I LOVE my Jack’s Dehydrator! It’s still going strong making the best Essene breads ever. What can I say? It’s been a workhorse.  You do need to keep an eye on the bottom drawer because things can heat up down there and get brown spots, rendering it “cooked” more than raw. However, as I mentioned when I first wrote about the dehydrator, temperature control can be achieved  by pulling out the drawers; and of course, always run your Jack’s in a room with good air circulation.

Jack’s is made entirely of aluminum and has mesh, stainless steel screens. For those of us, like myself, that aren’t crazy about foods in plastic or aluminum, parchment paper is an excellent choice to use with it. Most of the things I make are done on parchment paper. I also use the stainless steel screens they provide when drying whole food slices on the trays.

Jack’s with parchment baking paper makes excellent raw cuisine, EXCELLENT. So if you are making breads, pizza, rolls, etc, you can’t go wrong and the food comes out perfect in my experience! Hope this was helpful.

It’s supposed to be the big whoop for dehydrated raw crackers that are gluten free. Gluten doesn’t make me feel great, but I feel a heck of a lot better on sprouted Kamut or even sprouted buckwheat. I also do the unthinkable with my sprouted Kamut, I grind it up with yeast and salt, let it rise and then dehydrate into raw loaves or crackers For shame, right?  I love it this way the best since the yeast makes the Kamut crackers more light and airy once they are dried out.

Now, tomorrow I am going to try the following, which will not include yeast as an experiment:  sprouted Kamut berries, sprouted buckwheat groats, sprouted sunflower seeds, poppy seed and a little salt for a new kind of raw cracker!   If that turns out good I will think about making an onion version this week, yum.

Raw, as I have said here before, will most certainly get you up to the vegetable and fruit requirements you NEED to lose weight. I was eating them before, but not like now! Not to mention the fact that I do not have the same digestive issues with the “raw” diet as I did vegetables in the cooked diet. Is that weird? I guess not because none of my protein comes from bean sources; you can’t eat beans or soy raw!  And honestly? I feel much better without beans and soy (which has been replaced with mostly hemp seed and kefir). I am not 100% vegan raw, although most days I am 100% raw since I do consider kefir raw because of its probiotic content.

I have also been drinking coffee and alcohol. lol. The dirty little secret of “raw” was how quickly I recovered the next day from a night of martini drinking festivities. teee-heee.  Raw fruits and vegetables are so refreshing!! I always crave GREASE the day of a hangover, like pizza. My hangovers last all day. Not this time! I did not give into getting a slice of pizza to make myself feel better I had a fresh fruit smoothie and essene bread. It sure made me feel better! lol!

Busy now coming up with a list of foods that seem to taste good raw and in raw recipes for the dehydrator and salads……..

There’s got to be a way to manage this with diet and exercise, I just haven’t hit the right combo yet, so my next step is going raw. I hear all of these great things from the raw foodies on how incredible raw makes you feel. Sure, that’s all anecdotal and everything, but some of these folks have lived through chronic fatigue to find that raw, while no miracle cure, improved their quality of life.  I don’t believe in miracle cures and snake oils, so I’m going into this thing with a very experimental attitude. 

One thing I want to cut out of my life is soy. I usually consume lots of this because I love the phytoestrogens. But I can get those from herbs and teas. I don’t need soy. I’ve noticed a slight increase in energy from time to time when I skip the soy… even though the hot flashes are more intense. lol.

Here’s a preliminary list of foods for starting out raw, feel free to make suggestions!

raw hemp seed and hemp seed oil –  this will replace soy and a foundational protein in my diet

kefir – not vegan, but alive nonetheless.  Good calcium and B/12 support

sprouted kamut essene bread — kamut is an ancient grain related to semolina wheat. it’s less taxing on gluten sensitivities.

raw cashew milk  –  this totally kicks butt.

5 or more servings of raw fruit and vegetables/salad  – self explanatory

I’m going to stick at 900 calories a day to start with. I think it’s a good start for a raw beginner.  I’m really excited to get back into making essene bread and shunning all commercial breads and non-sprouted grains!

First off, there are a lot of raw food sites online. There are a lot of raw food sites that make a lot of spurious and kooky claims and there are raw food sites that focus on the rational part which is nutrition and weight management using raw foods.

I decided to look around for “raw food retreats” — a kind of vacation I’d love to go on. I won’t mention any names here, but while some of these places are basically nice health spas, a couple seemed sort of downright dangerous with their kooky claims — one place even claimed that if you have a severe mental illness, they can get you on a raw food diet and you can quit taking your medications.  Seriously. That’s like claiming they can cure “cancer,” but I guess they figure that they are more likely to get into trouble for making claims like that than targeting the mentally ill.

But today, we’re going to look at some raw food sites that have great recipes, and a rational outlook. Please don’t throw your medications for any illness away without talking to your doctor first. Raw food diets, while really good nutritionally and in weight management, are not a cure for cancer, mental illness or anything else.

Now, on with the sites we love!

First:   Here is the Wikipedia link that explains some of the pros, cons and definitions of raw foodism

& some links with recipes:

http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/

http://goneraw.com/

http://www.rawguru.com/raw-food-recipes.html