MyRawYear.com

(Day 93 - 274 To Go) April 1, 2008
Prompted by a recent study released by the National Institutes of Health yesterday (The Crawford Study), the USDA has announced a plan to recall all fruits and vegetables from the market and to begin paving over farms around the country, beginning in May. Many have been alarmed by this completely unexpected pre-emptive war on disease.

The FDA has backed up the decision stating that people will be spending much less on pharmaceuticals if they just stopped eating fruits and vegetables. Big Pharma is still in shock at the projected loss in profits. The Medicare Trustees announced that since fewer people will be stricken with diseases caused by fruits and vegetables, the Medicare Trust Fund would be solvent through the rest of the century.

Given the marketing muscle of the organic family farm, the move surprised almost everyone in government. Organic grocers have one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, DC, and sink more than $10 billion each year into buying off members of both the House and the Senate. Apparently the current administration could not be influenced by these peaceful farmers’ pleas to keep the farms.

Mr. Bush tried to explain to a confused press corps exactly what happened: “They mis-underestimated me, plainly simple. Never again will the America be afeared by such a threat again.” Mr. Bush’s father is said to be relieved to never have to answer questions about broccoli again.

Inquiries can be sent to info@usda.gov.

(Day 91 - 276 To Go) March 30, 2008
Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and experimented with my coco-motion recipe. This time I didn’t use cocoa powder. I made a chocolate liquor out of some raw cacao nibs. I did this by putting 1/2 cup of nibs in my electric coffee grinder (which I no longer use, as I don’t drink coffee any more) and grinding until the nibs became a relatively dry paste. Rather than using two cups of cashews, I used three. I didn’t add the coconut butter or flakes, and I use a whole cup of nibs, rather than 1/4 cup of powder. When I tasted the result, I could feel the raw power coursing through my veins. This was my first crack-cao high, and it was amazing. Warning, do not make this in the evening, as you won’t sleep at all that night.

Feel the love!

(Day 90 - 277 To Go) March 29, 2008
The rawluck today was amazing, once again. The people had very interesting things to share about their raw food experience, and the dishes each person brought were fun and tasty. Here’s a breakdown of what was there:

Carol brought some delicious dill pickles (Victoria Boutenko’s recipe, below), Scott brought some raw cashew hummus, Nora brought lettuce wrapped mini burritos, TerriLyn brough a delicious nutty salad (ask her for the recipe), I brought some flax crackers (which went well with the hummus and tahini), and there were several more dishes (including the delicious green tahini) that I don’t know who brought them. This rawluck had about a dozen in attendance, and we had a ball. Scott did a demonstration of how to open a young coconut. Watch for a video of the demo, which will arrive once I figure out how to post video.

Raw Family’s Famous Rawssian Pickles Recipe:
(served at Raw Family booth at all Raw Food Festivals in Portland)

Ingredients:

3 lbs pickling cucumbers
1/2 big bunch of Pickling dill (with seeds)
4 horseradish leaves (for crunchiness)
1 medium head garlic
6 cups of water
9 Tablespoons of sea salt.

Cut one quarter of an inch off both ends of pickling cucumbers. Stuff the cucumbers into a glass gallon jar with garlic, dill (with seeds), and fresh horseradish leaves. If you have hard time finding horseradish leaves, you may use grape, currant or cherry leaves instead.

Mix the water and salt in a blender.

Pour the salt-water into the gallon jar so that the pickles are covered. If needed, add plain water to completely submerge the pickles. Let this jar sit on the counter covered with a cloth for two days. On the third day the pickles will be pickled enough to eat. If you will decide after four or five days that you want them to stop pickling, drain the water, cover the jar with lid and place them in the refrigerator.

Yields: 1 gallon of pickles

Warning: This dish contains large amount of salt, please eat sparingly!

(Day 88 - 278 To Go) March 28, 2008

The yummiest looking dessert I’ve seen recently is this Cranberry Cheesecake with Clementine Gelato. Did I mention that this dessert is raw? You probably assumed correctly that I would only be mentioning a raw dessert here, but oh my, this dessert looks amazing. I will be trying it very soon. Whole Foods has some organic Clementines right now, and I’ll be down there tomorrow.

I found this amazing dessert on the raw chef blog of Russell James. Russell has a FREE recipe e-zine that I just subscribed to. Check it out!

(Day 87 - 279 To Go) March 27, 2008
Today is the day I must decide what I’m taking to the Raw Denver rawluck on Saturday. I had pulled my two gallons of kim chee out of the vat it had been fermenting in and stuck it in the fridge, so I could bring some kim chee, but that’s what I brought last month. I also have two gallons of rejuvelac that I could bring, but I brought rejuvelac to the last rawluck at Raw Utopia. So, what can I make that would be ready by Saturday at 2pm? I will bring some raw crackers!

Please bring something to scoop, or dip with my crackers! Please bring something to spread on them! I would love to know what you’ll be bringing. Join us and have a great time. I will post the recipe for this particular batch after the rawluck on Saturday.

(Day 86 - 280 To Go) March 26, 2008
I have joined a number of Yahoo groups related to raw food and have been making some great connections. I was surprised at the number of results that came back from a search on “raw food.” Most of them turned out to be groups around raw pet feed. I sorted through the hundreds of groups to find the raw foodist (raw people food) groups.

Some of the groups I joined are geographically related, and some are not. In all of them I am enjoying the flood of inquiries, requests for answers about which foods are best, which methods are best, which recipes are best, which approaches are best, etc. The generosity of the members of these groups is amazing. I am happy to lurk in many of the groups, contributing my two cents when and where appropriate.

I encourage you, who are on your own raw food journey, to find and participate in an online discussion group, even if you only read the posts.

(Day 85 - 281 To Go) March 25, 2008

Wow! It looks like we’re staying on track at almost two pounds per week. I’m starting to feel a bit lighter. As my back is feeling much better, I think I’ll start walking on April 1st. On April 1st we’ll start offering the opportunity to sponsor the blog. If you have a raw product or raw-related service, you’ll be a welcome sponsor here. You can also expect to see fitness and general wellness-related sponsors on the blog. This is a very exciting transition.

Join the party!

Week 12 Weigh-In
Weight: 357.6 %BF: 41.9 (-.6% Total) %H2O: 42.4 BD: 9.0
(-20.0# Total, -1.4# this week, Avg. -1.7#/week)

(Day 84 - 282 To Go) March 24, 2008
I was sent into immediate rapturous bliss upon tasting the raw pumpkin pesto sauce I made using the recipe I found on The Daily Raw Cafe. What an amazingly simple and fabulous dish! I’ve made many types of seed and nut pates, but this is flat out the best recipe I’ve found.

Since I don’t yet have my raw kelp noodles, I haven’t used the pesto as a noodle sauce. What I have used it for is as a spread on collards for sprout wraps. Flat out, you have to try this recipe.

(Day 83 - 283 To Go) March 23, 2008
Today I made a first attempt at vegetable juicing. I used a plastic hand-cranked juicer, lent to me by my raw buddy, Scott, of RawDenver.com fame. I had purchased six ounces of wheat grass, which produced four fluid ounces of juice. I took a sip of the wheat grass juice, and that’s all I could manage. I sliced up a cucumber and fed that to the juicer. I fed in some Italian parsley and sliced a whole lemon to put through. The result was okay, but I had to add some agave and drink it over ice.

Before I begin juicing in earnest, I’m going to wait until I can get a commercial electric juicer. I am excited to start juicing. I’ve seen so many people get great results with juicing. Matt Monarch recommends juicing in addition to eating raw, with two quarts of vegetable juice in the beginning of the day, and one quart of fruit juice later in the day. When I read that on his site, I knew how he could live on so little solid food.

(Day 82 - 284 To Go) March 22, 2008
I just got home from a very very cool event, the rawluck at Raw Utopia. There were eighteen people there and we had a blast. The food was great and the conversation was great. I learned a lot about living raw long term. One of the owners of Raw Utopia has been 100% raw for three years and is very excited about my raw adventure (as am I). Check out the Raw Utopia web site.  Portions are still under construction, but something tells me that the site will be rockin’ pretty soon.

I brought a gallon of rejuvelac, and it was nearly gone by the end of the rawluck. I also brought some raw agave for people to sweeten it with. The comments I got were “curious flavor,” and “how do I make this for myself,” and “are you sure you didn’t buy this at the store?” It was very very good.  I made some very cool new friends and have another place to learn recipes and to share my own creations.  If you’re ever in Denver, drop in and join us! Stay tuned!