The raw food movement has been picking up speed. Although I don’t eat more than about 30% raw I still believe that it has merit.

The point of eating raw is that you are eating foods in the form that contains the most enzymes. Enzymes are beneficial in helping your body digest food and absorb nutrients. Raw foodists also believe that you get more nutrition from food in its raw form. While that is true, there are some nutrients that are unlocked with small amounts of heat.

I believe that when tomatoes are heated slighted that their lycopene becomes more easily digestable.

So I suppose the healthiest way to eat would be to eat raw and cooked. Don’t overcook your veggies though. You can leach the nutrients out of your food by overcooking. I tend to leave my carrots etc. a little crunchy on the inside.

One of the easiest things to eat raw is smoothies. I am, of course, talking about smoothies that don’t have ice cream and junk like that in them.

One of the simplest smoothies is just a banana, some strawberries or whatever frozen fruit you like and a bit or water or juice. I like to add EFAs and hemp protein powder to mine as well.

Another easy raw snack is granola bars. Experiment with these to find the flavour and texture you like.

I made a batch tonight that has dates (soaked), rolled oats, sesame seeds, flax seeds, some strawberries, carob powder and sprouted buckwheat. These are bit sticky so I am going to let them sit overnight to dry up a bit.

I also made a batch that has peanut butter, peanut oil, honey, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts and raisins. They are quite crumbly so I will try to add a little something extra into the chunks tomorrow morning if they haven’t solidified a bit better. And if that all craps out, I’ll cook it in my oven and make a tasty granola!

These are healthy, packed with nutrition!

Yesterday I was out and about and managed to snag myself some nifty green deals.

The first was a green cleaning book from Chapters. It was in their clearance section for about six dollars. I have been wanting something concrete with recipes (since I make notes from websites and magazines but it is such a pain in the butt to look for them that I just keep reaching for my Seventh Generation all purpose cleaner) for all sorts of cleaning  needs. They cover everything from floors to pests to shoes to tubs to pans.

These recipes are made with baking soda, citrus juice, borax, vinegar and other natural substances. Even with the natural/eco-friendly cleaners you still get far to many chemicals. Granted they are worlds better than Windex and Mr. Clean but they still aren’t the safest!

I am looking forward to replacing all of my cleaners with homemade ones!

The next green deal I found was a ceramic coated frying pan made by EarthChef. It’s non-stick like Teflon pans are but made from non-toxic ceramic.  Teflon is notorious for being toxic. Especially if it gets too heated. But who wants to cook something delicate like polenta in a stainless steel pan? Enter ceramic cookware.

I have had a chance to try mine on something very sticky and it was just as good if not a bit better than Teflon. Yay to non-toxic food!

I can’t say if it’ll stand up as well as my Lagostina pans but I can’t imagine that the ceramic would start to wear faster than the Teflon. The EarthChef pans come with a lifetime manufacturer’s warranty so I would infer that the ceramic is pretty resistant.

Plus, they are quite inexpensive. I bought a small pan for $7 or $8 at Sears! The big ones were a mere $30.

So here’s to healthy eating and non-toxic homes!