I just made some raw(ish) chocolate pudding. It's really good, and really easy, but I probably shouldn't make it too often, since this is a recipe that I most often see recommended for vegan toddlers who just switched from nursing to regular food and aren't gaining enough weight. (It's basically mashed avocado, cocoa powder, vanilla, and maple syrup. It doesn't taste like avocado at all, just like chocolate.)

Ooh, that sounds delicious. How strong is the maple flavor?

It's not very mapley. And you can use other sweeteners, too. I was inspired by this blog post [link] and the box of frozen avocado that I bought at TJ's a few weeks ago and hadn't yet figured out what to do with. (I didn't use the fancy raw cocoa powder that she uses.)

I am totally making that the next time I buy avocados.

That blog can be interesting. They've got five kids, ranging from toddler to preteen, whose diet is entirely vegan and mostly raw. It looks like they feed the little ones tons of avocado and nuts and flax to get enough fat into them.

I thought a lot of the raw food movement was discredited, what with so many plants having natural defenses against being eaten which are only broken down by being cooked.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "raw food movement." While there are some people who eat 100% raw, I know a whole lot more people who eat "mostly raw" or something like that, with a lot of raw foods and also some cooked foods. I try to shift my diet toward more raw when I'm trying to lose weight, but I've never tried entirely raw -- two raw and one cooked meal per day, with raw snacks, is the most I've ever done, and that only lasted two weeks.

Pretty much everything I've read says that a high-raw diet is nearly impossible for little kids, especially toddlers, so I find it kind of interesting that the kids on that blog seem to be thriving on it. Their mother puts a ton of thought and planning into their food, though.

that looks very interesting. I just sent that to my BFF, whose son has cystic fibrosis and sometimes has to gain weight.

I thought a lot of the raw food movement was discredited, what with so many plants having natural defenses against being eaten which are only broken down by being cooked.

The only way the human body has of breaking down cellulose is our teeth, and they're not very efficient. Heat breaks down cell walls very efficiently, making nutrients from plants available to your body in vastly larger quantities (some are also destroyed in the process, but it's a net gain).

(I also really wish I hadn't read the comments on the vegan breakfast entry, because now I know she's an anti-vaxxer. Ick.)

(I also really wish I hadn't read the comments on the vegan breakfast entry, because now I know she's an anti-vaxxer. Ick.)

Ugh. I knew from a post a few years ago that they tried to expose their kids to chicken pox so that they wouldn't need to get the vaccine, but the phrasing on that one seemed more like, "We'll try this first, and if it doesn't work, we'll get the vaccine."

Raw food recipes can be fun to play around with, especially in the summer when there's lots of good fresh produce and it's too hot to cook.