Posts from — August 2009

Since starting out on the raw diet about 8 years ago I pretty much have eaten a large salad almost every night! I go through phases of what type of salad I like to eat, this one below is my latest “favorite” I pretty much eat a variation of this salad at least a few times a week.

 For the base you need a head of greens. My favorite greens to use are red leaf lettuce, collards, chard, or mixed baby greens. Any leafy green will do or a combination of different greens. I’m lucky that I get to eat greens once and awhile from growingyourgreens.com’s  garden and our local farm has great greens as well.

 Here is a variation using collards as the base:

Raw Food Collard Greens Salad with Cecilia’s Omega Dressing

 5 collards leaves thinly sliced
1 small cucumber thinly sliced
3 small tomatoes or 2 medium sized tomatoes diced
1/8 avocado chopped
A handful of your favorite seaweed (I love silky sea palm)
1 tablespoon hemp seeds

I rolled the collards and then sliced them really thinly. I like to slice my greens really thin with my Kyocera Santuko Ceramic Knive, but any good chef’s knife will do. I have also had success with shredding the greens in the food processor with the slicing disc on. Add all the ingredients into a large bowl.

 Cecilia’s Omega Dressing

4 tablespoons lemon or lime juice (about 2 lemons)
1 teaspoon Udo’s Choice 369 Blend Vegan DHA Oil
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon raw honey
1/8 of an avocado mashed
1 teaspoon flaked seaweed, dulse flakes, or kelp granules
2 tablespoon of a combination of chopped fresh herbs such as chives, basil, dill . . . or 1 teaspoon of dried herbs of your choice

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl with a fork and pour over the salad. Don’t worry if the avocado isn’t completely smooth. It will still work. If you aren’t into oils, no worries, just add more avocado. Toss the dressing into the salad and enjoy!

Some other additions I like to add to my salad are:

Tomatoes (heirloom are my favorite)
Cucumbers (English ,Persian, Lemon,  and Armenian are some of my favorite varieties, but any variety will do)
Red, Orange, or Yellow Bell Pepper
A Combination of Fresh Herbs such as Cilantro, Basil, Dill, Chives, Parsley
Sea Vegetables – Great Source of Minerals, Especially Iodine
Sun Dried Black Olives
Hemp Seeds – Excellent Source of Essential Fatty Acids Including Omega 3, 6 and GLA
Chopped avocado

I get almost all my seaweed from Ocean Harvest Sea Vegetables 

 If you need some inspiration on how to make your salads more exciting, or need some ideas for making raw salad dressings you might want to check out my salad dressing recipe booklet.

♥,

C

Question of the Day:
What is your favorite raw food salad? Please write the recipe in the comments section below.

I first learned about kefir about 10 years ago from The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates.

10 years ago I was making it out of goats milk and soy milk. Now I much prefer to make it out of coconut milk or young coconut meat.

 According to Donna Gates, Kefir is a health promoting food and it has been traditionally consumed in Russia and the Middle East for thousands of years with good results. It’s a natural probiotic source that can promote a healthy digestive system.  Also, because of kefir’s vitamins, minerals, easy to digest proteins, beneficial bacterias, and yeasts, it contributes to a healthy immune system as well.

Click here to read more about kefir’s benefits. It’s the best article I’ve found on Kefir so far.

 Now for the fun stuff: How to make it!

My favorite is to make it out of young coconut meat and the young coconut water.  It’s rather simple to make young coconut kefir:

•  Take the meat from about 4-6 young coconuts and then blend the meat in a blender with some water or young coconut water until you reach a pudding consistency. (Make sure that the meat and water are not pink, purple, or brown. Think bright white meat and clear liquid. )
• Put the mixture in a sealed quart sized mason jar with extra room at the top. (It will expand as it ferments)
• With a sterilized spoon mix a packet of Body Ecology’s Kefir starter in a little warm water and then mix it into the coconut mixture. Seal the mason jar and let it ferment for 24-36 hours. It is best for it to ferment around 70 to 75 degrees F. I put mine near the dehydrator, if it is running, for some extra warmth, or you can put it in an insulated cooler. The longer it ferments the more sour it will get.
• Store it in the refrigerator. The final product should be white and delicious with stevia, honey, fresh fruit, or blended with fruit in a blender.
• If is pink or purple or anything but white please discard.

Click here to learn how to safely open up young coconuts

Easier and Less Expensive Version

 I soon realized that due to the cost of young coconuts that I wasn’t going to be able to make young coconut kefir regularly! So I tried making it with Turtle Mountain’s Coconut Milk, which is pretty much just a watered down version of coconut milk.  I’m sure you could make your own milk with brown coconuts or use watered down bottled coconut milk.  I used the original flavor which has some evaporated cane juice that the beneficial bacteria just love. Use the same directions as above using the coconut milk as a base.  Instead of making a creamy kefir it makes a drinkable probiotic liquid and is a great base for smoothies.

 You can make kefir just out of the young coconut water as well! Probiotics never tasted so good:)

Click here to get the kefir packets

FYI: I remember reading that the packets might contain trace amounts of dairy.

 Instead of using the packets you can use the kefir grains directly which is the most economical way to go, because if taken care of, they last forever and actually multiply!

 You can get the kefir grains from here

If you want to use the grains,  here is a great article on how to get started

The reason I don’t use the grains is because with most of my kitchen projects such as with my kombucha and rice bran pickling experiments, I get really excited at first and then I loose interest and have a huge science experiment I’m not sure what to do with! The packets allow me the flexibility to not make kefir for awhile and then start up again when the mood strikes:)

Here’s a simple recipe using kefir I made just yesterday:

 Strawberry Nectarine Kefir Sorbet

1 and ½ cup frozen strawberries
½ cups coconut kefir
½ a nectarine
1 pinch stevia powder
seeds from 1 vanilla bean* optional

 Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender using a tamper. Blend less for a sorbet, blend more for more for a shake. Garnish with fresh fruit and bee pollen. I added bee pollen, wheat germ, and drizzled with blackstrap molasses. It felt like a sundae:)

 Blending kefir with any fruit in a smoothie tastes great. My favorite with kefir are strawberries and blueberries.

Click here for more kefir recipes

If you liked this post you might like my young coconut yogurt post as well!

Happy Fermenting!

♥,

C

The Meat of the Problem Is Meat

By Ezra Klein
The Washington Post, July 29, 2009 
Click Here to Go Straight to the Orginal Article 

[Cecilia's Note:  I was a bit dissapointed when I watched an "Inconvenient Truth" and did not see a mention of how diet can help fight global warming, so glad the mainstream media decided to reveal an even more "inconveniet truth" for most people.]

The debate over climate change has reached a rarefied level of policy abstraction in recent months. Carbon tax or cap-and-trade? Upstream or downstream? Should we auction permits? Head-scratching is, at this point, permitted. But at base, these policies aim to do a simple thing, in a simple way: persuade us to undertake fewer activities that are bad for the atmosphere by making those activities more expensive. Driving an SUV would become pricier. So would heating a giant house with coal and buying electricity from an inefficient power plant. But there’s one activity that’s not on the list and should be: eating a hamburger.

If it’s any consolation, I didn’t like writing that sentence any more than you liked reading it. But the evidence is strong. It’s not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it’s that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.

According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat’s contribution to climate change is intuitive. It’s more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. “Manure lagoons,” for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas — interestingly, it’s mainly burps, not farts — is a real player.

But the result isn’t funny at all: Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. “How convenient for him,” was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. “He’s a vegetarian.”

The visceral reaction against anyone questioning our God-given right to bathe in bacon has been enough to scare many in the environmental movement away from this issue. The National Resources Defense Council has a long page of suggestions for how you, too, can “fight global warming.” As you’d expect, “Drive Less” is in bold letters. There’s also an endorsement for “high-mileage cars such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids.” They advise that you weatherize your home, upgrade to more efficient appliances and even buy carbon offsets. The word “meat” is nowhere to be found.

That’s not an oversight. Telling people to give up burgers doesn’t poll well. Ben Adler, an urban policy writer, explored that in a December 2008 article for the American Prospect. He called environmental groups and asked them for their policy on meat consumption. “The Sierra Club isn’t opposed to eating meat,” was the clipped reply from a Sierra Club spokesman. “So that’s sort of the long and short of it.” And without pressure to address the costs of meat, politicians predictably are whiffing on the issue. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, for instance, does nothing to address the emissions from livestock.

Picture Courtesy of Bravo

As someone who loves everything food, being primarily a dietary vegan for the last 7 and half years has not stopped me from enjoying the array of wonderful food T.V. shows out there. I think I’ve watched every Japanese Iron Chef ever filmed; my favorite episode was when a Japanese monastery chef won with a completely vegan menu! Only in Japan, I thought.

But last night my prayers were answered, my love of health promoting vegan cuisine was finally showcased on a cable network show called Top Chef Masters.

It was just the other day I was day dreaming about what would happen if one of the elimination challenges on Top Chef Masters were to ask five of the countries top chefs to prepare a completely vegan meal. Last night the beautiful actress/singer songwriter Zooey Deschanel  asked 5 chef’s including Rick Bayless, Art Smith, Anita Lo, Hubert Keller, and Michael Chiarello to create a completely vegan meal with no eggs, meat, or dairy, plus no gluten or soy! I really liked Zooey in Yes Man with Jim Carey, and now I like her even more!

What surprised me a little was the attitudes of most of the chefs when they found out they had to make a vegan meal. Most of them seemed shocked, afraid, and even frustrated. Chef Michael Chiarello commented that veganism is off putting because it’s all about saying no. I feel like for me, pure vegetarianism is about saying yes to healthy, vibrant, alive, varied, fresh, organic amazing food! It’s also about saying yes to energy, wellness, beauty, happiness, and longevity. I guess it’s just a different mind set, but I really do wish that more top chefs would wake up to the idea of vegetarian/vegan cuisine. One, you’d see a lot less overweight chefs (okay, that was a little stab) and I also believe it would help to introduce more people to the fact that health promoting fruits and vegetables can be prepared deliciously.

Despite their initial complaining, the dishes the chefs came up with looked great.

 Hubert  Keller did the first course: a white gazpacho of grapes, almond flour, cucumbers and vanilla oil, a timbale of asparagus and avocado, and a beet salad.

The gazapacho recipe could easily be modified to be a raw recipe.

Gael Greene, food critic, said that guests were bowled over by the first course. “The vegans seemed so surprised,” she said. “God knows what they get to eat.” I thought Gael’s comment was a little misguided. I thoroughly enjoy my food probably more so than most people I know. I think it’s a misconception that vegan’s are miserable and always thinking about what they “can’t” eat.  Truth is, I never envy other’s cuisine, I completely love love love being vegan. I also feel like what I eat now is so much more varied than before. I have discovered so many different fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, sprouts . . . that I had never even heard of before going vegan. Anyways I digress.

 Some of the other courses were:

Anita Lo made grilled spicy eggplant with lentil salad cashew sauce and crispy shallot.

Michael Chiarello made quinoa pasta which he topped with salsa verde, pine nut gremolata, and heirloom tomatoes.

Rick Bayless made fresh sweet corn tamales with chili-braised beans and glazed mushrooms.

Art Smith made strawberry-champagne soup with strawberry rice milk ice cream .

 For the complete list of vegan dishes and their recipes go here:*

 * On the website some of the recipes are no longer vegan, but on the show they were.

The winner was Michael Chiarello with his Quinoa Pasta with Salsa Verde, Gremolata and Tomatoes.

With a little creativity I bet this recipe could be converted to a raw recipe with zucchini noodles.

 The loser was the Strawberry Champagne Soup that was made with rice milk ice cream.

Even Zooey commented that coconut milk ice cream would’ve been a much better choice for the ice cream. (Any vegan worth their salt, knows that!) If only Art had known a few raw food dessert recipes he would have surely won! A luscious raw coconut crème pie or raw cashew cheesecake and everyone would’ve been singing his praises:)

 In the end, Zooey commented that the food was delicious and that she usually just eats a lot of raw vegetables. High raw perhaps? Thanks Zooey for the making of a wonderful episode of Top Chef, if only more food shows showcased vegan food! One can only dream . . .

♥,
C

This past weekend I was at the 1st annual Santa Rosa Raw Health Expo. It was a great event and even more impressive was that it was its very first year. About 400 people attended and some really great speakers showed up including: Paul Nison, Victoria Boutenko, Nomi Shannon, Cherie Soria, and Kevin and Anne Marie Gianni. There were about 29 speakers in total including myself! I did a smoothie and juice demo and talked about, “How to Transition to Raw Foods with Ease and Grace” My talk was well attended and I got a lot of good feedback. I’m pretty pleased considering I was running on very little sleep. The week before the event I was putting the event program together and busy marketing the event online and in my local community. This expo was maybe only the fourth raw food event where I manned my booth the whole time, so the week before, I was putting together everything I needed for my talk, food demo, and booth, hence the sleep deprivation. During the event I was the official MC and got to announce which speakers were speaking every hour on the hour. When I wasn’t doing that, I was having fun talking to people at my booth, so much so, that at the end of the event I lost my voice!

My friend John Kohler, of 8 years, was the organizer behind the event, hence how I got involved in doing some of the behind the scenes work. I knew it had always been a dream of his to put on a large raw food event, and it hit me during the opening ceremonies that this was the realization of his long time dream; I broke out in tears during my introduction speech and I looked over at him and he was in tears too! I guess you could say we’re both pretty passionate about the healing power of living and raw foods, and sharing it with people is really special.

Some of the highlights of the event:

• During cleanup I overheard John talking to one of the clean up crew from the event venue about the healing power of raw foods. It was after the event and I knew that, being the organizer and giving three talks on the same day, that John must’ve been exhausted, but he still had the time and energy to talk to this guy. The garbage man definitely seemed interested, or at the very least, intrigued.
• A highlight for me was getting to know some of the fellow people in the raw food movement a little better. Paul Nison is hilarious, Kevin Gianni is a super nice and humble guy, and I’ve always though the world of Nomi Shannon, she has that east coast vibe and personality I like.
• I bought these cool chewable chlorella tablets from Paul Nison. I like the taste of them and, as I pleasantly discovered, so does my dog, I feed them to her as a treat!
• Someone from the Violiv violet glass products booth gifted me this really cool violet glass container for my smoothie. According to Violiv,  it’s an ancient Egyptian technology that is used to store light degradable foods, water, herbs, oils, and seeds. The glass blocks visible light but allows in beneficial violet and infrared rays. Supposedly you can leave a cherry tomato in one for 7 months and it will come out looking fresh. I’m excited about the possibilities. I think they would be great for nuts, seeds, and if you make your own oils, this would keep them from going rancid. I’m excited to experiment with my new violet glass container. Click here for more information.
• I stocked up on all different types of seaweed from my favorite seaweed company: http://www.ohsv.net,  Including silky sea palm, nori, wakame, sweet kombu, and bull whip kelp. Yum!
• There were a few people that approached me and told me they liked my website and even one woman wanted to take a picture of me. I was so honored. One lady was like, you’re getting married soon right? I was surprised that someone that I didn’t know read my journal! I really have no concept of that.
• It was awesome just talking to people all day. It was great to see just how many people showed up for the event. We did get many local Sonoma County people but we also got people from all over the Bay Area. San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and some from outside of the Bay Area like Lodi and Sacramento. I know the raw food movement in the S.F. Bay Area isn’t as big as in Southern California but it’s definitely alive and kicking and growing everyday. I’m so happy to be part of it:)

The event was such a success that it is definitely going to happen again next year, so mark your calendars for July 24-25 2010. http://www.rawhealthexpo.com

Click here for some pictures I took during the event, enjoy!

Click here for some amazing pictures that a professional raw photographer took during the event.

♥,
C

Question of the Day:
Did you go to the Santa Rosa Raw Health Expo? What were some of your favorite moments?