thoughts and ideas

hmmm, my raw food weight-shedding has proved shortlived. it seems like whatever i do to adjust my eating and exercise habits, my body adjusts within a week and refuses to drop another ounce. and i figure if i go back to a non raw diet, i'll just gain the weight right back. speaking of the body. i have a raw observation. now that i am eating raw, i no longer wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. i wonder why that would be. i hope i am drinking enough water. maybe it's just my elimination system that has changed. anyway. i like to make juice at work and my favorite combo is this: half a cucumber, a small apple, a little ginger, and however many caroots you want. the cucumber is fresh and the apple is sweet. i like adding cukes much better than bitter celery. my boss told me that they've had yoga teachers bring in mung bean sprouts to blend into smoothies! i'd never thought of that, but it's a good way to get all the sprout nuturient went you get bored of putting them on salads all the time. he also told me that radish sprout go well with raw fish. i'll have to give these ideas a try.

raw porridge review#1

i'm so-so on this banana maca porridge. i has a weird aftertaste. like bitter and soapy :P plus i don't taste much banana/ and i think "maca" refers to macadamia nuts (which are yummy and crispy) and not macca root powder. i think all these porridge mixes contain mesquite powder. i don't know if that is the strange taste. could be the sunflower, which can be bitter. and it's a little slimy. i know it's supposed to be a porrisge, but i'd prefer just a grainy cereal.

i see ground nuts, seasame seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut, macadamia nuts...

i've been adding honey because it's not sweet enough for me. i dont know why i didn't just go for the chocolate one in the first place but it is next on my list.




HAVE A NICE EARTH DAY EVERYONE! LOVE YOUR MOTHER!

smooth

i had a refreshing smoothie the other day. I had frozen a banana (in a few pieces in a cup) i added about a cup of soy milk (not raw, but you could make almond milk), half a fresh papaya, and a 1/3 cup of frozen bluberries. i was surprised at the thickeness of it because i didnt add any ice, but the banana made it creamy. yum!

well played, whole foods.

i just got home and had to jump on the comuter right away. i was just at the grand opening of our town's Whole Foods. now, i've been to whole foods before, and i tend to thinik it's just for picky rich people. but this store is completely brand new and they've enhanced their shopping experience many times over. they have all under one roof, a fishmarket, coofee shop, juices , sushi bar, noodle bowl station, olive bar, salad bar, pizza shop, sandwiches. plus all the expected health and grocery stuff. i havent been in a whole foods since 2008, so maybe they are all doing it this way. but the immenseness of it all, and the artistic signs and wall art and arrangement, filled with about 1000 people oo-ing and ahh-ing. we were all quite impressed. this is the supermodel of stores. i wonder how much they raked in today. they are gonna put all the stores and restaurants around them out of business.
i arrived too late for the free samples, but it's probably just as well. i would have been very tempted to stray from my raw diet.


speaking of which, what i was NOT expecting was the amount of raw items available, and i dont mean the produce.( although they do sell young coconut which is in a lot of raw recipes)

i went in looking for bulk dried garbanzo beans i could sprout. but they have a whole section of the bulk food that are SPROUTED RAW FOOD! like raw grains,seeds cereals, granolas, raw flour! sprouted nuts and seeds with various flavors! it was so crowded it was hard to get a sense of it all, but i will go back to investigate.

even in the great of the bulk, they have exotic things i'm not familiar with : tongues of fire beans, wild red peanuts, freekah....


i'd expected them to have the 25$ jar of raw maranatha almond butter (they had) but they also have raw cashew butter! that you grind for yourself right there.

and to top it all off. Raw cheese. *que heavenly music*

in the crowded stupor i managed to get away with some raw sprouted banana maca porridge mix. they also had vanilla mesquite, chocolate coconut, i don't remember them all but i'll be back. i think all these raw sprouted items are courtesy of the Living Intentions brand. good for them, educating the public and all that. these are right out in the front of the store, and hopefully people will take a second to read about them.

but let's not forget the other incredible thing about whole foods... the price. OUCH!

herb garden

i had a large garden pot so i made a little garden. i'm attempting to grow green onions and cilantro. with a ginger plant in the center of the pot. we'll see how it goes, it might be too hot here for cilantro, but i'm going to try to keep the pot in the shade.

i found this website with a lot of gardening instructions:
http://www.howtogrowstuff.com/how-to-grow-cilantro/

fake bread idea!

i tried using white button mushroom caps in place of bread. bland, puffy, bite-able. it worked pretty good to stuff the cap and eat them raw. much easier than making raw crackers (which i cant do without a dehydrator and food processor.)

goobers!

Bought raw peanuts today while out looking for a raw snack. i often see boiled peanuts for sale in hawaii, so i guess these are sold for the purpose of boiling them at home.




i just tried a few that i'd soaked for 2 hours and they have a crisp, bean flavor. which makes sense since it's all the legume family. can i sprout a peanut plant from a peanut?

in other news, i've been trying really hard at keeping raw for the past week and i've lost 4 pounds! i don't expect that the weight will keep coming off that fast, but i'm just happy to see the scale turning backwards. and i feel a little lighter and trimmer too. and i havent been uncomfortably full.

my man has been making himself pizzas, which is very tempting to me, but i'v avoided taking a little piece. i know if i have a little bread, i'll just eat more and more.

but so good, so far!

PEAS

i got a huge bag of frozen peas on sale for 2 bucks. so tonight i'm having pea soup tonight. i filled a bowl (just a normal size one) with the peas and let them thaw. i chopped a clove of garlic, added a pinch of mustard seed, pinch of cumin, and some soysauce. i think it was about 1.5 cups of peas. just before blending i added a cup or so of hot water so the soup will at least be a little warm.
i actually blended the soup in a tall cup using my stick blender. but this is usually done in a normal blender.
my cook book suggests adding avocado and cilantro, which sounds yummy, but i can't believe he didn't want to include raw garlic.

the soup is alright, very verdant. and sweeter than cooked peas.

some shoppin's

i went to the vegetarian store today for some raw suuplies. i wanted to try again at sprouting but they didn't seem to have the inventory that they used to. i ended up with wheat berries,new natural salad dressings(not raw, but loads healthier than Hidden Valley, mung beans to grow bean sprouts, dates, coriander (to grow cilantro), fenugreek, and mustard seed. they last two i think are supposed to be spices and i dont even know if they will sprout. but we'll see.
they had some raw items like coconut balls, chocolate bars, brownies, tarts... and they are all twice what i am willing to pay.

after my yoga tonight i swung by the farmer's market on the way home. they crowded market i described is still crowded at 7pm, but with less produce to choose from. i forgot that i wanted kale but i got a papaya,bag of salad tomatoes, and a nice zucchini.
they had the raw food booth there and i feel like i should be supporting them, but i also feel really poor right now( in the monetary sense) so i didn't buy any tiny $12 raw snacks. i could have sampled for free, but...anyway.

post-yoga dinner salad

did pretty good at eating raw all day for the first time in a long while.
this monster salad is 3 large romaine leaves , 2 green lettuce leaves, 1/3 of a zucchini, a carrot, some sprouts, half an avocado, some local pickled onions. and topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

i also dug out the one raw cookbook i brought to hawaii.hopefully i'll make something out of it.

but, so sweet!

there is added sugar in so many processed foods. i tink at mcdondalds they put sugar in everything, even the french fries.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57407294/is-sugar-toxic/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

this article talks about new findings of sugar's ill effects on our health. particularly how it causes heart trouble and increased cancer risks. I', going to try to not eat any added sugar today. (fruit sugar only) but i thought honey was a more beneficial sugar, the article seems to lump all sugars together.


it's strange how food science facts are often contradictory. you would think after 13,000 plus years of existance that humans would know what to eat by now. truth is we forgot how in the last couple hundred after food companies started dyeing and mixing and bleaching up ingredients to try and make a profit. now the foods that our cavepeople ancestors ate are harder to find. and kids are reminded by the government to eat 5 fruits and veggies a day because they dont know what to eat anymore.

anyway, i'll stop ranting, just something to keep in mind.