Raw Food

Wheatgrass, I wondered why I like it so much.

Did a quick Google search on Wheatgrass benefits and found the following:

Turns gray hair to its natural color again …

Sweet! I’m absolutely sure that’s one of the key reasons why I’m attracted to drinking this stuff. The other fifty are creatively outlined in the same short page from the Hippocrates Health Institute. I highly recommend reading that page and forwarding it to a friend.

Even though it looks like the information is the institutes, the information was compiled out of The Wheatgrass Book by Ann Wigmore. I haven’t read it, but it looks like it can be found at Amazon.

The book, by Ann Wigmore, that I do whole heartedly recommend is the one that you should be able to find free on the internet. It’s Why Suffer? How I Overcame Illness and Pain Naturally by Ann Wigmore. I found the book by visiting ChiDiet.com. Jim Carey is pretty aggressive at capturing information about people through his website, but he doesn’t really abuse your email privacy. Even though he tries to get you go buy his stuff, he also gives away healthy tips so it’s not too bad a trade. The really enticing item that he gives away is the book.  Sign up and get your free copy (you can always unsubscribe from his website later).

To set the tone, here are a few of Ann’s words:

It was my grandmother who raised me and taught me the ways of natural healing. With her, there was no hopeless case. She was certain that any ailment could be relieved. Unerringly, she located in the nearby woods, fields, and swamps, the weeds, grasses, and herbs required for her work. Many mornings before daylight, I would journey with her into the fog, and while I could not distinguish in the gloom one plant from another, she would busily gather leaves, buds, grasses, and other plant materials. She was my inspiration and my teacher ever since I could toddle about, collecting the soiled bandages or tying the fragrant herbs into bundles for drying.

The best part about it is that the couple hours of reading will inspire month’s worth of energy that you can apply to healing yourself and others. It will be one of those books that you’ll want to read multiple times. At least it was for me, but, I’m one of those people that has a fascination for learning and seeking out the details in other people’s intention.

Get the book, I’m sure it will inspire you too.

The Raw Chocolate Recipe

When biting into a raw chocolate truffle that snaps between your teeth and then melts over the tongue blasting your mouth with the succulent essence of cacao, you can’t help but feel how good it can really be!

When I first read that raw chocolate is actually good for you I couldn’t help but think back to all the candy bars I consumed as a kid. On Saturdays or summer holidays (from school) I’d scrounge up all the nickels and quarters I could find and when I’d get enough for a Milky Way bar, I’d peddle the couple miles to either the grocery store or trailer town (where they sold candy to the people in the park). Pounds and pounds of candy melted in my mouth, but never did I feel anything but a sugar high!

That all changed a few months ago when I tried raw chocolate for the first time. I ate a couple truffles worth of chocolate and found myself feeling good all afternoon. I’d heard that there was a compound in chocolate that would give you a sense of euphoria, but I’d never experienced it. As it turns out, looks like there’s a compound called anandamide that might be responsible for this reaction. I found a little bit might explain this reaction from Exploratorium.  

THC, however, is not found in chocolate. Instead, another chemical, a neurotransmitter called anandamide, has been isolated in chocolate. Interestingly, anandamide is also produced naturally in the brain. Both diTomaso and Piomelli went to great lengths to explain that this finding doesn’t mean that eating chocolate will get you high, but rather that there are compounds in chocolate that may be associated with the good feeling that chocolate consumption provides.

It’s funny that they relate it to THC because my experience what nothing like that!  Lol.

The important part is that I’ve never felt this way from eating refined (cooked) chocolate. Maybe this molecule is sensitive and breaks down under the heat of the refining process.

Here is another little tidbit from antoine.frostburg.edu.

A make you feel happy molecule: Anandamide

Anandamide’s long hydrocarbon tail makes it fat-soluble and allows it to easily slip across the hydrocarbon-rich curtain that isolates the brain from the bloodstream. Notice that its three-dimensional shape strongly resembles that of THC. But unlike THC, anandamide is fragile. It breaks down very quickly in the body. That explains why anandamide doesn’t produce a perpetual natural ‘high’.

In any case, you’re not going to find me eating a lot of “cooked” chocolate. I think I’d rather take advantage of, not only the calories, but the feeling that chocolate in the raw provides.

So, I’ve been making it for a while now and everyone asks – how do you make it?  Well, it’s pretty easy. Take the following ingredients:

And combine. Well, actually, you’ll want to melt the cacao into a liquid so that you can mix everything in. When I first started, I sliced the cacao thinly, placed in a bowl and then placed that bowl in a hot water bath until it melted. Now I just place it in the dehydrator. Once it’s melted, mix it all together. Make sure you taste it. If the vanilla is not all that strong, you may find you’ll have to add a little more. Or, if the dark cacao is a bit more bitter, you’ll find a little more Agave will mellow it out.

After it tastes right (you’ll get a better feel after making it a couple times) you’ll want to cool it in the fridge. I do this by lining a casserole pan with some parchment paper so that I can just pour the mix (to make bark chocolate). After it sits in the fridge for a few hours, the mix sets up.

Go easy on the stuff for it might keep you up all night.  I try to limit myself to only a few pieces around lunch.

There are lots of great sources on the web that talk about raw chocolate. One of my favorite sites is The Sunny Raw Kitchen’s For the love of chocolate page. That page has lots of recipes that include coconut oil, which softens the chocolate.

Also check out EssentialLivingFoods website and view the raw cacao video. Or view it on YouTube.

Enjoy!