A few weeks ago, I made a tough decision. I decided to replace one meal a day with raw vegan foods. Eyeroll, but I wanted the health benefits. Breakfast seemed to easy — eating only fruit for breakfast is super easy. Dinner is challenging, because I’ll go get happy hour or cook. So, I chose lunch, plus I thought it would keep me from snacking poorly at work.
The premise was easy! I love Central Market’s hummus so much, I could refrain from pita chips and instead dip cucumbers, celery and carrots. Then I’d also add some fruit. At first, I’d cut up cantaloupe and apples and mix them with grapes and strawberries for a whole fruit salad. So good, but I hate meal prep… so I would just bring the hummus, veggies and an apple/orange.
But then I got SUPER bored. Don’t get me wrong — I love love love hummus, but every day made it challenging. I would eat a lot of nuts and get some dried fruit for a trail mix, but still. BORED.
Enter: Salata.
When I think of Salata, I think of how I load a large salad TO THE MAX with everything I like then I pile on the in-house made dressings, sautéed meat and, sure, let’s add some bread or soup. Not entirely healthy decisions, and definitely not raw. But after day 14 of hummus lunch, I headed for Salata.
Was it hard to skip the feta? Yes. Did I want to get the lemon vinaigrette? YASSS. Was the bread calling my name? Abso. But I did it!
Like I said, skipping the meat and cheese was rough, but I absolutely could NOT skip dressing. So, I made my salad fruity (added blueberries for the extra charge) and skipped some of the overly flavorful veggies. Then, come dressing time, I opted for oil and vinegar. I’m not the biggest fan of this salad dressing option, but it was so good with the fruit. 10/10 lunch, and now I want to go back every lunchtime.
Some days, I opt for EVEN HEALTHIER choices. Ahem, that means I do my raw vegan lunch AND hit up Salata for dinner. Usually I’m starving and I pile on everything. I’m a kid in a candy store at Salata and I really can’t make good decisions. I put everything on it. Lately, (maybe because of the extreme hunger) I’ve been more daring with my choices because I will literally eat anything.
New favorites include: Ginger Lime Vinaigrette (wowza, amazing, buying the bottle), Herb Shrimp, Tortilla Soup (add the black beans!), the Chocolate Chunk Cookies (the new recipe is YUM and is made with real butter and no artificial additives), and the Asian BBQ Chicken (PSA: All the chicken is antibiotic free now).
As you can see, Salata is putting #FreshFirst, and it’s absolutely perfect for me, whether I’m raw and vegan at high noon, or shamelessly shoveling soup/bread/chicken into my mouth under the cover of darkness.