Tale of Two Raws

I have to say that the smoothie I made today for breakfast is an excellent one, and I wanted to share the recipe, such as it is, with you.

1 apple, 1 banana, a couple of big handfuls of spinach - almost to the top of your blender jar, 3/4 teaspoon coconut oil, 1 tablespoon of hemp seed protein powder, a huge tablespoon of raw honey, 3/4 teaspoon of any green powder - I use Pure Synergy, and finally 1/3 a lemon. I peeled the lemon because I had taken the sticker off so I didn’t know if it was organic, but I left most of the pith on. If it had been organic I would have used 1/4  of the lemon, skin and all. I put in about 8-12 ounces of purified water and let my blender do her job.

What is special is the lemon. I learned this trick from Natilia Rose with her recipe for Green Lemonade. It really makes a difference.

I also think you could make this in a regular blender, just cut up your apple into tiny chunks and add the water, or whatever liquid you choose, first. Have a Good Morning!

PS: Today, after my smoothie I went to a NIA class. It was exhausting, but I didn’t get hungry or weak…a good testament for my little recipe. I did go home and take a nap though!

When you begin to explore the raw food world, one of the first things you will see is lots of space taken up with discussions about enzymes, what they are, where you get them and how so many of them are destroyed by high heat.

Not that I’m going to be the definitive voice here, but I am going to give you the low down in bullets, and links for you if you choose to learn more.

• “Enzymes are protein-based molecules that act as biological catalysts,” says David Wolfe. “In fact, enzymes should be thought of as the necessary element in moving stagnation out of the body - whether that is in the form of excess weight, toxins, or even repetitive negative thoughts.”
• Enzymes are found in raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and help break down the foods we eat.
• According to the article, Beautifying Your Insides, from the Health Queen, the process starts in your mouth with your saliva. As you chew your food, the enzymes in your saliva begin to break down starchy carbohydrates, thus the reason for chewing your food throughly. “When we eat raw foods, we are able to take full advantage of the enzymes present in the food and our bodies are taxed less to provide additional enzymes to complete digestion. Conversely, when we eat cooked foods, enzymes are destroyed and the full burden to digest the food is placed on the body.”
• As the your meal slides down into your stomach the hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes go to work digesting what you ate into an ooze which then slips into your small intestine where the pancreatic enzymes do their thing.
• Without enough enzymes, (did I mention they decrease with age, disease and/or stress?) our bodies’ ability to digest food and absorb nutrients is greatly effected.
• Raw food is loaded with healthy vibrant enzymes ready and waiting to help your body be the best it can be.
• You may not have any digestive issues, and be grateful for that. If you do, you can take supplemental digestive enzymes and eat many fresh raw foods. You will feel a difference.

Here is a link to everything about enzymes - from their possible role in autism to leaky gut and more.

When I wrote my first post on Oil Pulling, I never thought I would get the response I’ve gotten. There are lots and lots of you out there who Oil Pull…go figure.

Well, frankly I haven’t O.P’d since I wrote the post, but I’m going to restart. My business partner Joan, faithfully swishes sesame oil around her mouth every day, but she doesn’t say much about it.

I have developed a nasty case of hand eczema. The dr says it is in part due to stress, duh. But I read on this site they say oil pulling will help cure eczema, among dozens of other things, so I’m going to start again, maybe even do it a couple of times a day. The site has good descriptive directions.

If any of you have ‘issues’ you want to fix by oil pulling, make a comment here, make a commitment to do it for, let’s  say three weeks, and check back with us every now and then and tell us how you are doing, and what is happening.

I will….

This week we are having pesto as our special. No biggie you say, all pesto is raw, but our pesto has no nuts, and tastes fabulous. I could go on about how good it is, but the reason of this post is to give you a great link I found when I was researching the nutrient content of zucchini and basil. It’s called Nutrition Data, and you probably won’t mark it as one of your favorites, but it has a lot of good stuff in it’s pages and worth a look see.

Last month I was reading Time magazine and came across The 100 Thing Challenge written by Lisa McLaughlin. Catchy title, intriguing concept - which is, according to Dave Bruno at guynameddave, by this coming November he will have paired his personal possessions to 100, and live with those 100 for a year. This picture is of his garage on Flickr. Whoa, he has some work to do!  Bunches of people are joining him and dumping their stuff willy nilly.

After I read the article, and now after visiting his first site stuckinstuff, I look around my kitchen and can’t imagine functioning with out my blender, food processor, half dozen stainless steel bowls or myriad cutting boards which I seem to collect at an alarming rate.

Doing raw food requires a certain amount of stuff, if you are going to really commit to it. I know there are some cookbooks, good ones too, (Raw Foods for Busy People by Jordan Maerin, for one) that don’t use machines or have optional recipes to use without machines.  But if you are going to embrace the lifestyle, I think (know) dehydrators, blenders and food processors make it a whole lot easier.

I can hear some of you grinding your teeth right now, chomping at the bit to bring me down. Okay, have at it.  It’s just my little ole opinion, after all. But as I was considering the 100 Thing Challenge, I got a clutching feeling in my chest thinking about storing my machines for a year. For sure we couldn’t survive at Raw Raw Foods with out them, but that I never considered.

From a philosophical view - what would I remove from my every day life? What would you do without? How much more than 100 things do I have? Gees, my supplements alone almost top off the list!! Opens your eyes, doesn’t it? How have we become such collectors of things? It just snuck up on us.

I wish Dave good luck with the plan, and thanks for the concept. I bet the folks over at Zen Habits get some visits!

In the blogging world, lists are big items. They are a way to get people to read your blog, as well as give information in a succinct form, so people can grasp the info nuggets without much struggle. I created this list to help you through the quagmire of raw food/health blogs. There are a ton more, but these I wasn’t all that familiar with and they looked interesting.

You can subscribe to them, you know, as you can subscribe to this one. What happens is every time one of us writes a post it goes into your blog reader and you can read it at your leisure. Makes it easy to not miss any posts…I mean, I just might write something that would be vital for your well being, and if you miss it you will be cast adrift for all eternity. (Yikes, where did that come from?) Anyway, if you want to subscribe look for the orange RSS box and click on it.

• Happy Foodie - pretty pictures and interesting recipies.
• The Raw & The Cooked - Hey, we can’t all be 100% raw all the time.
• The Raw Dish - a daily log of what this guy eats, amazing!
• The Renegade Health Show - all sorts of things related to health and eating raw
• Nature Moms Blog - not really about raw, but cute and informative on how to be a green family.
• The Daily Raw Cafe - she hasn’t posted since May, but as with all blogs, her links may lead you someplace cool.
• CureZone - some serious posts about being raw.
• Raw Food Right Now - podcast of David Wolfe from Hawaii, among other things

Insights: Doing the research for this post was surprisingly inspirational - reading what people had to say about their raw adventures reignited my desire to be raw.

Lately I had been whining to myself that eating raw was too hard, I didn’t have time, didn’t have the right stuff, you know that kind of litany. But I then remembered last year (before we started RRF) when I was about 80% raw and loving it. I lost weight, and had enormous amounts of energy - plus it was easy.

The thing that blew me away most by going raw was how clean the kitchen was and how easy it was to clean up after making a meal. And the house, oh, it smelled so fresh, no rancid meat or fried oil smell. I mean, come on, I can always make a salad! So I’m excited about eating again. Being excited about anything these days is good!

Epilogue: As I was listening to the David Wolfe podcast I got incredibly hungry. He was talking about Goji berries as a super food and how good they are for you. So I started popping Goji berries into my mouth like I used to eat popcorn, (with lots of butter) a handful at a time. Now I much feel better. I wanted to take a nap, was actually getting droopy eyed watching the podcast, but now I’m ready to roll.

Here is the first of what I hope to be a bunch of tantalizing recipes for you to play with.

Let me back up here.

I have a touch of hypoglycemia so if I have a standard cereal and milk breakfast with strong tea or weak coffee I get the shakes and become amazingly cranky around 10ish. Classic, eh?

When I went raw (I’m not 100%, so breathe easy) I created a breakfast for myself which is easy and really stays with me, and it’s simple. Get yourself some raw cashews and put a cup of them to soak overnight in non-tap water - that would be distilled or spring. Soaking releases the enzyme inhibitors making them easier to digest. It also makes them soft and bendable.

In the morning rinse the softened nuts in fresh water and put them into your blender. If you have some coconut milk put about a half a cup in the blender, if not use water. I add about two teaspoons of coconut oil and one tablespoon of agave or honey for sweetness. Pop the top on and blend at high speed until creamy.

I use a high speed Blend-tec blender, but I think you will be able to do this in a regular blender because the nuts are so soft. However, if things aren’t blending well, add more water or milk a little at a time until you get a smooth creamy pudding.

Pour or scoop some pudding into a bowl and add strawberries or your favorite fruit. If you want some crunch add cocoa nibs and goji berries, and if you like it sweet, like me, I put a squirt of agave on top. You can doctor it up by adding shredded unsweetened coconut, sunflower seeds, raisins or whatever you fancy.

This meal (you might have guessed) is not low-cal, but it is so nutritious and healthy for you, and you don’t need to eat a boat load to feel satisfied.

This is the home version of Raw Raw Foods Power Parfait in case the picture looks familiar. Also, as full disclosure - the links to the cocoa nibs and goji berries lead you to my old blog, aN eclectiC 9’s Store. As strange as it seems, and after hours of comparison shopping, Amazon seems to have the best prices for these items.

Try the pudding and let me know how it goes for you.

Okay, I know it’s far fetched, but I think this credit card machine has helped me grow spiritually.

How this idea occurred to me was one day I was doing my usual activities getting ready to deliver lunches to our customers. This job, on a good day requires concentration. However, on a typical, three last minute orders kind of day, I need to apply all my meager focusing skills to pack the appropriately labeled paper bags with the correct order, including toppings, dressings and cutlery.

I know I make it sound easy, but a short order cook I ain’t, and organizing a bunch of bags with the right names and the right stuff inside is daunting. But I do it and I’m getting better at it. At least I haven’t forgotten the Energy Salad toppings in a while, and that’s my ‘doing good’ criteria.

I have left the best until last, and the reason for this post, in case your mind was beginning to wander.

We accept credit cards as well as Pay Pal and cash. I have to manually process the credit cards by punching in the card numbers, expiration date etc. What happens in eight out of ten times, if I don’t focus completely on typing the numbers in I will inevitably make a mistake and the card will come up as faulted. That is, I can’t talk to Joan, nor can I listen to her should she ask me a question. I can’t even take a sip of mind stimulating coffee, I must just pay attention to what I’m doing, and if I do, I achieve success and the card goes through. If I chat or get otherwise distracted I end up having to do the whole thing all over again, and that gets old real fast.

So if we expand this little insight into the larger world out there, the implications are enormous, at least for me, the queen of doing too many things at once. Should I choose to focus on the task at hand, be it talking on the phone, and not leafing through a catalogue, or walking and listening to the birds and not music, I suspect my enjoyment would be greater and the experience richer.

In considering this, I think one of the only times I really concentrate is when I’m working on the computer, and maybe that’s why I like it so much. I am listening to The Art of Happiness at Work by the Dalai Lama (while I’m driving around delivering lunches) (how ironic) and he is talking about satisfaction right now, and how there is sometimes a problem being satisfied at work. I’m finding if I focus and concentrate on the job at hand I feel more satisfied and fulfilled, even with a menial job, than I do flitting about fussing with a bunch of things and not doing any of them well.

What about you?

Here are some photos from the event I wrote about above. I still haven’t figured out how to get the photos into the post and have them stay there. I painstakingly worked on getting the (I know you were waiting for them) composting photos into the composting post. They were there, really, and then they weren’t! Hopefully these photos will stay put so you will know what I’m talking about.

Next time I hope to have the pictures with the post plus the captions I put in so you know what you are looking at. It’s all a process over here on this end… what you are looking at is Joan the happy carerer, Tapanade pinwheels and Joan’s carved fruit, the centerpiece of the display.

You know, catering isn’t all that easy. This week we are doing an event for 40 or so people, and this is the second event I have been on the working end. When someone decides to have a party and is overwhelmed enough, or in our case, wants something unusual that no one has seen before, (sort of like those Oscar dresses the stars demand), they don’t think for a nano second about the work that goes into making the stuff they have chosen. And, I suppose they shouldn’t.

Joan (and sometimes me)  diligently try to make the whole process seem effortless from the hand holding about how many Pinwheels will satisfy how many people to the actual design of the table decorations. And then there is the schlepping. On one job we used three people with three packed to the roof cars! I know I sound kind of whiny - I shouldn’t write when I’m tired, because I really enjoy the whole process.

But if you are considering getting into the business beware, it’s not like making Aunt Emma’s famous wiener rolls and organizing the company pot luck.

Honestly? I’m writing this post because I’m stalling writing a press release, and now it’s time for bed..clever, aren’t I?