To Be or Not To Be Organic?

There's a lot of controversy about whether or not we should "waste" our money buying organic produce. There will always be controversy when one group of people are losing money while another group is thriving. It seems like we are all so lost in our little world that there is no room for anyone else to be successful especially if it is at our expense.

Well, sure, survival of the fittest, and all that, right? We are all born with the instinct to survive no matter the cost to others, right? My personal belief is that we are put on earth not so much to live on our instincts but to actually see if we will live a higher law that prepares us for the life we live after this one.

Example: when we are growing up, our sibling slugs us. Instinct dictates that we slug back. Yet, we have a higher law that says we are to turn the other cheek and walk away. If someone needs our coat, survival mode tells us, "No, I need it for myself so that I don't freeze." A higher law says to not only give him the coat but offer other articles of clothing that he might need as well to help him be more comfortable in the coming freeze. So, where does that leave us? Coatless and with a few bruises where we have let people smack us around, yes? We are told that if we do these things (turn the other cheek and look out for the welfare of others over our own needs) things will go better for us in the life to come than if we simply choose to follow our survival instincts. Certainly an amazing amount of faith in the hereafter is required for us to live the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Whether a person believes that eternal rewards are dependent upon the choices made here in mortality or not, one cannot live a life of service without learning that realizing that we are happier when we try to reach outside ourselves. Those who are most miserable are those who so self-absorbed as to think the world revolves around them. In fact, it has been suggested that when we feel most put-upon, we should find someone we can help.

So, lest the reader think I am again rambling, what does all this have to do with whether or not we should be buying organic fruits and vegetables?

Once upon a time in a land not so very far away, humans ate what they could find growing on trees and in the ground. All of their effort every day of their lives was spent searching for the calories needed to sustain their lives. No thought went into the nutritional value of the foods they were eating, and I'm sure they found that a mango satisfied them more than a handful of dandelion greens. Yet, hopefully he knew instintively that he needed a few of the green (not calorically dense) foods to sustain his life as well.

Of course all food was "organic" in the sense that it had not been chemically treated in any way. Once man started domesticating his food (i.e. growing it himself instead of depending upon what could be found in the forest and field), he soon learned he had to move frequently as the soil would not continue to produce food in the same place over and over again. At some point, he learned that he could enrich the soil in a variety of ways and moving to another piece of property every couple of seasons would not be necessary. He learned to emulate nature as she prepares her seed beds for their constant replanting: mulch them well, allow spent crops to go back into the soil, and plant cover crops so the soil does not lie fallow in its "off season".

Still there was no chemical manipulation of the crops. While there was work required to accomplish the enrichment methods, healthy strong crops resulted with no need for supplementation. What about insect and fungus control? The farmer knew a certain percentage of his crop would be lost to the natural elements of nature and planted accordingly.

Later, (when chemical warfare was being discovered during the World War I and II period and there was an excess of chemicals when the wars were over) men determined that plants would grow if fed man-made nutrients. In fact, they would grow faster and give greater yields. ("Yields" refers to the amount of a crop that is produced on a given amount of land - usually an acre.) While they were at it, they determined that pests could be killed and further increase the yields. The motivation for these "improvements" was profit margins, not nutrition.

Prior to the beginning of the industrial revolution (around the turn of the 20th century), most people grew their own food. Those who did not, like a fur trader or a lumberjack, used their skills to barter for food. Once men started to leave their farms to work in the "city" where factories were being built, providing food for people became its own industry. Talk about the ideal "get rich quick scheme"! Everybody's got to eat!

The name of the game became "cheap" "fast" food. No longer were nutrients important. We had reverted back to our original "hunter/gatherer" instinctive survival mode. We lost sight of what the land had given us maybe because we had never appreciated how much it had contributed to our well-being. Lately we are beginning to realize that we gave up a lot more than just hard work when we gave up the family farm.

While we concede that chemicals grow more vegetables faster, can we not also admit that something has been lost in this process? I have grown fruits and vegetables organically for over 30 years. It is not easy. It is not a job for someone looking for a fast buck. Why do we bother?

There are a lot of people a lot smarter than I am finding out there are a lot of scientific reasons why organically grown food is better for us. I am sure there will be many more discoveries about this in the years to come.


I recently heard a discussion on a popular talk show where the host said we all need to buy more organic food so that the cost can come down and make it more affordable for everyone. I think the thing most people don't understand about this is that organic food doesn't necessarily have an inflated price tag on it. (I know there are inscrupulous marketeers out there who will disprove that statement, but I am referring to the true farmers who are growing food organically because they believe that they are doing the right thing.) The problem is that we have been paying so little of what food should cost that in contrast organic food seems to be overpriced.

An example is a double cheeseburger at McDonalds. How in the world can you tell me that 1/5 of a pound of cow musculature PLUS her milk needed to make 2 slices of cheese PLUS a few incidental condiments can cost $1? They are still paying butchers and cheesemakers, and there's the crewmen necessary to actually grill the meat and the cashier required to take your order and package it up for you. It is intentionally "deflated" for reasons not entirely aparent at first sight. (Please watch Food, Inc. for a great explanation for how this works.)

So, why does a box of organically grown strawberries cost $4.50? Anyone who has ever tried to grow their own food has a better appreciation for why it costs as much as it does. My best advice to everyone is to grow organically what food you can, and buy what you cannot grow from those who do it organically.

So what happens everytime we buy a fruit or vegetable grown by conventional methods? We'll take the "better for your body" argument out of it. We all have the "Walmart" mentality that cheaper is better; when will we learn that this is not necessarily true?

What it boils down to is conscious eating. Do we think about what went into the food we are putting into our mouths? One of the reasons so many people are becoming vegans is because they ARE thinking about it in terms of the flesh products they previously enjoyed.

Let's think about it in terms of the produce we consume as well. Do we want man-made chemicals and pesticides in our bodies, or do we want nutrients provided by nature in perfect harmony with our needs? Every dollar we spend sends a message. Do we want 10 peppers for $1 that are grown on lifeless soil that are sprayed with poison to increase the yield on a subsidized farm with unfair wages? Are we willing to pay more for a pepper grown on a healthy soil by a farmer that is not government subsidized that is paying a fair wage to his workers because it is the right thing to do? Are we willing to get out there in the yard and put in the hours necessary to produce a few of the things we eat every week? It is a tough question that goes far beyond how much something costs.

This week: things with zucchini! Our crop has finally come into its own and we will be enjoying lots of zucchini goodies this week. I think I'll try a zucchini hummus: 2 cups zucchini, peeled and sliced, 1 clove garlic, 4 tablespoons tahini, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon paprika, for garnish, 2 tablespoons parsley, for garnish. In a food processor with the s blade, process the zucchini, garlic, tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil until smooth. Place in a serving bowl and garnish with the paprika and parsley. Serves 4.

We've enjoyed our green spaghetti this week: shredded zucchini mixed with queso verde and marinated broccoli. Marinated mushrooms are good with this, and we had cherry tomatoes with it too. Very delicious.

I made some buckwheat pizza crusts this week you might like: 3 cups buckwheat groats, sprouted, 2 avocados, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup fresh basil, 3 tablespoons Italian seasoning, 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 3 medium tomatoes. Grind all in a food processor until it is a paste consistency. Spread it on dehydrator sheets to dry.

We also had some caramelized onions to have on our pizzas with the queso verde and marinara sauce:

Mix 5 large onions, sliced thinly, with the following blended sauce: 1 cup pitted dates, 3 tablespoons Nama Shoyu, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1/4 cup water. Spread on dehydrator trays. This can be eaten "wet" if you want it to be like sauteed onions, or you can dry it more to make it crunchier.

Desserts this week are apple crisp, pumpkin pie, chocolate mousse layered trifle, key lime pie, and chocolate macaroons.

Ugly Fruit

This week when I was cutting up some ugly fruit, I was thinking of how often we judge (or should I say "misjudge") something by how it looks on the outside. There are some terrific grapefruit we buy whenever they are available; the industry labels them "choice" which doesn't mean choice by the dictionary definition. It actually means "You'd never buy these if you purchased them based on what they look like." We've bought a few products for ourselves that were labeled "choice", and we never know what we're going to get. They are definately outside the standards produce vendors use to decide what is acceptable to market and what is not. Basically it means "ugly fruits" versus the beautiful ones we all want to buy when we pick through the produce bins.

Anyway, we often buy "choice" for ourselves as it is about half the price of the regular produce. If we list it in the price list, we always tell folks it's "choice" although I'm sure that's misunderstood to mean it is a good thing. Buying "choice" is a good way to save money on organic produce, but it's not regularly available. Probably the growers sell it or give it to their workers, so it rarely hits the marketplace.

We've been buying these "choice" grapefruit all season. Everytime we order them, the vendor asks us if we know they are ugly. We answer that we do, but we go for the flavor which is superb. They agree, but they want us to know because they say, it is very hard to sell this ugly fruit when it is sitting in bins.

So, I was thinking as I was eating some of my ugly grapefruit the other day, why are some fruits on the tree perfectly beautiful and others ugly? I was wondering if perhaps the ugly ones sacrifice working on their outsides instead concentrating all their energy on the inside production of sweet, juicy fruit. (Some of these are sweeter than oranges, I'm not kidding you.) Then I thought how like people this is. So many times, the workers in our culture are those who devote all their energy to making things nicer for the others around them (like my little grapefruit did for me). They don't always have time for the gym and the spa and expensive makeup and hair styles. They operate on very little maintenance and expend the majority of their energy and resources on others. Often they are looked down upon because of their appearance.

In the Old Testament of the Bible there is story of how David was chosen by the Lord to be king. There were many others who appeared more appropriate for the job, but the Lord told Samuel (who was doing the choosing): "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; ... for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). I guess I'm just thinking there's more to life than what we look like. Why is our self-esteem so tied up in that? Where do we come up with the standards by which we judge, and what have they got to do with what a person is really like?

Like the produce industry, standards are determined by what the product looks like. We all know the disappointment of seeing a beautiful piece of fruit and biting into it to find it is not at all juicy or delicious. Likewise, have we met a human being that had all the beautiful features we sought only to find out they were shallow and selfish? Of course, this is not to say that all beautiful people are this way just as all beautiful produce does not taste yucky.

The other day at the market I had some collards that had a few circles on them where bugs had eaten a few holes. A customer said, "Oh, dear. You left them in the garden too long. You let the bugs get them." I was a little shocked and surprised. I have been growing vegetables and herbs organically for many years, and I have come to expect a little insect damage. I am, in fact, a little skeptical when there's NOT any. I figure if a bug doesn't want to eat it, it can't taste too good. (Are the people who spray pesticides really arrogant enough to think that they are killing all the insects?) This is not to say I eat insect-ridden food, but I am not opposed to sharing a little bit of the earth's bounty with our fellow creatures. Yes, they do create a more ugly product I suppose if one is looking for perfection.

There are a lot of factors that go into this which is more appropriate to a gardening discussion, such as the opinion that a healthy plant does not attract insects. In my experience, it is true that a healthy plant will not fall prey to fungus and disease as easily as a malnourished plant, but I'm pretty sure insects like to eat the good stuff as much as we do.

I suppose it all has to be put in perspective. When we can see things through the eyes of others, and especially through the eyes of the Savior, there might be a different slant on it than we are used to it. I recently saw a movie with my family where Hiccup tells us, "Everything we think we know is wrong!" Maybe there's some things we don't know that will come to us if we do some pondering and searching. Just as an "ugly" fruit might be sweeter than its more attractive fellows, so might a less attractive person have more to offer.

Well, I think I'm starting to ramble (don't I always?), so I need to move on to the task at hand. What to eat? What to eat? It is no easy task to figure out what the crew here wants to eat day after day, and I'm sure every family struggles with that. I think it might be harder for singles as they have to eat the same thing for 3 or 4 days in a row so that it doesn't go to waste. We don't have too many leftovers, that's for sure.

A lot of our meals are consisting of watermelon and cantaloupe. They are less expensive right now, and we can easily make a meal of them. Contrast that with peaches: my granddaughter eats about 10 of them at a time, but she can only eat about a fourth of a watermelon or half a cantaloupe. So, consequently, I love when the melons are in season. We're still enjoying the berries, and are glad the grapes have finally come in (even though the green ones were still a little tart). We eat about 3 pounds of grapes for a meal, so that can get a little pricy too. Bananas go a long way at our house for stretching the budget. We go through at least a half case (20 lbs) a week not counting those we freeze for smoothies or dehydrate for roll-ups and banana bark. (Boy, I am really in a rambling mood today. Sorry.)

Besides the fruits, we're enjoying lots of smoothies which are nice and cool if anyone has spent lots of time outside. I like to make a milkshake with strawberries I've frozen blended with almond mylk. I think that is my favorite. Whenever I make chocolate recipes, I always clean the chocolate out of the blender by mixing it with almond mylk and some frozen banana for a chocolate shake, but the strawberry is my favorite. I also like mango lassis. Here's a recipe I found in a recipe book that I adapted to the number I like to make: 2 cups almond milk, 1/2 cup agave, 2 cups frozen mango, and 8 teaspoons lemon juice.

I've got a fresh batch of Hawaiian granola coming out of the dehydrator, so we'll enjoy that for a few snacks and meals with almond mylk this week. We also made ball park sunnies (sprouted sunflower seeds dehydrated with garlic, chili powder, and unrefined sea salt) this week which we all enjoy topping our salads. We also made some curried cashews, candied almonds, and candied pecans that will grace our salads this week along with some goji berries and/or raisins. Of course, there's the ever present Ranch dressing we can't live without.

We have tons of good, organic zucchini in the garden right now (we can give you a great deal if you'd like some), so we're going to be having lots of "noodle" meals this week where we shred up the squash and use it as a base for different sauces: marinara, peanut sauce, cheddar cheese, and queso verde. My favorite right now is the queso verde; we make a "green spaghetti" by mixing it into the zucchini and marinated broccoli. We like it with a little marinated mushroom and sliced tomato on the side.

While we've got the marinated broccoli and the cheddar, we'd better make some broccoli cheese soup - Alicia's favorite. Very good with some Alicia crackers. These crackers will also taste good with a little avo mayo (blend together ½ cups water, 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons raw agave or honey, 2 teaspoons sea salt, and 1 ripe Haas avocado) spread on them and topped with sliced tomato and some sprouts. We've also got some fresh pita chips that are good this way (also crumbled up on top of a salad like croutons).

We also love the zucchini chips with Ranch dressing with some carrot sticks. This makes a nice light dinner. Along the same line is celery sticks with honey almond butter. Surprisingly satisfying.

I think that about covers the meals for the week. Desserts will include our new chocolate mousse trifle which is too good for any description I could write, apple crisp, key lime pies, coco bites. We also have some soul dates that helps to satisfy the sweet tooth.

I suppose that's it for now, and I suppose I'll have to go somewhere else to do my rambling. Hoping it's a good week for everyone.

Carbs! We Need Carbs!

This week we are experimenting with another chocolate dessert. It seems like desserts is the thing people miss the most when they change to a healthy diet. Dr. Doug Graham would say this is because we aren't getting enough fruit in our diets. I think it is because we aren't used to the volume of fruit needed to provide our full load of carbs; desserts provide a more concentrated form. As long as we know this, perhaps we can concentrate on eating more fruit until we get more accustomed to what our particular bodies need. Healthy desserts certainly help bridge the gap.


That being said, this is a great time of year to eat more fruit. We try to eat only fruit in the morning and into the afternoon. When we feel like we need something more substantial, we'll go for the salad or main dish entrees. Even having fruit that large part of the day, we still find we need more many days. The human body is designed to be fueled by the simple sugars in fruits. Please read Dr. Graham's work for a better explanation of this.

Back to the new dessert. Historically speaking, one of Darius' friends (Thanks, Steven) critiqued us when we first got started by telling us that we needed more desserts, especially chocolate. At the time, we didn't have any chocolate anything, so we got busy. Every couple of months, we've come up with a new one. First was our chocolate cheesecake, and we've been working on that consistently since we started. Then we came up with our rawky road which is a chocolate coconut confection that reminds me of a mounds bar. We worked on perfecting our chocolate pudding and
chocolate pie after that. We decided to add coconut meat to our avocado mousse, and that did the trick. The chocolate pie is a nice chocolate crust (almonds, coconut, dates, & cacao) covered with sliced banana and topped with the chocolate pudding. I love making vegan desserts. It is a great challenge to make these without any dairy, flour, and eggs, not to mention the fact that they're uncooked.

I've been thinking that we needed something more "cakey", so I've been working on this chocolate mousse cake. The cake part is absolutely just like a cake mix before baking (one of my former pre-vegan favorites), so I am hoping it works up nicely in the dehydrator. The mousse is a no-brainer with cashews and coconut meat much like an ice cream custard before it's frozen. I have big hopes for it!

We also have some chocolate snacks we've worked on; Alicia is better at that than I. I do like the chocolate macaroons, but most people like Alicia's coco bites better. We're also working on a nice chocolate truffle and a date candy filled with chocolate ganache. We'll put them out there when we get them right.

I'll try to take step by step pictures of the mousse cake and post them on facebook. No promises though as I have a hard time remembering to stop and photograph everything when I am "creating".

This week we've got elotes con crema and tomato salsa to make some mega nachos with chili lime corny chips. Also making some yummy Mexican Rice. How about some unfried no-beans?. We're going to make more Mexi-Cali wrappers as these are really good wrapped around some elotes for our alternative tacos. We're also going to use the unfried no-beans to make some cabbage wraps. The wrappers would be good wrapped around the no-beans too.

We're also going to make a green lasagna for next week. We sliced some zucchini thinly long-ways. We topped this with marinated broccoli and queso verde. Then we served some marinated mushrooms and chopped tomato on the side topped with a little crema. It was better than yummy.

Since we've got the marinated broccoli, we're going to have some more broccoli cheese soup. I didn't even get any last time! I'm going to take mine out first this go around!

Hoping everyone has a yummy week. Good food makes the hard times easier to deal with, don't you think? Good, healthy food makes hard times not involve health issues, and that's a great thing!

Faith: Pathway to Success

We had mixed responses from our blog last week about our beloved "juvie". I'm sure some of the readers thought we were out of our mind especially once they smelled the stuff. I don't know how something that stinky makes such a beneficial and (I think) delicious product, but it does.

I've been thinking about how much to read there is out there. I've been wondering how useful it is to write if everyone is too busy or uninterested in reading it. Of course, I find it useful to me as it clarifies my thoughts and mind processes, so if for no other reason, it is a good thing. With that in mind, I write for myself assuming no one is reading. I hope that if someone is reading it, they can realize I am having a rather personal conversation with myself.

This week is graduation at our school, so I am a little insane. It is not that it is so hard; I have been doing this for a lot of years already, and I think I know what I am doing... It is just that I am so concerned that I get everything right; I don't want to mess something up for one of the students on their special day. I want it to be nice for them, and I want them to know how proud I am of their accomplishments. In this day and age, it is so easy for a young person to just hang it up, and many do not have the support of their parents. Anyway, I am a basket case until it is over.

That means this entry will be short and sweet. I am having gratitude for blessings we are receiving when we have a need. We have really needed a cooler of some kind for a while. Presently we use a system of 4 giant coolers (we call them caskets for obvious reasons) for which we must buy a ton of ice every week. It isn't so bad during the winter, but now that the hot weather is upon us, we are really needing to find another solution. Another farmer told us about a restaurant that was being remodeled and maybe selling their cooler, but he could never remember to ask them about it. Then we started looking around at how other people solve this issue. At the Beaver Street Market there was a "Permanent" vendor who had the back of a truck hooked up as a cooler. We thought we might be able to do that if we could find a similar set-up, so we started looking for that. Then we noticed the people with that set-up had moved their location and the cooler was just sitting there. We asked them about it, and they were anxious to sell it, and the market wanted it moved. So we arranged to have it towed down to our property today, and we are hoping it will work for us. It should be adequate in size for a couple of years anyway.

My gratitude comes in how quickly this happened once we put it out there that we needed it. Our prayers were answered so quickly. It made me wonder what I could accomplish if I truly had the faith to ask for more of the things we need. It really is an issue of faith.

There is a history written about a people who were living at the time of the Tower of Babel. They didn't want to have their language confounded, and they wanted to go to a great place when they were scattered, so they prayed that this would happen. Not only did they get what they had prayed for, but they became the greatest civilization on the earth. They were told to build barges to cross the waters to the "promised land". Can you imagine the faith necessary to crawl down into that barge? They were in the water for 344 days! I'm not sure I would have made it 34 days! I'd have been pretty sure I was going to die after a couple hours of being sea sick. I realized why it was said of them that never had a man had the faith that their prophet did. We can truly accomplish great things if we will have faith that our Father in Heaven is listening to us and desires to bless our lives. I'm beginning to realize that any success we hope to have must be preceded by faith. "I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith" (Ether 12:6).

We did get some food prepared this week especially the items we keep in rotation like our breads and cheese. We also have a few desserts:

pumpkin pie (carrot, cashews, maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a date/almond crust)

rawky road (a base of pecans and walnuts, raisins, and coconut mixed with a yummy chocolate sauce, topped with a coconut "icing")

key lime pie (avocado, limes (their juice and zest), and agave nectar in a date/almond crust)

a few coconut cream pies (chocolate almond crust with a layer of banana topped with coconut cream: meat from 2 thai coconuts, agave nectar, and vanilla blended well and mixed with shredded dry coconut)

and a few Chocolate cheesecakes (cashew cheese, agave nectar, cacao butter, coconut oil, and vanilla over a pecan/raisin crust topped with chocolate ganache (raw cacao powder, cacao butter, and agave nectar).

Our meals this week consist of "pad thai" which is peanut sauce (almond butter mixed with ginger, lemon juice, maple syrup, nama shoyu, and garlic) atop shredded zucchini. We've also got elotes con crema (picante mayo mixed with fresh corn) to have in avocados and served with ensalada. We've also got corny chips (sprouted buckwheat, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds, flax, zucchini and tomatoes, lots of nice Mexican seasonings) and tomato salsa so we can have some great nachos. We're having cauliflower soup tonight with what looks like the last of the local cauliflower; Alicia made mashed no-taters served with marinated mushrooms. I didn't get any, but it sounded yummy. We've got everyday bread and pita chips to have with an assortment of toppings (mostly sliced tomatoes) and queso verde. We also have some queso dulce to have with celery sticks and apple slices. Of course we're having lots of fabulous salads with Ranch dressing (cashew cheese, lemon juice, cilantro, dill, basil, yummmm). Life is good...

Put Some Life in Your Drink

This week I'm writing about something close to my heart although it is an unlikely love affair for most people: fermented foods. Much has been said about this, but it still remains a mystery to most people. Many are even repulsed by the idea, but I rarely see them reject common fermented foods. The food industry has done a good job of making sure the public doesn't think of these foods in that way: beer, wine, vinegar, sauerkraut, dill pickles, sour cream, buttermilk, cottage cheese, cheese, soy sauce, miso, sourdough bread, chocolate, and yogurt. There are, in fact, whole recipe sections dedicated to fermented foods in ethnic cookbooks as this is a common food in many cuisines.

Besides adding a layer of flavor to our diet, fermented foods are very important to our digestion. According to Sandor Katz in his book Wild Fermentation:

Fermentation is everywhere, always. It is an everyday miracle, the path of least resistance. Microscopic bacteria and fungi (encompassing yeasts and molds) are in every breath we take and every bite we eat. Try--as many do--to eradicate them with antibacterial soaps, antifungal creams, and antibiotic drugs, there is no escaping them. They are ubiquitous agents of transformation, feasting upon decaying matter, constantly shifting dynamic life forces from one miraculous and horrible creation to the next.

Microbial cultures are essential to life's processes, such as digestion and immunity. We humans are in symbiotic relationship with these single-cell life-forms. Microflora, as they are often called, digest food into nutrients our bodies can absorb, protect us from potentially dangerous organisms, and teach our immune systems how to function. Not only are we dependent upon microorganisms, we are their descendents: According to the fossil record, all forms of life on Earth spring from bacterial origins. Microorganisms are our ancestors and our allies. They keep the soil fertile and comprise an indispensable part of the cycle of life. Without them, there could be no other life.

(As an aside, an anti-evolutionist might be tempted to ignore the part about being descended from microorganisms until we remember that the Bible clearly states our origin as being from the ground.)

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7)

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return Genesis 3:19)

Anyway...if we accept that fermentation is an important part of life (and death as it were), we have to wonder why it is not a more prevalent part of our western culture (no pun intended). I would like to suggest it is another of the lost arts in our society, and indeed, we are less because of it.

I first became acquainted with fermentation when I learned that bread could be made without purchasing yeast. Grains could be fermented and the living organisms would multiply and cause the bread to rise. When the bread had reached its pinacle, it would be baked to halt the growth. A sour taste would result for which San Francisco bread makers are famous.

I learned that vegetables could be preserved by fermentation, and my first dill pickles and sauerkraut were born. I learned to take this a step farther when I began gardening and learned that soil is formed the same way: microorganisms break down organic matter to make it. I've been saving my vegetable scraps and making "compost" ever since. I even save other people's garbage hating to see that wonderful "black gold" going to waste in the garbage dump instead of being reconstructed in its rightful place in the garden.

Since learning about the living foods diet, fermentation and composting make even more sense and are even a more integral part of my daily diet and life. I do this with fermented vegetables, but mostly with a substance called rejuvelac. We fondly call it "Juvie" because of its renegade nature.


Rejuvelac is made from sprouted grain. Once sprouted, the grain is placed in a glass or ceramic vessel and mixed with water and allowed to ferment for a couple of days. Once fermented sufficiently, it is strained and the berries can be composted. The liquid is refrigerated and will last quite a while in the fridge (but I recommend you use it up!). I start a new batch sprouting when one batch is added to water and keep the cycle going that way. It is easy to remember it if you do something with it every day. I actually always have grain either soaking or sprouting, and sprouted grains fermenting, and a batch of rejuvelac at all times. Those are the three stages.

What to do with it? First of all, it is a nutritious beverage in its own right. It tastes like an unsweetened lemonade. Dr. Ann Wigmore who is said to have invented rejuvelac says this about it:

Rejuvelac is a slightly fermented wheatberry drink that is one of the most important items in the living foods lifestyle....[It] plays a vital role in restoring health....Rejuvelac contains all the nutritional nourishment of wheat and is more easily digested. It contains the friendly bacteria that are necessary for a healthy colon and to remove toxins. It is also filled with B complex vitamins and vitamins C and E.

In her book Hippocrates Live Food Program, Dr. Ann quotes food chemist Harvey Lisle, who did extensive research on Rejuvelac's contents,

Rejuvelac is rich in proteins, carbohydrates, dextrines, phosphates, saccharins, lactobacilli and aspergillis oryzae. Amylases are enzymes derived from aspergillis oryzae which have the faculty of breaking down large molecules of glucose, starch and glycogens.

(Actually Dr. Wigmore didn't invent rejuvelac; it has been around for centuries. She certainly is responsible for rediscovering it and giving it to the living foods movement.)

We also make what we call "hard lemonade" from it. We mix 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup of agave nectar (or sweetener of your choice) in a quart jar. Then we add rejuvelac as part or all of the liquid to fill the jar. The amount of rejuvelac you add depends on how "hard" you want your lemonade to be. I enjoy it full strength, but the wimps at my house perfer to cut it some with regular water.

I use rejuvelac mostly as a fermentation for nuts and seeds. Once combined with rejuvelac, the proteins and carbohydrates break down and become much more digestible. They also happen to make a delightful and useful living foods cheese.

Hopefully I've inspired someone to make this wonderful concoction. First you'll need some grain, any grain that is still sproutable will do. I use the same organic hard red wheat used to grow our wheatgrass, but many like rye or soft wheat better. Place one cup of it in a jar large enough to allow expansion and fill it with water. It must soak for 10 - 12 hours (overnight). Drain and rinse well. Grains are known to have molds on their seedcoats, so it would behoove us to rinse them well. Once rinsed and drained, sprout as you would any other sprout. Some use sprout bags, others a mason jar with cheesecloth on the lid to allow for drainage. I have a "sprouting cup" that has holes in the bottom and sits atop its sister cup to allow for drainage.

I really can't keep track of how long it sprouts (maybe 2 days?). I spray it a couple of times a day, and when the tails are about 3/16 of an inch long, I dump it into a gallon jar. This is filled with water, and I stir the sprouts well to distribute them. Each day I shake the jar. When the water becomes slightly cloudy (2 - 4 days), we check it to see if it's "done" meaning it has a nice lemony flavor. It smells stinky, but tastes like unsweetened lemonade. I then pour it into another gallon jar lined with a nut milk bag to catch the finished sprouts. These can then be composted; some say you can use them again, but I don't like to do that. I worry about other unwelcome organisms being introduced. The finished rejuvelac is then refrigerated where it will rest comfortably before being placed in your nice warm belly where it will work its magic.

Once you start keeping rejuvelac on hand, you'll love having it. You won't want to be without it. It is quite the fad nowadays to take enzymes and probiotics in an expensive pill form, but I believe this is a viable alternative that is a useful food to boot. Viva la verde!

Facing Ourselves

I'm not sure what we ate last week, but it wasn't what was on our list! I know we had some beautiful salads a couple of days, and I think I've eaten a whole case of cantaloupe myself this week. Man, I can't believe how good it is right now. I wouldn't normally think it would be this time of year. I will usually eat melon as a mono-meal (only one food on the plate) anyway, but this week it has been my staple for many of my meals.

My brother asked me to make him some cashew cream cheese, so I did that on Monday. I make it a lot, but I usually mix it with raisins for queso dulce. I made it by itself as per his request, and I thought, hey, this would taste good on cucumber slices, so I've eaten that at least twice this week. (Make that three times; writing about it here made me hungry for a batch. Plus I needed a picture. Yeah, that's the ticket. I needed a picture!) One day Darius joined me, and we sliced up mini-plum tomatoes and olives to go with it. It was extremely satisfying and filling. Now when I think about it, cucumbers are related to melons, so there must be something in the melon family I'm really needing.

I think that is the extent of my meals last week, so it's not all that exciting, but my body is loving the simplicity of it. (Of course, I had my morning juice too as per Roger's tender loving care.) Oh, yeah, one night when I was eating melon, the fam had a green spaghetti with shredded zucchini and collards mixed with queso verde. They sliced some tomatoes into it, and it looked like a real feast. Who says eating veggies can't be satisfying?

I guess that means I'll have to move last week's menu items over to this week! Sorry about that. We'll be enjoying some Mexican meals with Elote con crema (corn in a spicy cashew cheese based mayo) and unfried no beans (sprouted sunflower seeds creamed with tomatoes and seasonings). Of course we'll make up tomato salsa and guacamole and crema to go with them. We like the elote stuffed in avocado atop ensalada. We'll probably roll the no beans up in some Mexi-Cali wrappers and make some arroz Mexicano to go with that.

Marinara is definitely on the menu this week. We never got to the Leaning Towers last week; maybe it's too complicated when we're into the work week. Maybe we'll just go with some shredded zucchini topped with marinara and some marinated mushrooms. Hmm. Those mushrooms are pretty good mixed with the zucchini and just about anything else. Think we'll have it with some cashew cheddar too.

Since we've got the cheddar, and we've got some marinated broccoli, we'd be crazy not to make Alicia's favorite meal: broccoli cheddar soup. If there's any salsa left, we can make some taco soup too. That's Darius' favorite.

That's about the whole week except for the desserts. This week we're gonna make some apple crisp because I've been craving it. That is my favorite dessert of all time even from before we were vegan. We also will have some pumpkin pie, and we ran out of key lime pies last week, so we'll make that again. We've started making them in that nice snack size (thanks again, Elizabeth for suggesting that), and they're just the right touch when we want a treat. Yolanda has already asked for cheesecake for next week, so we'll have that to look forward to.

For snacks we'll have some queso dulce around to dip apples and celery into. There's the ever-present honey almond butter for dipping as well. Queso verde and cashew cream cheese will both be great for cucumber dips. We actually use these dips with veggies and/or fruit for our evening light meal. We've got some great fruit which makes great breakfast fodder, but we love it throughout the day and for our evening mono-meal many days, so we're always glad to see the seasons when more fruits are available. We'll probably be having more smoothies for dinner this week too.

How about you? What's your favorite meal this week? I'd love to know what vegan meals you're eating this week. Many of our customers aren't 100% vegan, but they love the feeling they get from eating a couple of vegetable meals during the week, and that's a great thing. I've thought about this alot since I've been working at the market and exposed to so many different ways of looking at this. I know what works for me, and I love the unprecedented level of health that I enjoy now. While there are times when it is difficult, I cannot deny how much better I feel and how much energy I have.

Having struggled with bad health much of my childhood, it is a real treat NOT to be sick all the time. My health was better after I moved away from home, and we discovered I was sick so much because I was allergic to the cats we always had while living there. While not ill as much once I was an adult, I still suffered from obesity all of my teen years and especially after I started having children. Losing these 100 pounds + since being a raw vegan has been one of the most wonderful things I have ever done for myself - it gave me my life back. Eating the SAD (standard American diet) is NOT an option for me ever again. It destroys me in many different ways (just as all addictions do their victims). While I will always be an addict, I know I need to live my 12 steps and stay out of that pool of disaster.

Some people find it odd to think one can be an addict to food. It was Victoria Boutenko's 12 Steps to Raw Foods that really helped me understand why. I bought it originally because I thought it would be a 12 step program companion, but instead it really helped me understand why I couldn't stop eating foods I knew to be harmful to me. It was very easy to relate to them as having the same effect on me that alcohol would have on an alcoholic and drugs to a user. If there was a chemical effect taking place when these foods were eaten that solicited an emotional response, then of course I'd be hooked. Well, opiates tend to have that effect, so I no longer was surprised that I felt addicted to the foods that contain them. Then the struggle came to "beat" the addiction.

For me, the AA 12 steps help me do that. I have to ask God, my higher power of choice, to help me each day. I have to recognize that this addiction is bigger than me (no small thing when one weighs almost 300 pounds). Well, here's the 12 steps. I hope they can help someone else as they have me. I could write a whole book about each one of these steps and how it changed my life to implement them.

1. I admitted I was powerless over unhealthy foods — that my life had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than myself (God) could restore me to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God (as I
understood Him).
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
5. Admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature
of my wrongs.
6. Was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons I had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when I was wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with
God, as I understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, I tried to
carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all my
affairs.

Note the motto: "To thine own self be true." That's really the crux of it for me. I spent so much time lying to myself about what I'm doing that I can't see the truth. That scripture in Jonah really hit me: “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8). I could not be the recipient of all the wonderful things the Lord had in store for me if I could not fact the truth about what I was doing. It is a very humbling experience...

What's Swallowing You?

Well, I was thinking I would have a little more time this week, but I think with graduation coming up soon, I'm not going to have much free time until that is done. That is true every year, but it still kicks me in the butt every year.

At the market last week, one of our friends that we haven't seen for a while came by our booth. When I asked her how she was doing, she admitted that her health challenges were getting the best of her. When I asked her how her diet was doing, she said it was not going well, and she was sure that if she could eat better, her health problems would improve. As we talked about why she doesn't eat better, she recognized that addiction to the SAD (standard American diet) was seriously holding her back.

I am constantly amazed at how great a part addiction plays in holding us back from fulfilling our potential here on earth. We see in every area of life. There is more to this than we like to admit.

I had been thinking a lot about addiction as I wrote last week, and Sunday at Church, one of the speakers was talking about people in the Bible who had trials they successfully got through including Abraham with Isaac, Moses in leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, etc. Then he mentioned Jonah, and he asked, "How many of us have whales in our life that are holding onto us until we are ready to fulfill our life's mission?" I had thought about Jonah before and how many corollaries there were to my own life, but that question had me thinking about it again. I cut and pasted the chapters out of the Old Testament, and then I made a chart showing the comparisons. I couldn't believe how much these chapters related to addiction.

I assume everyone has access to an Old Testament, so I won't reprint those scriptures here, but I'll be glad to send them to anyone who does need them if you e-mail me and ask for them. It would definately help you to have them close at hand as you think of these comparisons so that you know where I came up with this.

Here are the points I extracted from Jonah:

1. Jonah was asked to serve a mission.
2. He ignores the request (tries to hide).
3. The Lord allows the tempest to upset his journey.
4. Others suffer also when Jonah is being chastened.
5. The Lord lets others know the source of their problems was Jonah.
6. Jonah offers to be the martyr; it is easier to be a martyr than to do what he’s supposed to do.
7. Jonah helped others turn to the Lord as they recognize the Lord's power through the seriousness of Jonah’s consequence.
8. The Lord prepared a fish to hold Jonah until he repented. Note that time was a factor; if Jonah waited too long, would the fish's digestive juices kick in?
9. He recognizes that he would not be in this situation if he had listened and obeyed in the first place; recognizes that his relationship with the Lord is threatened.
10. He remembered covenants he has made.
11. “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”
12. He recognized that he had forfeited a portion that he would never get back, but he was willing to turn to God to get what he could.
13. Commits to turn to God no matter how painful the envisioned consequences are.
14. The Lord delivers Jonah from the belly of the fish.
15. The Lord repeats His request to have Jonah serve his mission.
16. His journey to Ninevah was not an easy one even though he was doing what he was supposed to do.
17. Jonah gives the Lord’s message; people listen and are preserved.
18. Jonah is angry because the people received this blessing.
19. The Lord shows Jonah that the people of Ninevah were at least as deserving as the gourd plant.

I know that we each have a great work to do on this earth. There are many others depending on us as well. We can allow our addictions to keep us from being productive, or we can overcome them. I believe that the Lord is an important part in overcoming addiction as He would never leave us without the tools we need to do the things He wants us to do.

One of the reasons the 12 step program (A.A. for example) is successful is because it teaches the addict that he must recognize there is a power greater than himself who will help him if he will be humble enough to ask. Our pride is what keeps us from asking for that help.

I'm praying for that help on my journey, and I pray that we as a human race can recognize these addictions for what they are. Our lives are too short to waste them in this way.

A couple of weeks ago, there was someone on a talk show who said scientists have learned that high fat, high sugar foods are addictive because they elicit a positive emotional response (due to release of dopamine).

Here's the definition according to wikipedia.com: "An addiction is a persistent behavioral pattern marked by physical and/or psychological dependency that causes significant disruption and negatively impacts the quality of life of an organism."

Do foods in the SAD diet fit that criteria? In my opinion, absolutely, at least in my life they have. Unfortunately, just knowing this is not going to change anything. We will take the knowledge unused to our grave if we do not make the changes that must be made. We must have the courage as Jonah did to make the break, and do what we perceive to be incredibly difficult. It may even seem impossible, but of course, intellectually we know it is not.

This week we're excited to have so many wonderful organic fresh fruits and vegetables to eat each day. Spring is such a wonderful time of year!

Breakfast: cucumber juice, green drink (cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, greens), still some grapefruit/orange juice, green smoothies (rejuvelac, frozen bananas, greens).


2nd breakfast: fruit

We try to eat fruit each day until we feel the need for something more substantial. Sometimes we have a whole day of just eating fruit. Other days (and Hippocrates Health Institute recommends this be a once a week habit) we only drink juices and coconut water for the whole day. (Here's a fun thought: for the juice day, they recommend one also abstains from talking. It is amazing how that changes the dynamic in your day.)

Our main meal of the day is around 2:00. This is usually a large salad or some other vegetable based main dish. Here's what I'm thinking for this week:

Chili con crema (We mix marinara with some mushrooms, corn, chopped tomatoes, and sweet pepper along with organic chili powder. Then we top it with cashew cheese sour cream (We call it crema.))

Hopefully there will be some leftovers as we love it tossed with some shredded zucchini for another meal. We call it chili mac.

Save some of the marinara as a base for some Leaning Towers. We put a little marinara on the plate. We have some nice spinach or basil leaves as the base. Then we thinly slice some rounds of zucchini. Put a dab of nut-based cheese on top of the zucchini slices (queso verde, crema, etc.). Then put some nice slices of tomato on top of that. Olives are a nice addition, and then a little more marinara. It is really simple meal, but very satisfying. If you've got some dehydrated alfredo around, it makes a nice parmesan if you'd like to sprinkle that on top. yum yum

While broccoli is still in season, we're going to have a little broccoli cheese soup. We either use marinated broccoli or regular broccoli (depending on how spicy you like it) mixed with cashew cheese cheddar. Nice with some Alicia crackers.


Collard wraps are great as we still have a ton of collards. They are still tender and delicious and easy to roll into wraps or burritos. This week, I think we'll spread some queso dulce on them (this is a cashew cream cheese mixed with raisins). Then we'll top it with shredded carrot. Roll. Couldn't be easier. Some of us like to dip this in mock peanut sauce (honey almond butter diluted with water, mixed with some lemon juice, ginger, nama shoyu, and a dash of cayenne or jalopeno pepper), but some of us like them without any dipping sauce.

With all those collards, maybe some burritos would be nice too. We'll just spread some unfried no beans on the collard leaf and roll it with some avocado, chopped tomato, and some of those wonderful hotshotz sweet onions shreds. We'll probably have some tomato salsa for those who want to dip them in something.

Well, that's 6 meals, and I'm sure we'll want to have a huge i Viva La Verde salad ! at least once this week (greens, shredded carrot, minced celery, cilantro, sunnies, dulse, raisins; ranch dressing).


Desserts this week (all plant based, no dairy or animal protein): rawky road, key lime pies, chocolate macaroons, apple crisp.

Our night meal if we have one is usually something light: apple slices and/or celery sticks with honey almond butter; carrot sticks and/or celery sticks and/or cucumber spears with ranch dressing or hummus; cucumbers with olive tapenade or sprouted garbanzo bean hummus; bowl of Hawaiian granola with almond mylk, a nice mylk shake (non-dairy of course!), or just some nice fruit eaten out of hand.

We had a delicious strawberry mylk shake with the last of the organic Florida strawberries last week: almond mylk and coconut ice cream blended with strawberries and a little rejuvelac to get it moving along with a quart of frozen bananas. Life if good!