Yellow Courgette Spaghetti and Is Raw Food That Good for Everyone?

Take one courgette....

 

Make it into spaghetti with a julienne peeler....

Add runner bean and tomato salad....

Grate some Gran Padano on top (god I love this cheese)...

Et voila, a nearly raw dish!

When I was reading about different people's recipes involving courgette spaghetti, I was surprised that no one cooked it. I mean obviously the raw foodies weren't going to, but...no one? And they were all saying how it was JUST LIKE NOODLES, just as good if not better! YAY!

Well, I didn't personally agree. It felt healthy, and crunchy crispy vegetabley, but not that satisfying. And most importantly, it wasn't bendy enough to twizzle around a fork in a satisfying way!

So I remade this recipe, or one similar, but a cooked version:

I fried up an onion.
I added some runner beans and cooked them for a couple of minutes.
I added some fresh tomatoes from the greenhouse. Big ugly ones.
I let this accept the fact it was going to soon be a pasta sauce (only about 5-7 minutes).
I made another courgette into spaghetti with my julienne peeler.
I added the spaghetti on top of the sauce, put a lid on and let it steam for a few minutes.
I then mixed it up a bit, topped it with some medallions of mozzarella and grilled it.

It was divine. Although not as photogenic. I felt full, and like I'd gained some energy.

I'm coming to a place of reevaluation. Recently I've been getting into raw and unprocessed foods, and getting very excited about them, and reading up on the wonderful natural benefits foods contain. I've been having Earthsprout's Greenylicious Smoothie for breakfast, tasty salads for lunch and eating Sarah B's Life Changing Loaf of Bread in my lunches. I've been cutting out white flour and sugar as much as I can and trying to eat nuts and pulses instead of meat.

And I've lost weight. Which I know a lot of people would be happy with but I'm pretty skinny and I didn't want to and it doesn't look good. The thing about eating like this is that it reduces my appetite, but also doesn't make me feel particularly satisfied (but the thoughts of all the vitamins, minerals, omega 3s etc are very satisfying!). And it's made me remember what I knew before I got so into it - that different diets are right for different bodies.

Some people look voluptuous and healthy on a vegan diet. Some people look gaunt and awful on a vegan diet and their bodies could use some animal protein. Some people feel much better on raw food. I think I need a decent amount of cooked food and I need good amounts of CAARBS! With a decent helping of some sort of protein and fat to keep my blood sugar on an even keel. The way I feel after a big load of (gluten free) spaghetti with lentil Bolognese is amazing! I have so much energy and my brain works faster. They have the opposite effect on lots of people - a friend of mine says lots of them make him feel sleepy and lethargic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up on raw food and soaking nuts and making smoothies - I've just accepted that it can't be the only stuff I eat.

...Although I suppose if in decades to come I need to shed some pounds, I'll know what to do!

Box Rooms

A box room is one that is smaller than you'd want to spend any length of time in, but big enough that it is possible to and not be at serious risk of starting to eat your knees. It is smaller than all the other rooms, but bigger than a cupboard. They are also distinguishable from cupboards in that they have a radiator and/or a window. If your guest bedroom has no window or a radiator, the reason no-one ever comes back is because you have been putting them in a cupboard when they visited.

 

I feel sorry for box rooms because people are invariably disappointed with them. Estate agents market them as bedrooms, and so prospective buyers, excited about the three-bed property at a surprisingly low price, open its door and immediately drop their brows and say, 'Oh. It's a box room. That's a shame,' and murmur consolatory ideas about storing their hardly-ever-used gym equipment and filing cabinets in it.

 

My bedroom at university was the box room. I ended up loving it - the door couldn't open completely because of the bed, and I had to keep most of my clothes in the study across the landing, but it heated up in no time, and it was so homely with my bunting strung across the ceiling and fairy lights wrapped around the bed frame. Yes, as soon as someone poked their head round the door to speak to me it felt crowded, and yes sometimes it felt frustrating to shuffle between the bed and everything else at once, but I think there was something remedial about its pared-down-ness. It was just a space to sleep in, and maybe read a book. You couldn't be distracted by anything, you couldn't be reminded of any jobs you had to do. It couldn't be messy or you couldn't get out again until you tidied up.

 

 

My room

 

I think box rooms just need to be given more dignity. Estate agents calling them bedrooms means people will be hoping for this:

 

 

...even though they know the dimensions are 6'x7'.

 

They should be called something that whispers of their potential: 'Interest Room,' or 'Creative Space Room.' You could give it a theme that you'd never take the risk of dressing the bigger rooms in your house in - a little six foot by six foot bonkers room. You could make it into a jungle, or a mad, tasteless leopard-print boudoir with a disco ball that you've secretly always wanted but know it's terribly naff.

 

Yes, you could still keep your gym equipment in it...

 

 

Today is World Thinking Day, and this year's thought theme is reducing child mortality, as well as box rooms. It is one of the World Health Organisation's and UNICEF's targets: to reduce child mortality by two thirds from 1990 to 2015. They've seen that schemes such as those in developing countries that provide vitamin A supplementation, oral rehydration therapy and vaccinations can save millions of children's lives a year.