18th December 2010

We still have a stormy weather in Chiang Mai this morning. I’m heading to the Yoga Class but the teaching was a bit disappointing…

We head to the airport and we’re flying with Bangkok Airways… little foot massage before boarding and our “raw vegan” lunch is awaiting us in the plane. YES! Bangkok Air is giving you the optionality to eat a raw vegan meal when yo’re flying with them! It’s much better than Air Asia where you need to order your food before boarding and you have to choose between a hot dog and a hot dog…

We arrive to our hotel in Koh Samui. We have our little villa with private pool. It’s also stormy here, water is everywhere on the roads. we are in our hot tub outside our bedroom, in our private courtyard and are watching the lights in the sky… and projecting ourselves in a sunny day tomorrow, hoping the universe is going to hear us!

17th December 2010

It’s raining here in Chiang Mai. We barely see the mountains, they’re are covered by clouds. It’s still about 27C so it’s a residual from the rainy season. We’re off to the mountains but we won’t benefit from the view unfortunately…

So back in thesparesort, we’re hanging out in our little house and as we’re on holidays we let ourseleves watch a bit of tv and end up watching a documentary by Michael Moore on medical insurance : Sicko. We recommend it if you haven’t seen it and you will realise how important it is to work on your health not to be confronted to any issue.. you don’t want to deal with medical insurance companies… very interesting….

Tomorrow we’re heading to Koh Samui… let’s hope it’s going to be sunny there!

16th December 2010

We’re off on a trek in the rain forest few hours away from Chiang Mai.

We are going up the mountains, the sun is shining, it’s hot, about 32 degres c, the vegetation is luxurious, there are dogs running everywhere, poultry, black pigs, cows and even elephants in rivers having a drink .

We walk to a nice big fall, and from a little bit further, we are doing a rafting in the most natural way possible: Bamboo raft! amazingly done! If you’re scared of being wet, don’t go there!! It’s a lot of fun.

Today we just connected with nature which we thought could be more hostile than what we experienced… at least in december…

So we had our bit of grounding for the day and we feel really, really amazing! Don’t forget to ground yourself anytime you can!

15th December 2010

We arrived at the Spa Resort CHiang Mai. It’s a “raw food Spa/ Retreat”. The restaurant menu is not very exhaustive. you can accomodate for few nights but we would find it hard to live on this for more than a week. There is basically 4 or 5 salads, a raw pizza that is decent, raw lasagna, a good raw hummous.

The pool is great: it’s a natural water pool, no chlorine! Yay! so we spent an hour or so at the pool.

We tried out the massages as well: traditional thai and foot massages. Awesome set up. I’ll post a picture later on.

Have to go and get some beauty sleep!

Bye!!

14th December 2010

We are off to CHiang Mai. On the way, we’ve checked out China Town! There is plenty off fresh fruits, nuts, and other non-raw thing which are very popular such as dried fish. And also, I forgot to mention, there is anything else you may want too!

13th December 2010

Our 1st full day in Bangkok. After 2 exotic sliced fruits platters from our hotel, we ‘re heading to the Grand Palace. We want to go there via the canal and opt for the long way: we hired a boat that will take us through Konbhuri, the old Bangkok. The journey lasts 2 hours. We stopped at a snake farm (which was cool but a kind of tourist trap). The temples are closing at 4pm so by the time we had finisehd our first visit, we had to find a cab to take us to our favourite restaurant: RASAYANA!

We tried new dishes from this delicious restaurant and as we were ordering dessert, a fit and friendly cyclist with a “go vegan” (http://govegan.com/) shirt walked in the restaurant: Hi/Hi.

We started talking and we actually found out that Harley was a raw food expert, coach, with one of the most visited raw food website and a competitive athlete! That talked both to Matt and I and we had a wonderful time sharing information and listening to his very sensible viewpoints on the raw food diet. Here is his website if you’re curious: http://www.30bananasaday.com/

12th December 2010

We landed in Bangkok and by the time we check in our hotel and go out it was lunch time!

Yay! Let’s try out Bangkok’s raw food restaurant: RASAYANA! We don’t know wht to expect at all… since last year we were blessed with the raw food restaurants in LA: juliano’s, the earth cafe etc…

We take a cab which left us at Sukhumvit 39, so we had to walk 10min or so to arrive to our destination…. suspense! What is it going to be like?! We end up walking in a sort of private road and then here it is: RASAYANARaw food Cafe and detox center!

We arrive and have a sit at a table on the dark wooden terrace and have a nice feeling about this as

we are seeing the cakes in the refridgerator: cheese cake, banofee pie, pumkin pie, brownie, carrot cake, etc…

We took 3 specials: Avocado tacos, Kale salad and Hawaiian pizza which was very feeling, very well presented and delicious!!! Definitely, our first meal in Bangkok is a success!!

Oh i almost forgot, we treated ourselves with a dessert, even if we were not hungry anymore, we tried the banofee pie which i’m still dreaming of! I’ve asked for the recipe but they wouldn’t understand… I’ll try to make it myself back in London!!!

As a proof of our tips on how to fly in the best conditions, see my picture after a 12 hour flight, no sleep, no shower, no make up.

11th december 2010

TIPS for Flying in the best conditions as a Raw Foodist!

We flew from London to Bangkok.

It’s a 12 hours flight.

The radiation doses received by the flight crews and passenger vary with the altitude and latitude: the higher the plane is flying and the closer to the poles, the higher the radiation doses (from the sun).

So, we decided to take a night flight in order to lower the radiations we could be exposed to.

you can check this article for a bit of insight : http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/14/us/radiation-exposure-seen-as-posing-risk-for-airplane-crews.html

An other tip for flying in the best conditions possible is: FAST!

Needless to point out the food served in planes is very low quality and bad for you: it’s heated by microwave, highly processed with a lot of preservatives etc… Even a vegetarian meal is not an option.

Matt & I we are always fasting when we are flying, and i’m sure yo’ve heard a lot of hollywood stars say that they always refuse the food in plane, even in business or 1st class! I guarantee, you will feel so much better when you land and you will look at other struggling passengers through refreshed eyes.

Also, lately, we’ve been told that we can bring fruits in planes! So, if you can’t wait 10 to 12 hours without eating something, bring some organic fruits with you!!

Please do remember our tips for next time you travel. It’s easy… to sumarise: fly during the night and fast!

9th December 2010

It’s day minus 2!! in 2 days we are off to Thailand!

We are so excited as both of us have never been. We will try our best to blog our holidays!

Come and check us out!

At the end of the year, you have two options:

- you are over-busy and you need to excape a little bit => have a look at our blog and relax for a second

- you are NOT busy and lots of free time => have a look at our blog and enjoy a nice moment that is going to transport yoU!

I will see you very soon!!!

Audrey xx

30th November 2010

Hi again!

this week end we had dinner at VITAO (used to be called vita organic)! it’s a vegan restaurant in soho (london) where you can find a good range of salads and raw desserts! it’s supposed to be organic as well!

They serve you scoops of food which costs 2gbp each.

http://vitaorganic.gofreeserve.com/

We had a delicious raw chocolate cake for dessert.

We also had a good surprise: they just opened a new restaurant in soho street! it’s called Ventra.

I find it funny as “ventre” means stomach in french.

Anyway, We are definitely going to try it out soon and will let you know if it’s worth going.

Or…. if you have tried thsi newbe, please let us know what you think about it!

Thanks you!

See you soon!

26th November 2010

Hi Guys!!

Christmas is coming and I got inspired!!! I came up with an amazing custard recipe! you will be able to check it out under the recipe section over the week end! I can’t wait to make it again Guys!

Now i’m looking for a real raw pudding recipe. If you guys have any ideas, let me know! Thanks!

Enjoy!

23rd November 2010

It’s the last day of a 10 days personal development training and I’m on a high guys!

I’ve learned so many powerful tools and have more clarity on my future.

It’s definitely the best investment i’ve done so far and I can’t wait to work on the return of this investment.

Raw food wise, i’ve been doing good despite the very busy past 3 months. We are moving in a new home and it has been a challenge to find this place but we eventually found the ideal place for us.

I have to go now but i will come back with more posts on raw food!!

2nd July 2010

Here we are! Summer arrived in london! At last! I had to go to France few times recently because of my work and taht made me want to share something with you guys…

French people don’t know how to make salads… So… don’t blame your country culinaries talents on why you can’t eat decently in a restaurant when you eat raw! French cuisine who is said to be renowned wolrd-wide is actually very bad at raw food… I tried many salads in many places… here are few of my thoughts:

Positive points:

There is a choice of salad in the majority of restaurant. The salads are pretty inventive but…..

Negative points:

chewy salad… most of the time…  meaning, the salad is not fresh enough

the sauce… the salad is actually in a pool of sauce! the sauce is generally a creamy mayonnaise that must have 1000 Kcal of fat! Even if you take a safe tomato salad, tomatoes will sim in olive oil! Outrageous!

most salads have meat, tuna or cheese! Actually you can’t have a salad without one of the three. As if they were scared of not giving enough “proteins” to their clients…

That reminded me why, when I was living in France, I was always asking for a salad with the “sauce on the side s’il vous plait”?!

So please, don’t make the same mistake as me, when in France, ask for the “sauce a part” (=sauce on the side).

20 may 2010

Back from Florida to wet and cloudy london.. .Where is the summer!!??

I miss Florida already! It’s the place where you can literally live in t-shirt all year round, day… and night.

We miss the yoga classes on the beach every morning, the walks on the beach, the volley ball and frisbee, the boat, the dolphins, the parasailing, the  air-boat and the alligators, etc…

We stayed in Sarasota for over a week and we have found our 2 favorite stores: the Granary and wholeFoods!

We were going to one or the other pretty much once every day.

We found some raw dehydrated products in our holidays shops:

- some crackers…. a bit too much dehydrated… very hard to break in pieces… on which Matt’s mum broke a tooth…! Avoid…!

- Some cacao and carob brownies…. we went bananas on that! Buy it!

- Lotsssss of young thai coconutssssss! yummmm!

- We even found an alo leave at Wholefoods! Perfect for our sun tanning sessions! Or to heal the skin if we get burn.

We didn’t go to the restaurant once and prepared all our meals at home, for ourselves, Matt’s mum and her friend. And what was meant to happen happened, they got hooked on salads, smoothies, juices, and raw food… Both of them felt better at the end of the week and are eating much more raw food now in their diet.

After our stay in sarasota, we went for a short stay in Miami…

We stayed in the Delano hotel…

Next time we’ll book the tides, on the art deco district… much more laid back and relaxed area, with the beach volley just accros the road.

We went to the local raw food restaurants… although i’ve found a lot of raw food restaurants on the web, we “only” found 2 raw food restaurants that were still opened. A lot seemed to have closed down.

The first one we tried was : Life Food Gourmet.

Very good, good service, the owners (a couple with a new born little girl) were very nice and welcoming, creating a nice atmosphere.

They are selling some products as well and matt and I became fan of their raw tamanu oil and manoi oil.

Since i’m using it, my organic perfume is in the drawer and well forgotten.

They are also doing incredible smoothies with mamey, or irish moss, which is I think quite unusual (at least in Europe).

We became fans of their pizzas, which tasted seriously like ours (recipe on our website).

you can visit their website : www.lifegourmetfood.com

The only downside of this delicious restaurant is the opening hours.

Provided they just had a baby, we assumed that was the reason why it’s opened from 12 to 7pm…  Please stay opene later for our next visit to Miami!

The second restaurant is OM Garden and was opened later : 11am till 9pm if I remember well. They are really closeby to one another.

This raw food restaurant is a little bit more business focussed, even though they don’t sell any products.

Hence the atmosphere is not as cosy as in Life Food Gourmet but customers seem to be regulars and the food is pretty good (except for the cheeses, which are not fermented… so be aware taht you will have a spread, not a cheese…).

If you want to have an idea of this restaurant the link is:  www.omgardenonline.com

3 great news about OM Garden thought:

1- they are making juices with a Green Star!! yumm!

2- They deliver

3- They are moving to Shouth Beach in a short while.And If you ever go to florida, either sarasota or Miami, I hope those little tips will help you raw food eaters!!

7 may 2010

We are off to Florida tomorrow! We hope to find a looooot of young thai coconut over there. Going to sarasota to see the family and then off to miami later next week. I’ve picked up some raw restaurants on the way… but i would have thought there were more raw spots in miami!

i’ll let you know how it went!

Bisous!!!!

30 April 2010

10 days challenge over! i’ve lost 2kg! I’ve over-eaten….

My usual day looks like that:

- 7am: super-smoothie for breakfast : 2 bananas, 1 mango, 1 kiwi/pear/apple, maca, pollen, shelled hemp seeds, suma, goji berries

- 10am: orange juice

- 11.30am: bunch of tomatoes, 1 avo

- 1.30pm: bunch of berries

- 3pm: watermelon, 1 or 2 bananas

- 6pm: salad with a touch of olive oil and lemon juice for the “salad sauce”

By eating like this, I felt I have a lot more of energy! It’s not an effort anymore for me not to eat so much ntus and seeds, and fats…

So i’m going to keep my diet going like this. : -)

21 April 2010

I am going to take on a 10 days challenge, starting today!

I want to experience how it feels to be on a raw food diet with NO fats!

I’ve read on many blogs that a lot of raw foodists are addicted to a high fat diet….

For example, Matt and I are consuming 1.5L of olive oil every 10 to 14 days, 2 avocados each every single day, 1 chocolate bar a day, and some flax crackers, nuts and seeds.

Matt lost 10kg (22 pounds) eating this way. He wasn’t fat at the beginning, but he just shrinked over few months.

I didn’t move at all except when I was fasting. I can lose up to 5 kg (11pounds) in 5 days but then I put my weight back over a period of 3 weeks…

So during those 3 weeks, I am quite happy with my body shape becasue it is thiner than what I have been used to for years. But eventually I can see my few extra pounds on my buts and legs. I don’t have a lot to lose but I am convinced my ideal weight should be reached if I lose around 4kg (8-9pounds).

So if I should be thiner than I am and I’m not in the kind of diet i’m following, it should mean that my diet is too fatty for my body to detox fat cells.

Indeed, one year ago, I could have blamed the junk food (pastas, the bread, the butter, the sugar, the croissants, the alcohol, the crisps etc….) for my 8 extra pounds…

Today I can’t even blame or cut the burger !

One thing I am not sure of is if I can eat avocados. I am going to do a little research before eating one that is for sure. But I am cutting the olive oil, the chocolate bars, the gourmet food, the nuts and seeds from today until next friday!

Sunday, 11 April 2010

Summer is in the air!!

The sun was out this week end! How nice.

Do you know why you feel so happy and light when the sun is out?

First the sun is an enormous source of vitamin D.

It is said that you have to expose yourself to daylight 20min per day minimum in order for your body to function and to remain healthy!

Hence a lack of daylight exposure is likely to affect you not only on your physical being but as well on your mood.

So if you ever feel depressed, think about exposing yourself to daylight, sun, before even thinking of taking any medication, which I strongly do not recommend, but this subject is not relevant here.

The sun is so important…. look for yourself: it

- strengthens your immune system,

- helps the detoxification process of heavy metals,

- feeds your pineal gland to give you energy for your body and brain operation,

- helps to heal some skin conditions,

- stimulates the blood circulation and lower the blood pressure

etc….

Did I say it stimulates the brain? Don’t you think you are more imaginative when the sun is out? While I was wandering in London today, check what I came accros:

Fruit Sculpture

Tuesday 6th April 2010

This morning I woke up and made a wonderful breakfast. I am so excited that spring is coming up!

All berries are coming out on the stores’ shelves!

So our breakfast this morning was a SUPER SMOOTHIE with : 2 bananas, 150gr of blueberries, algae mix, mushroom mix, turmeric, maca and mesquite, with few goji berries, 1 cacao bean and 2 apricot kernels.

Full of superfoods to kick of the day with some vibrant energy!

Monday 5th April 2010

Easter week end… I was looking forward to go to Normandy with Matt as we both have relatives and a home there, we would have enjoyed every part of it! We planned walks int he forest, on the beach, in the “pays d’Auge” which is the lovely country side of normandy. My mother already stuffed the fridge with fruits and vegetables from the local markets and was super excited to have us.

We looked at the eurostar tickets…. wrong means of transportation for easter week end unless you booked 4 months in advance! We wouldn’t pay 400 gbp to go to normandy.

The only other optionality we could see was the boat… so we decided to go for it… a night on the boat, that would be fun!

No cabin on the outbound… that was a bad news but we thought we would go for it anyway!

The day before leaving, the weather forecasts were so bad that we decided to cancel last minute.

I then sent some raw recipes to my mum so she can use ALL the veggies she bought. on our side, staying in london for 4 quiet days should be relaxing anyway.

We HAD to make our raw lasagna! We had them dehydrated 2 days this time! They were gorgeous. You have the recipe on our website under “mains”.

We had 3 meals out this week end:

We had lunch in Notting hill, at daylesfordorganic. They have a “Raw Pad Thai” that is pretty decent and freshly squeezed orange juice.

We had diner at Suka, the restaurant at Sanderson Hotel. They have 2 raw main dishes: a papaya salad and a watermelon salad. The watermelon salad is quite small but the taste is interesting. The papaya salad is like a Pad Thai but with papaya instead of courgettes or carrots.

We had an other lunch at our favourite restaurant here in london: SAF.

*****We are delighted to announce their opening at Wholefoods!!!******

Living in the the west side of London, we needed to go all across town if we fancied a nice and clean raw treat. Sometimes, we just want to eat a good meal, without having to go food shopping and get everything prepared and then clean the dishes…

Now SAF is like down the corner !! Not surprisingly, SAF West is more pricy than SAF East. The renting of the place, the location should be more expensive and the potential customers are more likely to pay.

We asked to eat at the bar so we can see the cooks preparing the dishes. We enjoyed it a lot! The Chef of SAF West is called Matt. We had a nice chat with him. He’s from new york, where he was the desert chef of “Pure Food and Wine”.

He is a believer in dishes following the seasons so he said he was going to change the menu…. I think it is a great idea and Matt and I are so excited about the menu change! It has been the same for a while.

So here is a summary of our raw food easter week end. Oh! I forgot to mention… the weather forecasts were 100% WRONG! no rain, no wind… and it was sunny!

Thursday March 25th 2010

Hello Guys!

I am creating this new page so you can figure out who I am!

I’ll be posting my day-to-day life but only when I have amazing things to say which is pretty much everyday