Whitfield - Annelies raw food power: supercharged recipes from a jungle diary

RAW FOOD POWER

Supercharged recipes from a jungle diary

Annelie Whitfield

First published in the UK in 2013 by

Ivy Press

210 High Street

Lewes

East Sussex BN7 2NS

United Kingdom

www.ivypress.co.uk

Text and recipes copyright 2013 Annelie Whitfield

Design and layout copyright 2013 Ivy Press Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage-and-retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78240-037-0

This book was conceived, designed, and produced by

Ivy Press

Creative Director Peter Bridgewater

Publisher Susan Kelly

Art Director Wayne Blades

Senior Editor Jayne Ansell

Design, Art Direction & Styling Simon Daley

Jungle Photographer Jennifer Harter

Food Photographer Ian Garlick

Home Economist Lorna Brash

Colour origination by Ivy Press Reprographics

Distributed worldwide (except North America) by Thames & Hudson Ltd., 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX, United Kingdom

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

While the publisher and author have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate and presented in good faith, no warranty is provided nor results guaranteed. The publishers and author exclude liability to the fullest extent of the law for any consequences resulting from reliance upon the information contained herein. Readers should always consult a qualified medical practitioner or therapist before undertaking a new diet or health programme.

Of all the gifts I received in my life, the most important was my childhood. I was always out and about, eating wild foods and loving the freedom of growing up on a farm. My early years were spent mostly barefoot and, today, Im delighted to be able to gift my children the grounded, barefoot magic of living close to nature.

When I was four I decided that I was going to become a stunt girl and from the age of 23 I found myself doubling for the likes of Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz. I spent seven years jumping off bridges, being beaten up and set on fire and crashing cars. It was a wonderful but brief career, full of excitement, travel, fun and a fair amount of fear. However, deep down I always knew that one day I would be spending more time in nature, and Id be doing something more likely to nurture my health than threaten it!

My turning time point came four years down the line when I had a serious car crash while working, which left me burnt, battered and somewhat disillusioned. This, of course, was a blessing in disguise and the shake up I needed to start me on a different journey. I spent almost a year healing, choosing natural alternatives to conventional medicine where possible, as it felt so instinctively wrong to be mummified in casts and be applying strong pharmaceutical creams. This year was a time of huge learning, which left me both humbled and in awe of the power of herbs, living foods, plant spirits, bone-mending monks, homeopathy, Chinese medicine and much, much more.

I am now a qualified naturopath and herbalist and have spent the last eight years running clinics, TV presenting on health, and travelling the world in search of powerful natural remedies and recipes.

I am not exactly sure why, but I have always had a deep-seated pull towards the jungle, which has intensified as Ive travelled. I have spent many years reading about jungle medicine and am fascinated by peoples journeys into the jungles of the world; books such as Jungle Medicine by Connie Grauds and The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs by Leslie Taylor Square inspire me.

Then, one day, came the realization that my inspirations were more voyeurism I wasnt living those experiences. How had it come to pass that the nature girl I so cherished inside had become part of the furniture in Londons urban jungle? In a remarkably casual conversation given the gravitas of what we were discussing, my husband Jamie and I decided that same night to completely change our lives. We wanted to remove our little girls from the big city into a more natural living environment, learn a new language, experience a completely different culture and no longer be in a nine-to-five existence. After a few months of plotting and planning, selling our house and putting over ten years of London life into storage, we went to live in the Costa Rican jungle. It was many things, from sheer blissfulness to borderline hell, but it was always highly stimulating.

The journey taught me so much, not just about how incredible it is to experience living such a different life, but also about my family. I feel like I have got to know each one of them so much better, and I now understand how such an experience can strengthen ideas about how you want to live your life. It also taught me something that I always knew, but hadnt yet properly experienced, and that is the power of the natural world. Living so close to nature was at times intimidating and a real challenge, but also incredibly energizing.

As a health practitioner I have spent many years learning from courses, books and seminars; but from living in the jungle I have changed some of my previous ideas about diet and lifestyle, and I now feel that I know how I really want to live, what I want to eat, and most importantly, how to nurture my children. I have no doubt in my mind that taking my kids out of the urban jungle and into the real one has been truly amazing for their little spirits; nourishing and supporting them while they rise to the challenges of life.

I wrote this book to share my experiences of the transition we have made, the recipes and remedies I have used along the way, and the herbal, nutritional and lifestyle knowledge that I have learnt during this time. I am deeply passionate about feeling alive and creative, and hope I can inspire you to also feel this way by making the best choices for your mind and body, wherever you live.

Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you would never know who would love the person you hide. Unknown

I have always gravitated towards healthy food, and eating fresh, wild, seasonal food has been a deep-seated passion for many years. Before I became a fan of raw foods I had spent many years experimenting with vegetarianism and veganism, supplementing with an array of nutrient-rich foods and herbs and experiencing the importance of 100 per cent organic. However, the transition to raw happened when I experienced that inevitable exhaustion from having my first baby. The endless nights breastfeeding and dealing with a challenging child drained all my resources, so, after chatting to a raw foodie friend who claimed to need only four hours sleep a night due to his high raw diet I thought Thats it, Im going ALL raw.