Salad Days

Papaya and Spinach

Heaps of green with vibrant color from fresh fruits and vegetables makes for a wonderful lunch or dinner salad. With a spirit of adventure, I've been enjoying a myriad of flavors and textures in my salad bowl by randomly choosing a wide variety of fresh, raw food.

Ten Ingredients In A Bowl

What are all those dark flecks? Sea Seasonings! Most of us have grown accustomed to a salty flavoring on our food. Seaweeds provide both the iodine we need and the salty taste we desire, without much sodium. Sprinkle on the nutritional benefits of sea vegetables, skip the table salt and enjoy another layer of flavor.

This is a tasty blend of organic dulse, laver and sea lettuce, harvested from the ocean off the coast of Maine. Read more about these sea vegetables and the folks who bring this great product to you.

Okay, so what's in those salads? The top one is a great bowl filled with green leaf lettuce, baby spinach, papaya, vidalia onions, cucumber, red bell pepper, raisins, sunflower seeds, and snack sprouts. It's dressed with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a splash of apple cider vinegar.

The bottom salad contains, green leaf lettuce, broccoli, fresh basil leaves, cuke, sweet onion, avocado, mango, peppadew peppers*, sunflower seeds and a generous sprinkling of the Maine Coast Triple Blend Flakes described above. There is no dressing on this salad except for the juice that I could wring out from the flesh surrounding the mango pit. Allowing the salad to sit and wilt a bit, provided a nice juicy meal without added dressing. A light dressing with a citrus note would be a lovely addition, though.

* I cheated. The Peppadews are not fresh, they're processed with sugar and vinegar, and came in a jar! But there's flexibility in the raw food lifestyle — certainly in my version of it!

Till next time . . . To Eat Well, Eat Raw!