Hi %$firstname$%

I'm Debbie Took, and I follow a 100% raw food diet. That means I eat nothing that's been heated above 118 F (the point at which research suggests vital enzymes, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in our foods are damaged, destroyed, or at least rendered less assimilable by our bodies). Some say living solely on raw food is 'extreme'. It is. I decided I didn't want to suffer any more from the various ailments that are considered 'normal' in our society. And, since 'going raw', I've never felt better!

The RawforLife e-zine is for everyone. It's for those who are new to raw, and it's also for those who really aren't sure about 'raw' at all (but would perhaps like to eat a little more raw food). I'll try not to confuse, and will always, in the e-zine at least, aim to feature recipes that are straightforward, that need no special equipment beyond a basic blender or food processor, and include only ingredients that can be purchased in your locality. The RawforLife e-zine is also for those who have been raw for years; I hope you'll find at least one piece of information here you hadn't been aware of before.

It's been incredibly exciting to see those names (some familiar, some not so - hi to you!) plopping into the subscriptions inbox, and I've done my very best to make you feel pleased that you've subscribed. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to this, the first, RawforLife e-zine!

• Forthcoming Events: RawforLife Classes
• Feature Article: 'Doesn't all that raw food give you, er...?'
• SUPER Food of the Month: Avocado
• Recipe: Kale and Avocado Salad
• 'Pick of the Blog': 'Do You Eat The Pips?'
• ShopAround: Raw Cacao Butter
• Book of the Month: Detox Your World

	RawforLife Classes
	Day Classes in Raw Food Preparation
	Thursday, 24th April	Alissa Cohen Living On Live Foods, Level 1 £70
	Wednesday, 14th May	RawforLife Experience, Level 1 £50*

*introductory rate

Each class would be suitable both for those at the start of their raw food journey, and for those more experienced raw people who would like a fun day out chatting to others about raw foods, enjoying a selection of raw food (prepared by someone else!) and perhaps coming away with some new recipe ideas! Recipes include soups, main courses, desserts, crackers, breads, sauces, juices and smoothies (variable by class). Follow the links for class details.

'Doesn't all that raw food give you, er....?'

One question I was asked soon after launching RawforLife was 'Will raw food give me flatulence?' I'm happy to tell you, 'No', provided you follow a few simple rules.

In the first few months of raw food I was a bit 'windy', but after research, experimentation, and talking to other raw fooders, I discovered the main reason for it. A year later, my tummy is calmer. I do get a little gas occasionally, but the reason for it is not usually a mystery.

One very common reason for flatulence in the early stages of a raw food diet (in the long term your digestive system will work far more efficiently than ever it did on a cooked diet) is 'fruit and stodge'. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it! One food group that most raw fooders eat more of when switching to raw is FRUIT. Fruit is a good thing - don't anyone think I'm suggesting you eat less fruit! Do eat just as much delicious fruit, but just be careful when you eat it. Fruit should not be eaten on top of slower-to-digest food. If we forget this and eat fruit at all times of the day, with or on top of 'heavier' meals there will be...consequences...This is because fruit digests very quickly. If we eat fruit with, or soon after, food that takes longer to digest, the fruit is very quickly digested, it wants to get out quickly, but - it can't, because the heavier food is there, blocking its path! So what happens? The digested fruit ferments, causing gas and blow-up (I've even heard this referred to as 'fruit belly'). I remember one Christmas when my tummy blew up like a football just before going to an evening function in a slim-fitting dress. Looking back, it's quite likely that I would have been gorging on brazil nuts followed by satsumas - a recipe for disaster!

For a calm tummy:

• Try to eat fruit on an empty stomach, eg in the morning.
• Don't eat fruit with, or shortly after stodgy foods such as nuts, seeds or grains.
• Always eat melon by itself (think 'me-lon, a-lone'). Melon is one of the fastest-digested fruits (15-30 minutes). It will want to get out very quickly and will make trouble if it can't!
• Be wary of 'gourmet' raw recipes that contain a lot of nuts. Nuts can hang around a long time in our digestive systems, and if we then pile other food on top of them, not only wind, but also pain and even constipation can result. If you're eating pre-shelled nuts, my advice is to eat only as many as you would if you'd had to shell them all yourself.

Ah...the avocado - the mainstay of so many raw fooders' diets, satisfying any 'fat cravings' and useful in so many main course recipes, desserts and smoothies.

Many of the avocados we eat in the UK are imported from Israel, but they grow in various other parts of the world as well, like Mexico and Central America. My suspicions that Californians in general have it pretty good (forest fires notwithstanding) were confirmed when, after recent bad weather, a San Diego raw food forum contributor reported that it was 'raining avocados' and she'd picked up 64 from her lawn...

Avocados are a source of monounsaturated fat (that's the good kind), Vitamins B6 and B9 (aka folate/folic acid) and the minerals potassium and selenium. Please don't worry about the fat content. Raw food fats work differently from cooked fats. Apart from the fact that they are non-toxic to the body (unlike fats changed by heat), the fat-splitting enzyme, lipase, is intact in raw fats; this helps the body digest and burn fat. David Wolfe, 'Sunfood Diet Success System', 'Many raw foodists I have met have eaten one to three avocados nearly every day since they started...for five, ten or even twenty years. Avocados are the best transition food from a cooked-food diet to a raw-food diet.'

Do buy organic avocados where possible. Although avocados may be low in present pesticides, plant foods grown in soil that meets organic certification standards will be higher in minerals than non-organic. Having said that, it's usually the case that it's the non-organic avocados on sale that are ready for eating, and the organic hard...I buy both - non-organic for when I want one 'right now!', together with the hard organic for later. It's fine to buy hard, unripe avocados as in their natural state they ripen on the ground rather than on the tree, as most fatty fruits do.

To ripen an avocado at home, put it in a brown paper bag (or brown envelope) with an apple. The apple will give off ethylene gas (a ripening reagent) and in 2-5 days, or as soon as the avocado gives a little when pressed, it will be ripe. Once cut, an avocado will go brown quickly (oxidisation). Sprinkling the cut surface with lemon juice helps a little (but only a little...best just to eat it up quickly!).

What better recipe for the first RawforLife e-zine than a raw food classic, and my very favourite raw meal? Kale and Avocado Salad was invented by the highly-regarded raw chef, Chad Sarno, and the version here is close to Karen Knowler's adaptation of the original. Who'd have thought kale could be eaten raw? The secret is in the massaging. Chewy leaves become tender and sweet, and the result is better than the cooked version, with the bonus that all nutrients are intact of course. Serves 2+

Ingredients:

• 5 large handfuls of green curly kale (don't worry that there's too much - it reduces in the massaging)
• Sea salt
• 1 ripe avocado, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 2 cups (quite tightly packed) of spinach leaves (torn) (use 'measuring cups', available from John Lewis, Tesco etc)
• 1 spring onion (finely sliced)
• 4 sun-dried tomato halves, soaked for 1+ hours, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Cayenne pepper

Chop kale into bite-sized pieces and place in a large bowl. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp sea salt. With your hands (a sensual experience!) massage the oil and salt into the kale until the kale is reduced, soft and shiny. Then, again using hands, massage avocado into the kale, squeezing...so that the kale is coated with avocado, but with a few small whole pieces remaining amongst the leaves. Add to the bowl the chopped tomatoes, torn spinach, spring onion and sun-dried tomatoes. Mix all ingredients well. Mix in lemon juice. Serve with a light dusting of cayenne.

RawforLife variation: chop kale into very small pieces, massage with oil and salt, then avocado, as above. Mix in green/brown lentils (soaked 24 hours then sprouted 2-3 days), halved cherry tomatoes and lemon juice.

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 Blog site, 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 subscribers lists are not exactly the same, I 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 and follow the instructions in the Feedblitz panel.

This month's 'Pick of the Blog' is
Do You Eat The Pips?

Were you ever told that, if you ate apple pips, an apple tree would grow inside you? Do you leave the core of apples? Do you happily eat pumpkin seeds, but remove melon pips?

Many believe that we're missing a trick health-wise if we don't eat the pips. For example, David Wolfe (Sunfood Diet Success System) describes the diet of Arnold Ehret, one of the founders of the naturopathic health movement. Ehret 'followed a high-fruit diet consisting mainly of apples and raisins with some green leaves.' Wolfe points out that in Ehret's time not only the apples but also the raisins would have included seeds, which would have supplied fat and other nutrients, suggesting that as long as we eat whole undamaged foods we can be healthy on a surprisingly 'limited' diet. Wolfe believes there are health benefits in consuming all sorts of seeds. For example, he recommends eating orange pips as 'they are nourishing and contain anti-fungal qualities', and fiery papaya seeds, to 'burn out' parasites in the digestive system.

Some people are loath to eat apple pips because they've heard they contain cyanide. Well, they do (as do the seeds of apricots, peaches and other fruits) but in such tiny amounts that you'd have to eat a very large amount to experience any ill-effects. Also, recent research suggests that cyanide, when present in tiny amounts, might have had an undeservedly bad press in the past, with evidence suggesting that the cyanide and vitamin B17 present in certain pips can fight cancerous cells when it comes into contact with them. Please note that I am NOT suggesting anyone swig pure cyanide, as that would be dangerous :-) I'm just suggesting that apple pips may be OK, and even good, to eat.

If we do eat the pips, should we swallow or chew? Well, perhaps we should just 'eat' without thinking too hard about what we're doing, as any or all of the following could happen (none of which would be a problem): some pips might fall out of the fruit as we're eating it, unchewed pips may 'go straight through us' (and after all, if we lived in the wild without toilet facilities, those pips would move from us into the ground to grow more food - how wonderful that would be), and pips that are chewed would provide our bodies with nutrients.

Arguments for eating pips are persuasive, and many people do eat pips that others would discard (in Thailand melon seeds are sold as a snack). However, it might be prudent not to save up apple pips and eat them in large quantities (just in case!), and we should take care not to give large pips to toddlers as these (and small nuts) can obstruct airways. But, if you've always left the apple core until now, how about trying the whole apple? Also, let's ask the supermarkets to put the pips back into our grapes! The more pips in our fruit the closer to the natural types they are. The less seeds, the more hybridised and weak the strains.

What do I do? I cut open a watermelon recently and ate the flesh and the pips (feeling a bit of a daredevil). It was much less fiddly than removing them and I enjoyed it just as much if not more than usual. And, whilst I'm not going to give any advice on whether you should eat pips or not, this is what remains of the last apple I ate.

Raw Cacao Butter (500g)

Note all prices include P&P. Quality may vary, and if I do receive any information that suggests the comparison is unfair, I'll be pleased to publish a correction.

Total Raw Food - £19.49 (chopped)
Raw Greek Shop - £19.99 (block)
Detox Your World - £20.45 (block)
Funky Raw - £20.58 (block)
Fresh Network - £20.93 (block)
Rawliving - £23.50 (chopped)

Detox Your World (Shazzie)

This is the first 'raw' book I read, at about the same time that I was 'reassuring' my family, 'Don't worry, I'm not going to turn into a raw foodist!' A week or two later...the rest, of course, is history.

DYW covers many aspects of detoxing, ie not just the food, including sections on various environmental toxins, skin care, teeth, and of course the 'baddies' - alcohol, sugar... On raw food, Shazzie includes powerful 'before and after' testimonies, together with instructions on how to transition from a cooked to a raw food diet, and finishes with recipes, some of which have become favourites of mine (eg her pepper and almond soup, and Waldorf-style salad) As DYW is partly responsible for my finding the path that has led to my compiling this e-zine for you, I have to recommend this book; my experience (and that of thousands of others) is a testimony to its power as a great eye-opener and huge motivator.