If you are just budding into the raw food scene (or maybe you’re a seasoned veteran!) but you aren’t quite sure what should top your “wish list” for this holiday season, then this is a good place to start. OR .. maybe you know a budding raw foodie and you want to help them launch their path to certain health, then this list is a perfect guide for essential and affordable raw food equipment.
These gifts are on the more affordable range and make my life as a raw foodie much easier. I use these on the daily–and I’m not exaggerating–and my life would be a little bit more tedious without them. My top 3 greatest kitchen investments (from this list) to date are my Wusthof knife, which I use every single time I’m in the kitchen, my mini chopper, to make single serving dressings and sauces, and my nut mylk bag for nut mylks, juices, sprouting, and more!
- Acacia Bowl. This is a beauty and is such a treasured item in the raw food kitchen. It glams up salads and makes mealtime such a special treat. Plus, it’s a salad bowl that is actually big enough for raw foodie status salads.
- Electric Citrus Juicer. I cannot even being to tell you how dedicated raw foodies are to “pure” orange juice. For the first three years of my raw food life I had a manual citrus juicer that made juicing oranges such a chore. I recently invested in one of these guys and I’m never looking back.
- Spiral Slicer. My latest kitchen gadget is now one of my favorites. I can easily dress up any salad, or make an entire noodle dish, quickly and easily.
- Wusthof Knife. My life would not be complete without this knife. It is by far my greatest investment–even moreso than my Vitamix–and I love it. It will rock your world, or whomever it ends up with.
- Citrus Press. Many of the raw food dressings call for just a squeeze of lemon juice and this makes it easier to get the juice out quickly and efficiently.
- Mini Food Chopper. I use this almost every single day, even twice a day, to make dressings for my salads. It’s nice because it blends the ingredients but is easy to scrape everything out and easy to clean. I love my Vitamix but for small batches of mixes I prefer this gadget.
- Bamboo Cutting Board. Nothing says “eco-glam” quite like a bamboo cutting board.
- Cuppow Wide Mouth Jar Lid. I cannot even remember my life before my Cuppow products. Juice has become even more of a staple now that I have these lids in my life, making juice-on-the-go an everyday possibility.
- Nut Mylk Bag. I love my fancy juicer but I actually love this bag more. I blend my juice ingredients and strain them through the bag to produce a high quality juice. It’s extremely affordable and is a better investment than an actual juicer (in my opinion).
- Raw Food Essentials. If I had to recommend just one book to launch a raw food lifestyle then this would be the one. Most of my basic understanding has come from Ani Phyo’s RFE.
**disclosure: if you purchase anything I link to you via Amazon I make a small percentage out of it at no cost to you! So cool for me, so cool for you!
Citrus pressers are definitely useful in making dressing, however if you need to make a big amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice, then a juicer is a must. You can find affordable juicers here http://topproducts.com/reviews/best-juicer.htm where I bought mine.