Raw In Scotland

Workshop in Glasgow

It's high time I let you know about the workshop I'll be running at Grassroots Organics in Glasgow next Sunday 11th October:

"HOW TO INTRODUCE MORE RAW FOOD INTO YOUR LIFE AND WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO.

Even this far north as we head towards winter  you can take steps towards introducing more satisfying nutritious raw vegetarian food into your life. Judy Barber shares recipes for delicious dishes to delight even the most traditional diners. Much illness and disease is caused at least in part by the wrong food. Judy will teach you what underpins this wonderful and economical 'raw and living' vegan way of eating that is helping so many to heal, to reach their ideal weight and to gain more strength, vitality and energy. You’ll learn something about sprouting, wheatgrass, green juices, juicers and blenders. Judy will answer your questions and show you food being prepared. This presentation is for beginners along with those who know something and want to   learn more . You'll be served juices and lunch, as far a possible with fresh organic ingredients available in Grassroots."

It's from 10.30 -3.30 and the cost is £69 including food, juices and recipe pages to take away. You can book by visiting Grassroots at 20 Woodlands road, Charing Cross, Glasgow or ringing Grassroots on 0141-353 3278.

 Do ring me or email me in advance with any questions you'd like me to answer in the class.  Grassroots is a lovely friendly, airy and well stocked shop and I look forward to meeting you in their Deli kitchen on Sunday.

:-) Judy

The Juicer is Dead. Long live the Juicer!

      Well, having posted recently on juicers and being quite content with my work horse Angel juicer it was a disappointment and a surprise when it gave up the ghost, if angels can indeed give up the ghost, and stopped working. That's the downside of getting things cheaply on Ebay. I only had eighteen months of use out of it and no guarantee to claim under.

      However, apart from having had to splash money out straight away on a new one (I'm not prepared to do without my daily green juices and wheat grass because they add so substantially to my quality of life), it was very interesting doing my research on what to get next and then anticipating having a new toy in a box! I asked fellow Health Educator Jill Swyers and she suggested I contact Ann at Wholistic Research to find out more. I'm very glad I did as it turned some of what I'd understood previously on it's head. In fact Ann was so thoughtful and shared so much helpful information that I've decided to be an agent for her and there will be a link to their site hereon my website. I heartily recommend you contact them when making such major purchases. They also deliver fast,free, and price-match.

     I've bought a Greenpower Kempo juicer and am so far (that's after 72 hours....) very pleased with it.

     I'd understood that the Angel which I had was by far the best, followed by the GreenStar and then the GreenPower, but it's the other way round. All were invented by the same person and the Kempo GreenPower is the most recent incarnation (but make sure you get the model with the stainless steel catch between the juicing parts and the motor housing because the plastic catches break) and the best. I'd assumed that the lower speed of the GreenStar was better, 110rpm, but the 160rpm on the GreenPower is still plenty slow enough not to heat the juice and everything about it is supposed to be easier to use and clean. Once I've figured out what to do with all the attachments I think that's going to be true. And it's smaller. Since I have the smallest of kitchens that's a bonus. I'm looking forward to being able to make nut butters, sorbets and ice creams too.

    if you've already got a twin auger masticating juicer that juices your wheat grass and green veggies well I doubt it's worth changing it, but when it's time to get a new one I hope all this helps.

 I should have known, the Kempo is the one backed by the Hippocrates Health Institute, but I got side tracked for a while there by the advertising that's out on the net.

Off to play with my new toy ;-)

    

Sometimes all you have to do is ask!

     Here's me in the Chapter House of Bristol Cathedral smiling in pleasure and anticipation at my raw dinner! It was as delightful as it looks, with a timbale of perfectly seasoned nuts, soaked bulghur wheat, herbs and spinach (not ideal food combining, but hey) and an exquisitely seasoned raw chili and tomato sauce.

    There were two of us raw foodies at the Eurocoach Conference dinner and I'd rung up to request raw food, humbly saying that some salad with a lemon juice dressing would be very nice, if it wasn't too much trouble. They said that would be fine and then they invented their own creation, 'they' being a Chilean family in Bristol who run a cafe with their own home cooked food and who cater for parties such as ours.

   

       What was so very nice about that evening was that eating raw food was respected and catered for in such a good way. I've often been hesitant about making my food wishes known so it was a big step forward for me to ask and to have our wishes granted!

     I've only been eating a predominantly raw organic plant diet for about two years now, but for most my adult life I've eaten mainly healthy vegetarian food so I'm used to people thinking my food is odd! I've lost count of how often someone has looked over into my lunch box and asked 'What's that?' (most likely some sprouted seed and avocado) etc sometimes with respectful interest, sometimes with incredulity or even disdain!

     I'm enjoying getting bolder about my food choices, which is why it was so affirming asking and being given delicious gourmet raw food, in a Britain that as yet has very few raw cafes or restaurants.

     There's a huge, and rapidly growing on-line raw community though and sooner or later it's going to spill over into the real world with more opportunities for us to eat out. I hope this delectable plateful is an early  'sign of spring'.

Taking Taste Buds Back to Basics

This was the title of Mark Smith's article in today's edition of the Herald in Scotland. Five of us, me with Emma, Steve, Gail and Patrick of the Glasgow Raw food potluck Meet Up group - see www.meetup.com - lovingly and happily prepared a buffet of Raw and Living (ie sprouted) vegan food for Mark Smith. He tucked into everything with a very positive attitude.

The photo shows, from the left, me, Emma, Steve and Gail, click on photo to enlarge

Mark wrote his article from his opinions and conversation with us over lunch and also from interviewing Professor Kofi Aidoo,  Professor of Food Microbiology and Food safety at Glasgow Caledonian University. The Professor has an impressive profile in microbiological food safety and related fields and some of his comments, such as his advice to wash raw vegetables in a weak solution of vinegar because the 'bacteria hate acidity', are clearly within his wide area of expertise.

I'm not sure on what evidence professor Aidoo bases his pronouncement that 'You should not go 100% raw' and why he would worry about 'old people, babies and those with compromised immune systems, including pregnant women' and advise those groups not to have a raw diet. My own understanding is that there needs to be a well managed transition from  a standard diet to a predominantly raw and living food diet in order that the short term problems of detoxing, in other words flushing stored and potentially dangerous toxins (such as mercury) out of the body, is a safe process. However that depends so much on the medical condition of the individual concerned that I don't think blanket advice should be given. Hippocrates Health Educators such as myself can help people to make that transition in a way that suits their state of health and their lifestyle. There's also a great deal of healthy sharing of information recipes and experience amongst raw food enthusiasts in local groups and on line. Many people are fit and well after years on a 100%raw diet or a diet of at least 80% raw, the rest being cooked organic vegan food. 

Professor Aidoo and his collaborations and research publications are mainly European with some further afield (not in the USA) and his recent research grants, currently totalling about £980,000, are from the governments of Malaysia,Libya, and the United Arab Emirates, but on the Glasgow Caledonian University website there is no mention of Professor Aidoo doing research specifically on food enzymes, most of which has been done in the USA. 

Professor Aido, and Mark Smith, might be interested to read more from American authors such as Dr Edward Howell, Viktorus Kulvinskas MS and Gabriel Cousens MD, and to follow up their research and all the research that they cite. Professor Aidoo and Mark Smith might be able to form a more rounded view by contacting Brian Clements PhD of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, and asking him for more information about the importance and effects of eating enzyme-rich raw plant foods. Many many people over many years have regained their vitality and health from spending time at the Hippocrates Health Institute changing to this way of eating and in my time studying at the Hippocrates Institute I was able to see for myself people recovering from advanced cancers and turning around illnesses such as diabetes, and to observe people reaching levels of energy and well being (that includes me by the way) by changing to a predominantly or completely raw plant diet.

Having been brought up by a mother who was a research chemist and biologist, having taken science to A level and having a life-long interest in nutrition myself I would not trust my health to this diet if the science didn't stack up to my complete satisfaction. It does.

Judy Barber,
Not-a-professor-but
B.Ed Hons Sussex
Hippocrates Health Educator
Parent, teacher, coach, raw food workshop leader and creator of wholesome and delicious gormet-quality meals.
Member of the Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling Raw vegan pot luck groups on www.meetup.com

;-)

Workshops with Judy

Just for a change, here's what some people are saying about learning from me.

"A relaxed and ingenious way to get me experiencing raw food. Judy shared her wisdom and made it easy for me to understand and fall in love with the magic of eating this way."
Christine M'grory  Business development.

"An inspiring and fun day which I found helpful on many levels. Being at Judy's house made it easy for us to see how raw food can be made part of your daily routine. We also drank and ate a huge amount of tasty and healthy vegetables which helped keep our brains ticking until the very end."
Frances Bavin, Nutritional Therapist.

"Judy has a strong grasp on a wholistic approach to health, providing an informative and insightful introduction to raw food and nutrition. And the food was DELISH! Thank you."                                 Jessica Weatherall, Osteopath.

"So fabby! Truly inspired. The workshop was clear, simple and very accessible. I loved all the hands-on activity. True learning!"                                                                                                                  Centli Templeton-Sanchez,  Gardener

"Judy provided a great introduction to going 'raw' with hands-on experience of creating fabulous juices and highly nutritious and filling lunch. With everything on hand Judy's working kitchen was the best location to enjoy and learn about improving health by going raw."     Heidi Dani, Nutritional Therapist 

There will soon be more small workshops at home in Edinburgh, both for beginners and people who always want to learn more. Ideas so far are Thai food, Mexican food, Indian food and Buffet nibbles. Do send me an email to let me know if you are interested.

I also have workshops coming up at The Salisbury Centre in Edinburgh and at Grass Roots in Glasgow.

More details here soon......                                                                                                                 

Meanwhile my camera gave up the ghost and I'm busy figuring out how to work the new one so I'll be back with more tantalising food photos again soon.

Juices/juicers Smoothies/Blenders

People have been asking me about these and I'm prompted to write something for all of you reading here.

Green vegetable juices are great for healthy nourishing drinks for between meals. They are easy on the system because there is no fibre and all the nutrients can be assimilated fast.

For these and for wheatgrass juice you need an auger juicer which screws the juice out of the fibres in an oxygen-free environment so that you squeeze every drop of juice from your produce and can drink it when it is as fresh as possible. The choices I think are between the GreenStar Juicer (which I'll also sell here) and an inexpensive plastic auger juicer which you can use while you save up for a GreenStar and then for holidays and travelling. Forget the centrifugal juicers because they whizz so much oxygen into the juice and they don't get as nearly much juice out of the veggies.

Fruit juice? For reasons I can tell you about I limit fruit to treats between meals and I'd far rather enjoy my fruit whole. When eating it whole there's less temptation to eat too much and more chance of being picky and leaving out the pieces that are really not ripe enough for good taste and easy digestion. There's healthy chewing to be done and no blender to clean....

Smoothies are great, bung everything in, whizz and gulp. wash blender and wend your merry way...

Hmmmmmm. If you put good things in the blender and really don't have time for a proper meal OK, better than nothing and a darn sight better than quick bowls of waste-of-space crunchy-nothing breakfast cereals that have been toasted so there is little nutrition left and laden with sugar + who knows what else, and then soaked in non-organic milk laden with pesticides, antibiotics and hormones from the cow's feed and treatments......

But but but, smoothies are a great way of sneaking greens into children or yourself behind some nice sweet fruit??? Yes, if you need to be that sneaky and are in mid stream into better ways of nourishing yourself and your family. No if you want to get into the easiest food combining for your body.

Smoothies are a sort of a hybrid of a drink and a meal. They are great for convalescence or temporary tooth troubles, OK when you run out of time. But the problem with the fibre in them is that they are not a simple wet drink. The digestive track has to deal with a smoothie as with a meal. If you drink them between meals smoothies keep the digestive tract working so that it doesn't have the optimum time between meals. Also the fibre is so finely divided that it's a sort of sludge and doesn't give the digestive system the ideal particle sizes it needs for working properly, as does well chewed food particles of different sizes from an ordinary meal.

Smoothies bypass the need for chewing, which is an important part of digestion for the release of the right digestive enzymes. Chew chew chew, savour savour savour.

Having said that, of course fruit smoothies are lovely treats and far more healthy than coffee, cola and any sugary drinks. When out and about in town they can be the healthiest and most delicious boost available. Water works better for reydration though...

BUT I love my Vitamix blender and sell it over on the right here on this site. I use it for sauces, salsa, salad dressings, raw vegan Hollandaise sauce, creamy toppings, desserts, smooth raw soups and for blending up mixtures to dehydrate into raw crackers, toppings and breads. It beats lesser blenders because it blends so quickly that less oxygen is whipped into the food (meaning the freshness and nutrient worth is retained) and it blends so finely. For a raw food way of eating that continues to be interesting, varied and delicious it is a brilliant piece of kit and I use mine several times a week.

And on this lovely spread of food laid out for the Scottish Herald Reporter, Mark Smith, to taste, spot what has been blended....

You saw it here first!

Emma, Stephen, Gail, Paddy and I, all members of the Glasgow Raw Food Meetup group, were interviewed by Mark Smith of The Herald for an article on Raw food. It will be in the Herald magazine on Monday 10th. Here's the food we prepared for him to sample and I'm very much looking forward to reading what he writes about it.

As well as contributing the walnut chipolatas and red pepper ketchup and a big bowl of sprouted sunflower and snowpea greens that you can see in the picture here, I took along some wheatgrass and a hand juicer to rustle up some wheatgrass juice for Mark. He was brave enough to try it and here he is still smiling afterwards.

 

I'm interested in how many people are starting to notice raw foods as a way of eating. I won't call it a diet because that suggests yet another restrictive fixed system and it isn't that.

So what is it?  Read all my blogs here, sign up for the recipe ebook, ask for my raw tips ebook to find out more. If some of it strikes a chord and you want to know more please do drop me an e-mail or pick up the phone.

I can help you find a way of moving forward with better food that supports you in getting well and being well. Yes, even a colder climate like Scotland. We can work together by phone, and look out for various workshops and talks on offer here soon.

Raw Food Potlucks

Just letting you know there are raw food potluck groups meeting regularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow and you can find out more on www.meetup.com  Another one may be starting in Stirling and if you send me an email I'll let you know when it gets going. There's a post about the potlucks down below here on my blog.They are very happy groups and the food is incredible.

Raw Recipes from The Hour

Welcome to so many people who are visiting here after watching me with Lulu on The Hour.

You can see the interview here: On Scottish television The Hour, and it's part 4 of the show. I've put all the recipes from the show in a gift e-book for you.

Click here for the RECIPES and do tell me how you get on! :-)

 

I'm on Scottish Television - The Hour, Wednesday 29th July 5.00-6.00 pm

And as I write this the evening before, I'm busy preparing food to offer to the presenters, Stephen Jardine and Lulu. I figured people already think about salads as raw so I'm presenting a raw soup that you could serve cold or warmed, a dip for sitting around and relaxing, a new take on the cucumber sandwich, a raw version of a popular take-away and something sweet and pretty enough for a party.  I'll be sharing the recipes in a gift ebook after the show.

I've been thinking about the benefits of raw food and I asked some friends who eat mainly raw food what benefits they notice, and here are some:

'My skin is better'
"I've lost weight'
'My hair looks better'
'I hardly ever get ill'
'If I catch a cold it's gone in a day or two.'
"It tastes so good'
'It's cheaper'

and those, in a nutshell so to speak, are some of the benefits of raw food. I hope some of you are watching the show or visiting www.stv.tv in the days after.

I'm happy to be able to reach more people who may be pleased to find out about this way of eating that more and more people are enjoying. :-)

If you are interested in receiving the recipes for the fantastic dishes I will be sharing on the show, please add your contact details here.

Raw Food photos

I have a back log of photos of raw food in my collection and since to many people raw food of the plant variety means lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes with the occasional apple or banana I thought I'd post some photos that show what is possible with this relatively new way of eating. Some people want to just increase the amount of raw food they eat for all the juicy health benefits. Some people want to take things further and to eat a great deal of raw food. either way, there's an inventive newness and a wealth of culinary delight in modern raw cuisine that is well worth exploring.

For a start here's Steve's beautiful, and completely delicious, chocolate cheesecake, on a pot luck table where we put labels on everything. Forget food-combining, this is a real treat. When I've made special occasion cakes like this no traditional eater has ever complained - too busy enjoying every mouthful.                                                          

This one is a raw pizza, and underneath the fresh tomatoes, basil, pea shoots, red onions  are layers of red capsicum puree and nut cream 'cheese' and a crunchy buckwheat crust that have something about them that is unexpectedly pizza-like. Not your usual takeaway variety, but delicious (Sorry if I use that word quite often, but it's true...) tasty and satisfying.

And another raw pizza, straight from heaven via the Life Food Gourmet cafe in Miami -the best raw food cafe I've been to, out of five that is.

I would defy a regular pizza-eater to refuse a slice of this, or a second slice.

                                                                                                                                                      Next is a plate of lunch from the buffet at the Hippocrates Health institute in Florida. Some people take a while to adjust to so much salady stuff even with the wonderful sauces and dressings, but many do come to relish it - and knowing the many health benefits is good seasoning in itself.

Finally (for today anyway, as I've been reminded of so many good pictures of eating occasions that I have enough blog-posting material for quite some time..) raw tacos filled with creamy seed pate and spicy crunchy nut 'meat' topping in  Suma Cafe in Bocca Raton (did I spell that right please?) in Florida.

This really is a cuisine worth exploring just for the taste experience.

If fruit and veg are so good for us - and they most certainly are, why stick at five a day  :~)  ?                                                                                                                                    

Was that Swine flu?

I hope I've just about finished having Swine flu, because if that was it it wasn't too bad and I needn't have any further concern on my own account.

The symptoms have been some mild headaches and in between a bit of empty headedness (no jocular comments please!). And the edge of a sore throat, and sometimes a mild fever. I have been getting a lot of things done including travelling for business in North Wales and interviews Cheltenham in conjunction with being an expert on Britain's Next Top Coach but have often been dragging my heels and needing to do a bit of sofa or duvet therapy.

I wasn't sneezing or coughing and I do wash my hands (I sound like Eliza Doolittle) so I don't think it was socially irresponsible to move around in public. No runny nose or cough, I think because I so rarely eat any cooked wheat products, sugar or dairy products.

While I've definitely been aware of dealing with something alien to my system I'm sure that drinking wheatgrass juice grown at home and drinking green juice made of veggies such as cucumber, celery, cabbage and sunflower sprouted greens kept my immune system strong so that I could deal with whatever it was easily. The juices also keep my energy levels up so that I can get things done even when under the weather.

Current concerns in the media include whether or not pregnant women should stay clear of crowds to avoid swine flu infection. Doesn't that depend on how resilient and well fed you are? Personally I'd be putting my faith in natural immune support herbs and foods such as echinacea and garlic, and of course drinking wheatgrass juice and eating raw and living plant foods - salads, green juices, delicious raw soups and....- before testing out the latest antiviral drugs on myself and a little person within.

Another public concern has been that younger people seem to be more susceptible to swine flu than older ones, unlike the situation in previous pandemics. OK, that could just be in the nature of this bug I suppose, but my concern, and I've talked to a couple of people who share this concern, is that this younger susceptible generation is the most vaccinated generation ever. Could it be that by vaccinating children we interrupt the natural immune system strengthening that happens when going through childhood illnesses?

I'm not a doctor but I read, think, notice and try natural ways before resorting to medical drugs. I think we all have to take responsibility for our own wellbeing as well as relying solely on current orthodox medical paradigms.

Anyway, I seem to be recovering from whatever it was and back in blogging mode, with some very good food photos to show you in the next blog...

 

Raw Curry

I don't have a photo of this yet but it looks like, well, a dryish curry. It's more of a concept than a recipe and if you have a dehydrator it is very easy. Or if you have an Aga stove you can try making it in a wide dish on a folded tea towel on one of the big round Aga lids.

Curry is one of the kinds of cooked foods I love most so inventing raw curries that taste relatively un-salad-like is therapeutic. Even though I'm usually happy with meals of sprouts and salads I like variety and to serve up enticing dishes to friends.

The two component parts are a big bowl full of finely sliced vegetables and a sauce to stir in.

For the vegetables I just zapped them all through my food processor with the slicing disk. I used a whole red onion, a head of broccoli, a bag of spinach and a chunk of cabbage.

For the sauce I used about three tablespoons of olive or sesame oil - cold pressed organic of course - roughly the same amount of tamari/nama shoyu, a heaped teaspoon of my favourite curry powder (a Southern Indian one)a little crushed garlic and a big squeeze of lemon. Stir it up and taste it. Because it's raw it already tastes roughly as it will when done, so you can adjust the seasonings at this point. Then stir the sauce into the veggies and taste again. You don't need to over-season as the curry will shrink down as it dries and this will concentrate the curry flavours somewhat. Then spread the mixture out on deydrator sheets. The above ingredients covered two trays of my Excalibur dehydrator.

Set the dehydrator to approximately 118 degrees fahrenheit (or cross your fingers and hope for the best in the Aga method) and leave for several hours until it has shrunk down a bit but is not dried out. The vegetables should still be juicy on the inside, except the spinach which almost melts in with the oil, and dryer on the outside but not turned to leather.

Serve it up still warm.
It's nice with a spicy raw dip or sauce ... and of course, as always with me, served with plenty of sprouts.

I haven't tested exact quantities with this yet as you can tell, and I'll be very interested in how you get on if you try it. It might sound complicated but once you get the hang of it it's a doddle.And it's a curry - ta daa!

Raw Potlucks in Scotland

If you are in Scotland and interested in meeting people who eat raw food, and of course getting to talk about food, wellbeing and related topics AND sampling each others' creations you might want to look at www.meetup.com/Edinburgh-Raw-Food-Meetup-group  Which is the potluck group started by me in Edinburgh. There's also a raw food potluck group in Glasgow www.meetup.com/The-Glasgow-Raw-Food-Meetup-Group/ and I'm a frequent visitor there for very good reasons. There are lovely people and there is fantastic food in both groups and it feels as if community is being developed - who knows what will develop!

Here are glimpses of a laden potluck table with a luscious mango flan - click on photos to enlarge.

                                              And this weekend I've created a walnut cream rawsotto and a green salad with a mild italian red pepper dressing & sunflower pecorino shreds....to share. I like potlucks.

Caught eating potato crisps in the pub

Yes, caught with my hand in the packet and hamster cheeks :-) One of my friends turned and asked 'But I thought you only ate raw food?' I quite liked my answers, good blog material.....

Years ago a naturopath friend of mine used to say that if you eat just the right things most of the time, say six days a week it doesn't matter what you eat on the other day. I don't know that I agree: I'm still thinking that through and experimenting.

 If I were seriously ill I'd be much more of a hardliner with raw - and living, ie sprouted - plant food. However I am not and I'm busy. 

Some of the time I don't get it together to have sufficient raw food out with me to tide me over till I get home and in those situations I go for vegan junk food rather than go hungry. In my case, with my natural stick insect-type figure, it is the more sane option than waiting till I get home.

Good reasons for avoiding putting your hands in bags of potato crisps (potato chips to you if you are American) include the doubtful pedigree of the cooking oil, too much salt and most likely very questionable additives. Plus there's the fact that the oil is fried and therefore carcinogenic. Plus there's not a fat lot of useful nutrition in any kind of cooked potato.  There's a case for avoiding them that I won't go into right now. Plus cooking destroys enzymes so the food is hard work to digest. So why on earth would anyone eat them????

They taste nice when you are in that kind of a mood and the saltiness is a bit addictive after the first one, or threebv . My options were about five flavoured varieties of crisps, pretend bacon thingys( ie a choice of six untested mixtures of additives to flavour/colour and preserve) and roast salted peanuts. Peanuts often host toxic moulds and suffer even more than potato when they get a roasting. From the taste I'd guess they are even more salty per mouthful. So I reckoned a few plain crisps was the snack likely to cause least fuss to my system.

And, of course there was an element of greed, going for comfort. But good raw food is just as comforting and the fact that my diet for the most part is raw veggies, nuts, seeds, lentils and sprouts means that I do have the strength and energy to deal with some sillier food choices on occasion. Oh yes, and fresh green juices every day. The way I eat is so nourishing, delicious and satisfying that it's my preference.

Once you have figured out your optimum default diet it is very easy to return to it after a few crisps - you want to.

Growing Wheatgrass

Prompted by Marion's comment on my last post I thought I'd write a little about growing wheatgrass since it really isn't that hard and it's a very economical way to feel great. Here's a soft-focus snap of my wheatgrass and sprout indoor 'farm'.                                                                                            

Actually it's shelving from a certain vaguely Scandinavian chain store. It's just about their cheapest shelving and it's ideal for growing trays of wheatgrass and sprouts as the wood is untreated and you can treat it with natural hard wax oil. Each shelf rests on little wooden pegs that sit in holes in the side pieces so that you can adjust the shelf heights. That's handy when you are fiddling around with different heights of growing plants.

But you don't have to go as high-tech as this to start with - I'm just showing off! All you need is some whole wheat, preferably organic, from a good health food shop, some compost or topsoil, a plastic growing tray from a garden centre and some other kind of tray or container for it to sit in to catch the drips. I've got cheap green plastic garden 'trugs' from a supermarket, minus their handles.

Soak a generous handful of the wheat in water over night. Drain off the water. Rinse twice, or more, a day until it starts to sprout. Then sprinkle it evenly over the topsoil or compost in the tray and water the soil well. Cover the tray with a newspaper. Spray with water from a plant or ironing sprayer a couple of times a day and water daily till it grows up and touches the paper. Lift off the cover and continue watering and spraying times a day with a plant sprayer until it's about eight inches high. Cut a good handful  as close to the soil as you can, rinse it well and juice it in a suitable juicer - not blender. Drink about 2 ounces once or twice a day - but not just before bed or you might not sleep too well!

OK,  to get good you might need a bit more instruction - I did - but you could figure out how to make a start from this and then learn as you go along, or ask me more, or learn about it on the Hippocrates Life Change Program - see the button up on the right.

I just want you to get how easy it is. Meanwhile when you have a chance try some in a juice bar and see what it does to your energy levels.

Sante.

Wonderful Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass is a cleanser, an energiser and a highly nutritious concentrate of just about every nutrient  we need.  I wouldn't be without it and I certainly wouldn't want to trust living on a mainly raw food diet without it.

Tastes great? Nah, not to me. I often shudder as I knock it back. In fact for the first few days I had to follow it immediately with a little cracker as a 'treat' to overcome my reaction to it. Now I can do it just by looking at something nice and green and alive growing nearby as a reminder of all the green food that is the basis of life. You might not be as squeamish, but in any case it only takes seconds to drink, so so what.

So why do it? It beats having a drawer full of the expensive vitamin and mineral supplements that didn't work that brilliantly for me. It seems to help me head off bugs in short order. I'm just generally a lot healthier when I drink it regularly, freshly juiced.

I drink 2oz in the morning and 2oz in the late afternoon or early evening. The afternoon shot leads to much more energy in the evening than I have if I miss taking it, and that's evidence enough for me.

Oh yes, it's cheap and easy to grow and juice so it's an excellent budget addition to your life Do ask if you want to know more.....

Swine Flu

    A departure from photos of plants, people and food to look at pigs. These very friendly snuffling piggy-wiggies were saying hello while taking a break from turning over a patch of land on an organic farm near Edinburgh, land farmed by the same family for generations. The land has never been anything other than organic. They are some rare breed or other. On the scale of pigs' lives in the world today they would be up in the elite as they rootle around contentedly all day and are loved and fed well, until of course in the time-honoured way they are stuck and killed.

   It's not for me to judge others in their meat or not-meat eating habits but it is worth noting that very little of the organic meat in supermarkets would come from creatures living in such idyllic surroundings as those which these pigs enjoy. And, from the point of view of eating the meat, little organic meat escapes pollution of all kinds. Then add in the drugs, pesticides and hormones ingested by non-organic livestock and you have quite a lot of rubbish to deal with in the non-organic meat eaten in the standard western diet - aong with carcinogens created by heating fats and oils and from charring. I wonder about the health of animals who have been desperately unhappy in life (fancy living in a Mexican pig farm?) and what translates from that into the physical structure of the meat? Adrenaline from fear before being killed is one obvious example. Who wants to eat pig adrenaline? 

    And now swine flu and a feverish epidemic of fear around the world. Not good news. People are being told it's OK to go on eating pork because you can't catch the flu from the meat. Great, keep eating the meat of diseased animals folks and it will do you good........ Oh, and perhaps we should change the name from swine to stop people going off pork.....

   I'll be sticking to plant food thanks, organic wherever possible, and most of it raw and living and full of goodies that support my immune system. Even if I get too near a sneezing pig or human I'm far less likely to be seriously affected than if I were eating mainly meat and cooked veggies.

  I'm glad people keep rare breed animals as pets though. I just don't want to eat them.  

Why eat sprouts?

    These snow pea sprouts are incredibly good food.

    I was brought up understanding that protein came from meat, fish, milk, eggs, nuts, seeds, beans and lentils, which is true. I was also taught that green veggies are good sources of vitamins and minerals, which is also true.

    But what I wasn't taught is that green vegetables are also excellent sources of protein - which is of course why these snow pea sprouts are incredibly good food.

I grow them at home in trays of potting mix from the garden centre, although my next bags of potting mix are going to be composted ones from a large organic/biodynamic garden. I'll be interested to see if the peas grow even better and the spent soil will get composted for my future vegetable garden. From what I learned at Hippocrates I grow them to about six inches tall and then cut them to put straight into salads or green vegetable juice. At that stage of their life cycle they are full of vitality and all the nutrition that's ready for growing a whole big plant - or giving you some vitality and nutrients, including protein.

And here's a good big bowlful of pea sprouts on the buffet counter at Hippocrates. They are sitting next to a bowl of delightful and very fresh organic salad leaves - 'designer salad leaves' . Now the salad leaves are excellent nutrition too (especially if you chew them well), but the sprouts are way ahead in the nutrition stakes and I choose to eat more of the sprouts.

Very nice too, especially with a light lemon juice and olive oil dressing.

Renate's Raw Food Kitchen

Renate runs Raw and Living food preparation classes in her home, chefs in the Hippoctrates kitchen and found time to share her skills and recipes on the Health Educators training programme at the Hippocrates Health Institute - the brilliant training that I did last year. Click on the photo to enlarge and to see the one remaining chewy brownie-type creation which I was just about to eat! Very nice. Renate's releasing an apple cake on a nut base, equally delicious, from its tin. And to her right in the photo is a cheesecake type dessert without cheese. It's also without sugar so that diabetics can eat it. Instead it is sweetened with extract of a swwet herb called stevia - and next time you go to America it's well worth getting some, or ask someone to bring you some on their way home as it's not easily available in the UK, yet.

These are dinner-party quality desserts and if you serve desserts like these to guests new to this way of eating I very much doubt they'll care whether this is raw food or not. Next time I see Renate I'll get one of her recipes for you and add it in here.

This kind of food may not be the best of food combining and not ideal for some people busy healing from serious illness, but for people in good health they are wonderful occasional treats - made with natural raw organic ingredients. Having not had anything sweet or rich for days I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to try all three!

The best food in the world?

Now you might think I'm talking about the food at the Hippocrates Health Institute where I'm staying at the moment, and here is a photo of part of the buffet we have today. As you can see the food is labelled because the guests who come here are learning about the food. There are bowls of clover, fenugreek seeds, aduki beans, mung beans, lentils, and in the background sunflower, pea and buckwheat. And.....all are sprouted. That's the point. Amongst the very best foods in the world are sprouted seeds, nuts, beans and lentils. Why? They have started growing and have everything in them ready to start off mature plants - enzymes, phytochemicals,oxygen and hormones - and it's all still there because they are still alive, nothing's been destroyed by cooking. They are very easy to digest and taste great, especially with nice dressings and some of the pate and other dishes featured below. In fact I rather doubt it all still looks as perfect as it does in this photo because I'm writing this as lunch is starting....and I'm going to scurry along to join the queue before it's all gone!

The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Centre

This time last week I was way out in the desert in Arizona at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Centre meeting wonderful friendly people and eating great raw and living food. The centre is known for its work with Diabetics and you might be interested in Gabriel Cousens' book : "There is a Cure for Diabetes The Tree of Life 21 Day+ Program" This is a road at the centre and shows you the kind of scenery, mesquite trees and dry grasses, waiting for the rains that come later on towards summer. And these are a couple of pictures of food at the centre:  

First a Greek dish with pitta bread, falafel balls and a sauce, delicious. Yes, even the pitta bread is uncooked but manages to taste bready, chewy and pleasantly solid. That, and the falafel balls are 'cooked' in a Deydrator that warms and dries them a bit without raising the temperature to the level that destroys the food enzymes that help with digestion. There were plenty of fresh salads to add to this quite solid meal. I couldn't get the recipes but I wrote down the ingredients and will try to recreate it when I get home.

Second is a variety of sprouts with lightly spiced and seasoned raw vegetable dishes, a good combination and very tasty.

Raw food meals may seem like an odd way to eat at first but they are very satisfying and go way beyond conventional salads.

I've got used to this way of eating after over a year of eating mainly raw food. But I've prepared raw meals for friends new to this way and they don't complain - in fact they eat rather a lot.....

Travelling arriving travelling arriving.....

I'm settled in front of a computer screen for the first time in nearly a week and hopefully from now on I can blog more often! I had a wonderful time at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Centre and have a stash of photos ready to share, and more to tell you about life there in Arizona.

Then last night I flew here to Florida to the Hippocrates health Institute where I'll be for the next four weeks - lucky me!  The day has been a kaleidoscope of meetings with people - a lot of hugs! and getting organised and enjoying my first huge plateful of the delicious buffet of raw and living foods they serve here. I'll definitely take some photos for you!

I'm having to be a bit gentle with myself after four plane rides, an unwanted stay in Atlanta when my plane was delayed, and two time changes. So I'm taking things slowly at least some of the time. But having very good fresh wheat grass juice, raw vegetable juices and the raw buffet food makes it so much easier to adapt to the changes. Why? Because it's easy to digest and very nourishing. My body isn't expending loads of energy on hollow ex-foods like white sugar, white pasta, white pizza, white bread.....

Another blog soon when I've hooked up camera and laptop.

Atlanta Airport Hotel Hinterland.

...on Tuesday I was recovering from a day of plane delays which had me having to stay over in a big, smooth, impersonal hotel courtesy of the airline.

Breakfast was a plastic pot of cinnamon and apple instant oatmeal and a banana, sort of OK, and watching the news:

Americans may soon be able to visit Cuba. The reporter was concerned there is no MacDonalds and no Hilton hotel there. Isn't that a good reason for visiting Cuba, that they might have real food? Or the reporter could just stay home in middle America and listen to the Buena Vista Social club...

A pistachio nut scare and millions dollar product recalls of everything with pistachio nuts in it. No one's actually been seriously ill from eating the pistachio nuts but salmonella was found after a few tummy aches. AM I missing something here? Isn't salmonella a relatively common soil organism? Don't they wash the nuts they use? Actually, if they had soaked the nuts for 8 hours and rinsed them well they'd not only have sloughed off any bugs but they would have much more easily digestible and nutritious nuts.

And the terrifying medical ads they have on American TV. I watched one for Asthma that typifies them. Basically, tell your doctor to prescribe such and such for you and you'll feel so much better.... followed by a rhythmically intoned list of dire side effects, about ten of them, all nasty, and another exhortation to tell your doctor to prescribe. Any takers?

Journey food

When I was a child journey food was sandwiches, boiled sweets, apples, lumps of cheese and polos.

I'll be taking a box of salad including sprouted lentils and snow pea and sunflower greens to eat on the plane. For snacks I've made corn chips ('good as doritos' one friend says) but am too busy getting ready to go on Monday to add in the recipe! Remind me and I'll post it. I made them from raw sweetcorn blended up and dried in the dehydrator (dehydrators: interesting future topic).  And at the same time I dried some slices of banana and pear that are so delicious I had to get them out of the kitchen fast to stop me eating them before I go!

Right, back to work to get this blog up and running for you :-)

Oh for a curry!

I walk back from the gym past several Indian restaurants that waft deliciousness at me and this evening I really wanted some of that deliciousness.

This is the sauce I mixed up in my food processor in a very short time when motivated by the curry variety of hunger:

I red capsicum pepper
2 carrots
A few sprigs of coriander if you like it, or cilantro if you are American.
Tiny sliver of garlic
large pinch of cayenne
pinch of salt
I teaspoon curry powder, or your own selection of curry spices
I avocado
I slice fresh ginger
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Actually, I've toned down the quantities of spices because I know some people like things very mild. You could start with these quantities and add more to taste. In fact, make it roughly like this and let the flavours mix for a few minutes and then add more to taste. the oily creaminess comes from the avocado so the dish is nowhere near as oily as the ones I walked past this evening.

Chop pepper and carrot roughly and throw in the food processor with everything except the avocado. Blend till reasonably fine but still with a nice texture. Add in the avocado in large chunks and process for a few moments only, otherwise you'll get goop.
Add a little water or, if you have any, some almond milk, to get a curry sauce consistency - but don't make it too thin or it won't have that nice saucy curry thickness.

Eat it over sprouts such as sunflower sprouts and lentil sprouts and other salad veg.

That was good.

Concept to plate? I guess about ten minutes. Better go and clear up...... Not much really, just food processor parts, a knife and a chopping board.

If I added a photo it would be of a mound of sprouts and salad with a reddish curry sauce on top and some chopped cilantro-coriander on the top for appetising colour - and taste.

OK it didn't have chunks of veg in the sauce. I could have added chopped mushrooms and tomatoes. But the tomatoes would have made it acidic, even if really ripe, therefore harder to digest, so that's OK. I didn't happen to feel like mushrooms. 

That's what's so wonderful about raw and living food recipes. It's easy to vary them and harder to get things wrong! 

Welcome

This blog is ready for you just in time before I set off to America to spend April in Arizona and Florida, researching and writing my wellness book and doing some teaching at the Hippocrates Health Institute. The trip has been a while in the planning and it's exciting now that it is so very soon.

Please join me as I share what I learn, see, eat and get up to along the way, starting from today.

I'm sitting on a train and I've just been eating those very same snow pea greens that you can see in the banner above (read on to find out who turned the photo into my banner) I took the photo a couple of days ago and snipped them off this morning from the seed tray where they were growing in my living room. Lovely. One of the most nutritious of living greens, sprouted from snowpeas (which I think are the same type of pea as mangetout) and grown to about six inches high. You can buy them ready grown in some places, but it's much cheaper and nicer to grow them at home.

I've been crunching them up with sunflower greens, brown lentil sprouts, chunks of red capsicum pepper and avocado, and my best ever almond dressing. And I've got more in my lunch box for later.

Want the recipe? I'm not that precise with quantities you'll discover, unless I consciously re-make something and measure it in order to harvest the recipe.  But one joy of preparing dishes without heating them in the cooking process is that precision isn't so crucial. Usually you can adjust seasonings , flavours and even textures to your own liking. Once you've got a basic principle you can invent variations from that. Oh, and as far as possible I use organic ingredients. No doubt I'll get going on that subject some time!

Almond dressing:

About an icecream scoop of raw almond butter.
2 tablesoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 - 4 tablesoons sweet white miso
a tiny amount of well crushed garlic
A pinch, or more to taste, of cayenne pepper
Water to mix

What's sweet white miso? Nice, creamy slightly sweet, not very salty young Japanese miso made by fermenting soya beans, but not for as long as regular miso. In some places you can get unpasteurised - so you get the enzyme benefits and live probiotics, but not in most health food shops. I've been making do with pasteurised - any idea where I might buy unpasteurised from on line please?

Back to the method. In a bowl stir some of the miso into the almond butter and mix well, add the lemon juice, garlic and cayenne and a little water. Keep adding water and miso by turns until it's the right consitency and level of saltiness for your taste. Try less salty for a start to let the flavour of the almonds dominate. This keeps well but thickens in the fridge so add a bit more water when you bring it out of the fridge to use.

I could live on salad with that dressing. Today I am.