For many people the lavish, over laden tables available at the hotel’s Iftars and Suhoors during Ramadan defeats the purpose of fasting: offering plenty of feasting, the hotel’s glitzy interiors and carefully crafted ambience are also a far cry away from what it’s like to lead a simple, humble life.

Following a raw diet, or at least incorporating more raw meals during Ramadan enables you to focus on utilizing what nature’s given us. You really have to think about what you can do with the ingredients you have: how to make them interesting, tasty and keep things easy to prepare. It also gives your body a chance to take a break from processed foods and artificial preservatives, which can only be a good thing, right?

It’s by no means is an easy task, which does deter a lot of people from committing to a full-on raw fast. However, you could make things easier for yourself and pledge to making every Iftar raw, or commit to devoting 8 days (2 days a week) to a raw menu.

So where can you look for inspiration?

Kitchens without borders

First up is a local blog that features some nice ideas such as Carrot and Walnut Amazeballs, Orange and Date salad, Banana Ice Cream (with no other ingredients other than bananas) and some smoothie recipes. Most of the recipes look very easy to follow, so it should inspire you to not only follow these but also use them as a basis to create your own.

https://kitchenswithoutborders.wordpress.com

Shaima Al Tamimi

Another local blogger, Shaima splits her time between Qatar and the UAE and shares interesting recipes and beautiful photographs that will make you want to recreate some of the raw recipes given on her blog – I’m definitely doing to give the Kale Tabbouleh a whirl.

http://www.shaimaaltamimi.com

Raw Ramadan

Focused on healthy, balanced recipes that can help you restore your wellbeing this blog shares, fast, holistic and raw recipes that can be easily incorporated into your life. There are a lot of interesting meals such as raw buckwheat porridge, gazpacho soup, and raw berry peachy pie. It’s also a good source of information to help you find healthier alternatives. For instance you could swap your regular coffee for an invigorating turmeric latte.

https://rawramadan.com

Raw Guru

This website doesn’t have anything to do with Ramadan. It just offers up a comprehensive list of recipes that you can tap into should you need some new ideas to bring to the table. It’s not a particularly pretty website, but what it does have is bags of recipes. There are 335 entrées and main dishes, 159 salads and numerous other recipes for soups, smoothies, desserts and dressings. So, now you don’t have the excuse of raw eating is ‘limited’ or ‘boring’.

http://www.rawguru.com/raw-food-recipes/

We’d love to hear from those of you who are going to try the raw food diet this Ramadan: if you have advice, tips and recipes to share with others, please get in touch.

Main image taken from Rawramadan.com

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