Stellar Lunch!

Yum! Today I had the most satisfying and delicious lunch. I created it with some of the things in my refrigerator and it was so darn delicious that I think I'll be eating often!

Chop up cilantro, tomato, avocado in a bowl. Squeeze the juice of one fresh lime over it and mix it up. Add in dashes of sea salt, garlic powder, and onion powder.

Grill a veggie burger.

Take the grilled burger, put 1/2 tsp of plain Greek yogurt on it, then add the salad mixture on top! Eat one or two and pair it with a salad! Delicious!

Chocolate Craving

One of my biggest go-to trigger foods is CHOCOLATE. Brownies, cupcakes, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, French truffles, and so much more. I seriously have a piece of chocolate almost every single day. With the realization that I haven't had any energy lately, that I've been sluggish and tired, that I have been overwhelmed and drained, it seems really hard to give up chocolate--but it also seems time to give up the way I eat it. I'm so freaking tired of being so freaking tired!

Luckily for me I have a new and awesome roommate for the month of October. Before I move into my new house in November, I have been blessed to live with my sweet Raw Food friend. Yesterday, I explained a bit of my chocolate drama and how I'm freaking out at the thought of not eating it in the forms that I always have. She told me that she was going to make me some Raw Brownies. I'm going to be honest--it did NOT sound good.

I stood in the kitchen and watched her make the dense part out of walnuts, dates, and raw cacao powder. That. Was. It. She made a mousse out of coconut oil, raw honey, cacao powder, and 1/2 an avocado.

I have to tell you--they were AMAZING! They were delicious! And they hit the spot! I am so lucky to be learning these things from her!

She just bought some sundried tomatoes and basil to make a pesto--I think I'm going to have to go look into how to make that one too!

Green Smoothie Recipe!

four tomoatoes
4 garlic cloves
one inch of lemon grass
one vegetable boullion cube
2 tablespoons nama shoyu
1 avocado
1/2 cucumber
4 tablespoons prepared irish moss
1 cup coconut milk powder
1 tsp curry powder
1-2 cup of greens like kale or spinach or romaine. You can even do soaked seaweed like dulse or sea grass
sea salt and cayyenne to taste
1 tablespoon of miso paste
1-2 cups water

Blend and enjoy. You can use warm water-- as it is more soup like.

So--I got the above recipe from a RawFood group I belong to. Things like this seem overwhelming to me because:

1. I do NOT know what "nama shoyu" is!

2. I have NO idea how to prepare irish moss and what it actually is!

3. I have NO idea where you buy lemon grass!

4. I do NOT know where to get coconut milk powder (though it SOUNDS delicious)

I am on a mission to discover the answers to these questions so that raw living can start becoming more natural and easy. If you know the answers, please feel free to comment!

Alternative Sweeteners

Lo Han Guo: A non-glycemic sweetener from Chinese medicinal tradition made from a type of wild cucumber.

Stevia: I recommend dried powdered leaves over extracts. This is a wonderful and easy plant to grow. It contains no real sugar, so therefore it does not feed candida or cancer. Look for organic stevia products.

Xylitol: This could be the sweetener of the future if it could be obtained with certified organic quality. Xylitol does not feed candida or cancer, but tastes normally sweet. Originally isolated from birch syrup; it is now available as a white powder.

Yacon: An extraordinarily easy to obtain and abundant subtropical to tropical tuber, relative to the Jerusalem artichoke. Yacon is commonly available as dehydrated chips and as a syrup. Look for organic products. Yacon syrup is rich in iron and only mildly glycemic. It is not raw.

Sweeteners to Avoid:

Refined white and brown sugars made from beet, sorghum, or sugarcane of all sorts, primarily due to genetically modified crop contamination, including:

Evaporated Cane Juice: Rapadura is one of the many names of this highly processed and highly heated product. This is almost pure sucrose, like maple, but lacks in minerals. Evaporated cane juice is known to aggravate all sugar-sensitive conditions from diabetes to candida to cancer. Evaporated cane juice can be certified organic. This product often sneaks into chocolate products, pre-made smoothies, and lots of vegan treats (because it is not processed with bone char).

Sorbitol: This sweetener is typically made from genetically modified corn starch. It was originally isolated from stone fruits of the genus Sorbus.

Other Considerations

The market is flooded with companies and products using all different kinds of sweeteners. Always select products containing certified organic sweeteners due to potential contamination from genetically modified corn and other crops that may contain glufosinate herbicides that damage your friendly healthy bacteria. Remember that certified organic sweeteners cannot be genetically modified (GMO).

This post was cut from an article recently shared by David Wolfe. Its entire content can be found at Sacred Chocolates website.

Eating is Fun.

Tomatoes provided by Spain

Mozzarella provided by Italy

Basil provided by France

All eaten for lunch two days in a row--in Switzerland.

Yum. Eating is fun.