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;)