Let’s Get Playin’ In the Kitchen!
Remember when you were a kid and playing in the kitchen was a blast? Many of us had fake plastic foods and toy ovens. Sometimes Mom or Dad would have us help out when making a special treat and around the holidays? Time spent in the kitchen was fun and full of wonder… let’s keep that goin’!
If like me, you’ve decided to take charge of what you’re eating (whether we’re talking raw foods, whole foods or healthier cooked options) you may find yourself spending more time in the kitchen as you’re working with the raw ingredients to create dishes that are not only healthy, but freakin’ delicious! Now I’m a hardcore foodie and love goofing off in the kitchen, but I know that most people aren’t as fond of the kitchen as I am so let’s take a look at some ways we can make our time in the kitchen more enjoyable!
First thing we can do is to pimp out our lil’ culinary creation stations! Best way to start is to do some de-cluttering. I like to empty out the kitchen drawers, cabinets and closet so I can see what I got to work with! You may find you have ten of the same wooden spatula or enough pots and pans to cover five stove tops. In this case gather up your essentials and favorites and donate the rest to your local goodwill! My rule of thumb is if I haven’t used the item in the last five months…its fair game for giving away! Now we got some breathing room and we know where everything is so putting together our favorite recipes is going to be a lot easier and more fun!
Let’s bring in some things that really make the kitchen our own. Artwork and photos of things that inspire us, scenes of nature, colorful abstracts or breathtaking pictures of people doing things we’re working towards are great reminders of why we are so passionate about being healthy! I also like to have a centerpiece of beautiful produce that doesn’t require refrigeration and have fresh flowers around whenever possible! Set yourself up with a warm friendly atmosphere and you’ll find your kitchen a more inviting place to not only whip up tasty eats, but to chill in and enjoy them!
Owl City.. one of my fave bands to groove to in and out of the kitchen!
Another thing that can’t be overestimated is the power of music! Listening to music carries me through even the most tedious of kitchen tasks… like dishes! Whatever you love rock it out! I feel a boom box is an essential piece of kitchen equipment, but if your neighbors disapprove, an mp3 player loaded with your favorite stuff can be a great alternative! Speaking of mp3’s there are so many amazing educational podcasts and audio learning programs available out there that you can be learning more about healthy living, raw foods, meditation or even a new language all while goofing off making food! And in the name of really goofing off don’t forget comedy albums. George Carlin, Eddie Izzard and Tommy Tiernan are some of my favorite comedians. Nothing makes any job go faster than some good laughs!
Let’s all get rockin’ in our kitchens and take away that stigma of the kitchen being a place of work and start transforming them into our own lil’ creative culinary art studios and alchemical nutrition laboratories where we concoct delicious, artful and ridiculously healthy eats for ourselves and our loved ones!
Keep playin’ in your kitchen my friends! ~ Rory :0)
New E-Book!! ‘Sweet Support’ Is Ready!
Hello friends! Today I’m unleashing a new ebook! Sweet Support! This nifty little e-book has four simple yet delicious raw recipes that focus on using whole foods as the sweeteners! I’ve always been into using fruit and vegetable based sweeteners (along with raw honey because of it’s amazing health giving properties!) to add, not only that sweet goodness, but more healthy goodness to my raw creations… not to mention they’re usually a lot less expensive than some of the concentrated sweeteners that are out there!
Sweet Support is 25 pages full of step-by-step photos, tricks, tips and recipe ideas, as well as a bit on using whole food based sweeteners in various raw recipes including desserts, drinks and dinners. My favorite thing about this ebook is that all the proceeds go to supporting Amanda’s Live My Life NOW Trek, which is inspiring so many to stop waiting and do what you’ve always wanted to do! Click here to get your copy!
Check it out and thanks for following our journey! Peace~ Rory :0)
No-Mess Massaged Kale Salad
Helloooooo there! Do you love kale? Well even if you don’t this salad may just change your mind…it sure impressed Isabel, who is not a fan of salad, let alone kale!
When we began our trek I did a shout out to my friends at Raw Fu who are participating in my Geeked Fu Challenge. I asked them “How do you travel raw” (I swear I wasn’t eliciting stories of indecent exposure on the motorway!) and they had some awesome tips and tricks for rockin’ raw eats while on the go! Angie’s kale salad recipe sounded really good and easy so we gave it a shot while hanging out at Mount Hood in Oregon.
No-Mess Massaged Kale Salad ~ Super easy, tasty and mess free…perfect raw road food! Let’s get started!
Large zip close bag (gallon size)
1-2 Heads of kale
1 Large avocado
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of onion granules (or powder)
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
Pinch of cayenne (or more if you like it hot, hot hot!)
Tear kale leaves from the stems and rip into bite size pieces tossing them in the bag as you go. Cut the avo in half, pop out the pit, and squish out of the skin directly into the bag. Juice the lemon into the bag, using your hand or other straining device to catch the seeds. Sprinkle in salt and spices. Now Squish!! Once the salad appears evenly coated and massaged to your liking it’s ready!
The salad was so tasty that Isabel rated it up there with my vitamix made ice creams! So if likening a salad to a dessert is any indicator of awesomeness…this salad is BOMB! Enjoy my friends and eat more kale!! :0)
Foods that make gettin’ raw easy-peasy!
Hey everyone! Back again with another round of transitioning tips!
Whether you’re going for high raw, all raw or just adding more raw eats to your menu, there are some specific raw foods that can help support your digestive system as it relearns how to assimilate all the awesome fiberrific eats you are giving it!
1- Oranges…well not just oranges, but all citrus fruit. I’m focusing on oranges because they played a vital role in my transition that I didn’t even realize. As I began to do more and more green smoothies I found myself with a new found love of salads. And as I got my salad munching on I started craving oranges. After I would chow down on my salad I’d find myself eating several oranges, somtimes up to six a day! Now I like citrus as much as the next raw foodie, but this infatuation with oranges was a new thing for me. Slowly and unaounced though, oranges fell off my craving’s radar and I’d eat them sporadically. I didn’t think much of it until a couple months later I picked up a copy of The Sunfood Diet Success System and David Wolfe was reccomending an orange after your salad to supplement your digestive acids. My body was subconsciously guiding me to do just that! You can do the same thing and use orange, lime, lemon or grapefruit juice on your salad or in your salad dressing blend to boost your digestive power and add more vitamin c, antioxidants and phytonutrients to your already awesome salad!
2- Celery Juice! Celery juice is some amazing stuff! It’s loaded with chlorophyl, alkalyzing minerals and sodium. Not the kind of sodium we want to avoid, we’re talking the good stuff! The sodium found in celery can be used by our body in the formation of digestive acids. Many people having digestive acids may just be lacking in these beneficial salts!
3- Papaya and Pineapple. These two awesome fruits are getting paired togther here because they both contain some serious digestion boosting enzymatic power! Papaya’s enzyme content is so high that it is often used in natural cleaning products to “eat up” organically based stains! Papaya can be eaten fresh, juiced, or smoothied and also can be purchased as a chewable supplement. The chewable supplements are awesome to carry with you for those times you eat something that you need a lil’ help breaking down! Pineapple also contains a powerful digestive enzyme known as bromelain, the bulk of it is in the core of the pineapple, which can be juiced or blended into smoothies. Bromelain can also usually be found in papaya supplements. These two make an awesome team and while fresh is best, I also found the supplements helpful during my transition, and when I do some bad food combining! I recommend giving them a shot during your transition, and they’ll help you when you do eat something cooked, particualarly something that could cause gas. They’ve saved my modesty many a time back in my high bean vegetarian days!
Happy, healthy, and fun transitions to wherever you are steering your diet! :0)
Prep techniques that ease your raw transition!
Hey everyone! Back again with more strategies for making your raw transition easy, comfortable and fun!
If you’ve read my article about Enzymes and my page on Why Raw, then you know that one of the most awesome benefits about raw foods is that they ease the burden on our digestive system and our enzyme pool. By making life easier for our digestive system we increase the amount of energy our body has to do other things from healing to having fun!
This is awesome, but for a lot of us our body may need a lil’ help getting back in shape for breaking down fiberous eats after years of cooked food. Have you noticed that you or people you know have that experience when they jump on the healthy eating bandwagon and hit the salads hardcore that they can often feel bloated, gassy and just blah and you’ll usually hear them say things like “Health food just doesn’t agree with me.” ?….Well they’re partially right. Their bodies certainly want those healthy eats, but they may be suffering from a lack of Hydrochloric acids and healthy sodiums that our body uses to break down the tough fibers in some raw foods…especially greens!
This lil’ issue can often discourage many from following through with adding more fresh foods to their life, so I want to share what this is all about and some of the foods that can get your tummy pumped up for breaking down some raw goodness!
1~ Blending! One of my favorites! This easy raw food prep technique turns tough raw foods (such as greens) into tasty and outrageously healthy green smoothies, blended soups, and tasty dessert smoothies. Blending makes the texture of some foods more palatable and allows your body to access nutrients that may have taken quite a while to chew out of the. Blended food also gives your body chance to gradually increase it’s stores of digestive acids as it practices on these lightweight pre-broken down goodies! I found this particualarly true when I began drinking green smoothies on a regular basis. Prior to rockin’ the green smoothies, I maybe ate salad once a week as part of my raw transitional diet (and certainly didn’t crave it!) , but after about a month of drinking about 32oz of green smoothie a day, I found myself eating the greens out of the colander before I could even get them in the blender! I was originally bewildered by the claims of long term raw foodies that they adored greens, but I now find myself with the same “affliction”! I want to note here that my first batches of green smoothies had much more fruit then greens, but the number of greens quickly went up! The point is..start with what feels right to you! This way you’ll be more likely to want to follow through with your raw adventure!
Soaking nuts and seeds~ Many nuts and seeds (with the exception of hemp seeds) contain enzyme inhibitors to prevent premature sprouting in their natural habitat and potentially to prevent animals from fully digesting them (in hopes that they will later be deposited elsewhere ..complete with free fertilizer!). These enzyme inhibitors can also make them not so easy on our stomachs. Amanda and myself experienced a bad case of bloating after preparing a raw nut based pate recipe we seen online that used unsoaked nuts….from then on we started soaking our nuts! I have recomended soak times for nuts and seeds in my ebook “Gettin’ Raw with Rawdawg Rory” but, I’ll break down a bit of the basics here. Nuts with a lot of tannic acid and taste a bit bitter such as almonds, walnuts and pecans should be soaked for about 6-12 hours and then rinsed off before using and seeds such as pumpkin and sunflower can be soaked as lil’ as 2-6 hours. This will leave your raw nuts and seeds more biologically active, cleaner, easier to digest and tastier!
3~ Marinating…oh yes! I loooove marinated veggies! Using salty or acidic marinades we can create numerous tasty dishes, such as softened veggies for wraps, mock stir fries, and raw dishes that have that same wonderful texture as if they’ve been cooked! This not only makes them more tasty, but waaay more digestible! I like to shred carrots with a julienne peeler and toss them with a lil’ salt and garlic powder, allow them to soften, and toss this tasty shredded carrot filling in a romaine leaf wrap and dip ‘em in a mock peanut sauce! Shredding and massaging tough greens such as kale with lemon juice and a lil’ salt can transform it inton a delicious salad base! You’d be surprised at how many veggies that were tough to eat raw and un-prepped can easily become something that’ll have you lookin’ forward to your raw dinner!
4~ Lastly, but not leastly… juicing! I saved juicing for last as it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Juices are a super digestible and totally easy way to give your body a blast of nutrients, phytochemicals and minerals. Depending on your juicer and or juicing technique, the finished drinks will have lil’ or no fiber and your body has lil’ or no work digesting it. This is awesome, but I would highly reccomend that you are bringing in fiber in a blended form (especially green smoothies!) as these pre-broken down fibers are needed to carry out the toxins and wastes that your body is going to be releasing as it uses those awesome raw goodies to do some house cleaning!
So rememember if some raw foods don’t seem to agree with you, then consider these prep techniques to allow your body the training time it needs to work up to it’s full digestive strength! As a bonus these prep techniques also make the nutrients in your awesome raw eats more absorbable…so you get more out of your food! There’ll be more to come about particular raw foods that help the transitioning process be super smooth…so see ya then! :0)
Chia seed…not just for terra cotta heads anymore!
Hello everyone! It’s another lovely day on our Trek and I’ve whipped up one of Amanda’s favorite post Trekking eats…Chia seed pudding! It’s amazing how simple and delicious this stuff is! Not only is it tasty, but chia has some pretty substantial health benefits!
*Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids! Chia contains both of these important brain building fatty acids in a wonderfully balanced proportion. Great vegan source for this good stuff!
*High amount of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber is soft and soothing on the digestive tract. It coats the intestinal walls and helps them to heal from inflammatory conditions. These wonderful lil’ fibers also absorb bile as they pass through the digestive tract dragging out toxins along with it, our body utilizes cholesterol to create new bile thereby lowering the amount of cholestrol elsewhere in the body. Useful for people struggling with high cholesterol!
*Buffering sugar absorption. Adding chia to sweet recipes such as smoothies and desserts can help prevent blood sugar spikes due to it’s high fiber content. This is great for people with sugar issues and also gives your smoothies energy content a more long-lasting effect!
*Chia seeds are also loaded with protein and are rapidly digestible. They’re easier to chew up then flax seed and don’t have that same rapid flush effect you sometimes get from consuming a bunch of flax!
* Chia’s gelatinous properties make it a wonderful thickening agent, giving body to your smoothies, firmness to your pies and a crispy binder to your dehydrated breads and crackers!
When used soaked as in this pudding recipe, the seeds will have begun to undergo some of their germination process, making them more enzymatically active…always a good thing! Ya can never get too many of these lil’ “sparks of life”in your diet. :0)
I love using it for making pudding because it’s super quick and easy and the finished product has a nice tapioca like texture….one of my fave pudding’s from back in the day! One tip that I’d like to add for creating your chia pudding base is to make it a lil’ more strongly flavored than you’d like in your finished product as the gelling process will dilute the flavor a bit.
Oooo I wanted to do the chia jingle at the begining of this vid, but didn’t wanna risk a lawsuit! *lol*
Have a tasty day my friends…much love! ~ Rory :0)
Raw Transitioning Tips!
Hello! I’ve been contemplating my beginings with raw foods and some of the awesome transitioning techniques and foods that made it an easy (and exploding-bowel-less) journey!
We’ve all heard detoxification horror stories….I won’t get into any of the graphic details…especially about the alien parasites that often burst from the buttocks of those attempting to clean up their diet. Haha! Just kidding on that last one….mostly. :0)
This was a concern of mine when I first heard about raw foods and it gave me a brief pause moment…as I didn’t like the idea of going through a brutal detoxification period where I’d be feeling lousy, dealing with headaches and making frequent bathroom runs. Especially not wanting to miss work or put off other responsibilities to deal with the consequences of hardcore cleansing. Luckily these thoughts only briefly paused me, but some people may be put off to the idea of raw living after hearing some tales of transitioning woes….that’s why I want to share some of the philosphy, strategy and foods that helped me ease comfortably into gettin’ raw!
Upon hearing of the effects of hardcore detoxing I thought….I think I’ll take the slow aproach and ease into raw eating. This worked out for me multifold!
1~ By starting off with a modest 50% goal I wasn’t pushing myself far out of my comfort zone and this allowed me to play around with raw foods and develop my own simple and tasty recipes, source local ingredients, and get into the groove of raw food prep, planning and whipping up stuff on the fly!
2~ I kept myself out of the cycle of the “all or nothing” effect where if you screw up…you have nothing to fall back on and no incentive to go forward. My aproach of easing into it and enjoying each positive step along the way has helped me towards many goals I’ve had in life and it lends itself particularly well to such things as a big dietary shift to eating an all raw diet!
3~ By easing into the raw foods lifestyle I allowed my body to gradually adjust to all the many changes that it would entail! And by changes I do mean good changes! Too many good changes all at once can be a bit jarring though …especially to the bowels for many people.. so I wanted to reduce that as much as possible…for social and convenience reasons as well as to be kind to my body.
It's an adventure...not a race!
I would say to someone aproaching the raw lifestyle that feels like they’re being pushed to go 100% off the bat that it isn’t a race…it’s an adventure! We are playing around with a whole “new” aproach to eating! Collectively as people we’ve been living off of mostly cooked or processed foods for who knows how long…and going over to eating foods in their more natural state is accessing nutrients, enzymes and properly structured food that is often lost in processing and the results can often be amazing! There is no need to rush it…especially if the rushing is causing stress and discomfort that can lead you to giving up the whole dream of the changes that you may experience!
So first of all if this aproach is doable for you….I encourage you to take your time! It worked very well for me and I had almost no detox side effects! A lil’ gas and an extra bathroom trip a day…and by trip I mean leisurely stroll…not knockin’ lil’ old ladies out of the way to get into the Women’s Room because the Men’s stall was taken! *LOL*
If you’ve gotten to know me by now…you’ll know I am waaaaaay to immature to pass up on all the potential bathroom humor! :0P
Much love everyone and more to come! I will be sharing more strategies in an upcoming post and many of these tips and more can also be found in my E-Book “Gettin’ Raw with Rawdawg Rory” :0)
The Trek has begun! :0)
Hey my friends! We’re in Seattle and the Live My Life NOW Trek has begun! The awesome peeps at Chaco Canyon Cafe hosted an awesome send off party for us and we got to hang out with many of our West Coast friends~ Aimee, Heidi, Dianne, Xine, Priss Pristofferson, and met some cool new peeps as well! Shadow even had a ball at the event, startling the occasional guest with the surprise cold dog nose on the elbow trick. After refueling on some rawesome eats (including a kick ass choco-maca hemp milk based shake) we felt quite refreshed from our speedy drive across the country!
We hung out with Aimee at her place for a couple nights, whipping up tasty raw eats and getting geared up for Amanda’s first day of walking. Xine stopped by with an awesome contribution to the Trek, a clamshell style roof storage unit (which has made life in the van a LOT less crowded!) we’re working out the bugs of doing this without our original travel trailer and it’s gettin’ better all the time!
While hangin’ with Aimee I whipped up my all time fave green soup combo, swiss chard and cilantro. This is my fave use for swiss chard as it’s natural saltiness works great in soups!
Many well wishes all~ Rory :0)
Rockin’ Geeked Fu!
Hey everyone! If you’ve been diggin’ my youtube videos and have an interest in enjoying more tasty raw foods and their awesome benefits, then I suggest you check out what I’ve been up to at Raw Fu….don’t know about Raw Fu?? Well Raw Fu is an awesome online community led by the wonderful Bunny Berry! The site is a great place to connect with others who are getting (or haven been) into eating more raw and living foods! Bunny guides the members of the site through challenges that range from 30 on up to 100 days. These challenges are aimed at various aspects of raw living and are designed so that anyone can get involved and benefit wether they want to go high raw or just get some more salads or green smoothies into their weekly diet. The atmosphere of the group is very welcoming and supportive and I’ve had an awesome time being a member of the community and being a part of Raw Fu’s Vlog Posse….but, now Bunny has asked me to take it to another level and lead a challenge!
This is an awesome oppurtunity for me to share my aproach to raw living and some of the philosophy that guided me through my raw transformation and that is…to focus on the funness of it all! Many of the influences and inspiration that lead me to wanna eat raw were all about how neat it is to actually enjoy eating healthy, what sort of things could I accomplish with the changes that could come from this change in diet?…what changes could happen? How can I make awesome dishes without cooking them? These thoughts amongst many others (which I will share through upcoming videos on the Fu!), are my own personal inspirations and aspirations that made transitioning to eating raw such a comfortable and fun adventure!
Taking this into consideration…the theme of my challenge is gettin’ geeked up…geeked up about raw foods, their benefits, about changes that may be possible, about benefits that many are having, and other fun things you can play around with that may improve your life and health…and heck..just gettin’ geeked up about LIFE! So since I get to name my challenge I’m calling it Geeked Fu! And how long is this challenge going to be going on for? Well I could’vwe said hey I’ll just knock out a quick 30day challenge (what with us all going on the road and what not) , but I couldn’t pass up the chance to rock it out with Geeked Fu for anything less than 100 days….so if you’re there…you’re stuck with me! The whole experience with Gettin’ Raw for me has been fun and exciting and I wanna spread that vibe to all my friends and all the new members of Raw Fu! If you’re not a member yet then get there and get Geeked Up!!
Here are some of the first weeks vids to catch you up …….
Kombucha! :0)
Kombucha is one of my fave beverages, and wait, before I go ranting about how much I like it…,I oughta stop and clue ya in on what exactly Kombucha is. Kombucha is a probiotic, living, fermented tea that is LOADED with enzymes, friendly critters to support your digestive system, organic acids and detoxifying elements. Sound awesome? Well it did to me as well when I read the myriad health benefits listed on the first bottle of kombucha I sampled back when I was living in PA.
Amanda and I picked up a bottle of this interesting concoction for the first time around the same time I got started with raw foods. The first sip was reminiscent of carbonated apple cider vinegar…ok….although not delicious, intriguingly the flavor grew on me, and about an hour after finishing it Amanda and I both noticed, not only a warm feeling in our stomachs, but also a burst of energy! I started doing some research on this fizzy living beverage and found that it was brewable/growable at home! Being a DIY kinda guy, and learning that it’s inexpensive to brew your own, I was IN!
Showing off the SCOBY at my first 'bucha workshop at Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe as Glen Colello films
About 2 years ago we picked up our SCOBY (which is short for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) and got brewing! I was so psyched up to add this to my raw and living food concocting experiments, and it really brought me back to those days of raising Sea Monkeys and other weird pets…only this one I would be eating. I did lots of research on this wonderful brew, and watched other home brewer’s adventures on YouTube. After creating some batches that were a wee bit south of that fizzy goodness we had experienced from the health food store, I pulled off a batch that was outstandingly good and cost a fraction of the pre-bottled stuff!! As if that wasn’t neat enough, I can now add my own fun flavorings to the kombucha when I bottle it up for the second fermentation, flavorings such as fresh squeezed ginger juice, blended wild blueberries, or vanilla bean pods! Oh yeah! Turning a ridiculously healthy beverage into a tasty one that could rival soda….now that’s the kinda stuff I’m into! :0)
Fast forward to my life now, doing raw food presentations and talks, I noticed people’s faces light up when I would mention my kombucha brewing endeavors during a raw food workshop. So I did a kombucha creating workshop at Catch a Healthy Habit Café shortly after moving here to CT, which was very warmly received. The videos of this first workshop (taken by Glen Colello of Catch) can be found at his YouTube channel (which I HIGHLY recommend ya check out if you’re interested in raw foods and healthy living! There have been many, many awesome speakers at the Café and Glen has filmed large portions of their talks! So there is a wealth of fun info there waiting to be watched!)
Flash forward to just last night at Catch, where I presented my second kombucha workshop and I shared much of the cool new info I’ve picked up about culturing, brewing and flavoring this bubbly, healthy drink! Again, Glen has shot some awesome footage of my workshop (which I had a blast doing!) and I can now give you a sneak-peek of what it would’ve been like to be there!
This first video gives you a good idea of the equipment you’d need to start brewing your own goodness at home…a lot less than you might assume!
Part 2, I get into some of the other fun uses for your SCOBY….from bath toy to band-aid, a zoogleal mat can perform many tasks! :0)
Part 3, Where (and where not) to brew your culture and putting some love in your brew!
Part 4 Finishing off your brew, other brewing vessel options and why you should or should not use your SCOBY as a hat.
The results are in! :0)
Hello again friends!
For those keepin’ up with my Family’s raw adventure, the six week challenge is over! It’s been a fun mission for me chefin’ it up for the family, and a lot of fun having Mom and Bear here. Now that I’m catching my breath from all this activity, it’s time to catch all you up on the final results and on-goin’ raw goodness!
My bro Aaron has lost around 50lbs, and my sis dropped 16!! They both have experienced an increase in energy and plan to make green smoothies, raw granola, veggies and seed dips and other raw goodies a regular part of their diet. I’m psyched to see them both enjoying not only the results of their raw transformation, but also how tasty raw eating can be! My nephews are also seriously diggin’ the raw goodies (especially the granola and all the deserts) they came running for green smoothies along with my daughter, Isabel!
Mom’s transformation has been nothing less than freakin’ AMAZING! Let’s get right into the awesome benefits she’s experienced from the raw challenge…
~41lbs…kicked to the curb!
~Her blood sugar levels improved so much that she is off of her medication!! Before she began the raw mission her levels would be as high as 260…now the highest readings have been around 93 and this is right after having a raw dessert! The meds she was taking were one step away from insulin so this is a major improvement!
~Mom was taking four different blood pressure meds when she started and has since dropped the 2 strongest ones! The Doctor says that if she keeps this up the other 2 may be on their way out soon!
~A chronic ulcer that had been on her leg for over three years has totally disappeared! This ulcer had required constant attention and visits from a nurse to apply medicated bandages…now the large basket that had housed all the gauze, tape and bandages has been cleaned out , and she’s got it filled with fruit on her kitchen table! :0)
~There has been a major improvement in Mom’s energy and mobility! Just check out the video! We were so psyched to see this change because Mom loves going to Family events, but has missed some in the past due to mobility issues…. with her new found get up and go we have a feeling this is gonna change!
~ As if all this wasn’t cool enough, her hair’s thickening! Her doctor was literally awestruck and happily surprised by all these awesome changes! He’s encouraging her to keep goin’ with raw foods… along with the rest of us!
Before Mom left to head home I stopped by her place to stock up her cupboards and get her dehydrator set up. Since returning home Mom has been chefin’ up a raw storm! Avocado and tomato salads, onion dip, almond milk, chipotle sunflower seeds and more. Her plans are to do a high raw diet and I’d say she’s goin’ along excellently! I hung out with her this past Tuesday evening and showed her how to make a gluten free vegan curry to be a healthy addition to the cooked portion of her diet. She told me that she loved all the awesome comments, compliments and words of encouragement on her videos and was surprised by all the friend requests on Facebook!
I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful words, well wishes, props and prayers! All this awesome feedback and the stories of people being touched and inspired by my family’s raw challenge have been amazing! You all rock hardcore and your kind words are not only touching us, but they’re also giving Mom motivation to keep rawkin’ it out! So from our family to everyone out there rooting for us THANK YOU, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!! Hah-Ha! I can’t say it enough! :0D
My family’s raw challenge update! :0)
Hello again! For those of you keeping up with family’s raw food challenge, I got some fun stuff to report! Everyone involved is doin’ great! Let’s start off with my Mom, if you’re just now reading this we have had her at the house for 10 days now eating 100% raw foods. During her three week transition period she was eating about 50% raw foods and had lost 15lbs, and her blood sugar levels were lookin’ pretty good. Now that she’s here her sugar levels are lookin’ even better, goin’ from a norm between 160 and sometimes as high as 210 to lows as low 112 and the highest in the low 140′s!! We are so psyched up about her progress! We’ll have to wait until after the challenge to see how her weight loss is progressing, as she has to go to the Doc’s to weigh in, but we can all see a difference in her face and overall! Her skin is even showing better color! She’s been enjoying all the raw eats with the exception of some of the interesting juices Amanda concocted in honor of International Juice Feasting Day. This makes me so happy because she is getting to experience first hand how tasty and satisfying raw eating can be, I think it’s a big eye-opener for her and I’m hoping it will encourage her to stick with a high raw diet long after the challenge has ended! Keep checkin’ out her progress and if you’re not already a subscriber to my channel on youtube then get your butt over there and hit it up, ’cause we’re gonna be posting weekly with new videos to update her and my other family members progress, and as usual gonna be throwing in the occasional recipe video! :0)
My mom isn’t the only one rawkin’ it out, my sister, Danielle, and bro-in-law, Aaron, and my lovely wife, Amanda are also now 10 days into the 100% raw eating, and have been having great results! Aaron, who’s decided to dive into the raw challenge head first by goin’ 100% raw from the get go has shed over 40lbs in 4 weeks!! Danielle, who doesn’t have much to shed, has dropped 15lbs over this past 10 days of eating 100% raw, and Amanda has shed 10lbs during the same time! Aaron has been presently surprised by how tasty and filling raw food can be, and has been enjoying all the eats I’ve been whipping up, particularly my marinated mushroom wraps with seed cheese, BBQ Portobello Burgers and Raw tacos with the works. It’s really awesome for me to be chefin’ it up for my family and sharing with them the strategies and info that has brought about such an awesome transformation for me! It’s great to be doing this for them with all the love and support they’ve given me!
These videos that I’m sharing here have been featured on Raw Fu and Raw Food Rehab and the response to them has been overwhelmingly awesome!! Sooo many people have written to tell how they’ve been touched by what we’re doing and have been sharing them with family members who they’d love to see make awesome improvements to their health. Amongst these cool responses have been many who say they’ve been re-inspired to tackle their own raw food challenges! I’m so happy to hear all the wonderful things that are comin’ about from my family’s raw adventure and they’re excited as well to hear all the great comments, words of support and encouragement, and tales of others inspired by their changes, so from all of them and myself to all the people cheering them on we wanna say thank you so very much and you all freakin’ ROCK!! Peace, love and rawness~ Rory and Family :0)
New Smoothie Jar Bags! :0)
Hey everyone! Do you like smoothies? Do you like toting your smoothies about with you so that you can take your raw goodness wherever ya gotta go? Do you also like to use a non-reactive container such as a glass mason jar? Me too! But, glass can be a pain in the … err well ya know. That’s why a while back I concocted a design for an insulated carrier for traveling with your smoothie in style! With Amanda’s knowledge and skills with sewing, we put together these awesome gizmos we call “Smoothie Jar Bags!”
Just a couple examples of what we offer. Styles change all the time.
These handcrafted bags allow you to easily and more safetly tote around your favorite green, nut milk or fruit smoothies! Also great for water! The insualted liner is made from Reflectix Brand insulation which is a foil wrapped bubble wrap type of insulation, so not only does it hold in the cold, but it also adds a bit of breakage protection to your mason jar! The shoulder strap allows for hands-free carrying *bonus!* and when the strap’s not in use you can stuff it in between the liner and the bag so it’s out of the way when it’s parked on your desk! These bags also conceal the ”interesting” colored beverages that co-workers and on-lookers may otherwise give ya funny looks about. Until I began using my smoothie bag I had heard it all, “What’re ya drinkin’ ? Pond scum ?”
So now that ya got the low down on what our smoothie bags are I wanna anounce that Amanda has cranked out some awesome new ones! These smoothie jar bags also come with a couple of options for lids! We put in a wide mouth jar lid insert with a pre-drilled straw hole and a standard size plastic jar cap also with a pre-drilled straw hole. So all you need to add is your favorite mason jar! So if you need a fun new way of carrying your smoothie goodness and/or you have some raw foodies on your holiday shopping list then check out our Etsy page to see all the neat choices we have! Peace everyone and have a rawsome day! :0)
Raw Vegan Burritos and other goodies for your eyes!
Hey Everyone! On Raw-Fu this week Bunny Berrys’ been focusing on the eyes and how raw foods can not only support your vision but, leave you with a set of shining peepers! Some people might wonder how much raw-foods have done for my vision considering that I’m still wearing glasses. Well, my vision hasn’t been totally restored *…yet! Hey I like to keep an open mind. :0) * but, about a year and a 1/2 into my raw foods adventure I went to pick up a new pair of glasses. After doing my exam the eye-doctor remarked that she was surprised that my lens prescription didn’t need an upgrade (!!). Awesome! So although I didn’t notice an improvement, the fact that I didn’t need stronger lenses after five years of using the same glasses was surprising, as the trend usually goes that your vision degrades over-time when your eyes are dependant on glasses!
Another benefit of eating raw I’ve noticed is that my eyes are a lot clearer than ever before. The red-lines that used to adorn them so frequently have faded to near-nill! The whites of my eyes are whiter and overall look and feel quite a bit better than they had prior to adding more raw-eats to my diet!
In my video contribution to the FU I’ve concocted a Raw vegan Burrito using some powerful foods that keep your eyes shinin’! Check it out below :0)
Heres a break-down of some other goodies that are good for your eyes~
Foods rich in sulfur such as garlic, radish, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, and cayenne to name a few. Our bodies use sulfur to produce Glutathione which is a powerful antioxidant that keeps your lenses strong and healthy. Sulfur is also said to have cleansing powers that can help clear out the junk in your fine capillaries!
Un-cooked raw-fats are a great stand in for cooked fats whenever possible in your diet (especially as a replacement for animal based ones) because cooked fats are missing the lipase enzymes necessary to break them down. These undigested fats float around our bloodstream and can settle in the capillaries of your eyes causing harmful blockages. Some ways you can reduce your cooked fats intake could be: using blended nuts and seeds in the bases of your dips and creamy salad dressings, making nut or seed based milks in place of pasteurized milk, and also making flax crackers and or raw chips to replace cooked tortillias and crackers. These stand-ins also have a butt-ton of additional benefits besides containing their own digestive enzymes!
Heres’ my Ranch Dressing Recipe Using sunflower seeds in place of dairy!
Silicon rich foods promote moist flexible joints and connective tissues, this also includes the ones in your eyes! Such helpful edibles include radish, hemp, romaine lettuce, marjoram, young salad greens, and the skins of cukes*, bell peppers* and tomatoes* ( *if using non-organic ones I give them a thorough scrubbing of the skins using either a pre-packaged veggie wash, all natural dish soap, or vinegar, and rinse thoroughly to remove that waxy coating because it’s not digestible :0P ).
Zinc laden eats are a must for eyesight (and many other internal happenings!). Zinc supports retinal function by allowing your body to release vitamin A from the liver and balance it’s optimal levels in the bloodstream! Zinc can be eaten in the tasty form of pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, and sesame seeds, pecans, coconuts and spinach. Sounds like a good salad recipe to me!
Eating lots of antioxidant rich fruits and veggies are another way to give your vision a boost. Blueberries and all other berries, grapes, dark leafy greens and cacao (oh yessss!) are all awesome sources.
Green smoothies!! Green smoothies are another awesome way to roll all this ocular nutrition into a delicious drinkable. Greens contain lutein which helps prevent cataracts. Also the nitrates in many leafy greens appears to be converted into nitric oxide in our bodies which it uses to regulate the vascular system and possibly lowering blood pressure! Well that sounds awesome right, but what does blood pressure have to do with eyesight? Well high-blood pressure puts excessive pressure on the tiny capillaries of our eyes, so the more you can do to maintain a healthy blood pressure , the better!
Here’s to healthy happy ocular orbs! Peace and love~ Rory :0)
Stalking the elusive b12.
When I first went raw-vegan many people asked “Where do you get your protein?” This was an easy answer “Greens!” but, recently someone brought up b12 and this inspired me to check into my sources. This was a fun but, complicated quest! I’ll try to share a condensed version of what I discovered about this important and often elusive complex vitamin. So be vewy vewy quiet we’re hunting cobalamin.
B12 is is the most complex of all vitamins. It is not created by plants or animals butby bacteria because only they posess the power (err enzymes) to synthesize it. The commercial sources of b12 are made by culturing and fermenting these lil’ guys.
We need b12 for many important internal goings on such as moving proteins, fats and carbs throughout our system and aiding in their absorption. B12 is also crucial for proper red-blood cell production. Without it the cells created are misshapen and this can lead to serious conditions such as pernicious anemia.
So where to find this good stuff? Well I’ve found that a lot of suspected vegan sources of b12 may not be as reliable as I thought! Lets check them out~
Seaweeds and other sea-veggies are thought to be good sources of b12 but, they actually contain the analog forms of b12. Unlike “human active” b12 the analog form is not absorbable and actually bonds to receptor sites preventing further b12 absorption. Although it’s not a great source of available b12, seaweeds do contain a bunch of healthy goodies! Not trying to discredit any foods here, just striving to find reliable sources of b12. :0)
Honey and pollen. Although they contain small amounts of b12 (and in the raw-form, a lot of awesome enzymes and other goodies! – Check out my agave nectar post for more honey info!) they shouldn’t be relied upon for your daily requirements.
Showing off the SCOBY (kombucha "mushroom" at Catch
Kombucha does contain a small amount of b12 but, more importantly it (and other living cultured foods) help create a healthy crew of good stomach bacteria. This lil’ ecosystem within us helps us to assimilate b12 and other important nutrients from the foods we eat. Whether you’re vegan, raw or omnivore these lil’ mamajamas are essential! (kombucha also has many other health benefits!)
Speaking of helpful microbes. Many raw food nutrition experts suggest that you don’t wash your organically homegrown veggies before you eat them! This makes sense as the dirt clinging to them is teeming with microbes that may contain b12. In nature eating dirt was probably our primary source for probiotics. (Yummy) I’m actually gonna be doing this when we get our garden started. :0)
I don’t recommend doing this with any store-bought produce though because of potential contamination from manures etc., and the many un-washed hands involved in picking and packing them as well as customers picking through them. I also wash farmstand produce for the same reason. If you decide to eat your own unwashed garden goodies make sure you don’t have any cats using your garden as a litterbox (as kitty poo contamination can cause toxoplasmosis). Not trying to gross you out, just making sure I’m not encouraging any unsafe veggie munching!
Some studies show that plants can also absorb b12 from compost enriched biologically active soil. This is good news but, I’ve found conflicting info on this being a good source. Check it out for yourself!
Where do we get b12 from in nature? Well when raw food health experts talk about how raw vegan is a natural diet for humans they’re usually using the example of either anthropoid apes or chimpanzees because they’re closest to us biologically. Which is a logical way to go but, if you look at their diet compared to ours there’s some things that may be missing…….bugs!
I bet he's not pondering where he gets his b12 from.
Primates consume a decent amount of bugaboos in their day-to-day routine. Whether they’re picking ‘em offa their friends, munching the occasional one that peaks their interest, or they probably get their greatest numbers from larvae in the wild fruits they eat! Insects are a decent source of B12 , that is, the bacteria in them are producing b12. There have been instances of vegan communities in India who had no deficiency issues and it was found that the grains they were eating were contaminated (or supplemented, depending on how you look at it) with insect parts and poops. Back before my vegetarian adventure began I attended an edible insect fair at the Peabody Museum in New Haven, CT and got to sample cricket fricassee, ant cookies and even nacho cheese flavored beetle larvae, so I’m no stranger to the idea of eating bugs! lol
So maybe finding the half a worm in your apple is actually the better scenario! Just kiddin’ kinda. I’m not proposing we should eat bugs for b12…unless you’re into that sorta thing.
Speaking of eeewy stuff, I have to mention that there is b12 produced by our stomach bacteria, but unfortunately many believe it is produced too low in the intestinal tract to be re-absorbed and used by us. So unless ya wanna eat poo (which many primates do, due to the fact they don’t wash their hands) that option is outta here too! I mean c’mon many may be interested in becoming a raw-foodist but, few are interested in becoming a “raw-poopist”. :0P
So where does this leave the average person (omnivorous, vegetarian, vegan, or raw-vegan)? Well it seems that unless you’re eating unwashed homegrown organic produce, have a healthy colony of stomach bacteria and all your digestive functions are top notch and not hindered by an excess of fats (including raw ones according to 80-10-10), the occasional bug is getting into your produce and or you’re not washing your hands properly, then there’s a good chance you can be having some b12 deficiencies! I told you this lil’ bugger was elusive!!
Now I’m not a nutritionist or dietitian so I wanna recommend that you read up on these topics more to make up your own mind and also consult with a health expert and/or maybe get testing done if you have concerns. For me, even though I eat raw, mostly organic, and consume living foods (such as kombucha) I’m going to begin taking some additional b12 just to be certain!
Lemme talk briefly about b12 supplements. Not all of them are created equally and some may be detrimental from what I’ve read. B12 in a formulated multivitamin supplement may interact with either vitamin c, iron or copper to create those darned inabsorbable analogues!Also the common cyanocobalamin found in many supplements may be difficult for our bodies to access if we are suffering any of a multitude of digestive issues. Hang in there *lol* I know this may seem daunting!! It daunted me a bit at first! From what I’ve read the sub lingual forms of b12 supplements are the easiest to absorb and the sprays are even better. Also, the most absorbable form of cobalamin is methylcobalamin. Cyanocobalamin is the most popular in supplements but, it is not easy for your body to access. More good news is that the body can stockpile b12 so if you’re taking a high dose b12 supplement you probably don’t need to be taking it every day which saves $!
This VegLife Methyl B-12 Lozenge is a form that I have found to work for me and my family. There are others out there as well.
Peace everyone! Happy and healthy and fun wishes! :0)
More fun in CT!
Hey everyone! Been going hardcore with the moving preparations lately as the countdown is closing in! This past weekend we did a lil’ pre-moving, loaded up the Honda Fit (as much as you can load up a Fit) with some of our store-able possessions, packed up the vita-mix and some munchies and headed up for the weekend. March 26th is the big move and my family and I are very excited about our new adventure!
The Kale Whale!
Speaking of new adventures…We had the opportunity to attend Kevin and Anne Marie Giannis’ send off party/pot-luck last Friday. We had a kick a$$ time, sampled and shared some yummy eats. Our “salsa non queso” dip was a big hit! We used the taco sauce recipe from the previous post, reduced the amount of water though and stirred in some Zukay living salsa. The resemblance to the original cheezy tortilla dip was uncanny! We served it with cauliflower florets, carrots and my flax/sunflower tortilla chips! We also got to meet some awesome people, including Kevin and Anne Marie, and were able to take a tour of their veggie oil fueled RV “The Kale Whale”! I’m really geeked up for them to not only be embarking on their tour but, also to be fueling their travel with this eco-friendly technology! Back in the day, while working at the Fulton Farm of Wilson College I had the chance to produce Bio-diesel from recycled veggie oil and love the concept of transforming a waste product into a low-emission alternative to fossil fuels! Best wishes to Kevin and Anne Marie on their crusade of spreading their wealth of healthy living information throughout their tour. Rawk on!!
From left: Amanda, Me, Bette, Barbara, Kevin Gianni, and Me again!
Saturday we checked out Health in a Hurry in Fairfield, CT. This awesome lil’ fast healthy food restaurant run by Sue Cadwell offers vegetarian, vegan and raw vegan eats made fresh and packed grab-n-go style for people looking for a healthy (and delicious) alternative to fast food!
I sampled Sues’ raw spinach soup and enjoyed it thoroughly!! Wonderful spice and texture to it! :0D Definitely recommend stopping in there if you’re in the area and also giving her website a look!
reboundin'
On our way home Sunday afternoon Amanda and I made a pit stop at Catch a Healthy Habit. We picked up a bunch of raw-goodies! Raw-cacao butter, maca, and mesquite …yeah I’m gonna be whipping up some raw chocolate concoctions soon! While there, couldn’t pass up the chance to grab some of Glens’ delicious snacks; chocolate cookies, chocolate chip cookies and nutmeg infused chocolates (WOW is all I can say about those) good stuff! Also sampled a shot of the infamous and powerful “Island Fire”, a noni-berry juice based superfood elixir with one heck of a bite to it! The lingering warm feeling it imparts was really nice on a cold day!
The Raw Food Wonder Emporium!
Peace! :0)
Quick & easy RAW munchies!
When I first went raw, one of the hardest things for me was trying to find something satisfying to munch when those random munchy feelings would come up. Raw gourmet items as snacks were out of the question because the munchies don’t wanna wait for 2 hours of soaking, 3 hours of dehydrating, and 30 mins of prep time! Sounds like a lot of work right? Well actually the majority of that time you’re not doing anything and the soaking times and dehydrating times can be pretty flexible, (a dehydrator is a LOT more forgiving than an oven!). So doing that kind of prep work for a dinner is no biggy but, for snacks you need something a lil’ more rapido!
Here’s a quick list of some of my favorite raw snacks. We’ll start with the simplest and move onto some stuff that requires a lil’ advanced thought~
*Cherry tomatoes are awesome fresh washed and rolled in some sea salt and basil flakes. Do it while they’re still moist from being washed….MMMmmmm.
These lil' mamajamas have been coated in chili powder and nutritional yeast. Awwww yeah! Like chili-cheese chips!
*Carrot chips! Wash some carrots and cut them lengthwise at a 45 degree angle, this will give you a long thin chipish thing. Now place them in a bowl, drizzle with a lil’ oil and sprinkle on some salt and your favorite seasonings, maybe a lil nutritional yeast, and toss to evenly coat them! These are great on their own or dunked in your fave raw salad dressing or dip!
*Pineapple banana sammiches. Here’s a neat lil’ 80-10-10′ish snack that requires lil’ prep time! Peel a fresh pineapple and slice into about 1/4″ thick slices (you can use either a kitchen knife or a mandolin) they don’t need to be perfect, you’re just shootin’ for a thin disc of pineapple. Now for the filling, slice some banana at an angle similar to the carrot chips and mash a small amount of your bananas with a fork. This is the spread that’s gonna hold these bad-boys together! Now simply assemble your sandwiches to your liking, extra-points for double and tripledeckers!
Cherry vanilla banana shake
*Super fast fruit shake! Don’t have any nut milk on hand but, you want a creamy shake? Got bananas? You’re in business!~
2 C water
2-3 ripe bananas
vanilla (extract or pod)
1 C of fresh or frozen, berries, peaches, pineapple or whatever you have lyin’ about
handful of ice
a couple of dates (or honey, or agave) optional
Blend thoroughly and enjoy!
For added nutrition you can blend in some of your fave greens, hemp protein powder, or dried walnuts.
Now for some stuff that requires a wee bit of advanced preparation.
Every week after picking up our groceries, I like to soak and dehydrate a couple cups of pumpkin seeds, some oat groats, and sunflower seeds. Occasionally I like to mix up my variety with some walnuts, pecans or brazil nuts instead. I store my pre-soaked and dehydrated beauties in glass mason jars and now I’m all stocked up for snacks, cereals, milks, desert toppings, pates etc.! I do about a weeks worth at a time, if you’d like to get ambitious and do more than that then it’d be best to keep your prepared nuts and seeds in sealed containers in the fridge for optimum quality.
Party nuts mix~
*Take a variety of your pre-soaked and dehydrated nuts and seeds and toss them in a bowl. Next add just a drizzle of oil (hemp, flax, or olive) and mix ‘em up. Now for the flavor! Amanda came up with a cool technique for saltin’ up these mixes. She noticed that our course mineral salt crystals weren’t evenly coating the nuts so she used a our mortar and pestle to grind the salt into a powder! Voila! No overly or underly salted bits. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle you can use your coffee grinder. Your mix is ready to go as is, or for additional yumminess you can sprinkle on some chili, curry, chipotle, Italian seasonings, cumin, cayenne, nutritional yeast or whatever blend that sounds tasty to you!
This lightly salted mix of pumpkin seeds and walnuts tossed with hemp oil is LOADED with omega fatty acids. Perfect for counter-acting the brain-rotting affects of TV as you enjoy them with your favorite shows!
Speaking of brain-rotting TV…….
Great site for all sorts of free movies and shows! I’ve watched an entire season of Dr Steve-O and recently me and Amanda had a ball watching sci-fi’s “Mad Mad House”, a fascinating reality tv show where the guests/contestants got to live with and face challenges from a witch, a voodoo priestess, a modern primitive, a vampire, and a naturalist, which just happened to be “Avocado” (a.k.a. David Wolfe) *lol* Great stuff!
*Need some nut milk in a hurry? Toss a cup of soaked & dried walnuts in the blender with 3-4 cups water and blend thoroughly!
Additionally you can simply toss a handfull into your smoothies for a creamy taste and a shot of omegas!
Having these on hand also makes for a quick and easy breakfast. Simply toss some chopped fresh and/or dried fruits in a bowl, sprinkle on your fave nuts and seeds, pour on some nut-milk and maybe a drizzle of your fave sweetener and you got a hearty breakfast or snack when you’re feeling a case of the mad munchies!
Another key to keeping cravings at bay would be to have a wide selection of fresh sweet and non-sweet fruits (such as tomatoes and cucumbers) on hand for quick and healthy munchies whenever you need ‘em. This is just a sampler of some of the many quick and easy raw snacks that you can throw together, have fun concocting your own. Peace! :0)
Disappearing scars
You know how you have things that are a part of your body that you never pay much attention to because you just take for granted that they’re there and they’re not going to change…well that’s how I felt about my scars.
Once when I was eight years old a cyst had grown in my left femur and “ate” away at the bone to the point where I was merely walking upon on icy sidewalk with my cousin and a slip, led to a split, and led to a complete breaking of said femur. Scary crap huh? Yeah at that time I had no idea that such a thing was possible. But, I did have the presence of mind to actually laugh when my cousin, before departing to get help, asked two teenage girls walking by to make sure that no cars pulled into the driveway I had fallen in front of and run me over. Well the whole ordeal of healing and physical therapy lasted MONTHS but, I figured at least this horrible incident was weird enough that I’d only have to suffer such a thing once in my life….
So I thought, but when I had turned 16 (8years later) I had an annoying pain in my femur (same area where the original break had occurred) and I had this creeping suspicion that the cyst had re-grown. Thinking I was being silly, but trying to make me feel better my mom took me to the emergency walk-in to get looked at. Well the doctor came back after examining the x-rays and told me not to get out of the hospital bed, because there was a fracture in my femur caused by a large cyst! Grrrrrrr here I go again! Well more surgery, bone transplanted from my hip, an impressive set of pins and a steel plate and voila! Back in action.
These two incidents left a couple of funky lookin’ scars…totally ruining my future career as an underwear model! :0P The newest scar wasn’t all that bad…a long approx 10″ scar with lil’ dots running the length of it from the staples, making it look like a big ‘ol millipede running down my leg. The former scar seemed to be lumpy sunken, abstract thing that was not appealing to look at ..at all but, was fun to try and convince people that I got it in a knife fight!
I took for granted that these two scars we’re going to be a permanent part of my being..always there just hangin’ out on my leg ..lookin’ funky. But, a couple of months ago I happened to look down upon them while checkin’ out how much weight I had lost since being raw and …WTF?? They had faded to nearly half what they were…both in thickness and color and mass…they were diminishing! I had no idea scars this large could possibly be healed. They had shown no prior signs of fading over the years I’ve had them. The only thing that had changed in my life was…my diet. Could raw-food have done this? Well that might be the case…
It’s not just the food but, more so what’s in the food and what my body could do with it. So I wanted to find out what causes scars to heal. And what I found in my online searches was sights offering all sorts of remedies and removal/treatment options for scars from silicone injections to energy healing. Well not quite what I was lookin’ for so I grabbed my copy of “Eating for Beauty” by David Wolfe, if there’s something related to raw-foods that would lead to diminishing of scar-tissue then I knew the Mr. Wolfe would be talkin’ about it in here. And this is what I learned….
Raw foods are loaded with many, many things that the body can use to heal scars…even large, longstanding mamajamas like mine. One of the most important are sulfur rich foods such as broccoli, garlic, kale, onions, pumpkin seeds, radishes, and arugula to name a few. Sulfur helps diminish scars through it’s ability to build and rebuild collagen and keratin allowing our skin to do it’s own magical healing work!
Our bodies can utilize these and other sulfur-rich foods to manufacture cysteine. Cysteine in the skin makes it more flexible and it’s presence in collagen protects tissues from damage. When there is inadequate cysteine scar tissue results. So this could be one of the many dietary additions that might’ve helped to reduce my scars.
Zinc and Iron also play important roles in the healing of tissue damage. According to David Wolfe, “Iron generates a magnetic blood current and an electro-magnetic induction current in the nerve spirals, which pass through the walls of the arteries and veins and help build and nourish tissues.” Niiiice! And Zinc, without Zinc the enzymes that are responsible for digesting damaged collagen and rebuilding new collagen will not function properly! Iron rich foods include~ Spinach, collards, sea-veggies, kale, parsley and onions to name a few. And here’s a sampling of zinc rich foods~ Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, spinach (again), coconuts, and more.
Another important thing to mention is free-radical damage. I won’t get into a lengthy description of free-radicals in this already crazzzzy long post but, I want to mention that damage from free radicals can cause scar tissue to linger about and not heal correctly. Realizing this and considering the incredible amounts of antioxidant laden foods in my raw-diet it’s definitely played/playing a role in the healing process!
There are many other awesome goodies in raw-foods that help the body repair all sorts of tissue damage, so to keep this post from getting too long I’ll recommend that you check out “Eating for Beauty” By David Wolfe for more info on how, why and which raw yummies can help your body look and feel great!
An easy way to get a lot of these awesome sulfur, iron and zinc rich goodies into one delicious meal!
As for my scars… I think it’s really neat that they have healed as much as they have! Not because they were a concern of mine but, because for me it was just another sign that raw-foods kick-a$$! And I hope that sharing my story may be helpful for other people dealing with scars. I mean, if this way of eating can lead to such a diminishing of such large thick scars then what could it do for the many annoying lil’ scars that people are bothered with from the results of acne, burns etc.?
Now I know what some may be thinking… Where’s the photos of your scars?? Well I (and my lovely wife Amanda) thought it would be in bad taste to put pictures of my hairy leg, with a side shot that would probably show off half my butt cheek, on my site which is supposed to be showcasing lovely raw-foods! If I had an inkling that there would be such a change I would’ve loved to have taken pics when I began my raw-journey! I have pictures of them in their current state and am looking forward to taking some a year from now and seeing whats left of them!
Peace everyone! Have a fun weekend! :0)
The Agave Nectar Scandal
Some of you might’ve already heard about this if you are involved in raw-forums but, for those who haven’t, I’m gonna brief you on the issue. It seems that some of the manufacturers of agave nectar/syrup have been duping us!!
Beautiful plant but what some are doing to it ain't so pretty
Lemme break down some of the issues here. We have been told that, amongst other things, agave is a healthy alternative to refined sugar and corn syrups, etc. We’ve also been told that it is produced in a low-temperature refining process. Well both of these have been discovered to be BS! It turns out that agave nectar’s sweetness comes from a process of converting the agave saps’ starch into a highly refined sweetener. They do this through an enzymatic conversion process that utilizes genetically modified enzymes as well as a series of chemical treatments involving caustic acids, clarifiers and filtration chemicals!! Yeeeech , to say the least! The resulting sweetener is called fructose in an attempt to liken it to fruit sugar but, fructose actually refers to “man-made” highly refined sweeteners. Naturally occurring sugars (like those found in fruits) is actually levulose. The two have some chemical similarities, so they have been labeled in a way that is deceiving consumers. How high is the level of fructose in agave nectar? Well you may have heard about all the health issues surrounding High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS); HFCS contains 55% fructose while agave (the supposedly healthy alternative) contains up to 70% and higher!!!!
For more info I highly recomend checking out the article posted Monday at Natural News ~ http://www.naturalnews.com/024892.html
*Since posting this some people have contacted me to remind that the article could be biased, this could be true but, prior to this article I’ve been starting to hear not so good things about agave in a lot of raw forums lately that have had me reconsidering it’s use. This new info comes as a huge shock and let-down for me personally, as I have been using agave nectar for almost three years now and have been recommending it to family and friends as a healthy sweetener that’s safe for diabetics. And I’ve also been using it in recipes in my videos! Unless this information is found to be untrue we are not going to be using it anymore as a sweetener in our house or in our recipe videos, and are no longer going to recommend its’ use. I think it would be great if there were a third party certification/inspection process to verify the production methods of raw food products. Also it’d be cool if the producers of agave nectar and other raw products would put out some videos of their production facilitie’s techniques, not only to assure the quality of their products but, it would be fun to see how they’re made!
Now that we got the bad-news out there let’s look into what alternatives we have available!
Raw-Honey! ~ Although honey is not a vegan product as it is taken from bees and some of them can be harmed during harvesting it is still a great natural sweetner. I’m technically considered a “bee-gan” because my diet contains no animal by-products except those from bees. I use honey often because it has numerous health benefits, due to it’s active enzymes, pro-biotic content and abundance of minerals. It also has antioxidant, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties! Simply Google “honey and health” to find a great deal of resources on the many benefits of honey.
Pure organic maple syrup ~ although not raw, undergoes a very simple process of refining, involving boiling it down from the sap of sugar maple trees. You lose the enzymes but, it still contains an array of trace minerals as well as zinc, manganese, and calcium.
Dates contain numerous healthy goodies like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and fiber! Now here’s a cool natural sweetener that you can whip up yourself and it’s freakin’ easy!
Date Syrup ~ Take 1 part dates and soak in 1-2 parts water (for example 1 Cups dates to 1-2 Cups water) Soak for at least 1 hour and then blend thoroughly. This delicious thick “syrup” is great to add to smoothies, drizzle onto your fruit salads, add to raw-desserts, top off your raw-cereals, and sweeten up whatever you need sweetened up! I store it in the fridge for 5-6 days with no-problem. You can also get creative and experiment with blending in fruit, vanilla cacao or carob into it to make your own flavored syrup creations!
Whether you’re goin’ raw or just trying to switch over to healthier sweets, I hope these ideas help! Peace everyone and have a happy Thanksgiving! :0)
The missing ring caper..and seed-cheeze!
Yesterday during some cleaning up, I pulled one of the ultimate marital blunders..I lost my wedding ring! Some where between moving some stuff out of the living-room and seeing if there was a place for it behind our bedrooms’ bookshelf I noticed it’s absence from my finger. I had noticed it feeling a lil’ loose on my finger since my weight-loss and had tried those ring adjusters but, they weren’t comfortable. Hopefully we’ll stumble upon it when doing some housework. In the meantime Isabel found this pretty cool replacement!
This evening we’ve been cookin’ up some interesting ideas for doing raw-food demonstrations! More info to come about this..
But, in the meantime I’ve un-cooked up some delicious Sundried Tomato Sunflower Seed Cheeze!
2 C soaked sunflower seeds
1/4 C of water ( you may add a lil’ more or less to get your desired texture, I like mine thick but, you could do a thinner version for a veggie dip! )
Juice of a 1/2 lemon
1+1/2 tsp. salt ( more or less to taste )
1/2 clove garlic
Blend or process until smoothish then add
1/4 C of broken up sun-dried tomatoes
and blend again until smooth with speckles of tomato bits throughout ( pretty! )
now using a spatulan fold in about 2 Tbsp.’s itallian herb blend and a dash of black pepper
This cheeze can be used on raw-bread, cucumber rolls, to top off salads, spread on flax-crackers or slices of apple or (my fave) to make a wrap sandwhich using either a romaine or collard leaf and topped with sliced tomatoes, baby greens, thin slices of red onion and some chopped olives! :0)
*can be stored in the fridge for about 4 days*
Fitness challenge update and what nots..
Hey everyone! Hope you’ve had a happy Halloween and a relaxing weekend. Just wanted to let you know that I’ve been slackin’ in the workout challenge a bit. Between work, makin’ vids, playing with recipes and other excuses :0P ..I’ve managed to get in about 10-15mins a day so far but, remarkably I’m noticing some differences! My forearms and upper arms are showing some firming up! So I’m geeked up about that and will be picking up the pace!
I’ve been toying around with pulverized pumpkin as a rice substitute and it has a great texture and flavor! Started with a few cups of peeled and chopped pumpkin and slowly pulsed it in the food processor and stopped to check the consistency and voila! I put it in a bowl and tossed in about two tablespoons of finely minced onion and some salt and pepper and YUM! Quick, easy and tasty pumpkin rice! I made Amanda and I an Indian spiced version with coconut oil which came out quite good! Amanda enjoyed it, but me and coconut oil don’t get on too well so I’m going to be tweakin’ the recipe and substituting hemp oil the next time around. I’ll keep you posted and may have a recipe to share when it’s all said and done! But, definetly grab a pumpkin and do some experimenting!
I know Halloween has come and gone but, I loooove scary movies and just stumbled onto this creepy lil’ short film last night..”There are monsters”-written and directed by Jay Dahl..woulda been better off watching this during the daytime! *lol* (warning= there is a lil’ naughty language)
Viva la Salad
When most people hear that I’m a raw-vegan they ask me “what do you eat? Salad??” To this I say…
Well to be fair I do eat a LOT of salad. Not because there aren’t other delicious raw-dishes to munch (Raw-pizzas, seed cheeze wraps, living miso soups, raw burgers (meat-free of course),
Un-chicken salad, raw tacos, veggie-nori rolls with mock salmon pate and many, many other amazing choices in healthy cuisine) but because salads are freakin’ easy and tasty. Average prep-time of 10 mins for a dinner for two, and average yumminess ..up to you!
Most people think of salad as boring because of the lame examples out there.. all these resteraunts crankin’ out bland iceberg laden creations with watery tomatoes and the occasional bit of red onion…if you’re lucky. To give salads a fair shot for all those doubters go pick up a bag or 16 oz. box (or three if you’re like us) of organic mixed baby greens, a couple of niiice tomatoes, an apple if you like, some red-onion (a lil’ goes a long way in my opinion) or scallions if you like, and maybe some avacado! Whip yourself up a salad with such a yummy melee and you might change your opinion of them!
“Dipping Salads” are another tasty and fun way to enjoy them. Just prepare your fave raw-dip or dressing, put it in a small bowl and arrange greens and finger-food sized veggies around it! These are great to munch on while enjoying a movie!
For non-raw peeps go with whatever salad dressing that gets you to include more of this great stuff into your diet! If you notice gas or indigestion after eating salads, this is probably a sign of hydrochloric acid deficiency. A lot of people aren’t getting enough greens in their diet so your body slows down it’s production of this important digestive juice. To help your body out try enjoying an orange before or after your salad to add some organic acids into your system. This helped me a lot when I started gettin’ hardcore with the greenage!
If your looking into adding more greens to your diet (which I strongly recommend to everyone, it’s worked wonders for me!) a great way to get ‘em in an easy to digest form is green smoothies! These give you the greens in a very palatable and easy to digest form and encourage your body to begin puttin’ out the hydrochloric acids. Which will allow you to enjoy your salads more! Green smoothies deserve a post (or ten) all their own because the health benefits of them are incredible! For more info about the importance of green smoothies, check out Victoria Boutenko’s Green for Life. For smoothie recipes in the meanwhile check out one of my older recipe videos!
For raw-dressing options there are tons of recipes out there. I’m going to share my recipe for creamy terryaki but I really want to do a vid for it so that’ll be coming soon!!
Cereal
Check out this lovely bowl of cereal my wifey whipped up yesterday for her raw-breakfast! Love this stuff! Breakfast was my biggest challenge when giving up the cooked foods. Cheerio addiction was the last thing to go for me.*lol* It was a combo of lingering cooked carb cravings and the ease of dumping it outta the box and into the bowl and done. But with a lil’ advanced preparation in the form of soaking and dehydrating a weeks supply of pumpkin or sunflower seeds and/or buckwheat groats (a total prep. time of about 15 mins not counting the soak and dehydration times!) I was all set! I like to mix up the fruit content once in a while although banana is my reigning champion in the favorites dept. And I gotta have a bit of dried fruit in there! Raisins, currants or diced dates! My mylk of choice is almond, but sometimes I experiment with sesame, pecan, pumpkin seed or walnut, so many options with so many different tastes and health benefits to toy with! When I feel like re-living some of my junkier cereal indulgences I squeeze on a lil’ raw chocolate sauce. Ohhh Yes! Hope your breakfasts are as yummy as they are healthy! Peace :0)
