Well I'm closing in on a year on raw and life is great!!

Since I started running in June 2006, I have already successfully run a marathon and now I am training for my first Ultramarathon. For those of you who are unsure with that term, it refers to any race of greater distance than a normal 26.2 mile marathon. Distances include 30, 50, 100, and even 135 miles. There are even 24 hour races. My goal is to train and complete a 30 mile trail race on on a raw/vegan plant based diet.

With the race date of March 24th, it means that training must take place through the winter. This would be no problem if you lived in Southern California, but since I live in on the Connecticut shoreline, training can be tough. Although, Ct hasn't recieved much snow, we have had our share of negative 0 degree mornings, frozen ground and powerful wind gusts. When it is 5 degrees outside, it is really tough to get out of bed at 7am to go run for 3 hours, but it has to be done.

Since I am not eating warm foods to heat my body, I rely on lots of spices to increase circulation, and give my body that "warming feeling." Ginger, cinnamon and of course, cayenne, have become a staple in my diet over the last few months.

Included is a wonderful "warming" energy pudding that can be a dessert, breakast, or an easy, digestible post training meal.

Rockin Raw Energy Pudding

2 medjool dates, pitted+soaked 20 minutes
1 fuji apple, diced
1 avocado
1 banana
2T cacao powder
1T hemp oil
1/4t cayenne
1 pinch cinnamon
1 scoop of hemp protein

In a food processor, add dates and apple and pulse to break up into small pieces. Add remaining ingredients and blend until all ingredients are pureed and silky smooth. Fresh berries would be a great topping.

Eat, Enjoy and Smile!!

Frank

Laura's Note: Frank is a Raw Gourmet Chef, Instructor & Consultant living in Connecticut. Thanks for your Raw Body Wisdom, Frank! Check him out at his site, www.FrankGiglio.com.

Her epiphany came after watching chimpanzees eat. The chimpanzees were wrapping their fruit in greens before eating them. She discovered that these close relatives of humans (their DNA is 99+% of that of humans) ate a tremendous amount of greens—approximately 300 grams of fiber/day. Research showed that chimpanzees eat over 100 types of greens, whereas our supermarkets only carry a few different types. It turns out that they get much of their nutrients and amino acids from this huge variety of greens. Since our DNA is such a close match, why do chimpanzees show a far greater resistance to cancer, AIDS, and a host of other illnesses that plague humans?

Her studies in nutrition showed that though the recommended RDA for fiber is 20 to 30 grams, the average American consumes less than 15. Her family ate very few greens and generally avoided them when they could. Early experiments at consuming greater amounts of greens caused nausea and other problems. This was due to their digestive system not being used to breaking down that amount of fiber.

Through trial and error, Victoria came up with the idea of the “green smoothie,” an efficient, fun and delicious way of consuming our daily green requirements. With the green smoothie, her family’s problems once again disappeared. Her husband Igor's graying beard even returned to its natural color.

I have been 100% Raw for almost 6 months now, and I have been doing a liter to a liter-and-a-half per day of green smoothies for three months. I even did a 7-day cleanse on nothing but green smoothies. I am glad that I found her book early on my journey to being Raw.

One small note before you start making green smoothies on a daily basis, you will need a really good, high-speed blender, preferably a Vita-Mix or BlendTec 3hp blender. Personally, after burning out a $100 Cuisinart after only 1-1/2 months, I took the plunge and made an investment in the Vita-Prep 3 from Vita-Mix. Suffice it to say, it is worth every penny.

Green for Life documents Victoria’s research efforts and illustrates her findings with charts, illustrations, and expert citations. It also contains a study that she conducted with a physician and a group of patients who consumed two quarts of green smoothie per day, and their resulting testimonials. And if you want recipes, Green for Life provides you with more than enough sweet and savory recipes to get you going on the right track as you join the Raw-volution.

For more information on Victoria Boutenko and her family’s story, you contact her at Victoria@rawfamily.com or visit her Web site, www.rawfamily.com.

Last week we had temperatures in the single digits and wind chills in the minuses. Brrrrrrr! It has been a wonderful time to learn about winter cravings: “roasted butternut squash soup, ginger carrot soup, quinoa with roasted vegetables. Yummm.” That’s what my body has been telling me these days.
I figured some of you might be experiencing the same, so I reached out to the Raw Inspirations team for tips and here is what they each had to recommend.

Frank:
I too from time to time, crave cooked grains, especially quinoa. I try to limit my nut/seed intake, but its any easy source of nourishment. As for the cold, I incorporate a lot of cayenne, cinnamon, and ginger into my diet. This helps warm the body and provides better circulation. I also do cold rinses. Try it out, scream if you have to. For the last 30 seconds-1 minute of your shower, turn off the hot water and go straight cold. This closes the pores and retains the body’s heat. It’s tough to do but it works.

Paul:
Honestly, during the winter months, it is my experience to enjoy warm soups and other warmed foods as this is what our body tells us we need during this time. Roasted squashes with rosemary accented with fresh winter citrus. How about enjoying both cooked and raw items together during the winter months? For my body, being all raw during winter is not bringing me full vitality.

Chris:
I get through the winter by eating heavier foods, like avocado, nuts, and plenty of cayenne. I find the heat of the spice really does my body good when it is cold outside.

Jenna:
Nuts and seeds don't seem to be what I'm loving to eat either. I find that fasting in the winter can be rejuvenating and clarity-inducing. Seems to contradict an old idea of thinking we need more food (usually heavier) during winter time. When not fasting, I've found that having cooked quinoa is comforting as well as super-energizing. It has been 100% beneficial for my body. If I crave a full feeling, dehydrated bread made from sprouted kamut, celtic sea salt and water is the ticket. Also: cacao smoothies made pudding-thick are super-satiating and energizing, especially during winter.

Joe: I just avoid winters. I know its sucks as advice but it works a gem! ;o)

When I stayed with Shazzie, she would add warm water to her soups or heat them in warm water once made to just below 115f. I recall Dough Graham saying that it is largely psychological because 'hot' food is only around 140f before it burns your mouth!

Rob:
This is my first winter eating 100% raw and it is going pretty smoothly so far. I do green smoothies each day and if I want it a little warm, I let it blend a little longer. Another food type that I find satisfying in the colder weather is lightly fermented vegetables heated in my dehydrator.

The most satisfying dish that I had recently was at Quintessence in NYC early in January. I was totally won over by their Mexican Chili—fermented vegetables and wild rice in a chipotle pepper soup base. They heat it gently in the dehydrator. I would love to have that recipe.

Joel:
Seaweed, seaweed, seaweed ~ keeps you warm & mineralized. Experiment ~ the sea is the unlimit: ground dry, sprinkled in soups, blended in teas even in chocolate. Rubbing yourself or partner in cacao butter after a shower will keep you hot ;o) Your-own perfect medicine, if you don't get that one at first, you will, only for the courageous.

Jeff:
1. Let your food come to room temperature before eating. Cold food all the time can throw some people out of balance.

2. Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine has some great recipes that use the dehydrator to warm food. Thai Vegetables.

3. Try pouring some warm water over your salad and making a soup salad.

4. Ginger, Turmeric and Pepper as condiments; also fennel, cinnamon, and clove.

5. Foods high in Potassium are supposed to be warming (sodium foods cooling, reduce salt).

6. Eat crunchy dehydrated foods (e.g. flax crackers) with cold food or salads. First winter people seem to benefit from eating more dehydrated food.

7. Red Limo Pepper Powder (hot like habanero)

8. Eat enough food.

Laura:
Wonderful winter soups can be made with the following formula. Use your taste sensibility to concoct the perfect combinations!

a squash (zucchini, yellow, etc)
a fat (avocado, 1/4 c. soaked seeds or nuts, 2 tbs. coconut oil, etc)
spices (curry, dill, cayenne, cumin, etc)
a handful of greens and/or celery, carrots
fresh herbs (basil, etc)
sea salt, garlic, onion, lemon, red pepper: all these are flavor enhancers if you do them.

Put all ingredients in the blender with about 2-3 cups water, and blend until smooth. If you have a VitaMix, you can blend til warmed, or, put onto the stove on lowest heat and stir until warm to the touch (not hot!). This soup is great topped with chopped salad veggies, hemp seed, sea weed, blue-green algae or sprouts. Best ever satisfying winter meal! Enjoy it with flax crackers and salad if you're really hungry. I find that this soup by itself is incredibly filling.

So many, wonderful recommendations! Thank you all so much! My recommendation to you is to experiment with some of these and see how you feel. Our bodies are infinitely wise and the more we tune into what they tell us the better we will do. As Paul says, perhaps you need to do a combination of cooked and raw foods. Only you know what your body does best with. Have fun and be hot! ;-)

More About Morella Devost: As a Holistic Health Counselor I help people regain their health and achieve vibrant living through an integrated body, mind and spirit approach. The foundation of my approach is nutrition and psychology. You see, the majority of us have been in the dark with regards to how foods can heal us and also how they can make us more ill. On top of it, our relationships with food often reflect deeper emotional issues that remain unaddressed and which we unconsciously seek to muffle with food. The final and most important aspect of what I do is to help people fall in love with life over and over again. Health and vibrant living are therefore not just about food but about living a nurturing, juicy life.

Following a stint in business, I started by getting a Masters Degree in Counseling from Columbia University Teachers College and I practiced Family Therapy for a while. I quickly knew that for me there was a lot missing in looking to help people through mind and emotions alone. Therefore, I attended the program in Holistic Healing and Nutrition at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Through all of this and my own personal journey to heal myself, I have realized that healthy, vibrant living is not only possible but it is our natural state.

In an initial consultation I do a couple of different assessments and I listen a lot. One of the assessments is what I call a Health History and the other is the Circle of Life. Through these I learn about historical eating habits, current diet and lifestyle, any major conditions and what are my client’s health concerns. In addition, we assess the person’s level of fulfillment across sixteen different dimensions of life (i.e. career, relationships, home environment, etc.) This initial session leads us to set the life and health goals toward which we will work together. Healing then unfolds through education, coaching, fun, and unconditional support.

When a society’s paradigm, or “constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices and techniques shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself,” no longer proves viable, a revolution must occur. A culture breaks with an outdated modus operandi and is forced to adopt a new one in order to survive. The shift does not happen immediately or cleanly however. Those invested in the power structures of the old paradigm offer as solutions more of, or more extreme versions of, the same approaches that no longer work to solve society’s problems. When society has long held on to a narrow-sighted paradigm, when the community is global in scale, or when factors such as food addiction are involved, the transition to a new paradigm may appear radical or unnecessary to some. To those already living in the new paradigm, its necessity is self-evident. The shift to a Deep Ecological worldview is based on an acknowledgment of the interconnectedness and interdependence between all things, and the living systems model of existence. It views all life as equal in value. Humans do not stand above other members of the community of all beings. We are subject to the same laws of nature as other creatures and are part of nature. Yet, humans also shoulder an additional responsibility ~ to preserve the viability of life on the planet. The living systems model of existence empowers humans to assume their role because it enables us to see ourselves as participants in webs of relationship, from the level of immediate ecosystem to the scale of planet. In fact, what makes us who we are, are our relationships with the natural world.

This eco-centric perspective is juxtaposed with the prevalent contemporary view of humanity as separate from nature and the idea that nature exists to serve mankind. Western culture’s anthropocentrism is based upon and results in a science of mechanistic reductionism that fosters an ethic of unlimited economic growth, consumerism, competition, individualism, and exploitation of the natural world. Human existence is primarily defined by one’s participation in the political economy. Nature is a collection of resources to be turned into products. Food is thus something to deep-fry, irradiate, microwave, broil, bake, steam, etc., etc. and/or package, brand, label, mark-up, sell, etc., etc. rather than pristine sustenance that is virtually perfect as nature created it.

Recognizing that one’s worldview both dictates and is reinforced by one’s actions, it should be noted that feeding patterns and diet simultaneously are a result of lifestyle and determine lifestyle. The Standard American (SAD) Diet thus the result of and something that reinforces disconnected, industrial lifestyle, while the shift to a raw food diet is both the result of ecologically conscious lifestyles and is central to the cultivation of a sustainable way of being. The experience of eating live food is that of being part of the paradigm shift back to connection to the natural world through a re-engagement of one’s senses.

Welcome home to your wild, animal, free, deliciously yummy self!

Bruce

My life has become a conscious experiment and I strive to find out what my human potential really is.

Very soon I will be going into darkness for a fourteen day vacation from visual stimulation with no food or water.

The apparent accumulative effect of this kind of retreat will allow my eyes to perceive infra red and ultra-violet after a week. The serotonin levels in my brain will rise and there will be a DMT release, and colors will flood my visual cortex. In short this experiment is another boundary to push to share with those I meet and discover new horizons.

This message of exploration of your human potential is about finding your edge and going beyond where you may have been before to discover that your edge was really in your mind.

As we know that the mind cannot tell whether you are running physically or running mentally ~ so every day I run trails, lift weights, solar gaze, eat a raw-food diet, meditate, breath and get turned on. If or when the physical reality actually occurs, your body will produce the same chemicals and find the tasks in hand infinitely easier to produce the desired effects.

Remember, you are already a success. It seems to take more effort to procrastinate and think about doing something physical in terms of energy output than it does to go ahead and do it anyway. Just like the book by Napoleon Hill, 'Think and Grow Rich.’ Definitely worth reviewing the concept of this.

You are a success even if you forgot temporarily.

Blessings to you all from Asia.

Love,

Michael

What she writes here mirrors the heart of Visionary Stewardship and Anchoring The New Dream of Earth, and offers a potent suggestion we will all do well to exemplify.

She writes:

For those interested in bettering the world, a first essential step is to better our visions of the world. Our prophetic words are templates of Earth's future reality. How do you and your loved ones portend the future? Perhaps the most important contribution we can make to posterity is to gather all our mental might and frequently verbalize visions of paradise.

~Happy Oasis

Detox the box
Eating out of the box?
Feasting on fruit!
Beauty out of a box?
Conceived as cute!
Living in a box?
Nature can dilute!
Driving all day in a box?
Lock the keys in the boot!
That’s another box?
Bounce Barefoot like a newt!
Surrender the sox!
Earth your root!
Music from a box?
Pick up a flute!
Riches locked in a box?
Look inside for the loot!
Watching a box?
Whilst sunsets enroute!
laughing at a box?
when life’s a Cosmic hoot!

Caged in a box?
You’re not a mute!
Staring at a box?
that don’t compute!
believing in a box?
pick up a pursuit!
composted in a box?
oh shoot!

if you don’t care
You’ll get flattened, Beware
of turning into a Square

Choose Humour of life
Over Tumor of strife

Dolphin's Own Shen ChocolateChip Arctic Cream

1 cup Irish Moss
1 cup ‘Artisana’ brand Coconut Butter (cacao boy says it is awesome stuff, different from oil) and
2 cups Coconut Oil (this is the silkier stuff)
1 Vanilla Bean
1 tspBlue Manna/ blue green algae
1/2 cupCacao nibs
2 Tbsp Crushed flakes of Ho-Shu-Wu(root)
1/2 cup Sweeten with wildcrafted ethically gathered honey/ or yacon syrup
Process or blend together all ingredients. Cool/Freeze or put inside an ice cream maker.

Have You Tried:

Cacao Drinks with Celery /Cucumber/Red Bell Pepper Juice and a shot of mint juice instead of water?

The Return of Cosmic CacaoBoy

Born from the grace of a superhero goddess with occasional amnesia, in (Ava)London, Great Britain, Cosmic Cacao Boy Joel Gazdar is forever climbing up the ladder of the cosmic DNA serpent. After falling off, all the way to the bottom many times, staring death and his own shadow in the face many times and learning to redeem & reconcile through the truth and beauty of love, Joel has been privileged to appreciate all the outstanding teachers and all the sacred relationships that he attracts. He has everything & nothing to remember.

He has studied nature exponentially all his life primarily through the channels of of Mastering Architecture & Design and applying those principles to health and lifestyle (The Architecture of the universe from unmanifest to manifest), designing a Superlife that is de-light-full, from the most powerful nation in creation the I-Magi-nation.

He has intentionally dedicated himself to the healing arts for over a decade. Joel teaches through his example of natural wellbeing, using various modalities that bring You into the truth of your Ultimate Self.

He continues to co- create many successful projects in his chosen paradise. Is the CEO of ‘Sunshine Supernaturals’, and has channelled/designed the cross pollination ‘Project Alchemy’ which is being built & launched in London this year in partnership with all active team members and Europe’s leading conscious empowerment, & rawfood teachers, Innventors, Healers and Artists.

Thanks to all my relations for coming out of the superhero closet and shining their light. You Know Who You Are.

Joel is now living the dream at his new store, restaurant and healing center called Alchemy at 1 Omega Place, Kings Cross, London, N19DR, UK.

Cacao for now
Joel "CosmicCacaoBoy" Gazdar
cosmiccacaoboy@yahoo.com

I breed Samadhi to love right, I breed Samadhi to love right, I breed Samadhi to love right, I breed Samadhi to love right, Samadhi, Samadhi, Samadhi, can everybody find me—in Samadhi to love.

A firm favourite in our family, and unbelievably like the cooked version. If I had known how to make things like this when I first got interested in raw foods, it would have made the transition a lot easier.

8 oz oat groats, soaked overnight
4 fl oz extra virgin olive oil
4 fl oz agave
2 tsp cinnamon
2 oz raisins
2 oz apple, chopped finely

Put the oats in the food processor. Process for a few minutes, making sure that the grains are completely broken down into a paste. Add the extra virgin olive oil, apple concentrate, and cinnamon, and process to a smooth batter. Lastly, stir in the raisins and apple with a spoon. Spread into a square about 1 cm high on dehydrator sheet. Dehydrate for about 18 hours. When cooled cut into fingers (six up by three down).

Apple and raisin flapjacks are my favourite, but you can substitute whatever nut or fruit you like, or even add 2 tbsp carob powder for a carob flapjack.

Makes 18

Kate lives in Brighton, England, with her three young sons, and is in her 14th year of rawness. She is author of Eat Smart, Eat Raw, the UK's best-selling raw foods book, and Raw Living, which is being published this year. she is currently working on her third book, Raw Magic. She has a shop in Brighton, also called raw magic, which sells raw foods, superfoods and the UK's finest raw chocolate. Her website is www.rawliving.co.uk, or you can visit her at myspace.com/katemagic. the levels of joy, vitality and bliss she experiences in her life, and the magical miracles that manifest, blow her mind on a daily basis, and she is bursting with a passion to share her wonderment with the world.

Photography by Mal Cooper

But of course there’s the old standbys — Nestle, Hershey’s and Mars — but now, in the age of the body conscious, the confectionery rectory is faltering and people are grappling with ways to find faith in healthy foods. This is where Kelly Johnson and his business, Sedona Chocolate Superfoods steps in. He’s the compassionate chef who understands people want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Johnson, 38, stands over a fresh batch of his latest chocolate masterpiece, L.O.V.E. Cups. Without knowing the acronym L.O.V.E. actually stands for “live, organic, vegan, euphoria,” it wouldn’t take a person long to guess there’s some sort of natural elation involved in the creation of his foods. Nearly every day, Johnson leans over dozens of disc-shaped chocolate cups sprinkling handfuls of hemp seeds and goji berries onto each smooth-textured surface. He peers through his glasses, squinting and analyzing the all-natural food. Every so often, he randomly blurts out scientific facts on nutrition — the price one has to pay to watch the chocolatier in action. “Did you know the hemp seed is the only seed with chlorophyll?” he asks. “I’ve soaked them to start the germination process early.” Hunched over another silver tray of chocolate bars christened “Sedona Magic Healing Bars,” Johnson rattles off more information about his chocolate. “This stuff’s raw,” he says, emphatically. He wipes the chocolate from his hands onto a white apron embroidered with his nickname, “Kelly Wonka”, and continues his rant. “All-natural, uncooked, organic,” he says. “No additives, no preservatives. None of that junk.”

Johnson drops some maca into a chocolate cup, followed by spirulina. He says the spirulina contains essential amino acids and adds that it helps people with diabetes. He points to coconut oil that he uses in the cooking process. He says it acts as a solvent for the body, as well as an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. Then, as if at a lectern, Johnson spews forth a barrage of knowledge about the benefits of his product. “It’s high in magnesium, which fights cardiovascular disease. It has tryptophan, which is an amino acid,” he says. “And, it allows the hypothalamus and pineal glands to secrete a fluid called amrita.” Johnson concludes his discussion briefly with a little known fact that amrita means “divine nectar” and is the drink of the gods that grants them immortality, according to Hindu and Buddhist mythology.

After a tray is taken from the oven to the counter, where he occasionally ads ingredients from the only legal psychoactive plants in the world, Johnson places them into a refrigerator to cool. This is his time to enjoy his samples of a finished product. “Women crave it because it balances out their endocrine system,” he says, biting off a hunk of dark chocolate. “It has PEA [phenylethylamine], the love chemical. It opens up the heart on every level.”

In between bites, Johnson washes down the chocolate with an all-natural ginger drink. He unwraps an heirloom variety cacao seed from its skin with his free hand. “The caffeine in chocolate comes in the cacao skins,” he says, adding that most of his seeds come without the skins. “The theobromine in it is equal to caffeine, but safer. It’ll keep you awake for awhile, but you’ll dream big.”

Johnson’s in his own world when he creates chocolate. It was a long road to get to where he is today.

After high school, Johnson had an opportunity to enter a college level job in architecture or engineering, but he chose a different path. “I blew everything off and went backpacking on the Appalachian Trail,” he admits, sheepishly. It was when he was lost in Maine that he realized where he had gone wrong, literally. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, Johnson had an epiphany. He defines the moment as his first time in total clarity, a time of “higher self.”

When Johnson came off the trail he took a job with a traveling zoo. The travel eventually brought him to the Inner-Light Center in Santa Fe, N.M., where he apprenticed as a fire walker and Reiki master, in addition to participating in Native American peyote ceremonies. “It was there I learned who a man is, what he thinks he is and what he really is,” Johnson says. “We’re each unique, individual expressions of God.”

Johnson left New Mexico with a deeper sense of self and returned to his home state of Texas. There, Johnson worked with hospice care for five years, during which time he helped 18 friends and family members pass on. Lessons in empathy grew within him, but soon he realized he needed to dedicate time to himself again.

Unfortunately, around the time Johnson left the hospice, he became sick. He developed a severe staph infection and found the only cure that worked significantly came in holistic medicines. He became a devout vegan and stayed on a raw diet. He claims the lifestyle change saved his life. Johnson came out of the illness miraculously and celebrated by buying a 1963 Chevrolet school bus.

For 10 years, he traveled North America and lived in that bus searching out sustainable communities. When he wasn’t in a community he lived in isolation, continuing a lifestyle based around raw foods and holistic medicines. Granted, the decade didn’t always provide visions of clarity, but he suggests he’s learned as many things from his outer body experiences that he’s ever learned on the straight and narrow. “Man, I’ve lived in yoga ashrams and I’ve lived like a rockstar ... it’s pretty amazing what the human spirit can endure,” Johnson says. “It’s pretty amazing what the human body can endure.” A few minutes into a discussion of Johnson’s crazy days rolling down the highway with a bus full of hippies, he stops and gazes over the top of his glasses with a glazed stare. “You feel anything yet?” he asks. “It’s the buzz. That’s what it’s all about.”

During Johnson’s journeys, he came upon Sedona, where he found spiritual roots, friendships and an ideal place for his business to thrive. Before setting up shop permanently, he learned as much as he could about live and raw foods from the Tree of Life Foundation and now practices them on his own. An incredible thing about Johnson is that he isn’t all about calories and vitamins. He found a way to fasten his nutritional knowledge to a spiritual and historic sensibility, making raw foods more than an acquired taste.

If Johnson had his way, the days of genetically-enhanced goodies would be long gone. He prefers the time honored tradition, in days before Mayan culture. Until he gets his way, he’ll just play off the fact that chocolate is popular. “Everybody loves chocolate,” he smiles. “If they say they don’t, they’re lying. It appeals to all my senses. It’s a legal drug and it’s healthy. It’s the super cosmic consciousness downloaded from cacao, my brother.”

Johnson takes another mouthful, and after a quick wipe of his lips offers advice and warning. “Decide what you love and do that,” he says. “But, eat dead and be dead. Eat live, be alive.”

Over my last six 'mostly 100% raw vegan' years, I have been uncovering a highly useful yet heretofore unknown Universal Law. The function of only having certain things in the kitchen is, I find, kind of like the Law of One Sock Always Going Interdimensional In Between the Washer and Dryer, but in reverse.

Let me explain.

In the case of the Law of Cosmic Raw Food Creations, the rule is, WHATEVER YOU HAVE IN YOUR KITCHEN, properly combined, will make the most AMAZING raw recipe EVER!!

It's a law.

Here's how I proved this Quantum Theorem once again, tonight, while working on Raw Inspirations.

Low and behold, in the freezer is a bag of wild organic blueberries.

On the counter is one ripe banana.

Oh, look! A large piece of ginger root and a nice remaining hunk of, yes, cacao butter!

And whaddya know, there's a bit o' the ole maca in a small, almost empty bag in the back of my large, very empty fridge.

Of course, I have just brewed a nice cup of (not raw) ginseng tea too boot, and, I have just finished washing all the dishes, including the VitaMix!

Now, to the undiscerning eye, this particular combination of ingredients, wild blueberries, a banana, fresh ginger root, cacao butter, maca and ginseng tea, might sound like "other than" the best ever concoction.

However, to my raw-knowing sensibility and synergistic Super Hero Activated Mind, a beautiful AHA rings out into the Universe!

And with that, everything goes INTO the VitaMix, whirl, spin, blend and voila! Oh my Goddess, that is the BEST DRINK EVER!!!

I promise.

(Just a little piece of ginger, mind you, and only a tad of maca.) It's warming, it's fruity, it's got a little nice fat in it for winter, super yum!

Now, what do we call it? Hmmmm, let's see:

Blue Maca Ginger Brew!

So be it!

Party on, raw dudes, dudettes and enthusiasts! And remember, check out what's in that fridge~verrrry carefully!

Love,
Laura

Love,
Laura

It is really easy to eat healthy when you have access to a market where local fruits and vegetables are brought in daily and are incredibly inexpensive.

This is what I discovered on a recent visit to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a colonial village in a stunning setting in the mountains of central Mexico. Every day we make a trip to the large “Mercado” where the selection of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers is astonishing. For a few dollars, you can fill your market bag with avocados, mangos, tomatoes, oranges, coconuts, melons (and a few things I’ve never seen) . . . and head home to whip up an incredibly healthy meal. And then the next day we try something different. In this country of incredible culture, amazing weather and interesting people, I have found pretty much everything I need to continue the daily regime I enjoy at home. And it’s much easier and cheaper! We’ve got veggie kraut in the window fermenting, coconut kefir in the refrigerator and wheat grass shots available at a local health food store around the corner.

Another amazing adventure in the life of Vegan Bubba!

Vegan Bubba
Robert McCully
veganbubba@sc.rr.com

Laura's Note: Robert, Vegan Bubba, is an amazing teacher and a dedicated raw vegan who has gone through massive personal transformation in his own life, through his own inner drive to take himself beyond where he ever thought he'd be able to go. The Raw and Live Foods Community is blessed to have access to him as a teacher now, after his many years of work on himself and helping others. Vegan Bubba is a great inspiration. We are so happy to have him on board! He is especially able to assist people who are suffering from addictions take the next step in their healing, awakening and cleansing process.

Delicious Raw Gourmet Winter Foods Prep Class!