A Green Smoothie A Day...

One of the keys to success with a raw food diet is to eat lots of greens. My husband likes salads, but some days he's just not in the mood. So, we try to start each day with a green smoothie. When I say "we," I mean me, too. You don't have to have diabetes to benefit from this. It's nourishing, cleansing, hydrating and refreshing. It's great for everybody! And it's really easy.

GREEN SMOOTHIE (for 2):
1/2 large cucumber peeled
1 large handful dark greens - spinach, kale, etc.
1 handful fresh parsley
1 very large splash lemon juice (We use Santa Cruz organic lemon juice. I have no interest in squeezing a million lemons.)
Put the above in your high-speed blender and fill with water to cover about half the contents.
Blend until smooth.
It gets foamy on top so I use a spoon to hold back the foam while pouring.



Time-saving tip: You can prepare the veggies for a few days worth of smoothies, storing them in baggies or plastic containers so all you have to do each morning is empty the contents into your blender and add the water and lemon juuice

No More Puddles

In the energy world, healing happens at different rates. Some people change quickly. For example, after just a few Polarity Therapy sessions, one client started sleeping through the night after years of insomnia. Another felt so good she no longer needed her antidepressant.

For others, change takes longer. My husband fit in this latter category. After years of Polarity Therapy, the changes were minimal. He'd come in, lie down and go to sleep. No gurgles, no sighs, no swallowing - all telltale signs that the body is calming down, allowing healing to take place. He would twitch a little here and there, but it wasn't enough. A personal trainer once described him as "strong like an ox." And that's what he felt like - an ox - solid and unmoving. This may be good in the farming or weightlifting worlds, but it's not good in my world. Physically and energetically, he was stuck. When things are stuck and not moving, they're stagnant. Think of a puddle just sitting there on a hot day. No wind. No movement. It breeds all kinds of yucky stuff.

But, now, the puddle is splashing! My husband came in for a polarity session the other day and I couldn't believe the change. Everything was moving and flowing and gurgling and twitching. He was still strong, but he wasn't stuck. He felt like a completely different person! I couldn't believe it. I still can't. All from raw food? It's truly unbelievable.

Saved By the Zucchini

We got back from our Thanksgiving trip late Saturday night and I hadn't made raw food in days. The raw chili we brought with us and a few salads here and there were all my husband needed given the Thanksgiving meal Thursday and the dinner in New York's Chinatown Friday. But by mid-afternoon Sunday I realized he was going to need something to eat.

I was completely unprepared. We hadn't been to the store in days. We had no meals planned. It was sort of like the first time I was pregnant. I read all the books about the baby (well, yes, it turned out to be two babies) growing inside me. But never read about what to do after they were born, like, you know, how to nurse them and all that. Granted, that was a bigger problem, but, still...

So, I looked in the fridge and found a lone zucchini in the bottom drawer. Then I remembered ... zucchini spaghetti! In the raw world, zucchini is the new pasta. Slice it long and thin and you have lasagna. Pull a spiraler through it and you have spaghetti. I didn't have a spiraler, but I did have a cheese grater and - voila - zucchini angel hair! Then I remembered the delicious raw lasagna we'd made a few weeks earlier. I didn't have time for lasagna, but I did have time for the sauce (made from tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes) and what would have been the "meat" layer (made from walnuts and sun-dried tomatoes). Put them together and you have instant "meat" sauce.

Slight confession: I used canned tomatoes, which are cooked before they're canned, in the sauce because we didn't have fresh. Oh well. Everything else was raw. AND it lasted for three days!

PS. Zucchini is now hanging out with lentils in the "foods-my-husband-used-to-dislike" club.

Raw Food IS Real Food

Two of my husband's favorite raw recipes are chili and lasagna. They taste just as good as the originals. The lasagna takes a long time to make as lasagna does, but the chili, from "Rainbow Green LIve-Food Cuisine," is really easy:

Blend tomatoes, avocados and sun-dried tomatoes with cumin, ginger, chili powder and cayenne. Marinate chopped celery, red pepper and leeks in olive oil and salt and dehydrate for one hour. Mix all ingredients together and serve.

We're taking some with us on our Thanksgiving trip so he can get right back on track the day after Thanksgiving (and for lunch on the road Thanksgiving day).

Thanksgiving Won't Be Raw...Well, Mostly

My husband's going to eat real food on Thanksgiving. And that's OK. He's already broken his diet a couple of times - at a wedding, his birthday, a dinner out with my parents.

I'm a firm believer in moderation. Get too rigid, deny yourself too much, and it backfires. I also believe he'll go right back to the raw way as soon as the holiday ends. Especially since he knows he'll get another break next month.

Besides, I'm bringing two raw dishes to Thanksgiving dinner - a green bean vinaigrette and Arugula Cumin Salad. So, everyone will get a few enzymes to help the turkey go down.

Who Doesn't Love a Sprouted Lentil Burger?

I asked my husband what he wanted for dinner and he suggested the Sprouted Lentil Burgers I cooked in the oven last week. The burgers followed his diet - they're a combination of sprouted lentils, sunflower seeds, some veggies, parsley, spices and lemon juice - even though they were cooked. The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center actually recommends 20 percent cooked food for its clients with diabetes so we were good.

Tonight, though, I made the burgers in the dehydrator, just to try it out. They certainly weren't as crispy as the ones from the oven, but they were pretty good. Even the kids ate them. Apparently, if you put them on toast with ketchup they kind of taste like real burgers. I ate mine with guacamole as the recipe suggested. My husband ate his straight up, and he doesn't even like lentils, or so he used to say.

The Dehydrator or How to Cook Raw Food

Raw food means food with all of its nutrients and enzymes (critical for healthy digestion) intact. When you cook food, you kill off the nutrients and enzymes. The higher the heat, the more you lose. However, that does not mean all raw food is cold or in salad form. You can heat food at low temperatures and still consider it raw because the low temperatures do not destroy the nutrients. The appliance of choice for this process is a dehydrator, which cooks food at a very low temperature as low as 85 degrees. (Most ovens don't go below 150 or 175 degrees.)

Excalibur is the only brand of dehydrator I've heard recommended. I've been to the company website several times, but couldn't decide between the large model or the small one, the one with the timer or the reduced-price refurbished model. My husband suggested perhaps an Easy-Bake oven would do. Today, a friend loaned me her small Excalibur dehydrator. She ate raw food for many years, but hasn't used it since her daughter was born five years ago. It was sitting on her fridge.

Here's an example of how to make raw Sun-Dried Tomato Flax Crackers using a dehydrator: You dehydrate a mixture of flax seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, celery juice, parsley and spices at 145 degrees for 2 to 3 hours, and then continue at 115 degrees for 6 to 8 hours. As you can see, this is a lengthy process. I intend to try it one day. And then my husband will eat his first cracker in over a month.

Division of Labor

As a polarity therapist, my job is to help people heal. So, I'm happy to make this food for my husband. It's a good investment in our future. But all the work - countless trips to grocery stores, hours reading recipes and planning meals, and many more hours washing, soaking, chopping, blending and mixing, has been wearing a little thin. By the time the food is done, I'm done. But the kitchen is still a mess.

Today, a good friend of ours asked me what I needed to feel supported in this raw venture. The answer was simple: I need my husband to clean up the kitchen. Sure, I'll do it when I can. Yes, the kids will help when they're home. But if it's a mess, it's his responsibility. And, no, it can't wait 'til morning. Problem solved.

Raw For 30 Days - It's Working!!!

My husband is the patient one. I want results NOW. We're getting them, just not quite at the pace we saw in the movie. So, I keep reminding myself of Herrings Law of Cure: We heal from the top down, from the inside out and in the reverse order in which symptoms occurred. That means his pancreas will get better before his belly gets smaller. I also tell myself it's one thing to follow the Green Food diet on a ranch in the desert while taking long walks and practicing yoga, and quite another to do it in Central New York while going to work and raising kids.

Still, here's what's changed for him so far:

* Blood sugar at or near normal levels

* Insulin use cut in half

* Increased energy

* Fewer naps

* No swelling in lower legs or feet

* No bloating

* No stomach aches

* Clothes fit looser

Also, he says he feels good. And he likes the food.

Let's Talk Blenders

If you're going to eat raw, you're going to need three appliances: a high-speed blender, a food processor and a dehydrator.

You need a blender to turn your vegetables, especially greens, into soup, to turn nuts into cheese, and to make smoothies (which are a whole lot better when you use fruit so I make those for the kids and myself).

In the world of raw, there are only two blenders worth considering: Vitamix and Blendtec (formerly known by the company name K-TEC). Vitamix is without a doubt the more popular. Anyone who knows blenders, knows Vitamix. And it looks really good. The company has many celebrities endorsing it and offers a free 30-day trial. That was tempting, but I ordered the Blendtec anyway.

Reason #1: Money. The Blendtec is cheaper. I got the newest model online for $350 with free shipping and no sales tax from Harvest Essentials. It arrived in seven days. The cheapest Vitamix model costs $450.

Reason #2: Height. The Blendtec is shorter - 15 inches compared to 19 inches. That makes it easier to use for those of us who stand at 5'4" or lower. Also, the standard kitchen cupboard starts at 18 inches above the countertop. That means a Blendtec blender will fit on the counter underneath a cupboard, but a Vitamix won't.

Reason #3: POWER! The Blendtec has a 3-horsepower motor. It can blend a cell phone to dust if that's your thing. Practically speaking, it can grind dry beans and grains to a fine powder. To do that in the 2-horsepower Vitamix, you need to buy an additional "dry blade" for about $100.