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 Photo courtesy of Indenture There has been much in the press and the diet world lately on the subject of alkalinity. Until recently no one knew anything about the acidity or alkalinity of the body, now it is the latest craze and if you haven’t yet used a pH strip to test your own body’s acid/alkaline balance then you may be a bit behind the times.
The balance of acid/alkaline in the body measures the pH (or potential Hydrogen). The scale ranges from one to fourteen. One is highly acidic and fourteen is highly alkaline with the ideal being somewhere around 7.35. An overly acidic body, which plagues most Americans, leads to a variety of illnesses, sickness and obesity whereas an alkaline system makes it nearly impossible for sickness or disease to survive.
Moving towards a more alkaline environment within the body results in improved energy, health and weight. Here are five easy steps to increasing your alkalinity.
1. Eat fewer acid-forming foods. Food is the most direct and most profound tool for creating a more alkaline environment. The most acid-forming foods are sugars, processed food products like pasta, breads, and cereals, meats, dairy, coffee, soft drinks, and artificial sweeteners.
2. Eat more alkaline-forming foods. Alkaline forming foods are nearly all vegetables, particularly green leafy ones, whole grains like quinoa, wild rice, millet and amaranth, ginger, green tea, fruits - especially citrus, mangoes and most melons and Stevia (as a sweetener)
3. Do something fun. Stress creates more acid in the body. The alternative to reducing stress is increasing fun. Take ten minutes out of your day to just have fun. Listen to some great music, call a friend, take a short walk, play with your kids. The more fun you have the less acid your body will be.
4. Calm yourself down. Since stress creates acid, consciously calming yourself down will create a more alkaline environment. Take one minute to breathe deeply, do some light stretching or yoga, set a timer for five minutes and do a short meditation. Anything that slows down the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight one) and activates the parasympathetic nervous system will reduce the acid levels in your body.
5. Smile. It’s probably the simplest thing you can do anywhere, anytime, and anyplace. When you smile your body releases feel good hormones into your system. Your smile tells your brain that life is good, there is no need to panic. The more you smile the better you feel. The better you feel the more alkaline your body.
High levels of acid in the body lead to weight gain, exhaustion, poor bone health and eventually sickness and disease. Our diet and stress levels contribute greatly to our acid/alkaline balance within our body. The more we take care of ourselves by engaging in fun activities, consciously relaxing ourselves, and eating whole, unprocessed fruits, grains and vegetables, the healthier, happier and more alkaline we will be.
I am Daphe Cohn, Whole Health Educator and CEO of Raw Food Mamas. Raw Food Mamas is about delicious living through conscious eating - energizing and nourishing the busy mom.
I have studied, practiced and taught nutrition and whole health for six years. I work with women around the world, helping to bring them greater energy, time and vibrant health through the art of food, fun and conscious thought.
To get your FREE guide: Avoid the Top Ten Mistakes Moms Make That Drain Their Energy go to: http://www.instantenergyformoms.com.
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 In this article, Jameth Sheridan shares on superfoods including cacao and raw chocolate. Jameth Sheridan is the co-author of Uncooking with Jameth and Kim and the co-founder of the superfoods company HealthForce Nutritionals.
Kevin: Let’s move into, there’s a bunch of superfoods and a bunch of stuff I want to talk about. When we were in the car on the way over here, we started talking about chocolate.
Jameth: Yes.
Kevin: And cacao. And so, I want to kind of, I just want to get your scope on it. What’s the deal, what’s your experience with it?
Jameth: Sure.
Kevin: Maybe that can instruct some people.
Jameth: Sure. As far as for flavoring of things, chocolate has replaced carob over the years on the raw foods community. The whole idea is that raw, cacao is what raw chocolate is really called, and the whole idea is because it’s raw, it’s healthy. Just like I talked about earlier, there are two categories of food, raw and cooked. So chocolate, that has negative effects on people, that actually kills a lot of animals, all of a sudden because it’s raw, now it’s good for you. I wouldn’t call it a half truth, it’s maybe like a quarter truth or a fifth truth..
If you have a regular chocolate bar, it’s got pasteurized milk, it’s got hydrogenated oil, it’s got white sugar, it’s got artificial flavorings. None of it is organic. It’s got pesticide residues. It’s absolute crap. I would consider that poisonous for the body. In addition, it’s got caffeine and theobromine from the chocolate. And the chocolate’s probably been heated up to a temperature that’s not raw for sure.
You then can move into, let’s say, a whole food vegan chocolate bar where you have organic cocoa butter, organic cacao, sweetened with some sort of organic, more whole food natural sugar and no flavorings whatsoever. That is much healthier than a regular chocolate bar.
When you move into a raw chocolate-type product, you’ve got cacao and cacao butter, almost always of which are organic. The sweetener, instead of let’s say a refined sugar or a less refined sugar, in the vegan chocolate bar, is now something like agave nectar, or yacon, or lucuma, which are whole food sweeteners. Vastly healthier. And, if there’s vanilla in it, it’s actually vanilla bean. If there’s coconut in there, it’s not coconut flavoring or coconut flakes, it’s actual coconut. So, the raw chocolate bar is much more whole foods. It’s much more blood sugar balanced. Everything in there is, for the most part, a healthy ingredient.
But, you still have a cacao in there. And, cacao still has, it’s either caffeine or theobromine or both in there, they’re almost exactly the same chemicals. And, caffeine is not good for you. Whether it’s in the form of yerba matte or cacao. Caffeine artificially increases your heart rate. It can give you heart palpitations, it artificially increases your respiration. If you take enough of it, you actually can die. You can induce death if you take enough of it because your heart won’t be able to beat that fast. And, I’ve seen it mess a lot of people’s health up. If you take cacao before bed, you cannot sleep, period, because it’s going to keep you awake. It’s similar, we also talked about it in the car, people take No-Doze, they take caffeine to keep themselves up, like a whole food version of that. I consider cacao a whole food medicinal, recreational drug. And I don’t think any evidence suggests anything otherwise than that, it’s just it has this cache it has this thing that because it’s raw we can have it in any quantity and just pound it in and I’ve seen people really mess up their health and their lives by following that advice and I think it’s actually reckless.
Kevin: And you had mentioned in terms of antioxidants, I mean it’s good compared to some things.
Jameth: It’s up there, it’s one of the higher whole food type antioxidants. But when you compare it to lots of herbs like sage or oregano or rosemary or even if you start to get into herbal extracts or some fruit and vegetable extracts like resveratrol from grapes has about 40 times more antioxidants than cacao in it. Cacao is an OK antioxidant but if you are looking to take cacao to increase you antioxidant levels it’s a bad way to do it because cacao increases your metabolism, in an artificial way, it makes your heart beat faster and creates, actually, adrenaline in your body. It actually uses up more antioxidants than it provides you.
I use cacao what I call ceremonially. If I’m going to work out and I’m tired anyway, and I figure you know, I’m not going to work today at all, I will take a little bit of cacao or other things sometimes or green tea or other things with caffeine to just kind of kick myself in the ass and actually go out and do an hour or two workout. But just a little bit. If it’s already late at night and my wife and I want to stay up and watch a movie we’ll have a little bit of cacao. But we use it very, very carefully because its unbalanced power can easily be upset.
Kevin: Yeah. Interesting. Let’s talk about another staple in the raw food diet which is nama shoyu, even tamari, for those people who find raw tamari, let’s talk about that.
Jameth: Sure. If I can start with that by talking about salt in general.
Kevin: Yeah, good.
Jameth: There’s the idea that some people think you should be on a completely low sodium diet because so much research has shown that low sodium diets lower blood pressure, it lowers your risk for kidney disease, for heart disease and so forth. Now that research is based on regular white table salt which is heated anywhere from 300 to 1200 degrees. It has chemicals added to it, it has inorganic iodine added to it, and inorganic iodine is toxic and can kill you if you have enough of it. Regular table salt is absolutely abysmal for your health and that should never be. Because that is so bad some people have thrown the baby out with the bath-water and say all salt is bad.
When you have no salt in your diet, or for example let’s talk about when you water fast, you have large amounts of water, no salt in the water and you would thing you would be extremely hydrated but when you water fast you’re actually slightly dehydrated. Because when you have too much salt from any source you hold too much water in your body, there’s too much water held in solution in your body you become puffy and retain fluids. If you have too little salt, salt is what allows you to hold on to fluids, you can’t hold on to enough fluids and no matter how much water you drink, in fact the more water you drink when you don’t have enough salt, the more dehydrated you become and the more work your kidneys have to do to maintain the salt you have in your system. So salt balance is essential.
Now you would think that on a natural diet you should be able to get enough salt from salty vegetables like celery or tomatoes and in some cases I think that’s accurate. But for anyone sweating or doing anything athletic or people who genetically have low blood pressure or most people in my experience need to have additional sources of organic sodium. If you look to animals in nature whenever there is a salt-lick around the animals flock to it and start consuming that salt- lick. Even animals in nature, you even find predator and prey near each other at salt-licks licking the salt because the prey is so drawn to that salt that they’ll risk getting eaten by a predator just so they can have that salt. There’s something very valuable about it.
The best form of salt in my opinion by far in any community is miso, because miso used to be considered cooked which was completely wrong because miso starts out cooked but it’s aged for two years. Usually it’s in wooden casks like they used to do in the old days and its treated with probiotics and enzymes and by the time miso comes out every square molecule of that miso has undergone enzymatic and probiotic action and miso actually has a huge life force field around it. It’s anti-cancer, it’s anti-radiation, it’s a tremendous antioxidant, it’s a tremendous healing food and only a small part of it is salt. To me it’s the number one, I actually consider miso a superfood. A hardcore superfood up there with any other superfood and it compares statistically and with research. It’s a live, living salt.
The next salt, the next things you would go to I think would be a shoyu type or tamari soy sauce. Years ago there was a mistake in the raw food community that someone thought or was led to believe that nama shoyu was raw soy sauce and tamari was not. People said tamari is poisonous crap, it’s cooked, and nama shoyu is the way to go. And let me tell you the truth on that, I’ve done a lot of research on this. Tamari is the world’s original soy sauce, made in Japan, back to recorded records. Miso was made, and the liquid that floated to the top of the miso was tamari, that was what was tamari. It was aged. It was fermented in a good way with bacteria and enzymes and no wheat was ever added to this there was no such thing as wheat in Asia. And today tamari is made on its own and fermented on its own.
Nama shoyu is a very recent, thousands and thousands of years there was tamari and the ingredients are soy beans, water and salt, enzymes and probiotics that treat this. Nama shoyu is made differently whereas today they add westernized wheat to nama shoyu. The wheat actually when it ferments forms a large amount of alcohol. So it has a less full bodied flavor than tamari and it has a larger alcohol content which isn’t necessarily a problem but there’s less flavor to it and since it has wheat in it people with wheat allergies and people with gluten intolerance which is a big percentage of the population cannot consume it. And tamari, unless someone actually went out of the way to pasteurize, it is not cooked. Tamari is raw, so is nama shoyu. They’re equally as raw, but tamari is made the traditional healthy way, has a stronger better flavor than nama shoyu and is completely gluten free.
Nama shoyu has destroyed, I mean absolutely reeked havoc, destroyed raw food cuisine for anyone who is wheat sensitive or anyone who has celiac disease which means they can’t have any gluten whatsoever. It’s just eliminated that for them and it’s less healthy for them than tamari. There’s no reason you need to be having wheat in your tamari, in your soy sauce. So to me, tamari, excuse me nama shoyu’s time has come due to an error, someone thinking it was raw and tamari was not and it’s now time for it to go. It has no place in the raw food community, I don’t think whatsoever, because we have superior alternatives and that would be gluten-free tamari.
Kevin Gianni the host of Renegade Health Show - a fun and informative daily health show that is changing the perception of health across the world. His is an internationally known health advocate, author, and film consultant. He has helped thousands and thousands of people in over 21 countries though online health teleseminars about abundance optimum health and longevity. He is also the creator and co-author of “The Busy Person’s Fitness Solution.”
 Photo courtesy of Food Thinkers This drink is delicious, refreshing and super-healthy. You can’t help but feel so much better for drinking it, even if you’re not used to drinking a lot of greens.
This recipe makes about 1 litre, and is the perfect drink to wake you up first thing in the morning or to drink after a session at the gym.
Ingredients:
* 1 medium RIPE pineapple
* 2 apples
* 1/2 lemon including its peel
* 1/2 lime including its peel
* 1 bag of organic spinach (approx. 200g)
* 5 sticks celery
* 1 whole cucumber including peel
Directions:
Simply juice the whole lot, pour into a jug, stir well.
Pour, drink, pour, drink!
Keep in the fridge any you can’t drink, and enjoy it cool later. Keeps well owing to the lemon and lime.
Let me know what you think!
© Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach 2009, www.TheRawFoodCoach.com
Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach publishes “Successfully Raw” - a free weekly eZine for raw food lovers everywhere. If you’re ready to look good, feel great and create a raw life you love get your FREE tips, tools and recipes now at www.TheRawFoodCoach.com.
Click here for more raw food recipes
 Raw Cashew Cheese
As discussed in an earlier article, soaking and re-hydrating nuts makes them easier on your digestive process. When you are making a raw food product like cashew cheese, pre-soaking the nuts also makes them softer, allowing for easier blending in the food processor or Cuisinart. There is a bit of planning involved with this recipe, as the cheese must set up for a period of around 24 hours before it is ready for eating. Prior to that, the nuts themselves must be allowed to soak for a period of time in purified or distilled water. Make this cheese as a perfect snack or hors d’œuvre for a party, just make sure to plan a couple of days in advance. This shouldn’t be considered the “make it an hour before the guests arrive” kind of dish.
For a recipe yield of about 1 ¼ cups of Raw Cashew Cheese, follow these instructions. Consider doubling the recipe for a small party of ten or less guests; for a snack item for the week, make this amount and keep the cheese stored in the refrigerator.
Ingredients for Making Raw Cashew Cheese
1 ½ cups raw cashews
1/3 cup water
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon sea salt
Put the cashews in a bowl and add enough cold, distilled water to cover the nuts by about two inches. Soak the cashews for around 2 hours, and then drain them.
Combine the cashews, 1/3 cup water, lemon juice, garlic cloves and sea salt in a food processor and blend them together. Be careful to scrape down the sides of the blender. Continue to blend the mixture for about 5 minutes, or until all of it is very smooth.
Place the cheese in a small bowl or Tupperware, and cover it, allowing it to stand at room temperature for between 24 and 48 hours, but not longer. After the 24 hours, refrigerate the cashew cheese until you are ready to eat it. The cheese will keep for not more than 5 days, if kept covered and refrigerated.
 Photo courtesy of ?ukasz Strachanowski We all eat a certain amount of raw food - the occasional piece of lettuce on our turkey sandwich, perhaps an apple or some grapes with our lunch or a banana on our breakfast cereal. But did you know that there is an entire subculture dedicated to gourmet raw foods “cooking” and there is a growing movement towards eating a diet that is made up exclusively of raw foods?
David Wolfe, the charismatic leader of the Raw Foods movement, says in his book Nature’s First Law: The Raw Food Diet that “cooked food is addictive, cooked food is self-destructive, and cooked food is poison.”
Wow! That is some serious accusation!! And as a thinking person who is constantly researching diets and the effect they have on the human body, I wondered why David Wolfe could take such a stand. So I did some research.
I found that it is all about the enzymes. “When you cook food above 102 degrees Fahrenheit, the enzyme metabolism begins to disrupt and break down. Nothing works without enzymes. Enzymes are are the alchemical symbol of transformation. Enzymes are the life catalyst behind every function the human body performs. That is why a fever is so dangerous. At 102 degrees Fahrenheit you literally start to cook. On a cooked, enzymeless diet, the body is forced to overwork its indigenous (or internal) enzymes to break down those unnatural materials. The body requires exogenous (or external) enzymes in the form of raw plant food.” (Taken from Nature’s First Law, by David Wolfe.)
Raw and living foods are whole and unprocessed, fresh and unrefined. They contain the complete spectrum of their naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, complete with the enzymes needed to turn the food into pure, clean energy the body can use.
When I am eating a high percentage of raw foods, I look and feel more alive. That is because raw fruits, nuts and vegetables are a source of pure energy full of life force. If we are what we eat, and raw foods contain abundant enzymes which are pure energy (the sparks of life) then our personal energy will certainly be affected.
Enzymes make things happen. They catalyze essential activity in the body. So when the food we take in contains abundant enzymes, our body needs to work less. It doesn’t need to produce the enzymes needed to break down the food. The enzymes are already there. So the body has more time to play and more energy to replenish, repair, and maintain tissues, blood and organs. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
The health benefits of eating raw foods are numerous. And if you eat with the seasons, it is common sense to take advantage of what the earth has to offer and eat from that fresh, raw bounty. Try some fruit salad for breakfast, wrap some greens, veggies, herbs, nuts and olive oil in a collard or lettuce leaf, or better yet, search out a raw food “cooking” class to get some new ideas.
You will experience a definite buzz from raw food - and perhaps that is why David Wolfe can exclaim with all certainty that “cooked food is poison”. Cooked food just does not give you the same energy. Try it - you might really like it. I know your body will thank you!
Rebecca Johns, founder of Rebecca Whole Health Inc., is a Nutrition and Wellness Professional who is also the mom of 4 growing kids. “My passion is cutting through the confusion around what it takes to be healthy and giving other moms the tools they need to improve the health of the whole family.”Subscribe to Rebecca’s free weekly ezine Whole Health News by visiting: http://www.rebeccawholehealth.com
 In this excerpt, Dr. Doug Graham discusses his 80-10-10 Diet and how many raw fooders eat too much fat. This is an excerpt from Dr. Doug Graham’s interview for the Raw Summit Archives, a complete interview encyclopedia of cutting edge living and raw food knowledge.
Kevin Gianni: You talk about the 80-10-10 diet, it’s the name of your book. What are some of the main principles? What are the 80 and 10-10?
Doug Graham: We had contests to name this book. We had trial and error. We asked hundreds and hundreds of people. We ended up with a list of about sixty titles and fought bitterly between a staff of about twelve people over this title and that of what should be the title of this book. And 80-10-10 tells you something, but it does not tell you enough to make you know what it is. I agree. It is not like the Sedona diet or something which brings a picture to mind. And I honestly do not know if it is good or bad but the 80-10-10 diet is really what it is about. 80-10-10 refers to the three-caloral nutrients. There are only three nutrients in human physiology, or human nutrition that supply us with calories. Those are carbohydrates, protein and fat. Well, in the 80-10-10 diet, I recommend that a maximum of 10 percent of calories come from protein and a maximum of 10 percent of calories come from fat. Therefore, a minimum of 80 percent of calories coming from carbohydrates. And that is in the ultimate simplicity the 80-10-10 diet. Now, of course, you must eat sufficient total calories because no diet is going to work if you do not eat enough food and certainly not in the long term. And sometimes people get confused about that. They say “well, geez, if I eat a banana, and a lettuce leaf and an almond then I am doing the 80-10-10″. I go, “yes you are, but you can not live on that diet”. That would not get you past breakfast.
Kevin: It’s just breakfast.
Doug: It’s breakfast, exactly. And raw food is to come to know that we get to eat more volume than most other people. But human beings are funny. People are funny. We tend to pat ourselves on the back for things that we are going to do or for changes that we are going to make and then don’t often make them. Or we pat ourselves on the back for changes that we think we have made that we really haven’t. And it is a funny world this way and so, although everybody knows that pizza is not health food, nonetheless, when we go vegetarian we create vegetarian pizza. And when we go vegan we create vegan pizza. When we go raw, for our health, we still create raw pizza. And in truth, if it looks like pizza and it tastes like pizza, it’s going to digest like pizza. And it’s likely going to have the caloral nutrient ratio of pizza. And it is going to be hard on our bodies. I am not against it. I am neither for or against it, because it is not about right or wrong, it’s just the consequences. It is what you want to have happen as a result of eating the food you eat.
In other words, it came to me apparent at a certain point that essentially you are on a road in life. And that road, through my medical training, I am actually trained as a chiropractor, but through my medical training what I learned is to be able to predict what road people are on. And so, if they are on a standard diet and they never exercise, or they take birth control pills, and drink a lot of coffee, I think they know there is a very good chance that osteoporosis is going to be in your future. If they are eating a high fat diet there is a very good chance that some form of what is referred to, erroneously, as a sugar metabolic disorder is going to be in your future. Currently, the Center for Disease Control estimates that almost half of all Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic and they say it will be over 80 percent of all Americans by the year 2020. All we have to do they say, is keep doing what we are doing. Well, what we are doing is, the average American, eating roughly 40 percent of his calories from fat when the world authorities are recommending 10 percent as a maximum. And if we keep doing that we will all become diabetics. The raw fooders, I thought, we’re doing far better until I started keeping track, and after interviewing about 5000 raw fooders, I feel pretty comfortable in giving averages, and the average raw fooder consumes 65 to 70 percent of their calories from fat.
Kevin: Wow
Doug: This is almost double the American average. We are literally thumbing our nose at the nutritional advice of all the world’s health professionals. while at the same time trying to use some of the information that they say. So, for instance, it is very common to hear a raw food leader say, you know, you don’t need this much of this nutrient and that nutrient or the next nutrient because as raw fooders, the nutrients you consume are of a much higher quality. Or, you digest it far better, and you absorb it far better, and so you get so much more of it. Well, if that is in fact the case, why are we eating double the fat of everybody else? Shouldn’t we be eating half the fat and still getting all the nutritional benefits? We should not have to double our fat consumption. So that was sort of the road, that’s what the 80-10-10 diet became about was to help raise an awareness, strictly between the difference between a high fat diet and a diet that is designed to meet what the scientific standards say humans are designed for. It really was going out on a limb. I’ve got to tell you because it is so much against the flow.
Kevin: Sure.
Doug: But that is my job in many ways, not to go against the flow but to take the science and make it user friendly. That’s what I’ve always done, that is what I pride myself from being able to do. Rather than taking the results of this study or that study, because you can prove anything in our study. Instead, what I’ve done is look at what the textbooks unanimously agree upon, from medical physiology to sports physiology and other types of sports and performance sciences and simply convert that information and apply that information to the raw food diet.
Kevin: Yeah, you may or may not know the answer to this, but I am just curious. Is there any specific study about longevity and raw foods?
Doug: To my knowledge, there are no studies about longevity and raw food.
Kevin: Okay.
Doug: There are various studies about raw food. There have been quite a few studies on raw food. Most of them have been to demonstrate the inefficacy or the impossibility to survive on a diet, or certainly to thrive on a diet that is predominated calorically by vegetables. And I agree. I agree because in order to consume sufficient calories from vegetables to meet your daily caloric needs, for instance for me, that would mean eating somewhere as close to 80 heads of lettuce a day. Well, it just cannot be done. I am a big vegetable man. I love my vegetables. In fact, you know, a lot of people are animal rights advocates and I’ve always said that I’m a vegetable rights advocate. I am perfectly happy to sit down and eat tomatoes until the cows’ come home, or perfectly happy to eat celery as is. I do not have to disguise it. I am in favor of vegetable rights, and I eat a big salad almost every single day and I was raised that way as a child. Eating salad was a normal thing for me. And I have over the last 25 years involvement in raw food movement and my total commitment to raw food now is reaching 30 years. I have always recommended that we eat lots of greens. In fact to my knowledge, I recommend we consume more greens, not only on the 80-10-10 diet, but on any of the programs that I have ever recommended. I am actually recommending more green consumption from whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic plants than anybody else in the raw food movement. The funny thing is that most people notice me eating fruits and so, they think that that’s what it is all about when in fact, that is not the case. I recommend a huge, in fact as I say it, a greater portion of calories from greens than anybody else in the raw movement. It is just what they see, you know, what they notice is the fruit.
Kevin: There are a lot of people who would say that eating a lot of fruits comes with candida issues? What is the challenge with that and how can what can you overcome some thoughts of that?
Doug: Well, I dedicated a chapter in my book to this very issue. But I can put it in a nutshell for you even more to think of now that I could years ago. I agree with everybody who says that eating a lot of fruits will lead to candida issues if they consuming more fat than they should be, more than they can healthfully tolerate. If they are consuming 30-40-50-60-70, I have on tape several different raw food leaders proudly proclaiming that they eat 80 percent of their calories from fat. And that is just fine. If you are eating 60 or 70 percent of your calories from fat well then, you are going to run into issues with sugar metabolism. And the simplest breakdown of it, and I am sorry, if I leave out a few of the details here. If you need more let me know.
But essentially, your blood sugar is monitored by your brain. Everyone has blood sugar, regardless of what they eat. I mean, Eskimos living on blood sugar levels that are roughly the same as muscle head living on protein powders or people following the 80-10-10 diet. It doesn’t matter whether your predominant calorie or nutrient is protein, fat or carbs. Everyone has roughly the same blood sugar levels in health but when those blood sugar levels start to vary, it’s a sign that the body can no longer maintain the homeostasis that it strives to maintain for us at all times. So, our primary method of controlling our blood sugar level is through function of the pancreas. The pancreas picks out some extra insulin if blood sugar levels rise, because insulin functions as a doormat to escort sugar out of the bloodstream to the cell. It’s rather simple but as everyone knows, oil is a lubricant, oil coat thing and if there’s more fat in our bloodstream than we’re designed to handle, it not only coats the blood sugar molecule, it also coats the insulin. Well, when the insulin is coated and the sugar is coated, it’s very hard for the insulin to link up with the sugar. They don’t recognize each other. Not only that, but the portal where sugar exits the bloodstream becomes clogged with fat. Then, so it’s hard for sugar to get out again. Well, the blood sugar level continues to rise so as the brain and eventually, more insulin is produced and the insulin’s job is to find sugar. So, eventually it’s going to, but now there’s twice as much or three times as much insulin in the bloodstream as they are supposed to be and eventually your blood sugar crashes.
Kevin: And that’s because the blood sugar’s still high and the insulin isn’t able to find the sugar and escort it.
Doug: But eventually, the insulin does find the sugar but it’s slower at it and it should have been until the body puts out a second and a third rush of insulin.
Kevin: Right.
Doug: Okay. Well, as we know, with any muscle in the body, the key to training is not just training but also recovering. What they call overload, overload recover cycle. This is the same for any part of our body. You can develop a tan by giving a little bit of sun overload and then recover. You can develop calluses on your hand by giving a little bit of a work overload using with a rake or a shovel and then allow for recovery. But if you take too much in any given time, there’s a crash, there’s a blister, there’s sunburn, or you will end up with what is called the visceral failure. In the case of the pancreas, visceral failure takes the form of diabetes, hypo and hyperglycemia and other sugar metabolic disorders. The pancreas can no longer put out sufficient insulin because it has been putting out too much insulin again and again and again without ever getting a break. Because the average person is eating triple, quadruple, five times, you know, the fat is recommended at every single meal and so the body never gets a break and eventually the pancreas fail as well.
To read the rest of this interview please visit http://www.RawSummitArchives.com This is just an excerpt of over 14 hours of cutting edge living food, raw food or health information revealed during the Raw Food World Summit.
 Photo courtesy of Thai Food Blog As promised in my previous post about raw food in South Africa, I asked my friend Beryn Daniel, author of Rawlicious: Delicious Raw Recipes for Radiant Health , if she would be willing to share the recipe for the delicious soup I enjoyed at her home in Cape Town.
So here it is! This soup is so tasty, creamy, rich and nourishing. I am sure you will love it.
We also added cayenne pepper on top to add a little extra kick so if you like it spicy feel free to try this. Just be careful because cayenne is very hot and easy to overdo.
Creamy Thai Soup
Ingredients:
1 litre warm water
1 and 1/2 Cups dessicated coconut (soaked in warm water for 5 minutes)
2 stalks lemon grass
10 dried kaffir lime leaves
1/4 C cashews
1 – 2 avocados
1/4 C coriander (cilantro)
1T brown rice miso
1T olive oil
2 tsp salt
Directions:
Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until warmed through.
Served in warmed bowls with Essene bread and olive oil.
 Photo courtesy of C.Charmon Are you feeling tired, jaded, run down? Are you fed up with spotty looking skin, and brittle nails and hair?
Have you tried all sorts of pills and potions and crazy diets, but apart from a huge disappointment and a smaller bank balance, have received little change in health?
Not to worry. There is an answer, and it is likely in your very own kitchen. What is it? The humble carrot! No, I’m not kidding you. I don’t have shares in a carrot wholesalers or a vegetable cannery either!
No, my reason for penning this short article is to motivate you to begin a raw juice diet. This will detox your system, and pep you up fast with little cost in time or money, and more importantly, no danger to your health.
So, how can drinking carrot juice help and why carrots anyway? The answer is simple; carrots are one of nature’s greatest cleanses and fortifiers. The main reason you’re suffering with your health is because your system is likely to be toxic, caused by too much cooked dead, processed food.
It should be noted also, that our modern-day environment, with its traffic fumes and chemical sprays, not to mention excessive stress, compounds the problem enormously.
All-in-all, modern life is intrinsically injurious to health! The humble carrot, when scrubbed topped- and- tailed, and put through your juice extractor, contains a concentrated cocktail of powerful ingredients that will flush-out your arteries gently, and thoroughly in no time flat.
Here are 7 reasons why you should drink at least a pint of carrot juice every day:
1) You will get all your major vitamins, such as A, B, C, D, E, and K. Also, these ingredients being organic, are far better than just supplements.
2) It promotes appetite and helps your digestive system.
3) Maintains bone structure of your teeth. Just 1 pint of its juice, is said to be the equivalent of 25 pounds of calcium tablets.
4) Excellent for your respiratory tract, eyes and throat, because it works with your adrenal glands. Your sinuses also will resist infections, and that means fewer winter colds and flu.
5) Vitalizes and protects the central nervous system.
6) Because of its ability to resolve toxins in the blood, it cleanses the liver.
7) Since it is rich in the organic elements of Potassium, Sodium, Iron and Magnesium, plus traces of Silicone, your skin will be softened and your hair and nails will be benefited to.
My wife, who has been grey -haired for years, has actually found her hair is reverting back to its original dark brown! I should add that she’s in her 60’s too.
The benefit’s that the good, organic nutrition that raw carrot juice (and other fruits and vegetables) can deliver to your nutritionally “starving” body, is nothing short of miraculous, as long as you make it part of your everyday diet.The odd glass or two occasionally wont cut it!
If you value your health and adopt this regime, I promise you’ll reap tremendous rewards. Let me close this article, by answering a question you may have; Why is it necessary to juice the carrots — why not just eat them grated?
The answer is simple; when we juice raw fruit and vegetables, we separate the juice from the fibres — (which is useless cellulose anyway ) and imbibe the mostly organic water, rich with nutrients, which is what our bodies need.
Also,the fact that we are not eating the large quantities of vegetables we would need for quick assimilation, means our digestion is not being overtaxed. On average, a pound of carrots would equal approximately 1 pint of juice.
Your good health!
Ken Eden is a semi-retired Minister,who was formerly an advertising executive /journalist, professional musician and a publisher of offline/online marketing reports. He lives in Somerset in S.W England. His hobbies are nutritional studies, reading, writing, swimming and distance running - (most of his ideas are received “on the run”) Check out his blog: http://rawfoodsforever.blogspot.com
 Photo courtesy of Sydney Marie Complex combinations of food and raw food recipes are time consuming to prepare and extremely difficult to digest, so I choose to keep my diet very simple. I enjoy a low-fat, raw vegan diet consisting mostly of monomeals, so the following meal plan may seem a bit bland for you. As you progress on your raw journey, however, you will appreciate and even desire more simple meals. Remember, be kind to your body—transition at your own pace.
Keeping your diet simple also allows you to spend more time and energy on other aspects of your life, such as fitness, work, and play. Many raw foodists spend enormous amounts of time in the kitchen dehydrating or sprouting this and that. Aren’t you relieved that you don’t have to spend so much time preparing meals or loads of energy cleaning your kitchen after you’ve used just about every food processor or kitchen gadget you have?
My diet consists of fresh, sweet, non-sweet, and fatty fruits, and tender leafy greens. Nuts and seeds are acceptable too, but I rarely eat them, so you will not see them in the meal plan below. I do not use salad dressings or condiments either. If you feel that you still need salad dressing, try this fruit-based tomato and mango salad dressing recipe: blend 1 cup tomato, 1 cup mango, the juice of 1 lemon, and 1 quarter cup of water (only if needed).
It’s best to eat according to what produce is in season. There are many produce charts available online or in books to help you make the best selections. The winter season is challenging as in-season produce is limited. Summer, however, offers an abundance of yummy options. Following is a one-week meal plan for the summer season. My calorie consumption is between 1,200 – 1,400 calories per day, depending on my activities and exercise for the day. Weekly, my caloric breakdown is approximately 80% carbohydrates, 10% protein, and 10% fat, following Dr. Douglas N. Graham’s 80/10/10 calorie ratio for a low-fat, raw vegan diet.
DAY 1
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 5 medium bananas, 2 *Ataulfo mangos, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 4 large peaches
–Pre Dinner – 2 cups pineapple
–Dinner – salad: One half head Romaine lettuce, 1 cucumber, 3 tomatoes, 4 stalks celery
* Ataulfo mangos are also called champagne mangos. They are small and apricot in color. When ripe and ready to eat, they will be a little soft, and the skin will just start to wrinkle.
DAY 2
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 3 medium bananas, 1 cup strawberries, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 1 honeydew melon
–Pre Dinner – 2 cups grapes
–Dinner – salad: One half head Iceberg lettuce, 1 cucumber, 2 tomatoes, 4 stalks celery, 1 avocado
DAY 3
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 4 medium bananas, 2 Ataulfo mangos, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 1 personal watermelon
–Pre Dinner – 2 grapefruits
–Dinner – salad: 1 red bell pepper, 1 orange bell pepper, 1 yellow bell pepper, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber (chop all ingredients) Eat as is, or add lettuce of your choice: Romaine, Boston, Bib, etc.
DAY 4
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 5 medium bananas, One half cup blueberries, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 4 large peaches
–Pre Dinner – 2 cups pineapple
–Dinner – salad: 4 oz. baby spinach, 4 tomatoes, 4 stalks celery
DAY 5
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 4 medium bananas, 4 fresh figs, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 1 honeydew melon
–Pre Dinner – 2 grapefruits
–Dinner – lettuce wraps: 3 chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped cucumber, and 3 stalks chopped celery wrapped in Romaine lettuce leaves
DAY 6
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 4 medium bananas, 1 papaya, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 4 large peaches
–Pre Dinner – 2 cups grapes
–Dinner – *Dine out for a salad and a Beefsteak tomato at J. Alexander’s. Salad: mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, celery, one half avocado. Beefsteak tomato: plain tomato with a touch of fresh cilantro.
*For tips on ordering out at a restaurant, go to http://www.theskinnyonraw.com, click on “articles,” and read “Eating Out and Staying Raw: Keep It Simple.”
DAY 7
–Breakfast – fruit smoothie: 5 medium bananas, 2 Ataulfo mangos, 2.5 - 3 cups water. (Blend)
–Lunch – 1 lb. Rainier cherries
–Pre Dinner – 2 cups berries (strawberries, blueberries, etc.)
–Dinner - 1/2 head green leaf lettuce, 4 Roma tomatoes, 4 stalks celery
Are you making raw food mistakes that are holding you back? Since there is so much misinformation on the topic of raw foods, I have decided to break the silence and personally share with you what I’ve learned over the years, all of the tips and information that will finally help you succeed on the raw food diet. To learn more about eating raw the right way and gain all of the benefits of achieving raw health, go to http://www.TheSkinnyOnRaw.com Sign up for my “Savvy Health & Nutrition Tips” and receive your FREE special report, Raw the Right Way. Also, click on the “coaching services” tab, and schedule your first appointment with me today.
Monica D. Siembor
Monica@theskinnyonraw.com
http://www.theskinnyonraw.com
Click here for low fat raw vegan recipes
 Photo courtesy of Food Thinker This is truly a tip-top cocktail that will make you feel suitably refreshed from the inside out and raring to go.
I highly recommend this one, especially if you’ve steered clear of juicing beets in the past (because they’re rather pungent to say the least!). The addition of the sweet fruit and the sweet(ish) carrots make this one not just palatable but supremely delicious, and we’ve even managed to get a bit of green in there too!
But don’t just take my word for it…
Makes exactly 1 litre (1.75 pints - enough for 4 average sized drinking glasses)
Juice the following:
* 1 beetroot (bulb only)
* 4 medium carrots
* 3 oranges
* 6 apples
* Small bunch of parsley
* 4 strawberries (these make all the difference)
RAW COACH’S TOP TIPS:
* After drinking, put on your favourite dance track and BOOGIE!
© Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach 2009, www.TheRawFoodCoach.com
Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach publishes “Successfully Raw” - a free weekly eZine for raw food lovers everywhere. If you’re ready to look good, feel great and create a raw life you love get your FREE tips, tools and recipes now at www.TheRawFoodCoach.com.
Click here for more raw food recipes
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