Quickie Update

The week flew by. Happy Hannukah to all :) We kept things simple.

I've been trying to get my sleeping schedule back to some semblance of normality. Eating "high raw" (a high percentage of only raw foods) is going well with the only real bumps being some flubs with hamburgers on my work days...I really am trying to stay away from those. But I had run out of the leafy greens and the fish both, so I planned better when shopping this time around.

Jack and I both watched a documentary about some people who went to Gabriel Cousens' center and spent a month eating raw food only, and reversed their diabetes. The CD couldn't have come at a better time, since I was needing some direction. Correction...we, Jack and I both, were needing some.

I did vary from the smoothies and tried two recipes in the last couple days. One was raw "popcorn" using raw cauliflower cut up and tossed with nutritional yeast (which has a cheesy/nutty flavor) and savory spices like sea salt, cayenne, and paprika. We did like that for munching. It doesn't do well refrigerated, though, because the seasonings turn to mush.

The other recipe I LOVE is one I saw on a video. Supposedly it's a beanless hummus. It's made with raw zucchini, tahini paste, olive oil, lemon juice, pinch of sea salt and cayenne and cumin. [[later edit...I forgot to mention garlic...lots of garlic! ]]] OH MY. I forgot the cumin and even so it was SO SO SO good. A beautiful pale green, and we sliced raw veggies and cherry tomatoes and used them as "chips." I'll definately be using that again. SO easy in the blender...you just blend the ingredients together. Jack loved it, too.

I think his body is in shock. He's eaten more greens IN his food in a few days than he usually has in a month ( or maybe more). I fix us smoothies in the blender daily, and vary the fruit and the greens that go into them. But I love the frozen blueberries and have started freezing the bananas in chunks because it gives a great texture and sweetness that masks any strong flavors that might be unfamiliar for us starting out. We eat a lot of kale, parsley, romaine, collards, and will try turnip greens coming up...all in the smoothies, cleverly disguised (haHA) :)

I've not lost any more weight. Since that's my secondary focus at first, I'm not panicked. I do feel so much better overall it helps keep me from getting discouraged. I do eat a lot of what I think of as "oily fish"...salmon, and tinned kippered smoked herring, whitefish, the like. My body seems to be having a party with all those omega-3s.

We ordered Cousen's book about reversing diabetes. We're getting serious about it. So far we're resisting the urge to get too much "health store stuff" because of the cost and the fact we need something that works for us for the long term.

There's more to write, but I'm sleepy and just wanted to check in here.

What's going on in your world?? :) Hope your days and weekend are great :)

Raw's Going Great

I'm doing better each day, and this is quite an education for me. It will impact what we focus on growing, and teach me better, further in, how to plan around what's seasonal. At present, I'm far too dependent on storebought produce. This is due to some factors situationally, because we've decided to hold off on putting much more labor and time into permanent beds on this property, but from all the seeds and seedlings Jack nurtured over the past two years, we have a mini Moringa forest going next door, tons of things in buckets yet, and mostly small trees of many sorts (mostly fruit) in the ground in hopes they'll survive the milder months better that way. Trees aren't yielding immediate harvests, as they're longer-term plantings, so we're short on the harvestable things presently.

But moringa is on the docket, as it's plenteous and now we need to learn how to best harvest and use it. I anticipate this week using it in nearly all the smoothies.

I'm sleeping WELL.

I'm eating WELL.

It seems this raw food experience should be a more difficult transition, but so far, it is just great!

Up this week, besides the moringa, will be starting sprouts. And making vegetable "sushi" rolls. Anything to get my wasabi fix :)

For the daily updates, ad nauseum, on the raw experiment, it's here at my Raw Green Blender Queen journal page.

I'm off to blend :)

What Do You Make Of This?

I have a question for those of you who know about growing corn...

(yes, I know it's December now, and fully winter here in the ol' Western hemisphere. And the corn growing season is done, here in Florida, too...I think??...but we had this prodigal plant make it till now because of our warm temps...don't be hatin'...I need your advice!)

This is an ear of a South American type of corn planted from a seed I got from a rare seed company some time back. It was definately planted at the wrong time this year, just before the weather turned cooler. I think Jack only had planted three seeds, and one of the resulting stalks just kept on going despite the dips in temps.

It turned out to be a beautiful black purple, and even the husks stain my fingers purple...the color is deep and gorgeous. I do have some questions...I know there's somebody out here who'll have some answers :)

1. I may have picked this too early. How can I tell? The tassells had turned brown, so I guessed at it, but I don't know how to tell.

2. Why are so many of the kernels missing? There was only one other corn plant that survived, and it looked pretty puny. Does this have something to do with it? Or could it have been soil infertility? The soil was top dressed with composted manure, but underneath the soil was hard sand.

3. The few developed kernels seem to be fairly big. Why did they develop, and others did not? I did not notice any sign of insect damage either outside or inside the husk.

4. If we grew more of this, how would we best select and preserve the seeds for future plantings? Do we husk them and let them dry, and if so, at what stage and how would they be stored?

There's the closeup of the developed kernels (aren't they gorgeous?) and the ones that never made it.

5. These husks as well as the cob and kernels have a rich coloration that comes off on my hands when handling them. How would I make a dye of any or all of these, and is there a particular mordant I'd have to use to keep it from fading or running?

6. Last but not least, we heard that in some South American countries people make traditional drinks with their purple corn. Have any of you tried anything like that? Can the cobs be boiled and the liquid used as a sweetener, if they are sweet? These are genetically pure seeds and I wouldn't have the same hesitation using all parts of them as I might with some of the other corns.

As always, thanks for sharing your insights! We'd rather learn from the collective wisdom than try to muddle about a few more seasons.

:)

This Is the Color of a Green Drink

This picture can't do justice to the color of these blended veggies. This is a gorgeous and delicious way to get those greens. I had no idea I'd be able to stomach it this well...it turned out like a slightly thick homemade cranberry puree and very bright with a pleasant sweetness.

For the basic stats on my 30 day experiment, the weight and such tallies are over here.

The one surprising thing I'm learning, since I've never really done raw blended things before, is that it really doesn't take big quantities of anything. In fact, I could have cut the quantity to one third instead of having a lot leftover to eat/drink later. With the price of produce (which we're still having to buy, but someday won't, hopefully), I only have to use a few stems of this and that, and it really is going to last longer than I'd anticipated.

I used one fresh beet (scrubbed) and its greens...love those ruby red stems. I also used raw collard leaves, parsley, and kale, and blended in some raw chunked sweet potato, some pear, and a banana. To help with blending, I wet it all with the storebought 100% juice cranberry, which has a mix of apple and white grape juice, I think, instead of cane sugar. Anyway, this came out a lot sweeter than I'd thought, and I actually liked it...I had prepared myself to drink it no matter what it tasted like, anticipating holding my nose and getting down a few good gulps. This drink has a copious amount of greens in it...all raw. I'm pretty surprised! There's enough left over for about three hearty servings later, if I'm even hungry.

This is the first blender I've owned, ever...just got it yesterday. All the produce showing in the pic, minus one banana and the lemons, were what I blended just now.

I need to wear an old shirt when blending. I have some splats from the beets that make me look like I sustained some chest trauma, ha :)

I just finished a very large glass of this concoction, and I need to adjust my quantity...I need only a third, which now that I'm thinking about it would mean I'd get several meals off the amount I just made.

I don't know the exact $$ amount, but with this being so fiber and nutrient-dense and so filling, I'll be surprised if I can empty the veggie bin in my fridge before some of this needs to be made into soup. Let's see!

At any rate, look, Ma...I ate my greens :)

30 Day Experiment

So, yes, I'm going to incorporate a lot of raw fruits and veggies into my eating for 30 days and see how I do. Here's what I decided so far...

1. I don't have a juicer but I do have a blender, so I'll blend one fruit smoothie and one green smoothie per day, and the other food will be straight up veg and fruit eaten whole.

2. The exceptions to this will be fish, if I feel like I need it, cooked light. If I really crave protein, I'll eat a couple bites of something lean like steak.

3. The only real cooked food besides the fish will be bone/meat/veggie broth homemade, if I feel I need it. I'll never stray very far from the Weston A. Price thoughts on the benefits of these. Bone broth has had a very soothing effect on my joints and any aches. Oh, and I will use some of that 100% juice cranberry juice from the store, which I'm sure has been heated before bottling, but so far I'm using it to moisten the fruit before blending into smoothies.

4. No preservatives.

5. If wilting a green or dehydrating some pureed veggies makes it more palatable, I'm likely to try that.

6. Haven't decided yet if I'll take a once-a-week break and have a shabbat meal with whatever I want (as long as nothing processed). I'll figure that out by this Friday, but if I do it, it won't count as one of the 30 days.

7. I'm trying to keep it 80% raw. I'll guesstimate the percentages. I'm a firm believer that some foods simply are easier for our bodies to assimilate and absorb nutritionally when cooked. A good example are some tropical tubers and greens, which often have concentrations of things that would act as poisons if not cooked and drained first. But for now I'm choosing foods I know are fine without cooking, because I want to nutritionally pamper myself and regain all my old energy back. I'm looking to lose weight as a result, but that's not my sole motivation in doing this.

8. I will track the way I feel and if I lose any weight.

9. Drinks will be water, lemon-and-stevia or lime-and-stevia ades, tea, and herbal teas. Mostly water, though.

10. I'll be trying to figure out Florida again, to find which of these things would actually be grown during this season. I know I don't have it together enough right now to adhere to the best practices in tracking down solely local and in-season produce. That's my ultimate goal in how we should eat. But baby steps. For now I need to educate my body to want a range of greens (I feel sure we have those here year round) and to a much greater degree...and raw foods, which I almost never ate at all.

11. Fats are nuts, avocados, olive oil, flax seed and flax seed oil, seeds.

12. No restrictions on quantities, but striving for balance and staying active.

13. I'll stay on my regular meds, the hyaluronic acid supplement, and an after-shower refresher of spritzing with some water with tea tree oil drops added in before toweling off. That should help mitigate cleanliness as my body detoxes via my skin.

What can we use from what we have growing in Bucketville?

We don't have any standard crops growing right now, mainly due to my sucky illness that lasted so long. But we do have some non-standards ones that I can't wait to use daily, namely the Moringa and the Cranberry Hibiscus (using the leaves of each). Moringa leaves are supposed to be a nutritional powerhouse rich in so many things it would take a paragraph to list, and also high in protein....and we sure have plenty of those growing on the lot next door, hooray! The cranberry hibiscus has a bright lemony flavor and gorgeous magenta color with of course nutritional benefits of its own, so I'll use it in smoothies along with other players, and I'll blend it to include in the Stevia limeade or lemonades. I'll explore tomorrow to see what herbs and plants are still looking good enough to harvest and add to this list as I go. Even without a standard late garden, we still have about 11 tropical pumpkins/calabazas I can utilize.

I'll keep my thinking cap on, and I really need to study a planting chart again, because I still can't always get my head around when to begin things here...it's still very strange to think of growing things in the winter. But I'm not complaining!

I'll talk tomatoes in my next post, maybe. I've made a short list of the easiest things we've grown so far for this climate, and since next year may be full of this and that, I want to have the basics planned out in case we can't get more ambitious with the garden while busy. I still want us to have a nice rotation, still using the buckets for the baby plants. I'll take some pics soon, as there's a really big difference in the soil since two years ago before manure and compost applications.

All that later.

Oh, and I'm keeping the 30 day raw experiment details here...Raw Green Blender Queen

Let's see how this goes!

Contemplating Raw Food

I'll make this quick, as I'm short on time. I'm about to go in for allergy testing tomorrow, at my doc's recommendation. But I have a lot of reluctance to go down this road. I don't want to put more medications in my body. I don't presume to know what will be recommended, so I'll wait to hear, but in the meantime, I need to take better care of Me.

And so I've been doing some more reading up, as well as contemplating what would fit with our family goal of growing most of our own foods. That in itself will require a change of eating, because typically we can't afford right now to eat as much produce as we'd like. BUT (isn't there always a but?)...that has to change. As we DO grow more of our own food, our appetites will have to accomodate a lot more green things as well as some veggies that do well in our area but that I never grew up eating.

I'll go out on a limb and say that I never see myself totally eliminating animal products from our diets, or at least mine, by choice. That said, I DO see our transitioning to raw milk and milk products, unmedicated meats, and a completely different ratio of raw and veg foods than we eat right now. Eggs, too.

I simply don't know if I can do this, but I am trying very hard since the months-long run of having been ill and now feeling stronger, finally...am trying to listen to what I need to do better "self care"....I'm not hard on myself and don't ignore myself. But I need a more specific type of healing, I think, and I believe that means unburdening my body from complications and giving it what it needs to heal and be less toxic.

I'm seriously contemplating a modified raw food regimen (with some frozen berries thrown in), the exception being the occasional inclusion of meat/bone broth and fish. I am thinking of trying this for 30 days and charting the process, if for no other reason than to help me transition to a different ratio in my eating, changing over to mainly fruit and veg. It would also do a lot to help me eliminate the temptation of processed flour and other processed foods, as well as find other ways to get the taste I enjoy by un-learning some of my grab-and-go standbys and exploring some equally tasty but more nutritionally dense alternatives.

Maybe I just want to know I can do it and maybe I feel the need for a cleanse. Anyway, I'm thinking about it.

Strangely, and gladly, I am at a different mindset going into this than I have been at other points in my life. At other points, I felt the urge to nurture myself because of feeling depressed, and other emotions linked to situations present at those times. I did experience welcome breakthroughs when I did that back then. But this time is markedly different because I am very content and happy in general and the strongest emotion I have driving this desire is to be able to enjoy my world physically as much (and as long) as possible, to improve some conditions that I'd like to see gone healthwise, and to really invest in having as many years possible to enjoy my husband who is the dearest friend I have.

It's been important for me in the past to work through challenges when making life changes, especially to be motivated for the positive rather than through feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and such. Negativity or fear can't drive me. My weight has always been a challenge, but I can say that though I have a lot to lose, I've been both thin and very overweight, and I accept my body and am comfortable in my own skin wherever on the spectrum I am.

I made a conscious decision years ago to never diet again, therefore I won't. But old dogs can learn new tricks, and giving my body what's best is no prescribed diet...but it's a dietary change. I've lost 30 lbs in the past two years, most of it during the past year, ten of it while sick. I'd like to see more shed. If it happens, I'll applaud better choices and ride the momentum.

For now, I have to get used to eating foods I need, enjoying a broader range. (I already love veggies and fruits anyway). Lots and lots of different greens. A completely different ratio of raw and cooked, fruit/veg to starches and meats.

I'm contemplating whether 95% raw is something I should try for 30 days. That's enough time to see where I'd like to go from there. I'd include fats from fish, avocados, flax seed.

Thoughts? Experience you'd like to share?

I'll report back here about what I decide. I'll continue thinking about it while I fix myself a blueberry smoothie...yum :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!