Day 3 (30-Day Green smoothie challenge)

PICTURE OF Bernice's Kale-Panana. FROM MY KITCHEN TO YOURS.

Good morning, rise and shine! You can tell I feel great right? Well, I do. When I woke up this morning I didn't feel groggy, it was almost like switching on a light bulb and click my eyes snapped open. After my usual glass of water first thing in the morning, I went walking in the early morning sun. I did circuit training with Jillian Michael's for 20 minutes and then I invented one of the best tasting smoothies ever.

Before I give you that recipe I want to tell you about a few changes I've noticed since day one. Day one and two I woke up with a little stuffiness and on day two especially I noticed a lot of mucus being expelled(from my nose, catarrh). Today I woke up not stuffed at all. You will realize as you go along with this challenge that you will sneeze and have a runny nose at times, sometimes even slight chest pains and headaches. Rest assured that your body is doing what it needs to be doing, these are detox symptoms and they will go away so don't throw in the towel yet. Even hunger pangs or cravings are detox symptoms, you might just want to drink more water or another smoothie.

When you've had a habit of eating all the time, it is hard for your body to not be constantly fed so you have to remember this the next time you feel hungry (especially after you've just had a smoothie). The reason for constantly wanting food is due to the body not having the nutrients its need, so when you keep feeding it those empty calories guess what it will still 'need' more food so that it can get what it needs from somewhere.

When you do green smoothies, your body starts to sing, yes, you feel full and energized. I hate feeling tired in the middle of the day but when you're constantly feeding your body the right nutrients you will notice a surge of energy. Here's my AWESOME recipe:

Bernice's Kale-Panana (nice huh?)

2 bananas
2 golden ripe pears
6 kale leaves
1 Tbsp Flax seeds
2 cups of water

This is so delicious and filling. Kale is one of my favorite veggies to use because it if packed with nutrients. It is high in Vitamins A and C and it's a powerful antioxidant and has high cancer-fighting properties. The benefits of kale are numerous. Just know that a cup of kale a day keeps sickness away.

Day 2 (30-Day green smoothie challenge)

HOW DELICIOUS DOES THIS RAW FOOD LOOK?
(photo from www.rawpower.com)

This is day two and everything has been going great so far. I woke up bright and fresh, went for a 20 minute walk. The sun was warm and inviting. My green smoothie today was so tasty

Spinach Delight (Nina's favorite)

2 bananas
1 cup of red grapes
2 cups of spinach
1.5 cups of water

This is one of the best tasting smoothies, no child can resist this one. That's going to be my smoothie for the day. I've been drinking my water constantly and don't feel hungry. Well, I made a peanut butter sandwich for my hubby this morning and couldn't help enjoying the scent of that peanut butter but I am strong and dedicated to this, I didn't even have a lick!

Been reading a most fascinating book (tops my list of health books to read and believe me when I say I have a library of health related books.) I will leave you with a passage from the author:

"A fundamental error of all schools of so-called medicine has been the assumption that disease is something at war with life and that it must be met, subdued, counteracted, cast out, killed or cured with substances that are antagonistic to the body itself. They have never adequately recognized the antagonism that exists between living organism and the chemical substances with which they seek to cure the disease. This is the reason they continue to fill the bodies of the sick with poisons (foreign or non-usable chemicals) which the body must resist and expel. Not only have such causes of disease been mistaken as remedies for disease, but in some cases they have been mistaken for food."

He goes on to state how all drugs impair the body's function. You might want to pick up a copy for yourself, 'Self Healing Colitis & Crohn's' by David Klein, Ph.D. Here is his site:http://www.colitis-crohns.com/ I don't have colitis or crohn's but this book is for everyone who seeks optimum health, it is simply amazing and I'm not even half way through it. The testimonies and reviews alone sparked my curiosity.

Later on tonight (before 8pm, my kitchen closes at 8pm sharp) I will have some raw veggie medley with my dressing being freshly squeezed oranges and olive oil.

Come back for more tomorrow. We shall discuss blood PH and what you must know about how it affects your body. Ta ta!

Day 1 (30-day green smoothie challenge)

PICTURE OF RAW DESERT FROM COURANT.COM

...Of course today was a breeze, it's only day one! I did do my 20 minutes of brisk walking and basking in the beautiful sunlight. This is my green smoothie for the day. Somdays I make more than one kind of green smoothie, this usually depends on how many servings I get out of a batch. Rick and Nina also do the green smoothies with me everyday (they still eat their regular vegan diet with cooked food included). We all have at least 3 glasses of green smoothie everyday.

Honeydew Melon Dream:

1/2 medium honeydew melon
1 small banana
1/2 cup of red seedless grapes
3 hand fulls of baby spinach or arugula (I used spinach today)
2 cups of water. For more thickness use just one cup of water. You can also add a few pieces of ice or just use slightly cold water. Blend all together and enjoy! I will drink this throughout the day and eat a banana or two for snacks and later a big green salad for dinner.

As I mentioned the last time there are some great benefits to doing a raw detox. Here are a few:

1) Energy: since your body has less to digest and a very small amount of energy is used for digestion of these simple sugars and enzymes, your energy bank is not depleted.

2)Digestion: Since your food already contains living enzymes it takes less time for you food to digest and so it passes through the body quickly and doesn't stay for days in your intestines where they can rot and putrefy.

3)Detox: It is easier for your body to detox on raw uncooked food. The raw food has tons of fiber which acts like a sponge and carries away mucus, toxins and waste materials from your body thereby helping you to lose weight faster.

4)Weight loss: It's very normal to lose weight on a raw food diet because your body is not accumulating junk and empty calories.

5)Nutritional Content: Raw, organic food retains all its nutritional value whereas cooked food loses most of its nutritional value. Enzymes and amino acids are denatured under high temperatures of more than 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

6)Anti-aging foods: If you want to turn back the hands of time and prevent premature aging, raw foods (you can still eat some cooked but let most of your foods be raw food) is rich in anti-oxidants and live enzymes which keep cells looking young and healthy by eliminating damages done free radicals in your body.

30-Days Green Smoothie Challenge

YES, THIS IS A RAW VEGAN PIE PICTURED ABOVE, THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN


I know I said I would start my 30 days of green smoothie challenge on October 1st but I decided why not add a few extra days for and extra umph? right?. I am a little nervous. I have been vegan but never gone completely raw for this long. I figure if I want something to chew on I have my salads and celery sticks. I need a detox and I'm willing to give my body the respect it deserves. I can do this, I just need to decide to and I have :-). Basically all I will be doing is green smoothies, salad, fruits and nuts (walnuts). The whole idea about the raw-vegan is not to eat anything that can't be eaten in its raw state, for example, we can't eat potato raw or plantains or rice. I am looking forward to seeing the changes in my body, mind and spirit. I have decided to go for a twenty minute jog first thing in the morning. The main component of healing the body is sleep, so I will sleep more and let my body heal itself. I remember back home Mom would make us take naps during the day or 'Siestas' as we called them.
I have two raw food cook books and I am looking to delving into them. My three basic rules are:
Lots of sleep,
sleep,
sleep. lol

I understand that the first few days will be cranky, nothing new to me, I've detoxed before. I know about the headaches, gloominess and mood swings. These are all good signs as my body will be depositing toxic wastes into my blood stream for excretion. Bananas will be my best friend because they are very filling and sweet. Okay, enough for now, I think I've pumped myself up enough. Tomorrow is the first day of the challenge, come back for my daily report. See you on Health road where Self-doubt street meets Decision ave.
And oh, I will be listening to alot of the Raw Vegan radio :http://www.rawveganradio.com/wordpress/ and visiting my raw food restaurant for more ideas.

Tomorrow I'll go into some benefits of raw foodism.

The Over-drugged America

When you hear a nurse say "There's no difference between inorganic and organic food, they all do thesame thing in the body." makes me wonder what people are learning nowadays. There is a vast difference between organic and inorganic. Organic means certain standards have been used to produce a certain food. In organic the use of on organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides are strictly prohibited. Most non-organic foods have been grown with the above plus dyes, homornes and additives have been added to them to make them palatable.

I watched a PBS show some nights ago and it broke my heart to see this mother hearing these words from her child's pediatrician "That's the only way to go, we have to get him on these meds quickly. This is what he needs." and he pushed a tray of five prescription drugs infrot of her. Her son must have been no more than five or six years old. The mother had asked the doctor if there were other therapies her newly diagnosed child could try. The tears in her eyes broke my heart as I am a mother too and we always want the best for our children. I wanted to reach through the TV and say "Let me tell you a therapy you can try. Try a vegan diet on your child for sometime and see the difference it makes it his life." Her son had been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and I'm thinking, he's just five, he should be hyperactive, he's a child, he's not yet a zombie like the rest of us.


'Tis not enough that kids and adults are on drugs even the animals and the fruits are on drugs too...what an abomination!

We have become a society that is so quick to medicate because we lack patience and are so preoccupied with making money that we would sell the life of a child for extra bonuses from the pharmaceutical industry. Everyday there is a new medication being advertised on Tv, actually, most commercials alternate between the gross food commercials and the extremely-disadvantageous medications. It's almost as if we have been brainwashed to believe any of them is good for us. On one hand they are making you sick with unhealthy food and then when you get sick they give you these "death sentence" or what they call them today, "Pills" to get you even sicker.

I am not saying discard all drugs, but most of them are really unecessary if we only ate right and ate the whole foods our bodies need. My mother, who is 50 years old has NEVER had a cavity! She lives in a world where everything is grown organically. I remember my grandmother making a little garden in the back of our house in Cameroon. She would enrich the soil with manure (peels of bananas, shells of eggs, peels of fruits etc) our trash was our wealth, we reinvested into our garden which later flourished with veggies and fruits that we used to cook.

The trash here is mostly cardboard, plastics and bottles, I don't think those can make for good manure. I want to leave a great world for the next generation so that my children's children can still see trees and animals and enjoy the sun without fear of cancer. It is the voices of reason that keep getting quietted but those who just want to make a profit at the expense of a human life, thrive. Our crime: greed. You can make a difference. Start with you. Love yourself a little differently.

FYR's Raw Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

1/4 cup pitted dates

1/4 cup carob powder or unsweetened cocoa (for a caffeine-free recipe use carob powder)

1/4 cup organic maple syrup (I use organic grade-B maple syrup) or agave nectar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 marshed avocados

1/4 water

1/2 cup freshly made almond milk (optional)

Directions:

Blend maple syrup (or gave nectar), dates and vanilla in a food processor. Then add the avocados and carob powder (or unsweetened cocoa). Add water. Add almond milk (optional) and blend for about a minute. YUMMY DELICIOUSNESS for your taste buds!!!!! Enjoy. Refrigerate and serve chilled or eat as is...It also makes a great chocolate spread for your bread.

30 Days Green Smoothie Challenge

Are you ready for the 30 green smoothie challenge? I discovered green smoothies not too long ago and in that short time I have seen some marvelous changes in my body and especially my skin. My skin is SHINNING, for lack of a better word. I noticed it in the first three days. Now I have my daughter, my husband, my mother in-law and a few of my friends all doing it now. The book that got me started was Victoria Boutenko's Green For Life. I used to do a lot of juicing before but now I do more of the green smoothies. They are the best way to get your daily requirement of fruits and veggies and they are filling and delicious too. Don't let the green liquid fool you, once you try it you will never go back.

So I am throwing out a challenge out there, a 30 days green smoothie challenge starting October 1st. It is a great way to detox without feeling starved. So yes, you can only eat salads and smoothies or juices and water. One month only and your body will love you for it. You can eat sea veggies like kelp, seaweed salads etc. Get your shopping list ready and head to the market. Here is an essential list of veggies you will need for your green smoothies:

Spinach, endive, red lettuce, romaine lettuce, parsley, cilantro, kale, collard green.

For fruits you can get all your favorite fruits.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1 cup green grapes
1 (130 g) orange, peeled
1/2 Bartlett pear
1 (120 g) banana, fresh or frozen
1 cup kale
1/2 cup water
2 cups ice cubes

and this

2 bananas
3 oranges, peeled, quartered
1 head romaine lettuce
4 cups cold water

and this one too:

4 cups of spinach

1/2 a cantaloupe

A handfull of red seedless grapes

2 cups of cold water or 1 cup of ice

Nina's favorite

10 finger bananas

3 cups spinach

1 cup of cold water

Spinach-Cantaloupe Delight

1/2 a cantaloupe (or 1 small cantaloupe for more sweetness)

2 cups of spinach (3 cups for 1 whole cantaloupe)

3/4 water

7 cubes of ice

Blend and enjoy! You may use other greens too for this recipe (lettuce, endive, parsley etc)

Rick's Eggless Egg Salad

Ingredients:

1 container extra firm tofu

1/2 onion (white)

2-3 tablespoons Veganaise (one made with grapeseed oil)

Garlic powder

Turmeric

Seasalt

Black Pepper

Method:

In a large bowl crumple tofu with fingers. Add Veganaise, enough to cover the tofu. Add onions.

Sprinkle garlic powder and black pepper to taste. A pinch of sea salt and then add turmeric to add some color. Serve with whole wheat muffin, bread or use as salad dressing.