• Forthcoming Events: RawforLife Classes
• Feature Article: How to sneak more raw in
• SUPER Food of the Month: Cucumber
• Recipe: NRG Soup
• 'Pick of the Blog': The best water on the planet - FREE!
• Shop Around: Raw cashews
• Book of the Month: Sunfood Diet Success System

Each class is suitable both for those at the start of their raw food journey, and for those more experienced raw fooders who would like to chat with others about raw, enjoy a selection of delicious raw food, and perhaps come away with some new recipe ideas!

Recipes (variable by class) include soups, main courses, desserts, crackers, breads, sauces, juices and smoothies (for pictures of food typical of that served, see 'What is the Raw Food Diet?'
Please don't worry that you 'won't know anybody'. groups are small, informal and friendly. And, although all food served will be raw vegan, everyone is welcome, whether following a raw, cooked, vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore diet.

All class and booking details are on the RawforLife website

And to fly direct...follow the link below.

How to sneak more raw in

The easiest way to get young children to eat more raw is to keep processed snacks out of the house. Children won't starve themselves, and if all that's on offer is healthy food they'll eat it, and they'll come to enjoy it. Ideally, encourage them to eat the food unadorned, but, if you like, make 'creamy' dips from nuts, water and lemon juice, or guacamole.

Give them freshly-made juice rather than bought (which will usually be pasteurised). 'Green smoothies' are a great way of getting all ages to eat more green leaves. Try blending a ripe mango and pushing some spinach leaves down into the liquid. Blend again. If your child likes it, then next time blend in just a few more leaves. Chldren will also benefit from a teaspoon of flax oil each day - the raw-fooder's 'cod liver oil' - excellent for the essential fatty acids Omegas 3 and 6. (Contact me if you'd like a list of resources for bringing up children raw.)

Older children and adults

Most will be willing to start the day with a juice or smoothie, especially if someone else is making it for them! If your partner baulks at the idea of 'vegetable juice', juice an apple in with it - it makes all the difference. My husband now enjoys juice made from spinach leaves, celery and apple. If he'd been told a year ago he'd be happily starting the day with 'spinach juice' he'd have laughed.

If they come in from school or work hungry, put out some vegetable crudites and a dip. And, if you are going to serve any cooked food, take your time preparing it - you'll find the raw veg will be eaten... And 'starters' of course are a great way of trying out raw recipes on loved ones; they'll welcome the increasing frequency of two or even three-course meals as you 'experiment' on them!

Make raw soups. Most cooked-diet people are comfortable with these, as they're already familiar with chilled soups such as gazpacho. Or serve fruit salad as a starter. No, this isn't the wrong way round, as fruit is best eaten on an empty stomach. Try jazzing it up with chopped avocado, exotic fruits, or even a little chilli.

For the main course, serve 100% raw meals as much as you feel your people will be happy to have them, but it's safest to use tried and tested recipes only! If your loved ones still insist on some cooked food, the obvious strategy is to combine it with a salad, gradually increasing the size of the salad and decreasing the size of the cooked. Some like to serve the salad first, as they believe that this will encourage the body to 'accept' the cooked food. However, there is no scientific evidence to support this, so - before or with - just go with your preference.

How can we encourage someone who is 'not big on salads' to welcome the salad and even start preferring it to the cooked food rather than seeing it as the poor relation? Alcohol, tea, coffee, heavily-spiced food can all combine to make the palate of the cooked-food eater just a little jaded, to the extent where real, natural food can, sadly, seem lacking in flavour! I've found the answer is to jazz up the green leaves with one or more of the following elements:

• SALTY - eg sun-dried tomatoes,or raw olives
• SWEET - eg chopped mango or dates, or combine dates, orange juice and olive oil for a sweet dressing
• FAT - eg avocado, pine nuts

Not goji berries, cacao, blueberries or even broccoli, but...the cucumber? Yes, the humble cucumber, recently ranked 4th in a worldwide Top 10 of raw fooders' favourite foods.

In culinary terms, the cucumber is a vegetable and in scientific terms a fruit, so it's fine to class it as either. The cucumber is thought to have been cultivated originally in Asia and introduced to Europe by the Romans with the first records of cucumbers in the UK in the 14th century.

Cucumber trivia: women wishing for children wore them around their waists! So, if you're trying to conceive, tie a cucumber round your waist and say you read it in the RawforLife e-zine (I could do with the publicity); they were also carried by midwives and thrown away when the child was born. And guess what - apparently in the late 1600s a prejudice developed against raw fruit and vegetables! According to Wikipedia, 'A number of articles in contemporary health publications stated that uncooked plants brought on summer diseases and should be forbidden to children. The cucumber kept this vile reputation for an inordinate period of time, being described as 'fit only for consumption by cows', which is why some believe it gained the name 'cowcumber'. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on September 22, 1663: 'This day Sir W Batten tells me that Mr Newhouse is dead of eating cowcumbers...'

The more mature (ripe) raw fooders may remember that in bygone days the skin of cucumbers could be a little tough. If you've grown up with the idea that cucumbers should always be peeled for digestibility, or that cucumber slices look prettier peeled, do reconsider. Firstly, the skin of modern cucumbers is more delicate than that of cucumbers in the past (although the process of hybridisation that has led to this does raise some issues). Secondly, the skin of a cucumber is not only rich in fibre, but also contains a variety of beneficial minerals, including silica, potassium and magnesium. Silica is an essential component of healthy connective tissue, in muscles, ligaments and bone, and is also important for healthy skin. So do keep the peel on. However, this only applies if the cucumber is organic. Don't buy non-organic cucumbers, as they may have been waxed and/or sprayed with pesticide. Non-organic cucumbers should be peeled. Do buy organic cucumbers, even if they don't look quite like the cucumbers you're used to. It's worth paying more for organic - you retain all the fibre and precious nutrients in the skin, there'll be more minerals in the cucumber anyhow because the soil it's been grown in is richer in them, and you don't have to go to the bother of peeling. And the contrast of the dark and pale green is far prettier than wimpy peeled slices.

And - the flesh! The flesh is high in Vitamin C, and...WATER! 'Cool as a cucumber' is spot on, as a cucumber refreshes and hydrates us. Cucumber is one of the highest water-content plant foods, which leads us nicely into...

• THE BEST WATER (MADE FROM: 1 cucumber, blended with 1/4 cup lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup diced tomato
• 1/2 cup mint (roughly chopped, cup loosely packed)
• Mint for garnish
• 1/4 cup finely-chopped red onion
• 1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1/4 cup corn (cut from the cob)
• Garlic to taste, crushed (I use 1/2 a clove)
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• Chili to taste, finely-chopped (I use 1/2 small red chili)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• Half an apple, chopped
• 1 cup orange juice (2-3 oranges)

The main RawforLife website, at www.rawforlife.co.uk is the 'base' - full of information about raw food, 'before and after's', and details of classes. The RawforLife Blog, at www.debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com, is the 'newsy' site - updated 2-3+ times a month with news, articles and occasional recipes. As the e-zine and Blog subscriber lists are not identical, I do hope those who do subscribe to both will not mind my reprinting one Blog article here each month. If you would like to see all past Blog articles and receive articles by e-mail as soon as they are published, do visit the Blog site, enter your details in the Feedblitz panel on the Blog site, then follow very carefully the instructions for subscribing.

The best water on the planet - FREE!

Raw cashews

Shelled cashews on sale in shops, whether health food shops or otherwise, will almost certainly not be raw, but steamed for removal from shells. Raw cashews are available on-line, from the following suppliers. Prices are based on 500g (price adjusted if not sold in 500g packs) and include postage/packing. Raw cashews are expensive, so perhaps best kept for occasional use in special recipes (excellent in 'cheeses') rather than for snacking!

• Funky Raw £14.63
• Total Raw Food £15.45
• Detox Your World £16.27
• Fresh Network £16.27
• Keimling.co.uk £16.60
• Raw Living £21.00

David Wolfe's 'Sunfood Diet Success System'

Please note the edition discussed here is the hardback April 2006 edition - an updated, improved and more beautiful version of the earlier paperback 'Sunfood Diet Success System'. The photographs of food (some Kirlian photography) throughout the book are stunning.

I've read lots of raw books and some, although inspiring and entertaining, can be read in days. SDSS is different. It's a looong feast, and one I enjoyed over several weeks.

Every chapter starts with inspirational quotes - from the Bible, philosophers, raw fooders, self-help gurus...At least half the book isn't about raw food as such. If you see raw as 'not just about the food', but part of a bigger picture, there will be many things in SDSS that will resonate with you. If you believe life is very much what your thoughts make it, you'll find this book very motivating. To quote DW: 'To succeed in life you have to work harder. But not on your family,or on your friends, or on your job, or on whatever comes your way. You have to work harder on yourself first. Only happy people make others happy.' And: 'You will make incredible progress in your life when you accept 100% responsibility for everything that happens to you. You are where you are and who you are because of one person - yourself.'

The raw food chapters are full of advice on how to transition to a raw food diet, and the benefits of doing so, covering all the usual issues (eg protein) and discussing associated topics such as wild and hybrid food. There are also chapters on, for example, 'skin', 'teeth, 'sun', and 'breathing' - this is so much more than a book on raw food. Later chapters focus on single foods, eg the olive, the avocado, and yes it does include recipes (though just a few) and daily diet plans.

Where to buy? At the time of writing, amazon.co.uk is not the best place, as the best prices 'Used and New' are starting from £66! However, amazon.com (US Amazon) are selling copies for the dollar equivalent of £25, and shipping from the US is usually around £6 (takes a couple of weeks). Perhaps a birthday request? Whatever the case, 'Sunfood Diet Success System' is well worth the price.

• Green bell peppers are unripe (buy red, yellow or orange).

• Some people believe that a tiger, faced with a durian and a man, will devour the durian and ignore the man (I wouldn't put this to the test though...)

• Chewing green leaves helps clean and repair teeth. Try 'wadging' (like the primates) - load mouth with greens and chew for 30+ minutes without swallowing.