A Purely Delicious Giveaway

It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely. ~ Cole Porter

I have it from a very reliable source – the oh-so lovely Rebecca Carlson – that the Spring issue of Purely Delicious is printed, bound and shipping today. And isn't it a beauty!

While the Winter issue arrived during a blizzard, I'm predicting blue skies and sunshine when I retrieve my latest copy from the postman, perhaps as early as this weekend.

Can't wait to dig in to some of Chef Omid's Spring Eats (swoon!):
♥ Sun Blushed Botanical Spring Vegetables
♥ Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Passion Fruit Pulp & Manuka Honey
♥ Mango & Lavender Mousse
♥ Red Radish & Sweet Pea Salad
♥ Pea, Fennel & Mint Soup

Mila Ilina addresses Emotional Eating

Cherie Soria, the director of Living Light Culinary Arts Institute explores weight loss on the raw food diet in her article Losing It. She shares some tasty treats too!

I wonder what raw food educators and authors Matt & Angela Stokes-Monarch have to say in their regular Q&A feature Ask the Experts. They always have such insightful information to share. Matt's been on a 100% living foods diet for well over 10 years now, and Angela lost 160 pounds by adopting a raw lifestyle.

Explore the Bold Flavors of Bali in seven mouth-watering recipes

And all that's just a taste to whet your appetite!

Hungry for more?

The easiest way to ensure you don't miss a bite, is to subscribe to Purely Delicious. If you mention In The Raw when ordering, you'll receive a free gift with your first issue. Sweet!

If a subscription isn't in your budget at this time, not to worry. This dazzling publication that celebrates living foods and an eco-friendly lifestyle is currently running a spread-the-word promotion: Rebecca and her staff will be searching chat sites, videos, blogs, Twitter and Facebook posts for anyone mentioning Purely Delicious magazine. The promotion expires July 15, 2010 and is open to all countries. Six 1-year subscriptions will be awarded. The more you mention Purely Delicious, the greater your odds of winning.

But wait, there's more!

Rebecca has graciously offered to gift one fortuitous reader of In The Raw with a one-year subscription. You'll have until Midnight EDT, April 30th to get your entries in. I'll call upon Mr. Random Number Generator to pick the lucky one. Check back here on May 1st when I'll announce the winner.

To enter, just answer this question in the Comments below this post:

What was the most delicious meal you've ever eaten?

Extra Entries: If you'd like to increase your chances of winning, please leave a separate comment for each extra entry.

• Tweet the giveaway with a link to this post (please include your Twitter ID in the comment)
• Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post. Again, please leave the link to your blog post in the comment.
• Follow me in the Twittosphere: I'm @rawliving
• Subscribe to In The Raw in your favorite web-based news reader
• Become a Facebook Fan of Purely Delicious Magazine

Good luck everyone!

UPDATE 5-1-10: This giveaway is now closed.

Congratulations Raw Candy, you're a winner!

Celebrate Earth Day, Every Day

Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in held on April 22, 1970. Today, it's celebrated in more than 175 countries each year.

I'd like to invite each of you to renew your commitment to all of the families with whom we share this beautiful planet: the two leggeds, the four leggeds, the winged ones, the crawlers, the standing ones (trees), those that live on the waters and in the waters, all those who have come before us, and all those who will come after us.

Here are 10 simple ways in which you can celebrate Earth Day, every day:

1. Pledge your commitment to the Earth by signing the Declaration of Energy Independence, which calls for our government to pursue a sustainable energy future that will preserve – not destroy – our last, unspoiled wildlands. 

2. Clean your home with Earth-friendly products. Consider the act to be a prayer and sacred offering.

3. Gather some rainwater, lavender, milk and honey. Add to your bath and soak in the energy of Mother Earth.

4. Attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife to your own backyard with the National Wildlife Federation's Certified Wildlife Habitat™ program.

5. Socially responsible investing is huge, and growing at a rapid rate. You can support a sustainable economy, and get great returns. Start your research at Red Jellyfish.

6. Leave your car keys at home. Ride a bike, walk or take public transportation.

7. Food, Inc. makes its broadcast premiere on PBS tonight (check local listings). Invite your friends and neighbors over for a screening. Purchase the DVD, and gift a copy to your child's school. Knowledge is power.

8. Lie on the Earth and listen to her sing. Sing with her.

9. Provide a living legacy for future generations by planting a tree in a damaged ecosystem. Every dollar plants a tree at American Forests.

10. Fight hunger with your garden this summer. Plant a Row for the Hungry encourages gardeners to plant extra and donate the produce to local food banks and soup kitchens, which rarely receive adequate fresh food.

May we all walk in beauty. 

May the Divine Plan of the Earth unfold quickly and in peace.

Tell me, how will you be celebrating Earth Day?

A Feast For The Eyes: A Glass of Emerald

Sometimes, looking is enough.

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

Friday Food Porn

One of my latest haunts on the web is a relatively new site called Golubka. It's a mother-daughter collaboration covering good food, clever design, and some things in between. The "in between" would be photographs – lots of them – that make me want to jump up off my chair and dive right into the computer screen.

Case in point: this gorgeous glass of greeeeeeeen smoothie. Twenty-month-old Paloma drinks them twice a day. { I'd like to gnaw on Paloma's sweet cheeks twice a day. Such a cutie! }

Paloma likes lots of her mama's sexy raw vegan recipes. I betcha you will too once you get a taste.

Live a little. It's the weekend.

The Dirt On Composting

Last year was my first as a gardener. Yup, I decided I was going to harvest groceries from my own backyard, read everything I could find about square-foot gardening, and set to work on my modest 15x15 foot garden.

Dare I say it? I had a bumper crop, baby! Oodles and oodles of garden-fresh, gorgeous produce. And, au naturale, thankyouverymuch. No chemical pesticides and fertilizers here. Organic as organic can be.

The secret's in the soil.

Special ingredient? Compost.

In the natural world, composting is what happens as leaves pile up on the forest floor and begin to decay. Eventually, the rotting leaves are returned to the soil, where living roots finish the recycling process by reclaiming the nutrients from the decomposed leaves. See, nature's been composting for eons!

Gardener's Gold

If you're a gardener, composting is a cheap and easy way to create your own fantastic fertilizer. Instead of throwing out your food scraps, you can put them to good use.

It's crazy, but about 1/3 of the waste sitting in a landfill is composed of organic matter that could easily have been composted. On average, one household could save 700 pounds of waste material a year just by composting. That's a lot of garbage, folks.

Why not turn your garbage into gold? The end product of compost is humus, a rich natural fertilizer. When mixed with soil, it contributes to erosion control and healthy root development, improves and stabilizes soil pH, and increases the nutrient content in the soil.

What materials can be composted?

• Grass clippings
• Leaves, twigs, bark
• Food waste, vegetable & fruit scraps
• Coffee grounds
• Sunday comics
• Burned toast
• Potato peelings

I think you see where this list is going. It's endless, really. I keep a container in my kitchen that gets filled throughout the day with:

• Apple cores
• Banana peels
• Date pits
• Grapefruit rinds
• Tea bags
• Watermelon rinds
• Corncobs
• Olive pits
• Onion skins
• Produce trimmings
• Seaweed
• Grocery receipts
• Old flower arrangements
• Dog fur
• Kleenex
• Fingernail clippings

When the container's full, I'll take it out back and add it to the compost bin along with shredded newspapers, horse hair...heck, I'll even throw in the dust bunnies that I chased out from under the bed.

What materials cannot be composted?

• Food waste like meat, fish, bones, fat
• Cooking oil
• Dairy products
• Diseased plants or weeds
• Heavily coated paper (magazines, catalogs, etc.)
• Kitty litter and pet feces

Actually, I should probably change that from "cannot" to "should not" because I'm sure there are people who throw all that (and more!) into their compost bins. But, unless you want varmints coming into your yard or a fungus among us, I'd recommend you refrain from composting these items.

Building a compost pile

While some people choose to go binless, simply building a compost pile on the ground, you can make a homemade compost bin from a trash can, cinder blocks, wire mesh, or wooden pallets.

I'd avoid using treated lumber like CCA – also known as pressure-treated wood – as it contains arsenic. Don't want that leaching into your compost!

Not a do-it-yourselfer? You can always purchase a manufactured bin.

Tips for composting

• Decrease the size of the materials being composted
• Provide oxygen to the compost by periodically turning the pile
• Make sure the pile is moist, but not too wet
• For faster composting, keep your pile or compost bin in direct sun
• Make sure the pile contains more brown material (dried leaves, wood chips) than green material (grass clippings, kitchen waste)

Got compost?

When finished it should look, feel and smell like rich, dark soil. You should not be able to recognize any of the items you put in there.

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up my garden from her looooooong winter's nap. I spread a good four-inch layer of finished compost on the plot and tilled it into the top 12 inches of soil. Generally, you want to add the finished compost to your garden about 2-4 weeks before you're ready to plant, giving the compost time to integrate and stabilize within the soil.

Oh, she is looking so very happy now and barring a blizzard (hey, it's been known to happen here, trust me), I'll be putting in my cool weather crops – lettuce, kale, spinach, peas, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts – this weekend.

When planting a flower or vegetable transplant, deposit a handful of compost into each hole. Compost will provide transplants with an extra boost that lasts throughout the growing season. Think of it as a gourmet meal for your plants!

The other thing I like to do is soak finished compost in water to "brew" a compost tea. This nutrient-rich liquid is fabulous for watering plants in your backyard garden. Ever wonder what to do with all that pulp from the freshly extracted juice you make?  Throw it in the blender with some water, and voilà, a delicious "smoothie" for your houseplants. They'll drink it up and thrive!

For more information and how-to articles, a terrific resource is HowToCompost.org.

So, tell me, are you planting a garden this year? Got compost?

Super Chocolate Shake

I was the lucky winner of the Sinful Pleasures Dessert Contest on Julie's Raw Ambition last month and yesterday my box of goodies arrived in the mail: cacao nibs, vanilla beans, coconut butter, macadamia nuts, and agave nectar. 

It was hot, humid and 83 degrees out. I took one look at those ingredients and thought, "Mmmm, chocolate milkshake!" 

{ Funny, less than two weeks ago, the snow was falling and my thoughts turned to chocolate then too...see a pattern here? Hey, it's a superfood, ya know! }

Super Chocolate Shake

1/2 C macadamia nuts
2 C filtered water
3 frozen bananas
3 Tbsp cacao nibs
2 Tbsp coconut butter
1 vanilla bean, scraped
1/4 C agave nectar

Soak the nuts in water overnight, then blend and strain through a nut milk bag. Pour milk back into blender. Add bananas, cacao nibs, coconut butter, vanilla, agave. Blend until smooth and creamy. Garnish with a sprig of mint. Slurp to your heart's content!

Speaking of superfoods, have you gotten your entries in yet for the Healing With Everyday Superfoods Giveaway? You only have until Midnight, so hurry! All you have to do is tell me what superhero you'd be and why. FUN.

Here's my superhero. 

Can you guess what my super powers might be?

Healing With Everyday Superfoods

Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food. 

~ Hippocrates

If you're not familiar with the dynamo behind the award-winning site Making Love In The Kitchen, you should be. Whether leading you through a Green Smoothie Cleanse, foraging wild edibles in the woods with David Wolfe, climbing around inside a giant colon, or whipping up a tasty recipe, Meghan Telpner does it all with a sense of humor and exuberant passion.

The most recent venture for this certified nutritionist and holistic lifestyle consultant is a shiny new tutorial, Everyday Superfoods. 

We are what we eat, so why not let our food be our medicine? Even Hippocrates, oodles and oodles of years ago, knew this truth. If food and lifestyle are the greatest contributors to ill health, why not turn that around and make choices that allow our food to heal us? If we give our body what it needs nutritionally, it will have all the tools necessary to build and repair itself.

Feeling challenged in your endeavors to make a transition to a healthier way of living? In Everyday Superfoods, Meghan shows you just how easy this can be. She'll lay it out for you in a concise manner and with an ample dose of humor thrown in.

The guide contains 60+ pages of information to help you on your journey toward health and healing. Here's a sampling of what's included:

• The Definition of a Superfood

• Benefits of Whole Foods

• Food as Fuel

• Food as Medicine

• Challenges with Food Guides & Diets

• Calories vs Nutrition

• Benefits of Raw Foods

• Everyday Superfoods: Cruciferous Vegetables, Leafy Greens, Sprouts, Seeds + Seed Oils (Sesame, Pumpkin, Flax, Hemp)

• The Super-Powered Superfoods: Chia, Cacao, Super Berries (Goji, Goldenberries, Mulberries)

• Bee Products (Raw Honey, Bee Pollen, Propolis, Royal Jelly)

• Super Healing Herbs

• 5-Day Meal Plan

• Super-Powered Recipes

• Conscious Eating

• Sprouting 101

• Food and Mood Journal

• Whole Foods Shopping List

• Blank Meal Plan Template

• And so much more!

How can you not take advantage of this educational and entertaining guide? All this info, and the cost is only $14.00. Shazam!

So, make like a superhero and fly over HERE to pick up your copy of Everyday Superfoods today. While you're there, you can also check out Meghan's other guide-to-health tutorials: Low Glycemic Eating, Natural Body Care, The Veggie Transition, 21 Days to Health, Green Smoothie Cleanse, and Hormonal Balance.

A Super Duper Giveaway!

Alright, I know we just wrapped up the Get Your Green On Giveaway, but when Meghan offered to gift one lucky reader with their own copy of Everyday Superfoods, how could I refuse?

So, here's the scoop: you have until Midnight EDT, April 7th to get your entries in. We'll employ our ol' pal Mr. Random Number Generator to pick a winner.

To enter, just answer this question in the Comments below this post:

 If you could be a superhero, who would you be and why?

Extra Entries: If you'd like to increase your chances of winning, please leave a separate comment for each extra entry.

• Follow @rawliving on Twitter.

• Tweet the giveaway with a link to this post (please include your Twitter ID in the comment).

• Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post. Again, please leave the link to your blog post in the comment. 

Good luck everyone! May the force be with you.

UPDATE 4-8-10: This giveaway is now closed.

Congratulations Isle Dance, you're a winner!

Get Your Green On Giveaway

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, most people should aim for at least nine servings of vegetables and fruits a day. While everyone agrees that fresh fruits and veggies are a great way to get the nutrients you need for optimum health, the average person doesn't even consume one green salad a day.

A couple of years ago, I was that "average person." I probably consumed nine servings – about 4 1/2 cups – a week. True.

Today, things are different. By the time I've finished my breakfast, I've had roughly nine servings of leafy greens, vegetables and fruits. My morning ritual: 32 ounces of freshly extracted green plant blood.

But, I get that most folks aren't as fond of the green juices and smoothies as I am. And let's face it, in today's world, convenience is key. It takes time to wash and prep veggies for juicing and blending. Sometimes, you just need to get out the door.

For times like that, or when I don't have access to my juicer or blender while traveling, a green powdered supplement is perfect. Recently, I've had the opportunity to try Antioxidant Natural Greens.

Manufactured in the U.S. for Tropical Traditions, Antioxidant Natural Greens is made with certified organic ingredients and processed at low temperature. It contains no added fillers, dairy, soy, MSG or artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.

Let's take a look at some of the greens included:

Spirulina (certified organic)
Spirulina is a freshwater algae containing an incredible source of nutrients. It provides generous amounts of beta-carotene, vitamin B12, iron and chlorophyll. Spirulina also has the highest protein of any natural food and contains more antioxidants than most regular whole foods.

Chlorella

This green single-cell freshwater algae contains high levels of chlorophyll, beta-carotene and more than 20 vitamins and minerals, including vitamin B12, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, folic acid, and vitamin C.

Barley Grass Juice Powder (certified organic)
Barley Grass is made into a juice at time of harvest. In juice form, it's about 45% protein. The amount of nutrients in barley grass is extremely high. For example, it has seven times more vitamin C than a single orange and 11 times the amount of calcium found in cow's milk.

Alfalfa Concentrate
Alfalfa is one of the most nutrient-rich food sources. Said to contain over 300 nutrients and phytonutrients, it is especially rich in minerals such as magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorus and potassium.  It's also a natural source of fluoride, fiber and chlorophyll.

Just these four ingredients alone, pack a powerhouse of nutrients. You can find the complete nutrition data for the product here.

I tried the Berry Flavored mixed with both natural spring water and coconut water, and found that it blends well (read: not thick and goopy). It's sweetened with stevia and has a nice taste.

My Siberian husky, Maya, is crazy for green smoothies so I wanted to see how she'd like the Antioxidant Natural Greens. I blended some in her water bowl, which she slurped right up and I also sprinkled some onto her regular food. She licked her chops, so I think she'd give it a paws up.

Wanna get your GREEN on?

The lovely folks at Tropical Traditions have offered to gift one lucky reader with his/her choice of Antioxidant Natural Greens in Mint or Berry Flavored, with or without Licorice Root Extract. This premium dietary supplement blend retails for $44.00.

You have until Midnight EDT, April 4th to get your entries in. I'll call on Mr. Random Number Generator to pick a winner. While I would love to hear from readers all over the globe, at the request of Tropical Traditions, I must limit entries to folks who live in the U.S. only. UPDATE 4-2-10: Tropical Traditions has graciously offered to open this giveaway to Canadian readers as well.

To enter, just answer this question in the Comments below this post:

What is your favorite fruit AND veggie?

Extra Entries: If you'd like to increase your chances of winning, please leave a separate comment for each extra entry.

• Head over to Tropical Traditions and sign up to receive their Sales Newsletter.

• Tweet the giveaway with a link to this post (please include your Twitter ID in the comment).

• Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post. Again, please leave the link to your blog post in the comment.

Good luck everyone!

Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

UPDATE 4-5-10: This contest is now closed. 

Congratulations Lauren519, you're a winner!