Well, Tickle Me Pink!

photo: tinyfroglet

Way across the big pond, In The Raw, has been mentioned in the UK's Daily Telegraph, which boasts a circulation of over 840,000 readers. Here's what it said in Wellbeing on the web: the 9 wellbeing blogs you need to bookmark:

5. earthmother-intheraw.blogspot.com

Charts the "(mis)adventures of one gal's transition into the land of raw foods" in her quest to go one up from organic – to eating without cooking. Whether she's mixing up smoothies or foraging for wild edibles, it's inspirational stuff ("Acne – gone. Chronic fatigue – gone!") and information-packed: the recipe for Almond Mayonnaise is a revelation…

Wanna know what really tickles me (besides even being noticed out there in the great big blogosphere)? The fact that In The Raw wasn't recognized as simply a "raw food blog" or a "weight loss blog," but was included with eight others to "Bookmark these blogs for better health." Love that. It just reinforces my belief that eating raw, living foods isn't about dieting. It's a lifestyle choice. And, a healthy one!

So, go make yourself a delicious green smoothie, bookmark those eight other sites, and enjoy some good, healthy reading.

Now, please excuse me. I have to go call my Mom.

Sprouted Quinoa: The Mother Grain

I fell in love with quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) the first time I ever tried it in Ecuador. It's a staple food of the Quechua, the indigenous people of the South American Andes. The ancient Incas called quinoa the "mother grain" and revered it as sacred.

Technically, quinoa isn't a grain at all, but the seed of the Goosefoot plant. Grain. Seed. Whatever. I just love its delicate, slightly nutty flavor and the fact that it's gluten-free. It's also considered to be a complete protein due to the presence of all eight essential amino acids needed for tissue development in humans. Grains like barley, wheat, and rice generally have less than half the protein of quinoa.

The seeds cook very quickly and always provided a nice, fluffy texture to my stews and soups. The thought of giving up my beloved little grain when I transitioned to a raw foods diet made me very sad. That is, until I discovered that quinoa seeds can be sprouted and eaten as raw, live food in salads and wraps. Turns out, it sprouts almost as quickly as it cooks. Well, not quite, but in 8-12 hours you have little baby quinoa sprouts. Hallelujah for the living mother grain!

For easy directions on sprouting quinoa, check out these Sprouting Instructions from the Sproutpeople®. And, from the basic to fancy schmancy, check out this assortment of sprouting kits.

Here's a couple of my favorite ways of enjoying quinoa in the raw.

Marinated Quinoa Salad

3 C sprouted quinoa
1/4 C olive oil
1 Tbsp tamari
juice of one lemon
juice of 1/2 lime
2 cloves garlic, minced
handful of fresh mint, rough chopped
10 grape tomatoes, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
1 cucumber, chopped
1/2 C red bell pepper, chopped
handful of goji berries

Marinate sprouted quinoa for 20 minutes in olive oil, tamari, citrus juices and garlic. Add mint, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, goji berries and toss. Serve on a bed of red and green leaf lettuce.


Quinoa Raisin Cookies
yields two dozen

1 C quinoa, soaked overnight and rinsed well
1 C almond meal **
1/2 C local raw honey or agave nectar
1 C raisins, soaked
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of sea salt

Place quinoa, almond meal, honey, cinnamon and salt in a food processor and process until dough-like. Transfer dough to a large bowl and hand mix in the raisins.

Using a spoon for scooping, place small dollops on a dehydrator tray lined with a Teflex sheet. Use the bottom of a drinking glass to gently flatten. Tip: Wipe the bottom of the glass between cookies to prevent sticking.

Dehydrate at 105 degrees for 4 hours. Remove the Teflex sheet. Dehydrate another 4 hours. Climate, temperature and humidity all affect dehydrating time. The cookies should be crispy on the outside and still moist inside.

**Almond meal is raw, whole almonds that have been finely ground. I like Trader Joe's brand and you can't beat the price.

A Feast For The Eyes: Eggplant Stacks

Sometimes, looking is enough.

And, sometimes, you just have to give in to temptation.

Friday Food Porn

World traveler, paralegal, horse lover, chef, fruitarian goddess, raw vegan photographer – any and all would be an apt description of the lovely Suvine.

To feed your inner voyeur, embark on a visual tour of her raw vegan creations like these mouth-watering Dehydrated Eggplant Stacks and other sexy recipes.

Live a little. It's the weekend.

It's Earth Day & We Have A Winner

The Spring Cleaning Giveaway has come to a close. Thank you to all who entered for a chance to win a:

• trial size bottle of Vitamineral™ Green
• trial size bottle of Vitamineral™ Earth
• copy of The Master Cleanser with Special Needs & Problems by Stanley Burroughs
• trial sack of Maggie's Soap Nuts™

The question – If you can only eat 5 different foods for the rest of your life, what are they? – sure provided interesting food for thought and sparked some creative answers. Responses ranged from fried chicken to French fries to green smoothies to chia seeds! Mmmm.

I really got a kick out of this entry, "I need two lists, one for if my life was only going to be about a week long (so the bad effects of the food choices wouldn't take much of a toll) and my healthy list for 'real' life." Here's her One-Week-To-Live list:

1. Pizza
2. Carrot Cake
3. Salted Mixed Nuts
4. Fudgey Chocolate Pate
5. Cookie Dough

Chocolate was definitely a recurring theme among entrants.

What surprised me was the number of folks who listed single food items, like "kale, avocado, mango, coconut, watermelon." Not I. You can bet zucchini fettuccine with mango sauce would've made my list, and after giving it a try, some of you just might want to rethink your own list.

Zucchini Fettuccine with Sesame Mango Sauce

2 zucchini
4 mango diced
1 lemon juiced
2 Tbsp raw tahini
1/4 C water
chopped mint leaves for garnish
black sesame seeds for garnish

1. Spiralize the zucchini into fettuccine noodles, using a spiral slicer or a regular vegetable peeler.

2. To make the sauce: blend mangoes, tahini, water, and lemon juice in blender until smooth and creamy.

3. Top the zucchini noodles with sauce, and garnish with chopped mint leaves and sesame seeds. Enjoy!

So. Drum roll, please. Who's the lucky winner, Mr. Random Number Generator?Why that would be sharonl, who said:

hmmmmmmmmm

-cashews
-avocado
-brown rice cakes
-blueberries
-wild salmon

Congratulations! You'll be receiving a package in the mail shortly to help you begin your own Spring Cleaning & Detox.

Happy Earth Day everyone! Love your Mother and help save the earth, one bite at a time. Been thinking about becoming a veg head? Click here to order a FREE Vegetarian Starter Guide.

A Spring Cleaning Giveaway

As promised, I have a fun Spring Cleaning Giveaway for you this week.

After checking out the long list of toxicity symptoms, I hope some of you were inspired to take action and do a little spring cleaning. Nearly 100 folks signed up to get their green on with a 3-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse. You can check on their day-two progress here, and it's still not too late to join in.

Me, I had my monthly colonic on Friday and just completed a two-day liver/gallbladder flush this morning. Boy howdy! Feeling sparkly clean here.

So, what treats do I have for you? Well, for starters, a trial size bottle of Vitamineral™ Green and Vitamineral™ Earth. These are two staples in my raw foods lifestyle. Both products are developed by Dr. Jameth Sheridan.

Green foods are perhaps the most healing foods on the planet and the single most important addition to a diet you can make. Vitamineral™ Green is loaded with nutrient-dense ingredients like barley and wheat grass, alfalfa, green vegetables, sea vegetables, minerals and enzymes. You'll feel the energizing and cleansing effects of this incredible supplement immediately. You can read about my own detoxifying experience when I first began using Vitamineral™ Green.

A deeply grounding and nutritive counterpart to Vitamineral™ Green, Earth™ contains the best sources of essential fatty acids, cleansing roots, colon detoxifying and supportive foods. It can be used on its own or combined with Green™ for a nice balance of yin and yang.

Most everyone has heard of the Master Cleanse, also known as the Lemonade Diet. You can find lots of information floating around the internet about it, but here's an opportunity to win a copy of Stanley Burroughs' book The Master Cleanser with Special Needs & Problems. It's chock-full of information, including the origins of the cleanse, menu suggestions, and natural remedies from Mother Nature's kitchen.

If we're going to detoxify and cleanse our insides, we need to become more conscious of the products we're using on our outsides. The skin, often referred to as the third kidney, is the largest organ of elimination. Why then, would we ever want to wash our clothing and linens in chemicals?

Maggie's Soap Nuts™ are the only laundry soap that grows on trees! Soap Nuts™ are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree. Put a few into the included cotton sack and drop it in your laundry. Your clothes come out clean, vibrant and soft. I'm giving away a trial sack with enough for five loads.

Okay, so what do you have to do to win this fun Spring Cleaning Giveaway?

• trial size bottle of Vitamineral™ Green
• trial size bottle of Vitamineral™ Earth
• copy of The Master Cleanser with Special Needs & Problems by Stanley Burroughs
• trial sack of Maggie's Soap Nuts™

Just answer the following question in the comments of this post: If you can only eat 5 different foods for the rest of your life, what are they?

Yup. That's it. You're entered in the giveaway. Now go tell your friends about it. But, hurry. You only have until Noon (EST) on Wednesday, April 22 to enter. That's when Mr. Random Number Generator will pick one lucky winner, and I'll announce it here.

A Feast For The Eyes: Fennel & Tomato Tart

Sometimes, looking is enough.

And, sometimes, you just have to give in to temptation.

Friday Food Porn

Across the big pond lives the raw chef extraordinaire Russell James. Russell only makes pretty food. Pretty delicious food. Sign up for his weekly News from the Kitchen and you can have his tips, tricks and techniques delivered right to your Inbox. He'll even send you a complimentary copy of The Raw Chef's 5 Most Popular Recipes eBook. Nice guy, this raw chef.

In the meantime, to feed your inner voyeur, take a peak at his raw vegan Fennel & Cherry Tomato Balsamic Crust Tart with Macadamia Cheese and other sexy recipes.

Live a little. It's the weekend.

Time For Spring Cleaning & A Little Detox

Every day our bodies are bombarded with millions of toxins from polluted air, poisoned drinking water containing chlorine and fluoride, industrial chemicals, and so much more. Couple that with years of ingesting hormone-injected meat and dairy products, soy, white flour, table salt, MSG and other food additives, pesticides, microwaved foods, refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, alcohol, and prescription drugs.

Holy shitaake! Is it any wonder that we are a culture plagued by heart disease, autoimmune disorders, cancer, obesity, autism, Alzheimer's, depression and a host of other alarming health conditions. Many of the symptoms we've come to associate with "normal aging" are really signs of toxicity.

Lucky for us, the body is an amazing machine and naturally detoxifies every single day, whether we take any action to help it or not. But what happens when the organs of elimination become weak and/or overloaded? Garbage in. Garbage out. The body will resort to eliminating toxins through any convenient outlet it can find – the eyes, ears, throat, vagina, skin, sinuses, and scalp.

Symptoms of Toxicity:

sore throat
inflammation
fever
coated tongue
excess weight
hay fever and allergies
pimples
dandruff
chronic fatigue
indigestion
sinus troubles
migraine headaches
bad breath
heartburn
foul-smelling stools
strong body odor
nausea
runny nose
constipation
diarrhea
hemorrhoids
aches and pains
cellulite
bloating
gas

These "symptoms" may be a sign that toxins are becoming backed up in the lymphatic system, blood, liver or colon — all of which they must pass through before they leave the body for good.

What can we do to assist the body's natural cleansing process?

Consume an 80-100% raw, low-fat organic vegan diet
Raw juice fasting
Colon cleanse
Liver/gallbladder cleanse
Heavy metal cleanse
Parasite cleanse
Lymphatic massage
Dry skin brushing
Rebounding

Any lightening of your diet will have a detoxifying effect. You can jump on board for a Spring Green Cleaning and join certified nutritionist Meghan Telpner for a 3-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse, beginning Sunday, April 19. Meghan will prepare you for the cleanse with a shopping list, recipes, meditation techniques, yoga postures, support materials, and a Q & A conference call on Saturday. You can find more details and register here.

Ready to take the plunge and do a juice feast? David and Katrina Rainoshek are ready to support you on your Juice Feasting™ journey. They've created an online community for juicing, with videos, books, and over 350 articles for download.

Here's some interesting food for thought: every meal that you've put in your body since birth that is not a fruit or a vegetable is partially stuck in the body, like cement. In fact, cleansing guru Gil Jacobs says that adults who've grown up on a standard western diet and then convert to a diet of primarily raw, plant-based foods, could do a colonic a week for life because their bodies are so filled with waste from all the previous years of eating "normal" food. Visit the Colon Therapists Network to learn more about colon hydrotherapy and to find a therapist near you.

Whatever you do to assist your body in eliminating toxins, one thing's for certain — you'll experience new vigor and vitality, freedom from illness, sweet smelling breath, no body odors, easy and inoffensive elimination, shinier and thicker hair, clearer eyes and skin, greater mental clarity, no cellulite, greater stamina, and a deeper connection to spirit.

Check back here next week for a fun Spring Cleaning Giveaway!

A Feast For The Eyes: Carrot Cake Muffins

Sometimes, looking is enough.

And, sometimes, you just have to give in to temptation.

Friday Food Porn

Oh boy, food porn on Good Friday. Sister Margaret Claire would have my hide for sure. Always the deviant one. Hmmm, do you think that's why I was expelled from parochial school?

Well at least I chose something befitting of the season — you know, Easter weekend and all.

So. To feed your inner voyeur, visit the multi-talented Lilla at Healthy Simple Living for a peak at her raw vegan Carrot Cake Muffins and other sexy recipes. (If it's any comfort, I think looking is just a venial sin.)

Live a little. It's the weekend.

Healthy Moms Raising Healthy Children

Did you happen to hear the disturbing news last week on the discovery of a rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula? Yes, you read that correctly. Rocket fuel.

A new study from scientists at the Centers for Disease Control found perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, in all 15 brands of baby formula that they tested. Although this particular study was not about the health effects, the researchers say the chemical could exceed what's considered a safe dose for adults if mixed with water also contaminated with the ingredient.

Hello? Something that's used to make rockets go, can be consumed in safe amounts?

Perchlorate has been linked to thyroid disease, which can significantly impact fetal and infant brain development. And guess what? According to the Environmental Working Group, perchlorate has been found to contaminate drinking water in 28 states.

So, I guess if you live in a community where the water is also contaminated, there might be cause for worry. But, as of now, there's no hard and fast evidence that perchlorate in infant formula is making kids sick. Yeah. Right. Not sure I'd want to wait for the evidence.

And listen, this is just the latest study. Back in 2005, researchers at Texas Tech University found perchlorate in samples of store-bought cow's milk and even higher levels in human breast milk.

What's a mother to do?

Check out Empress Organics for a living vegan baby formula.

Take a peak at five Moms who are choosing to be as pro-active as possible and raise their children as organic raw vegans:

Julie began chronicling her raw vegan pregnancy at five weeks, back in June of 2007. She gives us a glimpse into her menu, yoga practice, biking, hiking, and ultimately, her home birth. Julie's daughter, Mizzen, just celebrated her first birthday in February.

Alex is three years old. He's been a raw vegan since day one and he wants to be a cowboy. He has his very own blog, Raising Alex, where his mom, Melissa, shares menus, recipes, lots of photos, and what happens at his drum circle.

Gina Laverde at Heal Artfully is a Raw Foods Coach and mom of Dougie. When her son was about 18 months old, he was diagnosed with autism. Not at all pleased with the diagnosis nor prognosis, Gina took matters into her own hands and transitioned her family to a high raw vegan diet. Today, the only thing that makes four-year-old Dougie different from his friends is the fact that he LOVES green smoothies and cultured vegetables. Oh, and he's starting to read.

Darlene Navarre did something absolutely crazy 10 years ago. She went raw and took her five kids and husband with her. Her two youngest, Mitchel and Carter, have been raw since birth. Head over to the Fruity Green Family for kid-friendly recipes and live "cooking" videos.

And, if that's not enough inspiration to get you at least thinking about making some healthier dietary choices in your family, then please visit The Raw Food Family. Kathi and Chris Kattoll are offering a FREE mini course on How To Raise Happy and Healthy Children.

A Feast For The Eyes: Sweet 'N Sour Veggies

Sometimes, looking is enough.

And, sometimes, you just have to give in to temptation.

Friday Food Porn

Musician, artiste, comedian and chef, Tofu has been a vegan for over 15 years now and one of the questions he still gets asked regularly is What The Hell Does A Vegan Eat Anyway? Fortunately, he's more than willing to show and tell.

To feed your inner voyeur, visit Tofu on Raw Food Wednesday for a peak at his raw vegan Sweet 'N Sour Vegetables and other sexy recipes.

Live a little. It's the weekend.

An Evolving Journey Back To Health

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

On the last summer solstice, I set an intention to change my relationship to food and to regain my health. Funny how the Universe conspires to support us. Through a seemingly chance encounter, I was introduced to the idea of a raw, living foods diet and that's been the road I've chosen to follow. It's been an interesting journey for sure. And, one that continues to evolve.

There's a wonderful website I often frequent called Evolving Wellness™ that focuses on holistic health and natural living. Evita shares informative, well-researched articles, product reviews and recipes. Today, I'm the feature of her monthly Evolving Wellness In Action series.
So, if you'd like to read an article about a morbidly obese woman who's evolved into a vibrantly alive one, then check out EarthMother: A Raw Food Journey From Sickness To Health.