My Interview is Now Online!

My interview with Beatrice Johnston is up! Check it out at http://www.therawroutine.com --- so COOL! Thank you Beatrice! Doing this interview really helped me to solidify in my own mind just how far I have come and what this lifestyle has meant to me and the people I love. The interview has really energized me and my determination to continue making healthy choices.

My mom arrived late yesterday afternoon. It is so nice to have her here. My dad is not retired yet, so he is working and will arrive in about a week. It just feels comfortable when they are here. It makes Texas feel more like home to me.

Sorry I did not blog yesterday. Sometimes life gets so busy and the day is over before you know it. I am up early this morning thinking, "I need to list a helpful raw food site for yesterday." So here goes, www.RawFamily.com is a very helpful site. This is the Boutenko family website. This family is hard core raw, so do not be intimidated, because with that comes so much wisdom about eating raw. This family has made a conscious choice about what they put into their bodies and why they do it. Their stories are very inspiring and I love, love, love their recipe books. Be sure to check it out!

My interview with Beatrice Johnston is up! Check it out at http://www.therawroutine.com --- so COOL!

Grocery Escapades and Musings

Last night we went to the grocery store. My basket was filled with lots of greens -- kale, rainbow chard, Romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, dandelion greens, etc. I also had a couple bottles of G. T.'s Kombucha Tea because my mom is coming and I want her to taste it. Of course I also had lots of fresh fruit and some things like red peppers, cucumbers, jicima, cilantro, and dill. When we went to check out Phillip wanted to see the fish in the tank at the front of the grocery store (Yes, they have a huge saltwater fish tank inside the grocery store, this is Texas after all). I took Phillip over to see the fish and Wayne went through the checkout line.

I can see Wayne from where the fish tank is and the women who are running his lane are laughing and giving him a hard time about his grocery basket. One holds up the jicama and asks him what it is. He tells her and the other girl asks him how to "fix" that. Wayne is standing in the grocery aisle telling them how I cut it up like french fries and make my own ketchup (Thank you Boutenko's -- wonderful recipe), or how I make a corn salad with jicama, tomatoes, and cilantro and use it on raw tacos. The ladies are looking at him like, "Are you serious?" One of them finally asks, "How does your wife know how to use all of this stuff?" Then he explained that I was on a raw diet. They thought that was really cool, and they thought it was cool that Wayne really liked the food, too (all but the Kombucha, but I am still working on him).

The whole thing got me thinking, though, that before I decided to eat raw foods I had no idea what to do with this food either. I knew how to scramble eggs, make a pie or cake, grill a steak on the grill, and make a basic salad, but I had no clue how to really pick or prepare the things that are really good for me. I would pass by the greens section of the grocery store like most all of the other people I see at the grocery every time I go. Now, it is my favorite section to load up.

If you want to succeed on a raw diet it takes time to figure out what to eat, where to find it in the grocery store, and how to prepare it. It takes a little bit effort, because most of us are not taught the proper ways to eat (and there is a lot of temptation and pressure to eat things that are not so good for us). Once I started taking responsibility for what I was putting into my mouth, though, I found that I viewed food differently. I discovered tastes that had previously been foreign and learned to really enjoy my food because it tastes good and I know it is doing something good for my body. Now, it is not hard to shop at all. I know where everything I want is located and I don't even have to go into the interior aisles of the store. I do all of my shopping in the fruit and veggies and then skip over to the nuts and dried fruits, and finally to the almond milk and I am out the door -- much faster than the SAD shopping (Standard American Diet) I did before I changed my diet.

Let me assure you, there are LOTS of resources out there to help you along the way. When I started I googled raw food diet, raw food recipes, easy raw recipes and came up with tons of stuff! One of the websites that was extremely helpful to me as a complete beginner raw person was www.purejeevan.com. Check it out. It is very user friendly! This week, I will try and put one website up per night that I have personally found helpful. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Green Smoothies for Dogs?

We have two dogs. Clyde is our wonderful mutt from New Orleans. He traveled to Nashville from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and we adopted him from a shelter. He is a Lab / daschund mix, we think. He is a strange little dog. When we moved to Texas Clyde was approximately 3 years old and began having seizures. At first they were pretty bad and even quit breathing a couple of times, but they seem to be milder now and have been 3 - 6 months apart. Clyde is our rocket dog -- he loves to run around the house as fast as he can and play.

We adopted Bonnie from the shelter about a year after we moved to Texas. She is a boxer/terrier mix. She is our lover dog -- she loves to cuddle, and thinks she is a lap dog.

I recently read Victoria Boutenko's book Green Smoothie Revolution and she talks about feeding pets (particularly dogs) green smoothies. I thought it was pretty funny when I read it. Then one day I had a little extra smoothie in the blender that would not fit into my cup so I thought what the heck? I poured a little into Clyde's bowl and a little into Bonnie's bowl. Clyde lapped it up quickly and then helped himself to Bonnie's portion as well. I did this every day for a week. Clyde loved all of the smoothies -- kale, spinach, watercress, romaine lettuce, etc. Bonnie would sniff, but not taste -- which was fine because that meant more for Clyde. After about a week I would turn the blender on and Clyde would come running and stand by my side waiting for his portion.

It is now his morning ritual as much as it is mine. He is so funny standing there, wagging his tail, and climbing over me to get to the blender when I start to pour it in his bowl. He has been having green smoothies for about 3 months and so far no seizures. It is really too soon to tell if they will help him, but I am hopeful. They have helped me so much, so maybe they can help him, too. I will keep you posted on his condition. Bonnie is still unsure and she misses out when she hesitates because Clyde gobbles it all up. We'll have to see if she changes her mind one day.

Garlic Lover's "Pasta"

Wayne is out of town this week so I figured what the heck, I am going to eat all of the onions and garlic I want! LOL! Dinner tonight was so easy and so good! It also shows you that you do not need a million dollar kitchen to prepare raw meals. Here is what I did:

I peeled a zucchini squash and then used my julienne tool to make long spaghetti noodles. My julienne tool came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and was about $4. I topped that with some fresh diced heirloom tomatoes and some fresh basil. Next I used my magic bullet to whip up a sauce to go on top of the "noodles." It had 4 TBSP fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1/4 cup EV olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 tsp Himalayan salt and a couple of grinds of pepper, Italian seasoning to taste (I used dry seasoning, but fresh would also be good), and 1 pitted medjool date. I pulsed it in the bullet until it was creamy -- about 10 seconds. I dabbed it over the "noodles," tomatoes, and basil. It smelled delicious! I have been eating raw long enough to not care if it looks like real noodles, but this dish looked and smelled like the cooked version.

When I first started eating raw I was scared to venture off of a recipe page, afraid I would mess something up. The Boutenko's numerous books gave me the courage to experiment a little. They talk about the five flavors and different things you can add to any dish to make it taste sweeter, more sour, bitter, etc. I highly recommend reading all of the Boutenko books because they have helped me so much! I checked a couple of them out from the library -- you can't get any cheaper than that.

The other thing that strikes me as I write this recipe now is that I would never have had medjool dates in my house before I started eating raw. Now medjool dates are always in my house -- a true staple. I have a tendency to throw one in a smoothie every now and then and they make great brownies, cookies, and crusts. My grocery shopping habits have definitely changed.

My old staples used to be cereal, milk, eggs, turkey (deli meat), lean ground beef, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and bread. My new staples (I am talking things I buy or make sure I have EVERY time I go to the grocery) are medjool dates, almonds, a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables (this is the bulk of my food), lemons, dried fruit, and olive oil. That is a big shift from four months ago! If you calculate the cost of what I was eating and compare it to what I eat now the are almost equal. Yet, I look and feel so much better!

I hope you enjoy the recipe. It was DELICIOUS!