To continue with our Summertime Raw series, we took a trip to Pittsburgh's Frick Park to enjoy the beautiful day. Before leaving, we packed another meal to show you how easy it can be to eat a raw food diet while away from home.Frick Park was wildly popular among dogs; we saw canines of all shapes and sizes -- all playful, yet calm in comparison to our lovely Julia, a rescued blue Doberman. Joogie enjoyed the outing very much because she was able to snack on cucumbers (a favorite treat), chase after a few joggers (we're teaching her that this isn't proper doggy behavior), knock the cooler out of Jim's hands when we were leaving (which broke a few of our best glass dishes), and lick the faces of a few new furry friends. We've been to many parks, but we have a feeling this is now Julia's favorite. ?

In yesterday's blog and video post, we showed you how easy it is to simply grab fresh fruits and veggies and head out the door for an outing. In that show, no refrigeration or preparation was necessary. However, we also know that many of you are new to raw foods, and perhaps eating simple chopped produce isn't so appealing for you compared to traditional foods you'd normally eat while in a park. So, today's goal is to demonstrate how simple it can be, making it easy for you to stick to a raw food lifestyle and not feel tempted by the cooked foods that may be around while you're out enjoying the summer with friends and family. So, today's video is about stepping it up to the next level.

Before leaving the house, we created some quick sandwich spreads. We also packed some whole veggies to slice and use for our sandwiches.The total time we spent preparing the spreads and packing everything was about 20 minutes. Since we processed some of the food and brought along some perishables (e.g., lettuce), we needed to bring a cooler with us for this trip. In an extra bag we brought along a cutting board, chef knives, a vegetable peeler, some blankets/throws for the ground, a few fruits, and a bottle of water. We were out the door in about 20 minutes; not bad!

While at the park, we spent another 20 minutes or so slicing the vegetables, creating our individual sandwiches, and making some miniature sandwiches to offer to others in the park. We figured that it would be difficult to find anyone to take food from a stranger, but it was worth trying because we could plant the seeds about a raw food diet even if no one was interested in sampling what we created. You'll have to watch the video to see if anyone took us up on our offer of sampling the mini-sandwiches!

?

KEY POINTS FROM THIS VIDEO:

• In this video you see how simply preparing some spreads ahead of time, you can create delicious sandwiches using vegetables that you slice at the park.
• If your cooler has a flat lid like ours, it can become a convenient table top for chopping and serving foods!
• Wrap your chef knives in a few kitchen towels, so they don't poke through a bag and possibly hurt someone (and the towels are convenient for helping to clean up).
• Make your meal fun so you don't feel like you are missing out on anything. We created cute little sandwiches that were visually appealing and fun to eat.
• It's convenient to have pre-packaged raw bread to save yourself time. Plus, they are delicious!

Note:

The Summertime Raw series will pick up again next week, after we've taken a trip to Washington, D.C., to visit some friends. What better way to show you how to pack for a raw outing than by going on a small trip and taking you along with us? We're going to require some more complex dishes to keep us from being tempted by the most delicious cooked Indian food, however! Wendi will be okay, since she's been raw longer. But, this could be a huge struggle for Jim! We'll let you know how it goes...