Apparently, anyway. An article came out today saying the research shows that:

A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance, said Alan Dangour, one of the report’s authors. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.

It really amazes me people like this call themselves journalists or even researchers. I don’t believe anyone who knows anything has touted organic produce as having more nutrients than regular produce. I mean, a tomato is a tomato.

Our My biggest concern is from the junk that is sprayed on them. Pesticides can and will cause harm over the long term, and there are reports and studies to prove this. So, I am not eating organic carrots because they have more nutritional value in them. I eat them to eliminate at least one of the many ways people can get cancer.

I found this article, The Pesticide Picture, that can give you some more information on this topic.

You see there are 2 problems with this original study saying that organic is not healthier than conventional.

1. We actually paid someone to come up with this garbage. I would like to know how much of someones tax dollars went into this study?
2. More ignorant people who do not know any better or who do not think for themselves will think this is gospel. They will now go around and tell other ignorant people this very statement, and make it to be fact.
   (Trust me, I have family members that actually believe your heart only has a certain number of beats in a life time. And, if you use it up too fast, via exercise, then you will die sooner – honestly, I can not make this stuff up)

Please do the research yourself, and see where all of the arrows are pointing. Do not just follow some story by some yahoo that has no evidence of this being true. It is also bad journalism to even report this as fact. There is no other side to the story, so it makes it seem as this is fact.

Just stick to what you know is true and you will be just fine.

We have a fig tree in our backyard. Nothing we actually planted, it just came with the house. And, for the past 3 years we did absolutely nothing with them. I mean, the kids would walk around the tree and eat them right off of it, but as for us, there were of no importance. Since we have been educated about the benefits of raw food, figs seemed like something we should investigate. After all, they are free!

You can eat them raw like this. And, there is nothing wrong with them. They are actually pretty good. But, I mean, who can eat a bucket of figs? And, I am not too sure about freezing them. So, we looked into dehydrating them. This, my friend, is the ticket to eating figs.

All I did was pick as many as I could (that were ripe). I washed them all pretty good. Birds love figs, so this means they are all around the tree and around the good figs. So, wash them pretty good. Then you just slice them up. As you can see by the pictures, I sliced them in quarters and in flat slices. Just to see how each one turned out.

Here are the ones I sliced into quarters:

And here are ones I sliced into, well, slices:

Notice I used the parchment paper on the slices. After you have them all sliced up, then just dehydrate them. Depending on how long you want to listen to a dehydrator will determine the settings of your dehydrator.

Now, once they are done, just store them in an air tight container. We store all of our stuff like this in mason jars.

The kids can come and eat the figs as much as they want to. And, they are still considered a raw food. Also, they are delicious when added to granola instead of raisins or dates.

I always love this comment. You finally decide to take the plunge into being a vegetarian, and even one more step and going with raw foods, and people act like you are going to starve to death. You hear all of the dumb statements and questions about calories, what will you eat, I hate carrots (as if we only eat carrots all day), and especially this one: You need meat for protein.

I even spent the last weekend attempting to explain the different sources I use to get protein, and I would even bet I get more protein in a day than this person. They would hear none of it. Mainly because of the thought of them being wrong, which of course, they are. So, this got me thinking. You need to be prepared when going into battle every now and then. And, more importantly, you need to firmly believe in what you are doing. If you are not, you can easily be persuaded in another direction. So, I came up with a list.

I have compiled the “needed food items”, according to the meat eaters and the SAD guidelines, and placed it up against the raw food sources. Now, there are plenty more sources for protein out there, but these are the staples always in our house. Especially, since Whole Foods just added all of their own label raw nuts. My shelf is very colorful right now. But, anyway, here is a quick list:

If you want to print it, just hit the print button at the bottom of this post, and you can keep this little list handy. After looking at it, I almost guarantee I get more protein in my diet than most others. Plus, it is not filled with the antibiotics and the saturated fat and the cholesterol.

Hope this comes in handy for you.

Tomato, Nut Cheese, & Sprouted Grain Bread

OK. First off, for all of the 100% Raw Food people out there, this is not 100% raw. Our goal is to be raw about 75 – 80% of the time. And, we always have raw foods with every meal. So, with that said, here is an excellent, healthy, and more importantly “quick” meal or snack you can make.

For starters, you will need to have some sort of nut cheese already made. Nut cheeses are always a good thing to have on hand at all times. Especially when you just need that quick little snack to get you going. The flexibility of the cheese and its ability to go with just about anything is what I really like about it.  If you want a good recipes for one, read out other blog post titled: Sunflower Seed Cheese Recipe

Ingredients:

1. Nut cheese
2. 1 organic ripe tomato, sliced
3. Some kind of sprouted grain bread. We prefer the English muffins for this, but any kind will work. These bread are kept frozen, you will need to check there in your local stores. Whole Foods by far has the best selection, from muffins, to bagels, to bread, to tortillas, and others.

Just toast the muffin to get the crispiness you want. I like mine crispy, so I can hear the break cracking as I bite down. Then place enough nut cheese on the bread to cover it. Add the tomato slices to the top, and hit the tomato with a couple dashes of sea salt. That’s it!!

We normally just eat this as a meal, and the kids like it as well.

This a very delightful tasting nut/seed cheese to keep around the house. It goes well with regular chips, on sandwiches, and with raw crackers. The process is very simple to make.

Ingredients:

1. About 1 cup of raw sunflower seeds, soaked for at least 4 hours, drained
2. 1/4 cup of almond milk, or any other nut milk you have on hand
3. 1 Tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar
4. A couple dashes of Sea Salt
5. 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice (this is needed to keep the cheese from turning gray)
6. 1 – 2 cloves of garlic, minced
7. Maybe some extra purified water or almond milk to get the consistency you want

Directions:

1. This step is optional: If you want a whiter cheese, then you will want to remove the skins from the sunflower seeds. After you are done soaking the seeds, drain them. Then, place your hands in the bowl of wet seeds and begin to rub them against each other. This will cause the skins to come off. Once you are done, rinse a few times to wash the seed skins off.
2. Add all ingredients to a food processor and process. You will need to stop a few times to scrape down the sides. If you pulse is a few times before processing continuously, it helps to keep the seeds from flying everywhere in the processor.
3. Add the extra water or almond to get the consistency you want
4. Eat and enjoy

This will keep for about 3 days in an air tight container. If the cheese begins to get gray, don’t worry about it. This is just due to the oxidation of the seeds, sort of like an apple does. It is still OK to eat.

For an added twist, you can add whatever herbs or spices you want at this point. Just use the above recipe as a base for any raw nut cheese recipes.

We actually have her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen . I really like this book. She is the one who has given me a bunch of different ways to make the almond milks. We will normally have 4 32 oz mason jars with the different types of milk in the fridge at one time.

While on her site, I came across this video she has, and just thought I would share it.

Sprouted Wheat Berries

This is a process I learned the hard way. We found a recipe for some banana cookies in the dehydrator, and thought we would give it a shot. One of the items it called for was wheat berries. We had no idea what a wheat berry was, so we headed to Whole Foods (because they have everything

We found a little container of wheat berries, and headed back home. We had no idea you could make cookies on this diet, so we were all in. So, I took the wheat berries, rinsed them, and added them directly in the cookie mix just like that, and in the dehydrator they went. I could not wait for the next morning, and neither could the kids.

The smell was very good that next morning, and we were going to have us some raw banana cookies and almond milk for breakfast. The kids were raring to go. We pulled the cookies out of the dehydrator, and they looked a little odd. But what do we know.

I divied them up to each of us, and away we went. And then we all stopped real quick. The kids looked at us like you had snuck some boiled spinach in their mouth. They each spit it out. Not me though. I kept chewing, and chewing, and was determined not to give up. I was going to chew, and personally crack each wheat berry with my teeth. Except my gums got real tired and I eventually gave up. What went wrong?

After a quick review of the recipe, we noticed a small word next to the wheat berries, SPROUTED!! But, we had not idea about sprouting anything at that point. No nuts, seeds, or anything. We were eating all that stuff raw.

So, the lesson learned is to read recipes and sprout all of your stuff, especially wheat berries. Here is how to do this:

1. Rinse the wheat berries
2. Get a mason jar, like in the picture, and add the wheat berries.
3. Soak overnight at least, 24 hours is better
4. Drain water, and rinse again.
5. Place wheat berries back in jar, drained, and place cheese cloth on the top of it. This will allow the sprouting process to begin.
6. Don’t place these in direct sunlight, but keep it where it is warm.
7. Rinse and drain 2 – 3 times a day.
8. After 3-4 days, you will have a jar full of sprouted wheat berries.

These can actually be eaten just like this. There is a sweet tast to them know, that is much more enjoyable.

Spirulina Powder

Spirulina is a blue-green algae. It is a one celled micro organism that thrives in the heat and in alkaline water, or ponds. Most people would associate something like this with diseases, or germs, or just plain old not good for you. But in fact, spirulina is one of the most sterile foods found in nature.

People are now beginning to call spirulina one of the superfoods. It is the only plant source loaded with vitamin B12. Normally, you can only get this vitamin from animal sources. But spirulina has 2.5 times the RDA in 1 teaspoon. It also has a complete protein structure, meaning it has all of the amino acids required to make a protein.

The fact this superfood can survive in the warm environments is the reason it is very sterile. At these sorts of temperatures, there is no way for other things to live in the ponds that can infect this algae. Also, the fact it can survive in temperatures up to 160F makes it exceptional in terms of producing. It can with stand most of the high heats needed to process this supplement. As we now from a raw food diet, temperature can begin to destroy some of the vital elements of foods. But, this is not the case with spirulina.

The following is the long list of everything spirulina has in it:

8 Essential Amino Acids:

1. Isoleucine
2. Leucine
3. Lysine
4. Methionine
5. Phenylalanine
6. Threonine
7. Tryptophane
8. Valine

Non-Essential Amino Acids:

1. Alanine
2. Arginine
3. Aspartic Acid
4. Cystine
5. Glutamic Acid
6. Glycine
7. Histidine
8. Proline
9. Serine
10. Tyrosine

Minerals:

1. Potassium
2. Calcium
3. Zinc
4. Magnesium
5. Manganese
6. Selenium
7. Iron
8. Phosphorous

Vitamins:

1. B6
2. Biotin
3. B12
4. Pantothenic Acid
5. Folic Acid
6. Inositol
7. Niacin
8. B2
9. B 1
10. Vitamin E

So, as you can see, spirulina has all sorts of good stuff in it. There are even more items I did not list, but with a little more research on it, you will find it.

How do you take it?

This can be done a couple of ways. You can buy a good whole food vitamin that has spirulina in it. This is a good start. It will not give you a very large amount, but a smaller amount is definitely better than no amount.

Another way is to buy it in capsule form. This is a very easy way to take this. Many people not familiar with the taste of spirulina will find taking the supplements by capsule or pill form to be much easier. Just ensure there are no other additives in the spirulina tablets.

The last way is in powder form. This, I believe, is for the more hard core smoothie and health nuts out there (like me). We add a teaspoon or more to each of the smoothies we make. But, here is the thing. The more bland your smoothie ingredients are, the stronger the spirulina will be. Plus, the spirulina turns the entire drink green.

The last way I have found, which makes it very easy for the kids, is to add it to a smoothie. You will need to buy the spirulina powder in order to do it this way. I posted a good recipe for a pineapple hemp seed smoothie which is a good way to get some spirulina into the diet.

Hopefully that give you a pretty good idea about how important spirulina is in a diet, especially a raw food diet.

Pineapple Hemp Smoothie

This was definitely one of the most pleasant surprises thus far in this raw food journey. The kids had been asking to juice the pineapple for days, and I just kept putting it off. To me, I know how sweet a pineapple is already, and I figured juicing it would make it that much sweeter. But I was wrong!!

When you juice it, it almost aerates it. It becomes sort of fluffy, and it was actually less sweet than eating the pineapple slices. I was amazed. So, I then turned this juicing into a smoothie, and this how I got the recipe below. This is a definite keepsake for the recipe book, and the kids loved it. Of course, the pretty much love anything that comes out of the juicer:

Pineapple Hemp Seed Smoothie

• 1 Pineapple, peeled, and cut into long sections. Keep the core in it.
• 2-3 tablespoons of hemp seeds
• 1 teaspoon of spirulina powder (you will never taste this in the smoothie)

Juice the pineapple. Then add all 3 ingredients into the blender (add ice if you want) and blend. Then enjoy.