Ambrosia Salad

Day 6 of our “One Month Raw Food Cleanse”
I got on the scale this morning and was surprised to see that I’ve already lost 1 ½ pounds! That’s about 1.3% of my body weight in only 5 days. And, I’ve been eating three delicious meals, several snacks and dessert every night. What a fun way to cleanse!

Cleansing on an all raw food diet is so much easier than doing a juice fast. I have always had low blood sugar so if I tried to do a fast of any kind, I would get shaky and very irritable (just ask my husband!). But on a raw food diet, you will be satisfied and the dishes can be interesting and delicious. For one entire month, you avoid processed foods and nourish your body with ones that are fresh, alive and full of enzymes. A cleanse like this will also lessen the severity of the cleansing reactions. These reactions occur when the body starts to release toxins that have accumulated from eating processed and unhealthy foods. You may have headaches, flu-like symptoms, or just feel tired. You may still experience these on a raw food cleanse but the symptoms can be much milder. These symptoms are a normal part of detoxification. Hopefully, over the one month time you are on raw food, it will happen gradually and gently.

Today’s recipe is an old favorite—Ambrosia salad. This salad, however, will omit the processed sugar, marshmallows, sour cream, cool whip and other unsavory things people tend to put into it. This recipe is quick and easy to prepare and is very high is vitamin C.

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Vegan Ambrosia Salad [2 lunch servings or 4 desserts]
1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple, diced
1 large banana, sliced
1 1/2 cups organic red grapes, cup in half
1 1/2 cups honeydew melon, diced
1/3 cup shredded raw coconut
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest

Combine fruit and coconut with orange juice and zest. Gently toss and serve.

Per dessert size serving (4): 151 calories, 2.2 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, zero g cholesterol, 1.6 g protein, 33.8 g carbohydrates and 3.1 g fiber.

Menu for Day 6
Today I had a strawberry smoothie for breakfast (when using strawberries in a smoothie, wash the strawberries well but don’t remove the green tops as they also provide important nutrients). For lunch I had a double serving of today’s featured “vegan ambrosia salad”. I’ll be snacking today on nuts and raw crackers as well as red bell pepper and jicama slices with raw hummus. And for dinner I will have a large serving of my friend Bernadette’s recipe, “Everything in the Garden” dinner salad. I’ll share that recipe with you soon. Tonight we’ll make some raw tropical chocolate truffles for dessert—see February 12, 2009 posting).