Hi friends! First of all, I want to say a huge thank you for all your sweet messages and comments on Marlowe’s big news. You guys are always so incredibly kind. We all really appreciate it. We’re so thrilled for her– but you guys know this 🙂 Another big topic around here, outside of her school has been diet. I obviously share what Marlowe eats often, but I know a lot of you guys have been wanting to see more of a start to finish post on what we eat throughout the day– not just random meals here and there. And I totally get that. It’s hard to really get an idea of what our daily meals look like when you’re seeing random lunches or dinners or whatever.

I warn you, it’s nothing fancy. When people message me about food advice on going vegan or fruitarian, my biggest advice is to stop over-thinking it. It really doesn’t have to be complex– and I think you guys will see that in this post. We keep it incredibly simple, fresh, clean, and delicious– and we’ve calculated it all and get more than what we need (per daily value intake recommendations). Food doesn’t have to be complicated– just eat real food from the earth, as close to nature as possible. A good rule is that we live by is that if you can’t eat it raw, then maybe you should question if you should eat it at all. I’m not saying you should avoid all things that are not raw (I mean, that would be great, but it can feel a bit restricting I’m sure), but just try to stick to as many natural and raw fresh foods as you can 🙂

I mentioned it in this post about Marlowe’s diet, but I think one of the best things we did for her health (and all our health really) was cutting back on grains + gluten + adding more fresh food in her (our) diet. I can’t tell you the last time she got sick since we did that. Gosh, and I can’t tell you the last time I had a cold or flu or anything– okay, I had ONE morning where I woke up with a strange throat thing in the last four years. (Probably celiac/gluten related anyway). I mean, I obviously have my health issues, but those are things leftover from my illness four years ago, never mucus-y germ immune system problems.

Anyway, this post isn’t about advice. It’s just a post on what we eat in a day. I’m actually hoping to put together a post soon answering the fruitarian questions I missed the other day on Instagram— as well as elaborating more on the questions I already answered in my stories– and sharing more about the nutrient intake we get through this diet (gosh, it’s high!)  So if you do have more questions about fruitarianism, veganism, whatever things in that realm, feel free to ask 🙂 Anyway… let’s go…

What we eat in a day as a vegan (mostly fruitarian) family:

Usually, in the morning Marlowe wakes up and grabs whatever no-cutting handheld fruit she can find. This can be a range of different fruit– like blueberries, strawberries, apples, bananas, or in recent weeks, loads of mandarins. It really depends on what’s in season. She typically eats all the fruits she wants until one of us wakes up and makes her banana ice cream.

It is not uncommon for her to eat two pints of blueberries or anywhere from 6 – 12 mandarins. In the case of this particular morning– it was this entire bowl of mandarins (they have been SO good lately!). Oh, and it’s a strict rule that she must wake up and have a giant glass of water in the morning. We all dehydrate as we sleep so starting your day with water is always a good idea.

Lately, I’ve been starting my morning with a big ole’ fruit juice. I used to start my morning with green juices (very little fruit) but recently I’ve been embracing the fruitier juices. This is a giant cucumber, pineapple, some romaine (i think– I don’t completely remember now), turmeric, ginger, mint, lime, and aloe juice. I’ve been making some variation of this every morning. Sometimes instead of pineapple, I do apples or oranges. But this morning we chopped open a pineapple so I juiced the core and some of the fruit for my morning juice 🙂

Alex typically skips breakfast (he actually eats far less than I do), but sometimes I hand him a juice anyway.


As I mentioned, Marlowe’s typical (second) breakfast of choice is banana ice cream, but this morning we chopped up a bunch of fruit to bring to the beach.

Breakfast:

I ate: 1 whole pineapple.

Marlowe ate: more mandarins + a banana.

Alex ate some strawberries + maybe a banana too.

For the past week or so straight Marlowe has been having veggie spring rolls for lunch. She is OBSESSED. And I’m not complaining cause they’re loaded with tons of raw veggies and greens. I was going to add a picture, but I didn’t want to confuse the post and make it seem like she ate those as well– makes sense, right?

Lunch:

We all had acai bowls on the patio after the beach. Alex always loads his up with peanut butter and granola (not pictured). Marlowe typically keeps it to one ingredient topping– on this day she has grain free granola on top (it’s basically just a ton of nuts + seeds with honey) and Alex threw a bunch of stuff on mine (bee pollen, coconut, kiwi, and a banana). Still one of my favorite meals.

I didn’t watch everything Marlowe ate from this time till dinner. But I’m sure she probably snacked on more fruit in between.

Dinner:

Well, to be honest, I have no idea what Alex ate. I just assume he mostly eats piles of rice and some veggies at dinner, but I really don’t know. It used to bum me out that we always ate dinner without Alex. But now I don’t mind so much because I don’t have to put as much salt in the food when I just cook for M and I 😉 Marlowe had been asking for roasted eggplant tomato pasta for a while– and well, how do you say no to a kid asking to eat eggplant? Haha. You don’t. It’s not something we make often around here, but we both really love it. I feel like I should start making it weekly. Maybe we will. Ps. In the recipe we use olive oil– but we don’t use oils anymore. Also, we don’t have sherry vinegar, so I didn’t use it. It’s good without it, but definitely really great with it!

It’s super simple and comforting. The only difference between Marlowe and my meal is that I made zucchini noodles for mine and Marlowe had brown rice pasta for hers. And I like fresh basil on top, but she usually skips the extra basil. I really like the brown rice pasta– but I’ve been feeling really good being more and more grain free. I had rice noodles last night and just felt like I had this wave of exhaustion hit me after. I’m not going to be completely grain free– but I’d like to continue being grain free most of the time 🙂

Pro tip: Interested in having zucchini noodles? Don’t waste your money buying the pre-noodled ones at the store (such a rip off!). Buy a spiralizer machine, they are about 25$ and it’s SO easy to make them at home. You can eat them raw or cooked– but I do prefer mine lightly cooked to be a softer texture. I reallyyyy dislike the raw crunchy texture. 
Again, this isn’t what we eat EVERY day– it def changes from day to day depending on our mood or what we’re doing with ourselves. I’d say a lot of days consist of more greens and veg, but not this day. But either way, this is a general idea of what goes in our bellies from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed.

I know this fruitarian diet isn’t for everyone– and I get it. I honestly hardly ate fruit until I made the switch– but I would recommend this diet to anyone and everyone. It’s so nutrient dense, easy, delicious, easily digestible, anti-inflammatory, sustainable for the earth, and so much more. I truly can’t praise this diet and the way it’s improved my health and my families health too. Tricky at times with social situations, but oh so worth it 😉

Anyway, I have another What Marlowe Eats post lined up– but if you guys like these posts more, I can’t try to do more of these. I get that these are very similar, but very different too 🙂

Hope you guys are well– and that whatever you’re putting in your bodies makes you feel alive, healthy, and happy too 🙂 Cheers friends! Happy new week!

 

6 Comments

  1. I love posts like these! I’m really wanting a spiralizer now!! My 2 year old and I are HUGE fruit eaters. Fruit all day, everyday. I’m really interested in cutting out more grains though. We don’t eat a *ton* by any means, but just cutting back I think would be really beneficial.

    I’m also interested in focusing on my gut health. I got a case of strep throat last August that took 6 WEEKS (3 rounds) of antibiotics to resolve and I have never been more sick over the past year in my entire life. It’s been one thing after another. I did not have cdiff, but I’ve had more colds, infections, allergies, “food poisoning” episodes since taking those antibiotics. I’m 31 and I’ve had maybe 5 antibiotics in my entire life, 3 of those just over the past year. Have you found the more fruit has helped restore gut, as opposed to other dietary changed you’ve made?

  2. Dear Drea! I’ve only recently found your blog because I was researching Clostridium difficile. My Grandma, who is quite old and quite sick, is in hospital right now, we are visiting her every day, and after surgery, she got infected by this bacterium. We live in Europe (sorry for my English, not my mother tongue) and conditions are not the best in hospitals. I would like to ask you, that what precautions did you do in order to avoid Alex and Marlowe to get infected as well? I couldn’t find it on your FAQ section, but maybe I wasn’t thorough enough. I read that spores can transfer very easily even via hand contact and can survive for a very, very long time on surfaces. Did you have any special methods of cleaning in your home? To be honest, after having read some very troubling personal dealings with Cdiff, I’m quite worried. My sibling has IBS, has a lot of problem with her stomach already. Thank you

  3. Amazing! I think because summer is finally here, I will be switching to more of a fruitarian diet too. I really wish to detox and pack my cells with nutrients. Thanks for the post! Love seeing how you respect your bodies. 😉

  4. I like these kind of posts, thank you for putting it together . Sometimes I think I repeat meals or ingredients too much, so it’s nice knowing that other people do this, too. I’d like to eat fruit as a meal more often, but struggle in cold weather (heading into winter here) so have been eating cooked fruit with my breakfast. It’s probably not as healthy, but it keeps the fruit love alive until my favourites reappear in summer!

  5. I like these posts in addition to the What Marlowe Eats posts!

    • woo! They’re fun and easy. I think I’m going to try to add them in more regularly. but maybe next week when Marlowe is finally sick of spring rolls haha.