Don't Hurt Yourselves!

I have been observing something lately that is just bugging me so I though that I would get it off my chest. While watching Youtube videos I see everyday people using the dullest knives I have every seen. For example, when you place your knife on whatever you are cutting and if that knife does not grab it and just sail through with little pressure, that knife is way too dull. This is a dangerous thing to do. If I did that I know I could seriously cause a bad cut and I have seen many people have this happen. They push down hard and the knife slips and cuts them. No wonder people don’t enjoy preparing food, with cutting being such a chore and all. A sharp knife will leave your food much more attractive also. My recommendation is, pay the money and get a handy-dandy electric sharpener or go to the sportsman’s section of a large store and get a $5 hand held knife sharpener and use it often. A good chef’s knife can be up to $100 but I have seen decent one’s on sale for $10. I would rather pay $10 and get a cheap chef’s knife and sharpen often, than have an expensive knife that is never sharpened. Oh, and never fall for the serrated “never needs sharpening” knives that I have seen on TV. Serrated edged knives are for meat, never veggies or fruit and they do not stay sharpened. I actually saw someone trying to use a steak knife to cut a carrot (it was painful to watch). I was appalled and had to speak up! With a sharp knife and a meditative spirit, all that cutting can actually be therapeutic.

Food Drying Bliss and Gratitude

Tuesday was an exciting day, my dehydrator came! I ordered it on Friday night and by Tues it had already gotten here.It turns out the factory is in Sacramento and it must have been dropped shipped from there. I got the nine tray Excalibur and because I ordered it from http://www.rawveganbooks.com/ it came with 9 teflex sheets which I knew I would need. I cannot praise them more highly because when I had a question they got right back to me and they were very helpful.
Tuesday afternoon I got some raw buckwheat groats out and started them sprouting in my $1.25 nylon paint straining bags (it sure beats the $9.00 ones that are sold as nut milk bag). It takes about two days to fully sprout buckwheat so while I waited for that to happen I soaked some different seeds and on Wed I made some seed crackers. It takes about 24 hours for the crackers to dry thoroughly and I was so happy when they were finished. I used fennel seed, celtic sea salt, and onion to flavor them and they were really yummy. Yesterday I used 4 cups of fresh corn and the sprouted buckwheat to make some chili-lime corn chips. That turned out well too. I also made some chili-lime, and wasabi flavored almonds that turned out nice. I figured out how to process the sprouted buckwheat to make the flavoring stay on the nuts and I think I am on to something. I plan to post the recipe on goneraw.com when I get a hold of a digital camera. You can see I am getting a little crazy with the dehydrator but what can I say but that it is my new toy. I am sure that I will not be snacking so much on this stuff after awhile so right now I am just having a good time with it. You will find that after your body gets detoxed some that you tend to be able to eat much more intuitively. All the raw foodists I talk to say the same thing. Once in a while I really want avocados but then it seems like I get it out of my system and start wanting something else. I used to eat fruit every morning but now I eat what I am hungry for, and at night sometimes after I have had richer food during the day, I just want some fruit for dinner so I just sort of go with it. One thing I do hold myself to though is that I never eat melon with any other food because it just kills me. Others experience that too. I do appreciate my hubby for sacrificing to get my dehydrator. For a carnivore, he is very supportive because he knows that it makes me well.
I have been researching buckwheat and I have come to the conclusion that in it’s sprouted form it is the perfect grain for me ( although it is a fruit in the rubarb family). It has 18 % protein and it is a complete protein form so it helps out other proteins you have eaten in the last day be 100% usable also. It is fast to sprout but must be rinsed very well at least 3 times a day. Whirled up in the food processor it makes a smooth textured batter like thing that can be used to make the base for cookies and crackers. You can also dry the sprouted buckwheat to make “buckwheaties”. They can be eaten for breakfast with nut milk and fruit for a very filling breakfast type thing. And, like I mentioned above, I can use them to do a coating on nuts. I bet in the future I am going to figure out many more uses for it. After sprouting it does not have a “raw flour” taste either. I think that many people when they first hear about raw food that you are just forcing yourself to eat all sorts of unpalatable raw stuff. I heard a story about a girl that was invited to a raw potluck and she brought a bowl of raw cake batter mixed up. She was embarrassed but I am sure they understood.
My hubby brought home yesterday some fresh local figs, about 3 pounds worth. I had advertised on craigslist my need for organic produce and listed some of my talents in trade. I am going to give her 8 year old some sewing lessons in exchange for more in the future. That will be fun as I really like to teach the next generation life skills. I have to get the figs in the dehydrator and I can’t wait till they are done. You can use figs instead of raisons if you cut them up small so they are going to work out great for me.
Thinking back yesterday, sort of doing an inventory of where I am at, I came to the conclusion that I am very happy to be doing this and plan to do it for life. I am never hungry at all, I no longer have a love-hate relationship with food, I actually feel much better about eating in general, I don’t struggle with weight anymore, and as I observe people around me I believe that I enjoy the taste and experience of food so much more than they do. I am so grateful to the Lord for leading me here.

A Doctor's Visit About Raw Food

Last Friday I went to the “Oh so dreaded” doctor’s appointment. I broke the news to him gently that I was not on any med now other than my hormone (because I have had an hysterectomy) and waited for his reaction. He was a little skeptical I think, about the whole diet thing but he took my blood pressure, blood sugar and then weighted me and we talked a little more about how I got there. My blood pressure is in the normal range, just a little higher in the normal range, and my blood sugar was normal. My weight was down 45 pounds from my visit about 6 months ago. My doctor is a Seventh Day Adventist so I think that he is a little more aware of lifestyles impact on health. He was also interested in the fact that I needed no psyche meds or pain meds. I was surprised too that he had never heard of the raw food approach. He generally just gave me the thumbs up so that was a big relief.
I went to the hardware store today and picked up my “monster tool”. It is a pick thing that has a flat head on the other side. I have not been able to do any gardening because the place I am going to plant has been just grass and weeds for a very long time. I knew that it was going to take a big tool to get through it. The price was ridicules but I plan on keeping this tool the rest of my life. I figure if I just dig on hole a day, in a week I would have gotten in seven plants. I am going to mulch on top of newspaper around them later when I can get some mulch. I thought that I could get free mulch but after checking around I found out that was not going to happen. The local green-waste place is now sending it to a worm farm so I have to buy it from them at $20.00 for a cubic yard. It will be chopped so I don’t think I will have to lay it down really thick. I am thankful though that I have a pickup so that I can pick it up as I go along. I am a little late getting my plants in but I think that is going to be fine. I am planning on getting a dehydrator so that I can dry some of these tomatoes. Some of the ones I planted are the San Marzano kind which is supposed to be a yummy paste tomato for drying. It is the one they dry in Italy. When I get my mulch on I also plan to plant some greens including some kale for winter use. Some of the pepper seed that are also an Italian variety came up so I plan on getting them in as well as a few plants from a nursery. Thinking about the dehydrator, I tasted some raw crackers from the natural food store that were so delicious. They were made from sprouted seeds that were left in their whole form. They had sesame, flax and sunflower seeds plus a little onion and spice. I better get a dehydrator because at five bucks for two servings I just cannot buy them. So anyway, can’t wait to start churning those things out but I am going to add pumpkin seeds to mine, as for some reason, I am really into pumpkin seeds.
I do encourage all of my readers to go to the http://www.goneraw.com/ site for some great recipes and support for raw-fooders. I am on that site almost every day in anticipation for new recipes being posted and also for the forum activity.

A More Complete Story

Hi Everybody!
As you can see on my headline I have more than a few interests. I live in Far Northern California in the mountains with my husband of over 30 years and my two dogs. I have three adult children and 3 grandchildren who also live in the area. I am head over heals in love with Jesus because he saved me from a life in darkness and has given me the promise of eternal life with him for all eternity. He has made me find a life of love and peace in a very dark world full of all kinds of evil but, He allows me daily to explore the beauty of His creation.
I started raw fooding 4 months ago when I finally ended up in bed just unable to function anymore. I had taken an SSRI (antidepressant) a few years earlier and had developed bi-polar disorder and psychosis from the effect of that drug on my brain. Yes, I will talk about this because I do not want anybody else to go though the suffering that I walked. I had diabetes and high blood pressure also and was taking handfuls of medications.
As I was lying in bed, unable to do anything to help myself, I heard a voice. I don't know if it was an audible voice or if it was in my head but He said, "Do you want to live or do you want to die?" I had to think about it for a minute but I said, "I want to live." Then, I don't really know exactly how but all of a sudden I knew what to do. Eat raw food. So for the next four days that is what I did. I was then able to get up on my feet and I got on the computer and started doing some research. I ended up going to the website, www.hacres.com and learned there were others doing this and they had gotten well. It made sense to me because I believe there really was an Adam and Eve and I was to eat what they ate. At first I ate a cup of beans for cooked food everyday for my protein. I eventually cut that out when I learned that I did not need it at all. I did not drink the Barley Max or make carrot juice because I had no money for Barley Max and was really too sick to make carrot juice even though I had a juicer. I began to get better and better. It was amazing what happened. I stopped taking my meds and it only took about 3 weeks to not have any of those problems anymore. Praise God, I am free!
I learned that there are many schools of thought on raw diets ad natural health. What I ended up listening to was the Natural Hygiene model of health (Herbert Shelton) and the writing of Gabriel Cousens MD. Some people eat way too much fruit and this will just not work for most people especially for blood sugar types. I learned how to sprout my nuts and seeds and go to farmers market and buy the freshest organic food. I make a Living Pate using sprouted nuts and seeds. The recipe and explanation of this is on my blog below.
Oh, did I forget to mention that in only three months I lost 30 pounds without trying?
I am now putting in an organic garden under mulch using permaculture principles. I am putting in heirloom tomatoes, melons, peppers and squash. I am also adding herbs here and there and also will be planting some edible flowers just to spice things up a bit and to keep the bees in the garden. I do want to add though, that I am not a complete vegan as I do use raw eggs in my salad dressing I make and I also eat sushi about once a week if I can. Mostly I am 100% raw but I guess the little bit of rice that I eat on the sushi is my vice. The seaweed salad I eat at this Asian buffet is so good and I think that it is fresh frozen but it has to be my favorite food. I can't believe it that at this place I can eat all the sushi I want plus seaweed salad for only $7.95 for weekend lunch. You can't beat a deal like that. You would spend that much going to a burger joint and eating that MSG laden Franken food.
I feel blessed to be where I am at right now. It has not been an easy journey for me as I was always one of those people that generally tried to stand strong against the world but I was just about defeated. God picked me up and showed me how to live and I am so grateful to Him for delivering me from more suffering. Just a thought to those who would read this. Pharmacuitical medications are poisons. They may mask symptoms but they do not cure disease. Only the body, the way God created it, without the poisons that we introduce into it (meds, food, etc.), can cure disease. Think long and hard before you put that thing in your mouth and subject your body to it. There is a better way, if you commit to it.
Shalom
Rosemary

Raw Meaty Bones and Raw Nuts

Wow, this is the second post today but I have more to say!
About the recipe I posted, Raw nuts are not an easy thing to find nowadays. In the stores you will see many bins of nuts claiming to be raw. In fact most of them are not. They are either pasteurized, or fumigated with cancer causing chemicals, which is the law for almonds in California. As for most all of them, they have been heated to aid in cracking, making them dead un-sproutable food. It is deceptive but the governments definition of "raw" is that they are not "roasted". Convenient for the sellers isn't it? Well you may say, " I will buy them in the shell and crack my own." That is an idea but it does not mean that they have not been heated to control all those "pests". The only way you can truly get around it is to know the farmer and buy them directly after knowing their history. There is a few raw web sites where they are privy to this info but their prices are just out of my reach (not that I would not pay it if I had it). So I do the best I can with my local source and if you don't have a local source you may have to mail order them at that cost. This is why I give the option of using more pumpkin seeds in this recipe (you can usually get raw pumpkin and other seeds at your local health food store, and you also could, instead of the almonds, use a different nut. They are all pretty good. Oh, and I will add to this that there is no such thing as a "raw cashew" that I know of. Cashews are a soft gelatinous nut (seed?) growing on the outside of an apple like thing. The cashew itself has a coating on it that is poisonous and they have to be boiled to remove this then poisonous membrane and make the nut firm. They use the actual fruit part to make an alcohol product for locals. I have seen on a raw site them advertised as really "raw" and shelled by hand but I am a little skeptical of this and if it is true and they are super expensive. I feel sorry for those workers and would not buy for that reason alone. So even though they taste good maybe we should just, "Get over them!"
Penny got her first raw whole fish today. Yes, that may seem weird but here is why. She was having pain every time she ate commercial dog food. I did some research and started her on a raw diet two months ago. She has been eating antelope and elk and some ground beef, (my husband is a hunter so I have saved the "trim" scraps). I found this web site http://www.rawmeatybones.com/ that was good info on how to feed your dog and the importance of bones for the teeth and body. I was really concerned at first but I have came to the conclusion that my dog is in more danger from bloat from commercial feeding and poor health from cooked food, than she would be from raw meaty bones. So my hubby went fishing yesterday so I gave her a half of a smaller trout. It was really funny. I took her outside and she sort of just mouthed it a little and left it alone. I then took her inside and I put down a towel on the sofa and she ate it where she usually eats. As she was working on it, tail first for some reason, she growled at my big dog over it so I know that she was enjoying her meal. So, so far so good.
I hope I have not ruined your day over the raw nut thing but we have to be aware of what we are buying and putting into our bodies. This is also true for the pasteurized food in the store. That means "cooked" folks, sorry. If you want to know, "why raw" and "what's so bad about cooked food", just respond to this post.
Shalom
Rosemary

Louie to be missed and a good recipe for live pate.

Hi again,
I am here again and am going to try to post more often. I got a little side-tracked yesterday because my son's dog Louie died yesterday at the age of 12. He was a Chesapeake Bay Retriever and that breed usually only lives about 10 years, so I think he did pretty well. All day we tried to get him to come in the house and he would not so that night he passed alone, like he chose to do. We will miss him.
On a better note, here is a Recipe that I make for a nut and seed pate that is really yummy. Like I said, if you are in California and cannot score any organic live almonds you could just sub more pumpkin seeds for them. I do live in California and buy my almonds at farmers market from the grower, which is legal still. It sure is nice out government is looking out for us and all with new bazaar rules and regulations. It may get to the point that to get pure food we are going to have to act like illegal drug users to stay health. God help us. Please support your local organic growers by going to farmers market or buy direct from the farmer. This is not always possible for everything but maybe we should make the effort to do what we can.
For those who are wanting healing for diabetes there is a series of videos on Youtube on the subject by Gabriel Cousens MD. All you have to do is do a search on Youtube and you will find his lectures on that and other stuff. There is a lot of conflicting info and ideas out there that could really de-rail a newcomer but I think that he has the research to back up his claim. His 21 day program to heal diabetes has proved itself effective. I have taken his advice about not eating very much sweet fruit and eating as much "living" food as possible. This includes sprouts and soaked nuts and seeds.
Here is the recipe for my pate. I got the original idea from the book Living in the Raw, Recipes for a Healthy Lifestyle by Rose Lee Calabro. I changed it so much I call it my own but it has the basic health principles intact. I eat this about everyday but am working on a southwest version to make life a little bit more interesting.

Rosemary’s Really Good Live Pate

½ cup raw almonds (put out to soak night before must soak at least 12 hours)
½ cup raw sunflower seeds (put out to soak that morning must soak 6-8 hours)
½ cup raw pumpkin seeds (put out to soak in the morning)
¼ cup raw sesame seeds (put out to soak in the morning

Drain above ing and then put together these ing.

½ red or green sweet pepper
1 good slice of onion (about ½ inch thick)
1 handful of fresh parley (optional but nice if you have it)
1 T lemon juice or vinegar
½ t sea salt
1 T kelp powder
Process these ing in a food processor till well ground but not a “paste.” If you are using a blender be sure that you do not over process.

Add to this,
2 stalks of celery chopped very fine.
I cut mine up in small pieces and just run a few times in my food processor but if you are using a blender I would do this by hand as it gives the pate a little texture and interest.

You can serve this in a half of a sweet pepper cut lengthwise and de-seeded (don’t pile high just spread about ¾ inches thick as it is very rich food). I have also used it to stuff raw mushrooms and as celery fillings for crudités.

Hope you enjoy this and please let me know how it goes.

Shalom for today,
Rosemary

Hi readers,
Thank you for stopping by my blog. I am new at this but thought that this would be a good forum to share my life and observations of life around me. I hope to meet a lot of people so that we can become friends.
My interests are living for my Lord Jesus, raw food, organic gardening, my dogs, and of course my family.
I am a Jewish believer in the Messiah and have been walking daily with Him for over 30 years. Everyday He, through the Holy Spirit, teaches me more and more how to love others and allow myself to love Him. I am always willing to help and share with those people who are honestly searching for a relationship with their Creator but I don't really get into just debating doctrine for the sake of proving what I know.
I have been a raw fooder now for a little time and have had wonderful results. I was laying in bed so medicated on psychiatric meds that I could no longer function. I was taking so many after just starting out with one SSRI but ended up taking handfuls at a time because of the bi-polar disorder and psychosis that developed from the first med. I heard a voice tell me (I do not know if it was audible or not), "Do you want to live or do you want to die." I had to give that some thought but I said, "I chose life." Then, being so messed up I am not sure what happened, all of a sudden, I knew what to eat. Raw food. I did this and in just a few days I was up on my feet. I did find the website, www.hacres.com after that and just ate a cup of cooked beans a day and everything else was raw fruits and veggies. After about two weeks I cut out the cup of beans as I learned I did not need that. Well, in three months I have lost over thirty pounds and no longer have diabetes and high blood pressure. I do take a hormone as I have no ovaries so I must do that but I take no other medications.
My organic gardening journey is just in it's infancy. I have a lot of experience growing things as I grew up working in the family "seed to sale" nursery business but am new to the total organic thing. Last year I tried out a heirloom tomato plant and some herbs and it went very well. This year I am planning on growing a bunch of tomatoes to eat raw and dry for future use. I also am going to put in three different types of melons, zucchini and some peppers. One of the melon varieties I am going to plant is a very small variety from Taiwan so I am excited about that. I do have to do all of this on the cheap though because in all those sick years I could never work so I am kind of in the poor house right now, but I will see what I can do. I am going to do all this under mulch the Ruth Stout way as I know that is the only way to go to save water and work. I will keep you all posted on my progress on this project.
As for my dogs, I share my home with a Toy Rat Terrier by the name of Penny and also with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Cody. I have had Penny sense puppy hood but Cody actually adopted me so there ya go. I love my dogs, who are spoiled rotten and they love me.
Last but not least is my family. I live with my husband Terry and I have three beautiful grown children and three grandchildren.
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope to post often as I walk this journey.
Shalom
Rosemary