Chew Your Liquids and Drink Your Food

One of the first days at HHI I learned the phrase, "chew your liquids and drink your food."
I have slowly grown into this practice. 
If you're like me, I eat too fast and don't really fully chew all my food before swallowing.  It seems like eating is about the initial yummy taste and then getting it into the stomach so I feel full.
But, I have been really working on taking this tenant to heart and slowing down to chew my food.  According to the HHI program manual, raw food consists of 75-80% water.  And, you will find, if you try, that when you really start chewing sprouts and vegetables, they become quite "liquidy." 
All that chewing takes time though!  It takes me about 30 to 40 minutes to eat and that does not include socializing with anyone!  I imagine my jaw is going to be pretty darn strong by the time 3 weeks is up.  I'm a little nervous that this new strong jaw might break a tooth the next time I'm stressed and clenching my teeth at night...  Let's hope this new living foods lifestyle allows me to handle stress better and avoid night-time teeth clenching!  only time will tell....
Another useful technique for really being able to fully chew sprouts is to cut them up into smaller pieces.  This makes the whole experience of eating sprouts a lot more pleasant and a lot easier!
However, cutting sprouts is no easy task!  It took me until yesterday (Day 6) to figure out how to cut the darn things efficiently without simply sliding them all over the plate!  It's more difficult than you would think!
So, in this post I've put two photos, top is tonight's meal (including cooked food, pea soup, tonight) un-cut; and, bottom photo is sprouts cut up and mixed together.  Same seven sprouts as usual :)

oh, and looking at these photos reminds me something I forgot to mention in previous blog...
That clump of red on the plate is raw, no vinegar, sauerkraut!  For good digestion, HHI recommends eating a spoonful or two of sauerkraut before eating the rest of the meal.  So, this red stuff is on every plate (at least every plate of mine, I can't account for anyone else).