Raw Rob: Raw food, wild food & consciousness » Photography

Walk by the Rio Ebro

Rob — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:54:12 +0000

Today I walked from Tortosa to Xerta mostly along the Rio Ebro and then back along the Via Verde (green way) which is a dissused railway line which has been converted to a footpath, the roundtrip was about 30km.

Food for the day:

For breakfast I had a mix of sprouted seeds (hemp, sunflower and pumpkin) with soaked goji berries, figs and apricots

Throughout the day I had about 5 kakis, 8 satsumas, a few dates and cacao beans plus an orange and some carob pods I found along the way.

When I got back I had a custard apple and then a large salad with wild greens I picked during the walk, courgette, olives, a tomato, some fresh dulse, sprouted rye and some onion basil and olive cracker.

More photos on Flickr.

Photos from Tarragona

Rob — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:00:09 +0000

I’m currently travelling in Spain and thought I’d post some photos from my trip.

I’m in Tortosa in Tarragona Province and I was very supprised to see Booja Booja raw ice-cream for sale on an organic stall in the market. There were two organic stalls, one with fresh fruit and veg where I got some delicious cherimoyas (custard apples). The fruit here is just divine, eating lots of kakis (persimmon) at the moment. Tomatoes with lots of flavour, so different to the UK!

Edible beech nuts from Epping Forest

Rob — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:13:00 +0000

I was walking in the forest when I heard a pitter-patter sound, like the sound of water dripping from the leaves after it has rained. But it hadn’t rained recently so I stood still and watched to see what was falling. Beech nuts! I’ve seen the empty outer shells before but never the actual nuts – I think the squirrels get them if you’re not quick.

The individual nuts were falling out of the outer shells onto the ground. I picked up a nut and found that unlike most nuts it was very easy to open with my finger nails. The nut looks a bit like a pine nut, and surprisingly it also tasted a bit like a pine nut.

I’ve done a little research and found that beech nuts (also called beechmast) are high in tannins and shouldn’t be eaten in large quantities. Soaking them for 8 hours or more and then rinsing them removes some of the tannins and probably makes them easier to digest.

We opened and then soaked the ones we collected and made pesto with them, not quite as creamy as when made with pine nuts but still delicious.

Photos from Fresh Food Festival, Sweden

Rob — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:45:29 +0000

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, we went to Sweden and Lithuania with a day trip to Denmark – I’ll post photos from the rest of the trip soon, but I will start with the Fresh Food Festival, Scandinavia’s first raw food festival.

There’s only one place to start, and that’s the food – it was amazing! As you can see from the photos, it was top quality gourmet raw food – pizza, nori, flax crackers, pates, soup, etc, etc. The day started with yoga, then breakfast of a selection of fruits. Throughout the days there were a selection of talks, given in various languages with an English translation, a wild food walk and some food demos.

Apart from the food, the best part of the festival was connecting with raw fooders from a different part of the world – I know what is happening in the UK and US raw food world but I never really knew about the growing network just across the water!

The coast was about half an hours walk away and we found lots of local wild food including raspberries, red currants, various greens and a new berry for me, the June Berry (Amelanchier lamarckii), which is delicious, I’ll be on the lookout for that here in the UK. I have some photos but they are on Jolita’s camera so I will post them as soon as I can.

While I’m on the subject of festivals, don’t forget the Funky Raw Space of Love Gathering coming up very soon (15 to 18th August)…

Edible Wild Flowers – Colour and nutrition for your salad

Rob — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:25:24 +0000

Spring is here, brining with it lots of wild flowers, many of which are edible. Here is a selection I found yesterday. Click on an image to enlarge.

Hawthorn flowers are a good flower to start with, they don’t have a strong flavour. White dead nettles are another easy flower, not too strong and can be quite sweet. They are not related to stinging nettles so they won’t sting you!

Dandelion flowers can be a bit bitter and can take a bit of getting used to, but I like them now. Wild garlic (ramsons) flowers have a delicious sweet garlicky flavour while Jack by the hedge flowers have a stronger flavour – garlic and mustard with a little bitterness.

As always, take care when picking wild food and make sure you are certain about what you are eating.

Spring Flowers

Rob — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:35:03 +0000

The wild garlic (ramsons) is just coming into flower. The leaves are great in salads or made into pesto.

The flowers are delicious, they have a strong garlic flavour with a nice touch of sweetness and creaminess.

Tulips are beautiful, this is taken in Nunhead Cemetery. According to Twinkel’s article in the latest Funky Raw magazine they are edible but somehow they look too good to eat!

I don’t know what this is but it is very pretty. It’s in Peckham Rye Park.

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Nature Photos at Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery

Rob — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:08:15 +0000

Here are some photos I took about a week ago when the sun was shining. Click on any image to see the larger version.

Update and Festival Photos

Rob — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:01:24 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted, I’ve been at the Funky Raw festival and then Festival of Life. Back to my reasonably normal life now so maybe a few more posts! One of the things I love about my job is that I only sell products that I really value myself and want other people to share, so I am really excited that I am now selling Tony Wright’s book Left in the Dark and the Anastasia series by Vladimir Megre. Both are massively important in different ways (follow the links to read more about both). Tony’s book explains from a scientific view what is happening with our brains and Anastasia gives us inspiration for living in harmony with nature.

Here are a few photos from the festival, I’ll put a full album on the Funky Raw site soon, if you have any photos you want me to include, please send them over.

Beautiful face painting by Mary

Chan Yu’s Oriental Food Prep demo (assistedby Carme)

Music from Harmony by the fire

Spring is here!

Rob — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:47:02 +0000

The weather over the weekend was beautiful! I went walking and took these photos:

Spring Flowers

Rose Hips, our local superfood

Rob — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 02:57:00 +0000

Rose hips are the fruit of the rose plant. There are many different varieties but the one most often found in the wild is the Dog Rose (Rosa canina), pictured below. Rosa rugosa has larger, rounder hips. I was eating rose hips in the Autumn but I found them quite tart and the little hairs on the seeds could be a problem, but I’ve found that now is the best time to eat them. They are so much sweeter now and it seems the hairs are less of a problem. I pick the hip then kind of squeeze the seeds out without losing too much of the flesh.

Rose hips are extremly high in vitamin C in a form very useful to the body and have high levels of calcium, iron and vitamin A. They also contain selenium which can be hard to get on a raw diet.