RAW Living and Learning

It's been almost eight years since I transitioned to living a raw, vegan, living foods lifestyle. I'm so grateful for the numerous health benefits I have experienced and all of the crucial, life saving information I have learned along the way. But what amazes me the most is that each and every day I learn something new! It's a never ending exciting process of learning and growing daily on my health journey.  Of course I believe in a consistently  high raw diet if not completely raw, but I know not everyone is ready to make such drastic lifestyle changes. So to help you become motivated to at least try and incorporate more and more raw, living foods into your diet, I'd like to share this fantastic article by Tom Fisher.  The Benefits of Raw/Living Food Nutrition By Tom Fisher RN, BA Raw and Living Foods help to provide: More Energy When we eat raw and living foods that are easier for our bodies to digest, assimilate, and eliminate, we have more energy left over. This ...

Decided, spur of the moment, to make a Sweet n Sour Dipping Sauce with the one remaining organic nectarine in the house. I thought the children and I could have Raw Vegan Nori Rolls for lunch today. Here is my very basic recipe for this very delicious sauce. This also could be thinned a bit more with water and used as a yummy salad dressing.  Sweet n Sour Dipping Sauce By Elizabeth @ rawlivingandlearning 1 organic nectarine, remove pit 3 Medjool dates, remove pits 1 cup of diced organic celery 4 teaspoons of raw apple cider vinegar 1/3 cup water In my Blendtec blender I added all of the ingredients and pushed "dips, dressings, and batters" mode. It blended it to creamy perfection!!!! Chill for 30 minutes. Enjoy! I'll be posting our Nori rolls later on Instagram so be sure and check those out @ lowfatrawvegan +JMJ+Today I am grateful for my living foods lifestyle and the fact that my children like all of my recipes--now that's something to be very grateful for!!! 

The other day I came across an article, by Thomas Stearns Lee, NMD, which contained recipes for seed cheese and seed yogurt. His recipes call for Rejuvelac and sunflower seeds, but as usual I improvised and used things I had on hand and created the same end result!  I decided to make the savory Seed Yogurt to be used as a base in my salad dressings or sauces. It was incredibly easy and delicious.  ▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️▫️ Pumpkin Seed Yogurt By Elizabeth @rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (or raw sunflower seeds) 1/3 cup raw sesame seeds 8 ounces of filtered water 2 vegan probiotic capsules Pinch of Real Salt 1 tsp fresh lemon juice Soak the seeds for 6 hours. Rinse seeds after the soaking time and allow to sprout for 6-8 hours. Fill a high speed blender with 8 ounces of filtered water. Add the sprouted seeds and blend until creamy smooth. Stir in the salt and lemon juice. Finally, add the powder from 2 vegan probiotic capsules and gently stir until fully...

I had some organic Golden Delicious Apples that we're getting a little soft, so I decided to toss them in the Blendtec blender and make some raw applesauce for my breakfast today. It turned out to be spectacular! That's what I adore about raw foods--the taste explosion I experience each and every time I eat this luscious food.  Here is my basic recipe: Raw Applesauce   By Elizabeth  at rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com 5 Organic Golden Delicious apples, rough chop Juice of 1 organic lemon 1/4 or less cup of water  Garnish with cinnamon and ginger In my Blendtec blender I poured the lemon juice and water. Next I added the apples. I processed  it a few seconds on "sauces" mode. Garnished it with ground cinnamon & ginger.  The children tast d it and gave it a big thumbs up!!!!! That makes me happy. +JMJ+ Today I am grateful for my baby lemon, lychee, papaya, and mango trees that I am growing. I sprouted...

I was given an incredible gift from Sunset Grown this past Saturday. On my doorstep was a large box filled with these gems!!!!!     They sent me this beautiful package just because I tell the truth about them on Instagram and share with my viewers how much I love and enjoy their phenomenal produce. If you are not familiar with this company and the procedures they use to grow their amazing produce, visit their web site to read all about them.   When I was unpacking the box and saw the gorgeous sweet peppers I just knew I had to make some Raw Stuffed Peppers. I used my Pumpkin Seed Pate recipe as my filling and served them on a bed of my homegrown sunflower greens. They were nothing short of spectacular.         For the pate recipe you will need to do a little bit of advanced prep work. The raw pumpkin seeds and sundried tomatoes need to be soaked for two hours. Cover them with water and allow to soak for t...

I've been in juice mode lately; consuming a large quantity of fresh juices everyday. It feels totally amazing!!! Satisfies my nutritional needs so adequately that I am not feeling hungry until evening time. So I've been intermittent fasting for even longer stretches of time each day. Has been coming out to be about 20-23 hours between my last meal of the previous day and my first meal of the following day. And it feels really great! Today I have had my usual morning lemon water followed by my 2 ounce shot of fresh wheatgrass juice about an hour later. And in place of my morning carrot juice today I was feeling the need for a large green juice cocktail. I made a Mocktail that I'd like to call my Broccoli Appletini. Broccoli Appletini by Elizabeth @rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com 3 leaves of "Broccoleaf" (visit www.foxy.com to see this) 8 stems from Broccoleaf leaves ( www.foxy.com ) 3 broccoli stalks from fresh broccoli (see photo below) ...

The other night I experimented with making a Vegan Sour Cream using just 3 ingredients and I am very happy to say that it was delicious! It does take a small amount of pre-planning as you will need to soak the "raw" cashews for a minimum of 2 hours; to ensure easy blending and an ultra creamy result, and it will need to chill for a minimum of 4 hours. This makes a great base to many other recipes. For instance, I used just 2 Tablespoons of this in a recipe that I created for a low fat vegan Ranch Salad Dressing (let me know if you'd like that recipe). You also could sweeten it slightly with some organic coconut sugar and use it as a fruit dip. I'm sure it would work well as a "raw" frosting on a raw cake if you blended it with some fluffy date paste. For my date paste recipe click HERE . The possibilities are many, I'm sure. 3 Ingredient Vegan Sour Cream (oil free, salt free) 1 cup of "raw" cashews, soaked in water for 2 hours, the...

One of my little guys requested an Apple Pie Smoothie the other day so that is exactly what I made him! We all have been enjoying my Pumpkin Pie Smoothie recipe and he thought, since I could make up a recipe for that, surely I could make up one for Apple Pie. It was a success!! He was very happy and satisfied. You can use any apple you like for this recipe; he chose Golden Delicious, so that is what I used. Apple Pie Smoothie by Elizabeth @rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com 4 frozen ripe bananas 1 ripe banana Juice of 1/2 a lemon 2 Golden Delicious, organic apples 4 Medjool dates, remove pits 2 Tbsp raw Hemp Hearts 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice 1/4 tsp Allspice Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender. Garnish smoothies with dried mulberries and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Enjoy! +JMJ+ Today I am grateful for the kindness shown to me yesterday. 

As I mentioned the other day, I have been juicing a ton of carrots lately. To be exact, I have been juicing 5 pounds of carrots each morning!  I drink it throughout the morning and I also add some to recipes.  A few days ago I used a little bit of my carrot juice in the smoothie and smoothie bowl recipe that I made for the children and me; It was what I call "Pumpkin Pie Smoothie and Pumpkin Pie In a Bowl." Pumpkin Pie Smoothie/Pumpkin Pie In a Bowl by Elizabeth @rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com 12 oz of fresh pumkin or canned 7 frozen, ripe bananas 5 Medjool dates, remove pits 2 T raw, hemp hearts 1/2 cup fresh carrot juice or water Squeeze of fresh lemon juice 1 Tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice 1 teaspoon of cinnamon Blend all of the ingredients until creamy smooth. I blended mine on "smoothie mode" in my Blendtec Blender. Garnish the smoothies with a sprinkle of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Enjoy! For the Pumpki...

Are Microgreens Healthier? May 2, 2013 by Michael Greger M.D. in News   USDA researchers recently published a  study  assessing the nutrition content of 25 commercially available microgreens, seedlings of vegetables and herbs that have gained popularity in upscale markets and restaurants. Just a few inches tall, they boast intense flavors and vivid colors, but what about their nutritional content? No one knew until now. We’ve known that baby spinach leaves, for example, have  higher  levels of phytonutrients than mature spinach leaves, but what about  really  baby spinach–just a week or two old? Microgreens won hands down (leaves down?), possessing significantly higher nutrient densities than mature leaves. For example, red cabbage microgreens have a 6-fold higher vitamin C concentration than mature red cabbage and 69 times the vitamin K. Microgreens are definitively more nutrient dense, but are often eaten in small quantities. Even the healt...