A new theme…

It appears my last theme (and a few other WordPress add-ons that I was using) was a memory hog. Because of that, my hosting provider pulled my site offline. Well, it was visible to me, but not anyone else who might have tried to surf onto my site. I still have much to do, but won’t be able to do anything until Friday. That’s when things will slow down for me (a bit.)

My juice cleanse/one raw meal per day is going well. This afternoon, one of my co-workers approached me about juicing. Seems he wants to do focus on making healthier choices.  He had a lot of questions to ask me. He also was interested in juicing recipes. I told him I did not follow any, but if I could locate one of my juicing books it was his to keep.

Raw Pasta: Turning yellow squash into fettuccine noodles

Earlier this evening I was able to play around with raw noodles. My OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler arrived in the mail and so I pulled out one yellow squash and started turning thin slices of yellow squash into fettuccine!

Fetuccini Veggie Pasta 1_03.11.14

I must say that I’m impressed with the sharpness of the blade and it does a great job of slicing the vegetables very thinly.  For someone searching for low carb foods or gluten free noodles this would be a wonderful option. I make raw fettuccini noodles because I love how they taste and it’s much healthier than your traditional pasta.

Fetuccini Veggie Pasta 03.11.14_2

Yellow squash, just like zucchini, has a mild taste so it does not overpower the dish you prepare it with.

Fetuccini Veggie Pasta 5_03.11.14
Fettuccine (squash) noodles with kale, tomato, carrots and a homemade spicy garlic honey ginger dressing

Since I was craving a dressing, I made one with avocado, ginger, garlic, tomato, freshly ground spices and organic honey. Oh my that turned out heavenly!

Eight years ago, when I first started making vegetable noodles, I found it a bit strange. Mainly because I was used to the traditional pasta noodle, you know?  However, I was willing to try something new and I didn’t foolishly think this was traditional pasta, because it isn’t, duh! 😉 After a few times using my Y-Peeler or my Vegetable spiral slicer I grew to love this new type of ‘pasta’ and had a blast turning a variety of squash (and other veggies) into some delicious pasta meals.

Recommended tools to make vegetable pasta

  1. OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler
  2. Plastic spiral vegetable slicer

 

 

 

 

Dr. Robert Morse on Candida Albicans (Fungus) Issues

This past Saturday I had a lot of free time. My daughter was at her friends for a birthday celebration. I finished my work, went outdoors and enjoyed the fresh air for a bit, once I returned inside I finally got a chance to check out a few of Dr. Robert Morse’s YouTube videos. I hadn’t heard about him until recently and was curious to learn more about what he does.

If you do a bit of research, you’ll find that he has a fairly impressive background; he holds a Doctorate of Science in Biochemistry. After I learned more about him, I could easily understand certain scientific terms/explanations were effortlessly woven within his conversation. He’s speaking about topics that he’s very knowledgeable about.

Fruit sugars and candida

It was interesting listening to his explanation about fungal infections and some of the misconceptions about candida. For example all sugars being bad, even fruit. Or the fact that you must avoid all sugar (including fruits) to eliminate parasites. Say what? There are ingredients within fruit that are very helpful to ward off candida or parasites. So yes… I always found this blanket statement a bit strange, especially with the results I was seeing when I decided to introduce juicing fruits only into my candida plan. Instead of making the candida go haywire it was seeming to help, hmmm… But I’m just one person you know, the results might vary depending upon the person. Well… after more research I found others using fruit, just like myself in their fight against candida. So of course what Dr. Morse said made sense. I had first hand experience and I agree with him. Raw fruits can be good, but processed sugars aren’t when fighting candida.

Hardly any candida symptoms

I received one of his books today and will be doing some bedtime reading. I will say months later my candida has not been happy since I’m constantly giving it a beat down.

Candida cravings/symptoms… take a hike!

Yes, I did go through the part where I had intense cravings for things that would wreak havoc with candida, and sometimes I did cave but… I made it over the mountain and now I’m cruising. I still make homemade pizza, but you know what? I’m not interested in having it at all even though it looks amazing!  I’m at the point, where I can look at them without craving them and that indeed is a blessing.  I realized the culprit behind those cravings was my candida. It was craving those yeasty foods and I thought it was me. The American Parasite video was a great visual tool for myself.

I do get the occasional itch and that usually means I’ll be passing some candida colonies in my bowel movements. Do I still take enemas? Of course I do, but only as needed. Making proper food choices has helped, having regular bowel movements and the occasional enema have all played an important role into bringing me where I am now.

A few of my favorite things…

OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler_
OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler

Besides making spaghetti with my spiral vegetable slicer I also like making fettuccine type noodles.

My old Y peeler broke a few years ago. It looked sturdy, but obviously it wasn’t since it broke after about four months of use. I wasn’t heavy handed when using it either.  However, after a bit of research I’ve decided to purchase the OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler. Hopefully it will last for a while and not conk out like the last one I purchased.

Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen

This past weekend I went onto Amazon with the intention of purchasing only one book, but wound up purchasing four. The last book I purchased was a book that I used to have by Alissa Cohen titled Living on Live Food. About four years ago, I’d purchased two; one for myself and the other I intended to give away at some point to someone interested in raw foods. Well… turns out there were a few that were interested and so the one that I’d set aside for myself was eventually passed along to someone else.

I stumbled upon Alissa videos in 2009? I had seen a few of her videos, loved her positive vibe and promptly bought her book.  I didn’t follow any of the recipes she had included within the book. I much prefer coming up with my own thing, even though I adore a good recipe book and get inspiration from them. That’s why I purchase them.  But even though I did not follow the recipes, it’s still a book I treasured because of the positive vibe that oozed out from every single page.

feeling.sunshine-love
Feeling the love…

How I’m feeling

It’s hard to put into words how I’m feeling. I already have a lot of energy and I know it’s tied to not only how I eat, but the healthy way I approach whatever comes my way. I don’t let things fester and spiritually my walk with Christ continues to grow. But even with all those great things I’m feeling even better and that has a lot to do with the past few weeks of just consuming juices and recently just adding one raw meal per day.

Cleaning with juices

A few words on cleansing…

I’m seeing more of what seems to be candida being released from my body and it seems that most of the symptoms are gone. Since it takes a while for candida albicans to take a foothold in your system, I also believe it takes a while for it to be defeated and brought back under control and that’s why the foods that I consumed that triggered it (although healthy) won’t be on my menu for at least a year. So no, I won’t be adding the occasional flour product or nice dark brew into my lifestyle and you know something? I don’t miss them at all. Good riddance I say… 😉

Recommended Products

  1. OXO Good Grips Pro Y-Peeler
  2. Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen

Cleansing and Constipation: Traditional Medicinals; Smooth Move Tea to the rescue

Occasionally when I cleanse I get constipated. One of the symptoms of candida is constipation. While I’m not sure if my constipation is related to candida, I do know that’s it’s something I did not want to keep within my body. Speaking of candida… I will say that a lot of my candida symptoms have disappeared.

When constipation hits, I do specific exercises and eat produce that will increase my regularity, but I’ve found that does not always work when I’m juicing.  That’s when I reach for herbs; senna or black walnut hulls. However since I was out of both, I went to my last resort, purchasing an herbal laxative tea.
Traditional-Medicinals-Organic-Smooth-Move-Herbal-Tea-Peppermint
Yesterday morning you could find me at my local Target, looking for Traditional Medicinals Organic Smooth Move tea. It’s a brand I’ve used in the past and for me at least, it’s been very effective to get my bowels moving again.  Initially I was only going to purchase one box, but since it was on sale I bought four boxes.  If I’m constipated, I’ll normally drink the tea first thing in the morning. I prepare the tea the night before, let steep for at least an hour and drink one cup before bedtime and one the following morning. The teas will last me a long time! I don’t use them daily. In addition to using it as a laxative I also use it as an herbal rinse for my daughters and my hair.

I’ve read where some experts recommend not using laxatives (even natural) for bowel elimination while cleansing. I’m sorry, but being constipated is way too uncomfortable for me to be doing that and there is no way I want to keep carrying around waste. It’s meant to leave my body not to stay hanging out in my intestines 😉

Cleansing update

Consuming only freshly prepared juice and raw foods is going great! I’ll be sure to post some more of my recipes (juice and raw foods) throughout the week.

Raw Pasta: Fun With Raw foods & Juicing…

About thirty minutes ago, I made flourless pasta.

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Raw Pasta: Zucchini Pasta

How did I make it?

Plastic spiral vegetable slicer
Tri-blade Plastic spiral vegetable slicer

 I pulled out my Tri-blade plastic spiral vegetable slicer and made some zucchini pasta. The spiral vegetable slicer can be used for a lot of vegetables as shown in the above photo, but I mainly use it to make vegetable pasta.

I must say raw veggie pasta is the quickest type of pasta that I prepare. It doesn’t take long compared to the traditionally made flour based pasta that I also make, and I will say that I’ve grown to like this even more. The main vegetables I used to make ‘pasta’ are zucchini.  Zucchini,  has a light taste which doesn’t overpower the dish. Also, you can marinate it and it will adapt the flavor of whatever you add to it. So what did I add to this?

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Raw pasta with a creamy tomato nut sauce

Pasta Sauce

  • roma tomatoes
  • cilantro,
  • soaked cashews
  • soaked walnuts
  • freshly ground spices and herbs

Directions

Add the pasta sauce to food processor and blend all together to make a ‘creamy tomato nut sauce’.

In hindsight I should have chopped up some tomatoes to add a bit of color, but even without it still was very good. The good news is, I made enough for leftovers.

Keeping with lent, the majority of what I consumed was juice. This afternoon, my upgraded Breville arrived and I must say that I’m thrilled that I decided to make the switch.

Tools Used:

  1. Plastic spiral vegetable slicer
  2. KitchenAid 12-Cup Food Processor, Chrome

 

 

 

Changing for Lent: Juicing and raw foods only

My Lutheran church observes lent and I turned over in my mind a variety of things that I could do and on that list was removing all cooked meals from my diet. In addition, I’ll be juicing most of my meals with the occasional smoothie (made with my Vita Mix) and raw food meal tossed into the mix.

If you have been following my recent posts you know I was on a juice cleanse. In total I juiced for nine days and then I came off the juice cleanse and rotated between raw solid meals and juices. While I had every intention of going longer, I mainly swapped to see how my body would react to introducing solid foods for a day and then going right back to juice. I’ve gone for long periods (weeks) with consuming only juices, but never switched it up like that before. Personally, my reaction was fine, and I swapped between the two with no issues whatsoever.

 

Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite Stainless Steel
Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite Stainless Steel

What’s this? Why it’s the Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite – Stainless Steel. This is the juicer I should have purchased, and I did look at it before purchasing my Breville BJE510XL Juice Fountain Multi-Speed 900-Watt Juicer. But, I did balk at the price.  It’s $299, granted I can’t really say anything since my Green Star cost over $400 when I purchased it over eight years ago, and you know what? It’s still going strong even though it’s used several times weekly.

After almost two weeks, I’ve decided to return my Breville and upgrade to the $299 model. It’s not because I don’t like the one I have. Trust me, I do and judging by the amount of posts I’ve already written about this Breville (centrifugal juicer) even though I’ve only had it for less than two weeks, it’s apparent that I do enjoy using the Breville juicer. It does an amazing job for softer produce where it easily outshines my Green Star.  I still use my Green Star (triturator juicer) for harder vegetables and greens. It simply blows centrifugal juicers away with that type of produce. I’ve decided to upgrade to the next higher model. I should have chosen this from the beginning.

If you check my posts, you’ll see that the Breville juicer that I do have is mostly stainless steel, but the container that held the produce was made of plastic. That bothered me even though the durability of the product shouldn’t be an issue, judging by the amount of reviews I’ve seen written by folks that have had them for several years. However,  knowing my love of stainless, I decided to go for the upgrade so the appliance is all stainless steel. Well… the container that catches the pulp and the feed tube are made out of black plastic.