TGIF:)

Hello All~
Time to start thinking about gardening:) Yay! I've been doing some reading on designing a garden (mapping it out), planting- which veggies to start indoors or sow directly into the ground, also harvesting, and freezing vs. canning. It's been fun. (The only dilemma is that we are trying to buy a house and it may interfere with getting our vegetation in the ground the first week of May.. we are diligently working on this..)
Also, since Spring has nearly Sprung..it is time to be thinking about juicing again:) Dottie is wanting to start back juicing, this time with the initial goal being 50 days. Since I am interested in doing the same, I will be joining her as well. We start in two days.. This Sunday!! So I will be monitoring my weight loss, try to keep track of my inches.. and perhaps my hair growth again. So this will be interesting to see where my body takes me after another juice fast/feast. I think back to the fact that you go "back in time" with your body and illnesses so many years for each day of juicing. That is exciting, I can't wait to be an embryo again:) hahah.. Well issues I was dealing with 6 months ago are either healed or healing and it is great to continue on the path to health. I will be including Psyllium and Bentonite in my regimine to help continue to cleanse my intestinal track and too several liver/gallblader cleanses. (Thanks Red:) Ok, I will keep you posted.. Happy Juicing~

The WonderMill is here!!!

Here it is... the WonderMill grinder, and it is much better than grinding in a VitaMix (sorry VitaMix, you're made for blending delicious smoothies).

Love it!

Is this Red Juice or what???

Fred and I have been dealing with some ongoing health issues: his is a giant kidney stone, mine are anxiety and hormonal issues. We borrowed 'The Juicing Book' from Sherry's library and found a few things that can help us both. So this morning, we took the plunge and made the juice with all the goodies.

Yes, we were a little scared, but we did it anyway, and it's delicious. What's in this beautiful red juice: a large beet, 4 stocks of asparagus, 2 stocks of celery, a bunch of Russian kale, 1 cucumber, 4 carrots and 2 Fuji apples, all organic of course.

Turns out asparagus and celery juice are especially good for nervous disorders and kidney disorders... so now you know.

You really can 'drink' to your health! ♥

Can you say WOW!!

Here is a picture I came across recently (the one on the left). It was taken at Red Lobster in Johnson City, TN last June (2009). Embarrassing!!! Look at me trying to hide my big belly behind my little arm (comparatively little). Oh yeah, I'm the one in the pink..

But wait..there's more:) The picture of a thinner girl in white, yeah, that's me too!! Taken laste week and 45lbs lighter from the last pic. From where I was to where I am now, WOW!! I am very pleased with the results. Hope you are excited too!

~So if you don't know how to go from the SAD diet to Vegan/Vegetarian lifestyle, start small (if you're that kind of person), take baby steps. A wonderful book that has been recommended several times on this blog is the "The RAVE Diet" by Mike Anderson (along with any video of his that you can get your hands on! Especially "Eating"- all available for cheap through Amazon.com). You will find his advice very practical for anyone to do. Also, GreenSmoothieGirl (.com) does rock (as Kendra recently mentioned on here). GreenSmoothieGirl too is very practical and whatever you can do to add in Green Smoothies (as she shows you step-by-step online-for FREE) you will do nothing but help yourself and your family... Okay, stepping off my soap-box.. Well, I hope you can see the difference that changing my eating lifestyle has done for me in merely 6 months!!

I take it back! Get a good grain mill...

OK, so in a post shown below, I stated that you can use your VitaMix to grind wheat berries and grains, which you can, however, I've since discovered that the way the blades are oriented in the VitaMix, it pushes the grains down instead of up and away from the blades, creating a lot of heat and compacting the flour. I've heard on the 'residential' line of VitaMix machines that they do have a 'dry' container that can be used for grinding dry grains, etc., that works fine, but they don't have one for the 'commercial' line of drink mixers, which is what I have...

So, we've decided that we are going to get the WonderMill grinder, so I will keep you posted on how well we like it.

We've made muffin tops and whole grain pasta by grinding wheat berries with the VitaMix, however, the grain is not quite fine enough for my liking, and it was really difficult to get the pasta to work, so we're making the change.

What a difference!

My thoughts today are on what a difference a year makes. What I mean by that is how drastically my health, body, and life has changed in this last year - amazing! It began in April '09 when by chance I came across a youtube video by Greensmoothiegirl.com. As I watched it everything started to come in to focus on why, even after being vegetarian for over a year, I was still over weight and not healthy. I was better than I was when I ate meat by far, but I was still heavily relying on cheese for most meals and really didn't like greens or most vegetables.
After watching the video I ran to the store to buy greens, some of them for the first time in my life, and went home to make my first green smoothie. As my husband and I stared at the green slime in the blender we were a little scared, but then I tasted it and that started it all. Suddenly I was going through pounds of greens each week, and that's when things finally started getting good.
Along with the smoothies I gave up all dairy completely and stopped even the little bit of processed foods we were eating. I was now using things like goji berries, maca, bee pollen, hemp, chia seeds, agave, and many other ingredients I never heard of. Almost immediately my weight began to go down, my skin got better, my hair actually reversed itself from going grey, my eye floaters disappeared, and best of all my non-stop life long runny nose and allergies completely disappeared!
As for my husband Keith he went from 225 lbs to 180 lbs and his non-stop acid reflux which was ruining our life completely disappeared. Both of us thought we had "food allergies" and would be so worried about eating something to set off his acid which was a constant problem. Now we both eat without even a hint of our old symptoms.
I am now able to maintain my weight at 103 lbs size 0-2 with no problems and wake up every morning with no pains or allergies. We never get sick any more and even Keith's life long lower back problems are all but gone.
This all sounds too good to be true but it is exactly what happened to us. Everyday we look back and wonder how we thought being fat and unhealthy was "normal". We feel so connected to our green smoothies now it's hard to believe we've only been doing this for a year. We look forward to spring and can't wait to see how our health continues to improve. Of course we've had the ups and downs of detox symptoms, but that is minor in comparison to all that we have gained and have shared with our family. Thank you Greensmoothiegirl!

Raw Food Bars from Raw Way...

Came across an interesting article titled 'Raw deal' in the March 2010 Costco Connection magazine on page 25. It's about Bethany who created raw snack bars for her family, and created a company Raw Way to market her creations.

Her blog also has lots of yummy raw recipes, so check it out by clicking this link: RawWay blog.

Enjoy!

It's Me Valora:)

Hello All~
I am trying to get my current picture posted on here, but to no avail:( I am leaving for FL this evening and so I won't be able to try again for a week. I have an amazing before and after pic to show you all!!
The short of it all, in September last year I weighed 176!! And after two long-juice feasts I am ended on 133!! It looks like I can easily maintain 135 after this last juice, but I am wanting to further cleanse in the near future. My goal has been and remains to be 120 (okay, when I was much bigger, I likely was imagining 130's :) I am very pleased with my weight loss success and shedding the extra person that was hiding the real me. So here I am, 40+ pounds lighter and feeling like a new woman.
I'll get the pictures posted soon. Until then... ~Valora

Live muffin toppers recipe...

See the Live Muffin Toppers recipe on the left side under 'Recipes We Love'.

We made these muffin tops in the live bread class last Saturday and they were unbelievably easy and delicious.

If you don't want to use eggs, try them with a ground flax seed and water replacer or other egg replacers...

We made ours with organic orange flavoring, dried cranberries and chopped pecans... Fred couldn't stop eating them. Try adding raw cacao powder or nibs.

We also learned about Tropical Sourch semi-sweet chocolate chips which are fabulous, made with evap cane juice, and they taste great!

Sherry makes muffin tops only, using a hamburger bun pan by Chicago Metallic, and we're gonna get one. Just google it to find a supplier.

Enjoy your Live Muffins! ♥   

You can grind fresh flour in your VitaMix!

NEWS FLASH!

I ground wheat berries in my VitaMix and it works great! You need to do at least 1 cup of berries at a time, and let it do it's thing for a couple of minutes, and the flour turns out great!

If at first it's a little coarse or gritty, just grind it longer and it will grind it finer.

I also tried grinding rice for making rice flour pasta, and no problem.

I would think that the BlendTec blender would do the same thing... Dr K or V, please let us know!

Save your money, use your VitaMix to grind fresh flour!

Who knew? :)

Live whole wheat bread!

Fred and I took the live bread class today, and it was fabulous! Learned a lot about grains, including that vitamins and minerals are heat stable, so they are not lost in the cooking process.

So here's the scoop: as I stated in my previous post, you need to use fresh ground flour. If you don't have a wheat grinder, find one nearby, maybe someplace that sells wheat berries will have one you can use. To buy your own, check out Wonder Mill grinders.

For the basic whole wheat bread, Sherry (our instructor) used this combo:
1/2 HARD WHITE SPRING WHEAT BERRIES
1/2 HARD RED SPRING WHEAT BERRIES

This recipe was made using the Electrolux DLX-2000 8 quart mixer, which is a fabulous mixer. NOTE: If you use a KitchenAid mixer, cut this recipe in half. This recipe can also be made by hand, but you gotta knead it... 

Also important: when you grind 1 cup of wheat berries, you get about 1.5 cups of flour, and flour must be used or frozen within 72 hours to retain nutritional components.

1) Grind 9 cups of wheat berries (see mix above) =13 cups of flour.

2) Put wet ingredients in mixer bowl and mix on low speed.

5 cups warm water (105* - 110*)
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup honey

3) Add 3 TBSP yeast and 3 tsp sea salt into the flour mixture.

4) Add half of the flour mixture to the mixer bowl, mix on high for 1 minute.

5) Add the rest of the flour mixture, mix on low speed until mixed, then set timer and let it mix on low speed for 7 minutes

6) Allow dough to rest for 2-5 minutes in mixer bowl.

7) Punch down and roll out onto an oiled surface (2-3 TBSP olive oil)

8) Split into 4 equal sections (4 loaves) and work gently to stretch the gluten fibers, gentle kneading, until smooth round loaf. Do not use or add flour.

9) Place in oiled 3" x 9" loaf pans. Sherry also mixes liquid lecithin with the olive oil in the pans - helps it not stick to the pan.

10) Let bread rise in pans until about doubled in size.

11) Bake at 350* as follows, depending on type of oven: 30-35 minutes in conventional gas oven; 33 minutes in convection gas oven; electric ovens shorten baking time by 5 minutes.

12) Remove from pan after baking and place back in oven for a couple of minutes, then remove from oven and let cool on a rack.

13) Eat within 72 hours and/or freeze when cooled completely. Enjoy!

I will re-write this recipe as a link in our 'Recipes We Love' section later...

Live bread class in Sequim tomorrow...

Fred and I will be taking a 'live' bread class tomorrow... exciting stuff!

Unfortunately any bread, cookies, pasta, cakes, etc. produced commercially with flour, except Ezekiel bread products that are frozen, are essentially DEAD, I'm sorry to tell you, and here's why:

Once wheat berries or other grains are ground, they must be used or frozen within 72 hours to retain any of the nutrients in them. That's why flours you buy in the stores are so bad for you, as they were ground who knows when, and have been sitting on shelves for who knows how long, so there's very little or no nutrition left in them, just empty calories and oxidized waste.

Ideally, you want to grind just enough flour to use immediately for bread, crackers, tortillas or pasta. Back in Bible times, flour was ground every day or every other day and baked right away, so they got all of the nutrients and fiber in their bread and cakes. Makes sense...

So I will post some of the stuff we learned, and give you tips on making your own 'live' bread and goodies, even cookies! :)

Wheat Berry Salad

Check out this fab Wheat Berry Salad!

And we have a new 'Recipes We Love' link section on the left... it's the first one included there. I hope you like it!

Day...19

Hello all. Just a brief up-date.. I'm at 138 and feeling good. Lot's of toxin removal and yucky stuff coming out. Which is actually great;) Keeping up the 3 juices a day at about 12-16 oz each. So all is well. The scale is going down;)

Day 11 Juicing

So you may be wondering..where is day 1-10 on here?? Well it's not. I have been keeping a daily journal and right now I don't have continuous Internet service at home, so here's my chance to up-date you...IF there is any "YOU" out there. :)

After much thinking, contemplating and reading, I am back to juicing again. I am now truly Juice Fasting, rather than feasting where I drank 1 1/2-2 gallons of juice a day. Now I am taking in about 32-48oz a day of juice along with tons of water in between my juice meals. I am trying to discipline myself to stop "eating" by 6-7pm. This has worked out for me well. Too I have lost a total of 15 pounds. I am at my all time low (well, previous to 3 years ago) of 142. I feel better and better each day, especially since consistently I wake 1 lb lighter each day. I am hoping this weight loss also helps with the winter time blues. Come on, you know what I'm talking about, ok, minus the west coast!

Lastly, this juicing has really been amazing. After the first several days it has been easy-peasy. No stomach pains or anything. Too, I have detoxed A LOT more than last time. I am really enjoying that. I like to feel that my body is accomplishing great things.

So enough about me..for now. I'll share with you all my progress in a few days from now. TTFN