If you are reading the title and thinking a raw breakfast means cereal with milk, and a healthy raw breakfast is the same but with fresh fruit added, think again. Or rather listen up, and I will whisper some well kept raw food breakfast secrets.

Firstly, the main benefit to making the first meal of the day raw is that you are continuing the digesting, cleansing and rebuilding process that your body goes through nightly. By giving it easily digestible nutrients at the start of the day, you are setting yourself up for enough genuine energy to last you until about 2 p.m. or maybe longer. By “genuine energy” I mean that energy which is generated from your body being nourished, not the fake energy caffeine or sugar provide.

Standard cereal is not raw, it is processed. Standard oats are not raw, as even the healthiest brands have likely been heat milled. So even if you are eating bircher muesli and using “raw” oats, it is not raw! Raw oats come as groats or whole grains. Thus, many packaged mueslis are as near to the original version as frosted flakes are.

If, like me, you can bypass breakfast without hunger pangs, you will (like me) have to train yourself to eat at a time when you are not particularly hungry. This is not going against the eat–when–you-are-hungry rule. It is schooling your appetite to healthier ways.

You need not eat much, but it is imperative to stop the cravings kicking in later, when it is tempting to fool yourself with the thinking that as you missed breakfast, you can chomp on a chocolate bar or bagel. Technically, if they are completely raw, you can indeed. That is the secret! Change so-called normal foodstuffs for their raw counterparts, and you can have your cake, eat it, and not get muffin tops.

So a few raw food breakfast suggestions follow below. Obviously, the easiest by far regarding the time making it and the time consuming it, is the smoothie. And you can have half at home and half at work for the mid-morning snack.

Breakfast with Me – a Basic Green Smoothie

Blend together:
2 large handfuls of baby spinach
2 large bananas
½ teaspoon cinnamon
A little water
You can add anything to this from the list below, either whizzed up with it or sprinkled on top:
Goji berries
Raw cacao nibs
Coconut oil
Maca
Bee Pollen

Cinnamon prevents the sugar rush from the fruit hitting your body all at once. It should always be eaten when you’re eating fruit. Get creative. It is great sprinkled on watermelon with some grated ginger root, for instance.

Breakfast with Raw Chef Russell James – Chia Seed Pudding

Russell has conjured up several breakfast favourites, chia seed pudding being one of his most loved items. I have been eating chia since it was called “salba” back in 2003. It is very versatile, packed with goodness, and particularly high in protein – for those of you trying to steer away from carbs.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of your favourite nut or seed milk
• 1/4 cup dry chia seeds
• 1/4 cup of your favourite dried fruit
• 1 tablespoon cacao nibs
• 2 tablespoons lucuma powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon “pumpkin pie spice mix”
• Pinch Himalayan salt
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 large pomegranate
• Stevia

Method:

• Combine 2 cups of the milk with the chia seeds in a bowl.
• Stir for 30 seconds so the chia seeds don’t clump together.
• Add the dried fruit, cacao nibs, lucuma, vanilla powder, maple syrup, stevia, spice mix, salt and lemon juice.
• Stir and leave to thicken for 10 minutes.
• Top with a little extra milk, then remove the seeds from the pomegranate and top the porridge with a good amount of them, following up with some more dried fruit and cacao nibs.

FYI, lucuma is lush! It tastes like vanilla ice cream and contains 14 essential trace minerals, bioflavonoids, fibre, and a few vitamins to boot.

Breakfast with Mimi Kirk, Author of “Live Raw” – Fruity Mush

Ingredients:

2 apples, cored
3 tablespoons almond butter
1 banana
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Fresh berries / figs / pomegranate seeds
Method:

All the ingredients (but the berries) go in a food processor to be chopped, not pureed.

I have never had a processor in my life (seems like cheating to me), so I grate the apple, knife chop the banana, and mix the almond butter and lemon juice together with a tiny bit of water so it is a bit runny. Then I combine all the ingredients very gently.

You can then top with shelled hemp seeds, cacao nibs or bee pollen instead of the fruits mentioned.

Chocolate for breakfast is GOOD?

Well, this is going to make me your new best friend, isn’t it? Yes it is, BUT it must be RAW. And even within the raw chocolate realm there is a hierarchy of goodness and nutrition.

Raw chocolate or cacao – as it generally referred to – contains several minerals, magnesium being a well known one, flavonoids, which are antioxidants, most of the Vitamin B group, Vitamin E, and an essential fatty acid. Needless to say, any “normal” chocolate, despite being touted as healthy, is not. So here’s the hierarchy:

1. Raw cacao nibs are the most beneficial.
2. Raw (unroasted) cacao powder is next.
3.  An organic dark chocolate bar with the highest % of cacao.

Note: some high street shops sell items with 100% cacao content, but it is NOT necessarily raw. Check the label for roasted beans!

It is quite difficult to over-eat raw chocolate, as it is so intense and nutritious. It is empty foods that leave us begging for more and more. And of course, the added chemicals the processed food industry uses to create these cravings.

So breakfast like a king or queen. Treat your body to some royal ingredients, and go through your day bathed in a halo of goodness.

Anything you’d like to say or ask? Please use the comments section below.