My husband's cousin Rob and his wife Cheryl stopped over last evening on their way to Boston.  I whipped up breakfast in the blender to send them healthfully on their way.

We also got talking about CODEX and the far reaching implications. I am including a link to my article on CODEX. (as a reminder… CODEX will make our vitamins and supplements illegal, and mandate irradiation of our food supply. TIME is running out on CODEX. The time is NOW to start lobbying government officials)

Cheryl's Boston Smoothie

In the Blender

• 1 cup frozen 4 berry blend
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 ripe pear
• a glop of flax seed oil
• 1/2 cup yogurt 

In the juicer

• 6 large carrots
• 2 granny smith apples

Pour juice into blender and blend.

This recipe made 3 large glasses full.

Now for CODEX…. please go read my post on CODEX and be AWARE and then be ACTIVE! This is important for our continued good health!

Go read about CODEX here

If you are like me, your tastebuds have fought back against the unique flavor of a green smoothie. It hasn't been easy to find the right combination but today I hit it, and I think I have liberated myself from the daily green battle!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, because there is no arguing… the health benefits of green are unbelievable!

Use your juicer to extract the juice from

• 4 large handfuls of baby spinach
• 1/2 head celery
• 2 granny smith apples
• 1 fresh lime quartered

Put half a pineapple (peeled and cored of course) into a blender, pour the juice over it and blend.

Serve over ice. YUMMY! Fills 3 large glasses 

As simple as this recipe sounds, my biggest struggle to date has been to find a green smoothie that I can drink that doesn't taste …. well… GREEN I guess! This is fruity and delicious and oh so green!

Bright Orange 

This one is brilliantly orange… beautiful to look and and OH SO DELICIOUS!

In Blender put

• 3 oranges peeled and sectioned
• flesh from 2 ripe mangoes
• flesh from 2 ripe peaches

Use your juicer to extract the juice from

• 6 large carrots
• 2 granny smith apples

Add juice to blender and puree.

Pour over crushed ice. Serves 3

These days I don't find it difficult at all to personally get my recommended fruits and vegetables. My house is loaded with fresh produce of all descriptions. Just in fruits I have fresh watermelon, honey dew melon, cantaloupe, pears, apples (red delicious and granny smith), naval oranges, tangerines, blueberries, green and red grapes, bananas, a mango, black plums, nectarines, lemons, limes, avacado… and I am probably missing something. That's just fresh. I also have several bags of frozen fruits in the freezer (mostly berries).

I won't begin to list all the fresh vegetables I have on hand… I know I would miss a lot.  Health is not, however, about what I eat today (or what my family eats today). health is about what we eat consistently over time. Each day of getting an abundance of fresh whole fruits and vegetables adds up to the grand total that will make a difference over the entire course of your life. It will affect how you feel, how you look, how you move, how you respond to viruses, how you fight off things like cancer. It is important that you pay attention to this now. It is not too late to start eating more fruits and vegetables.

As a mom, I found a number of creative ways over the years to get extra servings of vegetables into meals and snacks. You know the obvious ways, i.e. salads, veggie side dishes, and fresh fruit snacks or desserts, but these can get boring or tedious.

Here are some things that I have found make a big difference.

• Use grated vegetables in pasta sauces – When I used a canned pasta sauce I always saute onions, garlic, fresh mushrooms, green and red peppers and add the sauce with or with out browned ground beef, but I ALSO grate several large carrots to put in. Carrots give the sauce a real fresh flavored lift but the tomato sauce disguises the carrot flavor. To this day my family does not know I put carrots in their pasta sauce.
  
• Grated vegetables are also good in meat loaf or hamburger patties.
• When having spaghetti, grate a zuchini or 2 lengthwise and add it to the long noodles. If you peeled it they may not even know!
• Mix grated vegetables (carrots, onions,  into salad dressings or sour cream and use as a veggie or corn chip dip.
  
• Smoothies – Using fresh or frozen berries as a base throw in some flax seed oil, a banana, and some melon (water melon, honey dew or cantaloupe) Then for more liquid JUICE 2 large carrots per person, and 1 pear per person, to dump in the blender instead of water!
  
• Semi-frozen strawberry yogurt- take a cup of frozen strawberries, 1 cup of strawberry yogurt, 2 scoops of protein powder. (I use URI's Orange Flavored Multi-meal) and 2 tablespoons on flax seed oil. Blend. Add just enough apple or orange juice (or water) so the berries blend) Pour into bowls. This is MUCH more delicious than ice cream and makes a wonderful breakfast for children who don't like to eat in the morning.
  
• Make more casseroles. Tonight I cook chicken breasts. I took 4 large boneless, skinless breasts and chunked them, and baked them in a baking dish for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. The I chopped fresh new carrots, a head of broccoli, a small onion, some green beans, and mushrooms, mixed the whole thing in a bowl with a can of sodium reduced cream of mushroom soup, pored it all over the partially cooked chicken, and stirred it all up. Baked it for another 25 minutes and served it with a large salad of fresh vegetables. I let my family serve themselves but I live with teens. SO….
  
• Make it accessible… Veggies always fresh chopped and in serving sizes… with meals I put the large salad out and I get out their favorite salad dressings ad open the top and set it right next to the silverware, I always have fresh made salsa available and they will often scoop that up as a condiment or side dish.
  
• Make fresh cobblers for dessert instead of pies. Lots of fruit in a very lightly greased baking dish topped with a crumble of equal parts raw oatmeal, almond meal, shaved coconut and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Add a bit of coconut oil to make a crumbly mixture and bake at 350 until fruit is soft and bubbly. If using apples or peaches sprinkle a bit of cinnamon. Berries may require a bit of your choice of sweetener. It is very fast to do something like this up and pop it in the oven after you take the casserole out. It is ready when your meal is done!
  
• Wrap large lettuce leaves around sandwich filling instead of bread.
• And don't forget celery or carrot sticks spread with peanut butter. YUM!

It is good to have the proper tools. I use pampered chef garlic press and veggie peelers, and I have a small electric food chopper, a 7 speed blender, and a Hamilton Beach Juicer, and some good sharp knives. I also have plenty of spices, herbs and seasonings.

The other night my teen age daughter actually ASKED for a vegetarian dinner.  I had taken some pita breads, brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with garlic powder and sea salt and then baked them until lightly browned at 450 degrees. Then I served some home made salsa, a guacamole made with fresh avocado, juice of one lime, garlic clove crushed, and cilantro, and served both dips with the "chips" and some carrots, celery, cukes, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes.  The ONLY reason she asked for this is because she LOVES the "homemade nacho chips".

My rule of thumb is.. if having something they aren't crazy about, serve it with something they love!

Happy healthy eating to you, and get your 5-12 a day! Twelveliness is next to healthiness!

Smoothie enough for two

If you want to share!

I'm one of those who doesn't care for greens on their own. it's an acquired taste for sure. I still need to make sure I am getting my greens every day though, so I try some creative ways to disguise the taste. This was a SMASH hit. My husband drank it. I just told him it was a smoothie without telling him there were green things in it, and he loved it! It makes lots!

Juicy Smoothie for two

Blender and Juicer

1 cup frozen mixed berries – in the blender

Juice

2 large carrots

1 stalk celery

2 cups loosely packed spinach leaves

1/2 head of brocolli

1 red delicious apple

1/2 cup green grapes

(TIP - juice spinach leaves sandwiched between pieces of hard fruits or vegetables.)

Pour juice over berries in the blender, add 1 tablespoon flax seed oil and a teaspoon of raw organic honey.

Blend until smooth.

YUMMY!

If you are new to juicing, it is VERY easy to get fresh yummy juice.

Wash fruit  well (I like mine from the refrigerator so my juice won't be too warm). I recommend that for fruits and vegetables that you do not have to peel (apples, grapes, pears) buy organic. Juicing concentrates everything including whatever washing doesn't get off.

Peel the fruits and/or vegetables you would normally peel (oranges, pineapple etc)

Chunk them into large pieces and feed them into the chute. Use the plunger provided to push the fruit into the juicer. Juice comes out one end into a cup of some kind and pulp comes out the other and is caught in some kind of receptacle.

Drink the juice right away so you get the full advantage of enzymes, vitamins and minerals all of which begin to degrade (oxidize) as soon as they are exposed to air.

Clean up will vary depending on the machine and needs to be done as soon as you've finished your juice. Small sticky fruit bits will stick like glue if left over a few hours without soaking.  I have a rule… don't buy a juicer that takes more than 5 minutes to clean!

So let's get to some of the combinations that are great for beginners. (If you've never had 'greens' then add them slowly. Most people find the taste needs to be acquired.

BetaCarotene Drink

3 LARGE carrots

1 Granny Smith Apple

2 Large stalks of celery (With or without celery this is delicious!)

Beet Beat

1 medium beet root

2 pears

a thumbnail size ginger root

hand squeeze 1/2 lime

Cool as a Cucumber

1 medium cucumber

1 red delicious apple

1 medium carrot

"Ginger Ale"

A dozen Green Grapes

1 Granny Smith Apple

thumbnail  of ginger root (less if you find the taste too strong)

squeeze 1/2 lime and 1/2 lemon

sparkling water

 Summer Punch

dozen strawberries

1 Orange

Sparkling Water

Apple Greens

2 Granny Smith Apple

Handful fresh Spinach Leaves

squeeze 1/2 lime

Stress Breaker

2 Pears

2 Apples

1 Celery

1 Kiwi

Vegetable Cleanse Drink

3 celery stalks

Large Handful fresh Spinach

3 Large Carrots

There…..That should get you started ! I try to do at least 16 ounces of freshly juiced drinks every day. Some days I am totally on the fly though. I am sure you know what days I mean… :-) when I absolutely can NOT get my fresh juice made I can still get all of the goodness on fresh.

I have found a WHOLE FOOD RAW (dehydrated at less than 100 degrees) mix of picked fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. This juice has been tested at every stage for quality. I am convinced that it is a VERY good alternative to fresh made juice. In the winter (at least here in Canada) it likely has more freshness and enzymes than the produce we can get at the grocery.

It's called URI International. They have a wonderful line of products including some toxin free cleaners and an organic coconut oil (more on that later) but the two products that caught my raw juicers eye were The FEAST and Beyond Berries.

If you click on the image below you will be able to see the introductory pack you can get of this product. The prices are out of this world too! A month supply of the FEAST (2 servings a day) is under $50 which of course is what I spend in a week on fresh produce for my juicing. At any rate… it's great to have a few cannisters on hand.

Click the image below to view the FEAST sample pack

Click the image below if you want to view the rest of the whole food product line.

Hurray it’s Weigh Day!

OH I am excited! DESPITE a very unstructured week of discovery, and a big bag of Salt and Vinegar chips, Friday night at the Mexican restaurant, and several of those disgusting chewy granola, ‘yogurt’ dipped bars that people REALLY want to believe are good for you, I STILL managed to be down 2 pounds!

When you have 65 pounds to lose, 2 pounds does not seem like much, and I am quite sure no one will notice it, (although my husband, God bless him, will SWEAR he can!) but still it is progress in the very first week. My mind vey quickly calculated that if I lose 2 pounds EVERY week I will reach my goal in 8 months, which is 4 months earlier than my goal date of one year!

How did I do yesterday? Well yesterday was my best day, and I think is going to set the pace for what is to come. I have been flirting with the idea of going vegetarian for health reasons, and not because I have anything against eating meat. But I was thinking, if I made vegetarian choices whenever there was a choice, and raw even better, then wouldn’t I be much healthier?

Anyway, yesterday was a critical point in my fascination of the raw food, and vegan/vegetarian way of eating. All day I made raw food choices. (My healthy chocolate is cold processed and heated only enough to pour into the molds so even IT is raw!) I ate a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables and drank lots of alkaline water from my ionizer. I also had a great big mug of Waiora‘s Detox Tea before I went to bed. I will admit that I woke up at 2:30 AM and I was hungry. So I got up and cooked a small bowl of large flake oatmeal in a bit of milk and ate that. It filled up my belly and I went back to sleep quite peacefully.

This morning I will admit to waking up energized EVEN THOUGH my night sleep was broken. THAT is a huge deal for me, since I have been exhausted for months and months now. I even NAP most afternoons for heaven’s sake! So today I feel so great! I am going to go shopping this afternoon and get better prepared for my raw, whole food, vegetarian experiment. I already have a juicer, and yesterday I ordered a dehydrator. I am going to see if I can get a coffee grinder and a grain mill. The coffee grinder should be relatively easy to find, but I suspect the grain mill will be a different story. (I really live in an area that is know for their ‘meat and potatoes’ lifestyle… fishermen, farmers.. you get it!)

I am also going to be on the lookout for a good raw vegan recipe book. I MAY get lucky and find something like that here! There’s always Amazon, or Chapters online if all else fails!

Have a great day all…. I’ll be back later on with my articles of the day. Today I might do one about juicing since that’s going to be on my mind! :-)