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Raw is healthier. Learn why, and learn how ~ to create simple raw meals, and easy ways to in-corporate raw foods for a more healthy diet. Short lecture fol-lowed by food prep demonstra-tions of easy, delicious raw reci-pes. (A promise you can taste at the end of each class!)

Held at MOA Center, 164 Kamehameha in Kahului; classes are free of charge, though a dona-tion to cover food costs is much appreciated. Please call 244-4940 to reserve your space.

In this issue, recipes for high protein, vitamin rich soups, raw wraps, delicious seed pates, and these amazing ginger cookies – so fi ne they made the front page!

Clear out your fridge’s veg-gie drawer before it becomes the moldering remains of your good intentions with these great ideas for raw soups and dehydrated goodies. So quick, easy and delicious, you’ll hardly believe they’re good for you!

by Connie RiosWhy add raw foods into

your diet? For the enzymes.“Enzymes are the tiny – and

enormous – diff erence between raw and cooked foods,” says na-turopath Dr. Emily Kane.

“Enzymes are delicate dyna-mos. Delicate, because they are destroyed by temperatures over 118 degrees (some by as little as 105 degrees), which means they do not survive even light steam-ing. Dynamos, because they are powerful biochemical catalysts; they speed burning or building reactions in the body according to its need.

It’s the job of our digestive systems to alchemically trans-mute the food we eat into our fl esh, blood, actions, thoughts and feelings – with a little help from our salivary glands, pancre-

as, liver, and most importantly raw food – all of which provide (now we’re getting to the point) ENZYMES,” she says.

Only uncooked, ‘living’, raw

foods contain enzymes. Cooking destroys them (just like it kills

all living, biological matter put through any cooking process; think steaming your fi ngers). Th is forces the liver, pancreas, and salivary glands to use their

stores of enzymes in order to

November 15, 2005 http://totallyrawsome.tripod.com Volume 1

Totally Rawsome!

Seeds of Change

Ginger Cookies

Rawsome Sweets

continued on page 3foods contain enzymes. Cooking stores of enzymes in order to

Pulse everything in food processor, adding a bit of water, a little at a time, if needed. Transfer the batter onto tefl ex sheets. Spread a 1/3 inch layer of the mixture on each sheet and dehydrate for 6 hours. Using a smooth round glass as a cutter, form cookies. Place cookies on mesh dehydrator sheets until crispy (another two hours or so).

Noontime classes in raw foodsSunday Nov 20th 12–1pmSunday Nov 27th 12–1pmSunday Dec 11th 12–1pm

1 cup sunflower seeds (soaked overnight, rinsed & drained)1/2 cup golden flax seeds (soaked overnight)2 tsps. minced or ground ginger12 or more dates (soaked an hour & drained)a little water the dates were soaked ina pinch of sea salt

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Across 3. Tall green plant indig-

enous to the Americas with large, yellow seeds on long ears.

6. Any of a variety of pep-pers with a hot, spicy taste.

8. A small, green seed that grows in long pods, rich in protein when sprouted.

9.Vegetable with firm skin and flesh, perfect as ‘pasta’ or pureed into pate.

10. A green leafy herb known for its breath fresh-ening properties.

11. A red root vegetable with a high sugar content.

12. A white or yellow root vegetable with leafy tops.

14. Any of a variety of leafy salad plants.

Down 1. A long round green-

skinned vegetable related to the squash.

2. Long green bean pod, perfect for dipping as cru-dite.

4. A small, hot-tasting, usu. round root, usu. red on the outside, white on the inside, excellent as ‘raw pasta’ when spiralized.

5. A long, round fruit with green skin and crisp white flesh, or the plant it grows on.

7. An orange-colored root vegetable high in vitamin A.

13. A round or oval, starchy root vegetable, usu. with white flesh and brown, red, yellow or purple skin.

Veggie Puzzle

is so full of beneficial nutrients, it’s hard to know where to start. It contains vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids (used by the body to build proteins) and huge amounts of chlorophyll.

Wheatgrass is 70% chloro-phyll. This is significant because of chlorophyll’s nearly identi-cal structure to Haemoglobin, which is vital to our red blood cells’ functionality, and enables our blood to carry oxygen to various parts of the body.

The high levels of chloro-phyll found in wheatgrass can be easily absorbed by our bodies and used to rebuild the blood. It also acts as a powerful detoxifier cleansing the liver, cells, tissues and blood.

Wheatgrass contains vitamin A, vitamin C, B complex vita-mins, vitamins E and K. Wheat-grass also contains 82 out of the 92 minerals found in soil includ-

ing calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, potassium, phosphorus and cobalt.

Additionally, wheatgrass con-tains numerous amino acids.

Amino acids are the building blocks the body uses to make

proteins. Protein found in meat, fish, eggs, etc. needs breaking down into amino acid before being built into pro-tein. Wheatgrass provides the

body with protein building blocks so there is no need for the

body to expend energy on break-ing proteins down into amino acids. Because wheatgrass juice is raw, the amino acids do not suffer from any deficiencies in structure caused by heat.

The high levels of enzymes contained in wheatgrass juice help the body in its metabolism of nutrients and help repair and regenerate cells and tissues.

The vitamin, mineral and enzyme content in one ounce of wheatgrass juice is said to be equivalent to levels found in about 2.5 pounds of other green vegetable juice.

Juicing is necessary to re-lease the nutrients contained in wheatgrass into a digestible form.

A great little ju i ce r fo r both wheatgrass and all other types of juice is this one from L’Equip. It’s easy to use, easy to clean and even easy to reassem-ble. It’s available through Raw Guru, an online resource for raw foodies that’s well worth a visit. Check them out at:

www. r awgur u . com.

Next time you need a coffee pick-me-up in the morning or afternoon, try this: Instead of heading to the nearest Starbucks, go to the Jamba Juice next door, and order a shot of wheatgrass juice instead. You’ll be amazed at the ‘uplift’ it gives you. Don’t like the taste? Carry a thumb of organic ginger root around with you, and ask Jamba’s juicer to throw it in and squeeze it along with the grass. What a difference in taste!

Wheatgrass

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digest cooked food through the intestinal tract. So the digestive system works harder, absorbs less nutrients, and breaks down fast-er, taxing and aging the whole system.

That’s a pretty compelling ‘why?’ – which then conjures up the question ‘how?’

One particularly easy way to incorporate living foods into your diet, is with ‘wraps’. Wraps make the best, simplest raw food meals. They’re super nutritious, inexpensive and far less hassle than cooking – culinary traits that sure work for me! And for most busy people.

Wrapping materials abound. Untoasted (toasting kills the enzymes) nori sheets, big lettuce leaves, chard, kale, collards, cab-bages. Even if your commitment to large leafy things is tepid at best, you’ll find whole heads of greens disappear painlessly from your fridge each week when used as wrapping material.

Rolled around avocado, onion, tomato, peppers and sprouts, with a few herbs and a bit of salsa, wraps make endlessly versatile ‘raw burritos’. The same ingredients rolled in a nori sheet with cucumbers, grated carrots, sprouts and wasabi make amaz-ing nori rolls.

Add seed and nut pates to raw wraps for the abundant protein it supplies. Two veggie wraps, spread liberally with Keffi’s delicious seed pate, equals the same amount of protein as a 1/4 pound hamburger.

Once your pate is marinated in the fridge for an hour or so, it’s ready to wrap. Pull something leafy and a few other veggies from your fridge. Wash the leaves, and thinly slice whatever veggies you want in your wrap, like onion, tomato, bell peppers, shredded carrots, celery, mushrooms, etc.

Spread pate on a lettuce leaf, add layers of veggies and top with sprouts. Roll up lettuce leaf, and munch out. Then roll up some more, for a super-simple, totally

delicious raw meal. (Pate will last up to 3 days in the fridge.)

This is a great ‘live’ dinner. The protein base for the meal comes from the pate, which is made from soaked seeds.

Why soak seeds?Soaking the seeds achieves

desired taste and texture for the pate. More importantly, soak-ing starts the sprouting process which improves the nutritional value of the seeds exponentially. More important than that, seeds and nuts are coated with enzyme

inhibitors to protect them until it’s time to germinate. Soaking removes that protective coat-ing, making the enzymes (those enzymes again!) readily available to aid in digestion and nutrition-al absorption.

Soaking basically adds wa-ter – life’s essential element – to seeds to activate their germina-tion. Meaning it activates their life force energy. That life force energy is not present in dried nuts and seeds that have not been soaked.

The germination process acti-vated by the water, activates the enzymes that facilitate digestion, plus a rich flood of nutrients for

the body’s absorption. When they are not soaked,

these enzymes are not present, so the body must produce them, in order to digest the food. Mean-ing the body must work harder to transform less nutritional con-tent into less life force energy. We absorb vital living food energy into our diets, in its most con-centrated form, through soaked seeds and sprouts.

Oh no! Not sprouts! Yes, it’s true, huge mountains

of sprouts can be a bit daunt-

ing. That’s another great benefit to raw wraps: you can get away with adding massive piles of sprouts, tamping them down as you roll up the wrap. The ‘grassi-ness’ of their texture is disguised when compacted into a great flavor base (like the pate above, or the marinated veggies below). Especially in raw nori rolls, lots of sprouts add a pleasing enough texture not to miss the rice at all.

Sprouts are so superior in nutritional value, they make it worth the effort it takes to fig-ure out how to get more of them into your diet. They are nature’s highest (and most easily assimi-

lated) nutritional foods. Two tablespoons of broccoli sprouts contain higher nutritional value than two heads of broccoli. Add sprouts in abundance into your diet wherever you can.

Key to making great haystacks of sprouts palatable is what you add into your wraps with them. Meaty veggies, like portobello mushrooms, beefsteak tomatoes eggplant, zuccchini and peppers, thinly sliced (thin is another key to palatable raw veggies) and marinated in lemon or lime juice and olive oil, with a little garlic and onion for an hour or so, makes a super-ono wrap!

Wraps lead pretty effortlessly to other easy ways to incorpo-rate raw foods into your diet, that’ll save you time and money too. While you’re chopping veg-gies for your wrap, slice up some extra to take with the next day. With a little leftover pate, it’s a great take-along, ‘living’ lunch.

And while you’re soaking nuts, soak an extra cup to take with, too, along with some dates. Every couple hours, eat a snack. Start with the dates in the morn-ing, because the body better as-similates the sugars from fruits earlier in the day.

Later in the morning, have the nuts you soaked for all that eas-ily convertible protein. At lunch time, the veggies and pate keep your body running smoothly and efficiently. Then as an afternoon snack, have a wrap or nori roll, and your blood sugar will stay level throughout the day.

The human body functions best on small, raw meals every few hours.

Digestion improves, nutrient absorption improves, and in-creased mental clarity and emo-tional stability result.

A healthier body, a clearer mind, and you feel better too. What a payoff! A fair exchange, I think, for a bit of soaking, slicing, and wrapping.

continued from page 1

Keffi’s Pate’

1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds 1/2 small red onion 1 tablespoon tamari(use NamaShoyu, if can, it’s raw, regular kind isn’t)1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil cumin & cayenne to taste (make it spicy!)

Soak seeds in water before you leave for the day. Rinse and drain them when you come home. Put seeds and other ingredients into a food processor fitted with the metal blade, and process until smooth. (Or can use a mini-veggie chopper in smaller batches. Long’s sells them for less than $10. Does not make it quite so smooth as bigger processors, is all. Power tools are a great investment for a raw diet.)

Put pate into a bowl in the fridge, go take a shower and answer your emails. (Pate tastes best when refrigerated for at least an hour before serving.) Then, amble back into your kitchen, pull Keffi’s pate from the fridge along with some veggies, and wrap up dinner.

Ho’oluana! (as they say here in Hawai’i) ~Enjoy!

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It’s alive!Seeds & nuts,

Soaked & smashed,Seasoned & smoothed

into pate.

Vegetables round & wrinkled,Vegetables sliced & shredded,

Vegetable roots & shoots,Veggies veined & variegated,Veggies, naturally marinated.

Nuts milked & creamed,Coconuts & cacao,

Cinnamon & cardamom,Cumin & curry,

Chinese fi ve spice!

An ode to raw foods...

Raw! Raw! Raw!Mixers & graters,Shavers & slicers,

Grinders & dehydrators.Power tools, the key

to raw foods.

Red & beige & orange,Tans & browns & sage,

Dark greens & light greens & greens in between,

Yellow & golden, rich as the sun.

Oh this is fun, my ode to raw foods.

Foods uncooked & living.Ta da-da daaaa dum-dum ~

Hawai’i Live O!

An especially easy way to incorporate live foods into your diet is ‘raw soups’ – which are essentially smoothies made of vegetables.

A terrifi c raw soup base begins with a large organic tomato, quar-tered. In a blender, add the tomato, a cup of sprouts (alfalfa, daikon, clover, etc), a quarter of a red onion (or a large shallot), and a clove of garlic, if you like. Into this soup base, add any ‘above ground growing’ veggie and seasoning to taste. Blend until smooth and creamy.

Half an avocado (optional) adds rich creaminess and fl avor. Any type of leafy green (spinach, celery greens, let-tuce, chard, etc.), and veg-gies like peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, celery, cu-cumber, asparagus, etc. are

perfect for raw soup. Chop veggies into two inch pieces before blend-ing. (Large chunks of most vegetables make many household blend-ers unhappy.)

Raw soups are highly nutritious, can be as delicious as your season-ing skills can make them, and they’re super easy to whip up. Th ey’re also a great way to clear any vegetables from your fridge that would otherwise become the moldering remains of your good intentions to eat healthy, balanced meals. Just pop those puppies in a blender before they get too tired, and season up some soup.

Soup Ideas Your Body Will Love

Any type of leafy green (spinach, celery greens, let-tuce, chard, etc.), and veg-gies like peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, celery, cu-cumber, asparagus, etc. are

Th ese soups are a little bland; to make them more interesting blend in Nama Shoyu and other seasonings. Add pate and avocado liberally, blending them into your soups. Th ey contribute hugely to your soup’s protein and nutritional value. Fresh herbs and veggies like tomato, cukes, olives, fi nely chopped and stirred into soup just before serving, are nice fl avor and texture enhancers that’ll jazz up your soups, too.

cucumberpate spinachsproutstomatogreen leafi esseasonings

tomato asparagusspinachavocadosproutsmushroomsseasonings

celery leavesspinachsproutsonion garliclemon juiceseasonings