Greek Artichoke and Zucchini salad

I'm very fond of Greek and Italian foods but heavy pasta's and carbo's make me crazy. This salad is light and yummy and can be customized in many ways. I'm giving you the recipe for the vegetarian version, but I love it with grilled tuna too.

Ingredients:

• 1 can artichoke hearts, quartered
• 1 can black or green olives, sliced
• 5-7 pepperoncini peppers, sliced
• 2 small zucchini's, quartered lengthwise and sliced thinly
• 1 small onion, peeled, quartered and sliced thinly
• Farmer Boy Restaurant Greek dressing, to taste (2 TBS. = 3 grams carbohydrate)

Throw all the ingredients (but the dressing) into a bowl and mix well. Add a bit of the dressing and mix, then taste. Add a bit more if you need it. You can vastly improve this salad by grilling sushi grade tuna or organic chicken and adding it to the mix. Grilled shrimp would also be yummy.

Serve with toasted pita wedges as an appetizer or as a sandwich stuffing or wrap. It also goes well into endive leaves if you don't want the bread.

This salad keeps for a couple days in the fridge. Expect the zucchini to give up a bit of liquid overnight, so you might want to drain it a bit and add more dressing the next day (if it lasts that long).

Spicy Lemon Hummus

Hummus is a really easy, really yummy treat. I won't be eating too much of it once I go mostly raw, but for my bowel pre-cleanse it will be O.K.

Ingredients:

• 2 15.5 oz. cans garbanzo beans
• 1/4th - 1/2 C. organic cold pressed olive oil
• 1/8th - 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/8th tsp. Mrs. Dash mesquite seasoning
• 3 lemons juiced
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/8th - 1/4th tsp. hot pepper flakes
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• distilled water

Empty all of the ingredients into a food processor except the water. Run the processor and carefully pour a little water into it until it has the consistency that you like. Be careful, runny hummus is not so nice. You can add a little more oil if you like it too. I usually run the machine for a minute or two so I know that the hummus is nice and creamy. Taste and adjust the seasonings if you want to.


This recipe is nice because it fits perfectly into a 32 oz. plastic container. Hummus is good in the fridge for up to a week. I serve this up with grilled whole wheat pita bread wedges and organic carrots and celery. Happy munching!

Rawvenge bowel cleanse - Day One

So, here is the first day of my bowel cleanse in great detail.

For these first 3 days I cannot have any dairy products, fried foods, sugar, iodized table salt, or meat. All of these items clog, congest, slow and depress the elimination process.

Breakfast

• 2 blood stabilizer pills, 1 policosanol and 1 chromium picolinate pill taken with freshly juiced fruits and veggies (about 2-3 oz. thinned with distilled water). I use the extra 64 fl. oz. that I'm supposed to be drinking to make this drink.
• 2 egg omelet with 1/2 sauteed onion and 1/2 organic avocado sliced.

I threw the salt in the picture because I wanted to show what brand I use. This is a really tasty sea salt that I get at my local health food store and have been using for years now. Rock and sea salts have lots of trace minerals and are good for you in reasonable amounts. Yes, I salted my omelet just a little. I also burnt it a little...oops. It was yummy anyway.

I set my timer for 3 hours. I'll be making my lunch then and taking 2 more blood stabilizer pills.


Lunch

• 1 apple, (organic granny smith) peeled.
• 2 pita breads, grilled and cut into wedges.
• 1 C. spicy lemon hummus.
• 2 blood stabilizer pills and 1 policosanol pill taken right before I eat.

Note my trusty feline helpers lurking in the background of the photo above. Too bad Miss Chloe and Mr. Snicker can't run the juicer. I could use a sous chef.

Timer set for 3 hours. I'll be having dinner then and gearing up for my first toxin absorber.


Dinner:

• 1 and 1/2 C. Greek artichoke and zucchini salad.
• 1 pita bread
• 1 digestive stimulator pill taken right before I eat.
  

Timer set for 2 hours. I'll be juicing apples for my first toxin absorber then.

O.K., here's my opinion of my first toxin absorber. A trifle too gritty and it swelled up like a sponge in my stomach especially after the extra 16 oz. of water. Very bloating, but the feeling dissipated in about a half an hour so it was alright. I can already tell that the 5 days juice fasting will be very intense.

The first day in now done and I'm going to bed.

Bowel Cleanse - General overview

Ahhhh, the rawvenge is REALLY on now. Today is the first day of my bowel cleanse. So, for the next 9 days I will be blogging every day to cover everything that I am doing and going through, complete with appropriate pictures. Yes, pictures of the mucoid plaque that may exit my body as well. Yes, it will be yucky. You have been warned....

The following is a general overview of what I will be doing each day of my bowel cleanse.

Day 1

• Eat 3/4th of what I normally eat.
• Take my blood stabilizer pills.
• Take 1 digestive stimulator before dinner.
• Take 1 toxin absorber at least 2 hours after dinner and 1 hour before bed.
• Drink additional 64 fl. oz. of water throughout day.

Day 2

• Eat 1/2 of what I normally eat.
• Take my blood stabilizer pills.
  
• Take 1 or more digestive stimulator pills before dinner (depending on how well my bowel movements go today. I must have 2-3 movements or I add 1 more digestive pill).
  
• Take 1 toxin absorber at least 2 hours after dinner and 1 hour before bed.
• Drink additional 64 fl. oz. of water throughout day.

Day 3

• Eat 1/4th of what I normally eat.
• Take my blood stabilizer pills.Ttake 1 or more digestive stimulator pills before dinner (depending on how well my bowel movements go today. I must have 2-3 movements or I add 1 more digestive pill).
  
• Take 1 toxin absorber at least 2 hours after dinner and 1 hour before bed.
• Drink additional 64 fl. oz. of water throughout day.

Day 4-8 The Main cleanse

This is the 5 day juice fast. Each of these days will be the same.

• Upon waking, juice 4-5 organic apples (8 fl. oz.) and combine with 1 packet of toxin absorber. Drink immediately and follow with 16 fl. oz. of distilled water.
  
• Set timer for 3 hours later. Repeat above.
• Set timer for 3 hours later. Repeat above.
• Set timer for 3 hours later. Repeat above.
• Set timer for 3 hours later. Repeat above.
• 2 hours after last toxin absorber, take my number of digestive stimulators.
• Drink additional 64 fl. oz. of water throughout day.
• Can have more juice or vegtable broth during day if I'm hungry or thirsty.
  
• 2 hours after each toxin absorber take 1 blood stabilizer.
  
• Go to bed

Day 9

• Gently reintroduce myself to food. 1 apple for breakfast. Take blood stabilizers.
  
• Small salad for lunch.
• Small bit of fish and steamed veggies for dinner.
• Drink additional 64 fl. oz. of water throughout day.

After the main cleanse is done, continue to take the rest of the digestive stimulators and toxin absorbers until they are all gone (the digestive pills before dinner and the toxin absorber before bed).

There you have it, the overview of what I will be doing for the next 9 days.

Tutorial: How to cap your own herbal pills

Today I'm going to show you how to cap your own herbal pills. I decided to do this because of the very good cost savings and because I'm a do-it-yourself control freak. It's a bit fussy and took several hours, mostly because I had to 'grind to a powder' one of the ingredients (Bitter Melon, in the photo above) before I could pill everything up.

My coffee grinder was not exactly up to the task. It ground up the Bitter Melon well enough but got overheated and pooped out before I could do it all. I got enough to do my blend though...

First, buy your herbs! The photo above is dried Bitter Melon. I use the wonderful Internet site Mountain Rose Herbs. They've been in business since 1987 and have a large selection of loose herbs, teas, oils, tinctures, extracts, spices, and hydrosols, as well as containers, tools and utensils and assorted other yummies. Their prices are very competitive and the web site is a breeze to use.

The vast majority of their herbs are either organic or wildcrafted and are of a very high quality. My sister and her husband have been using them for years and are very pleased with their service. I got my first shipment from them several days ago and am very happy with my purchase.

I decided to make a herbal concoction to help me balance my blood sugar and curb my food cravings. My research led me to a combination of herbs and trace minerals that I hope will do the trick for me.

Here's the list of ingredients:

Banaba leaf extract 

Fenugreek
Gymnema Sylvestre 

Bitter Melon
Cinnamon

I take these two separately. They're not going into my blend but they're a part of my daily blood stabilizer combination.

Chromium Picolinate 

Policosanol


Next, the recipe!

Based on some of the herbal concoctions I have been researching, I came up with this proportionate recipe for the herbs I intend to cap. I bought both the Chromium Picolinate and the Policosanol at my local Health food store already capped. Both of these require very small amounts to be consumed every day and I couldn't cap them accurately myself.

• 1 part Banaba leaf 
  
• 5 parts Gymnema
• 5 parts Cinnamon
• 5 parts Fenugreek
• 10 parts Bitter Melon

26 parts total in each pill and to make up my batch. I decided to use 1 quarter cup as my 1 part measure.


I decided to use size "0" vegetarian capsules (again from Mountain Rose Herbs) which hold approximately 680 mgs of material. Using this number as the basis of my math, I figured that if I have a total of 26 parts of herbs in my concoction, that each part will weigh 26.15 mgs (26 divided into 680 mgs)

This means that in each pill there will be:

• 26.15 mgs of Banaba Leaf Extract........25.3 grams per 1/4th cup
• 130.75 mgs of Gymnema Sylvestre.......24.9 grams per 1/4th cup
• 130.75 mgs of Cinnamon...................24.3 grams per 1/4th cup
• 130.75 mgs of Fenugreek...................26.9 grams per 1/4th cup
• 261.5 mgs of Bitter Melon..................18.8 grams per 1/4th cup

These amounts are approximate, but reasonably accurate.

I also weighed each herb as I measured it out by the quarter cup. The weights are also listed above.

My annoying little coffee grinder and the bag of powdered Bitter Melon. 

Weighing the herbs. I'm lucky enough to have a very nice scale that weighs in grams, so this part was easy. Accurate weights are important if you need to be careful with your proportions. For this blend it's not essential, but I like to keep track of what I did in detail.

My Bitter Melon is done, so now it's on to assembling my blend of herbs. As you can see, I have my scale, a notebook for recording all the weights and stuff, measuring cups, the herbs and my trusty cup of coffee which will soon be off limits. Boo-hoo....

I used a 2 lb. sugar container to hold my herbal blend and it fit very well. Full to the brim, in fact. I spent a few minutes shaking the container to mix all the herbs well. I also wrote the recipe of the herb blend on a post-it and taped it to the container. So, when I need to remake it, I won't have to go dig up the recipe. The total amounts of each herb in my blend was as follows;

• 1/4th C. Banaba Leaf
• 1 1/4th C. Gymnema Sylvestre
• 1 1/4th C.Cinnamon
• 1 1/4th C.Fenugreek
• 2 1/2 C. Biller Melon
  

6 and 1/2 cups total.

I didn't compute the amounts correctly on the label and had to change it later, so the amounts listed in the photograph are wrong. I did catch my mistake though. The amounts listed above are correct.

Time to cap the pills!

The assembly of the Cap-M-quik tray was beyond simple. You just put the little end pieces on the outer pegs, turn the higher side towards the inside of the tray and lower the holder piece with all the holes in it onto the 4 inner pegs.

Following the instructions on the back of the Cap-M-quik box, I pulled each cap apart and put the longer one into each of the holes in the tray. 50 holes in all. I put the short end in a little bowl for safe keeping.

Then I took about 1/4 cup of my herb mixture and spread it across the top of the tray. I used the little card scraper to move the herbs into all the little holes. There's no need to use any force to cram the herb in, it drops in nicely.

This is what happens when you don't read the simple instructions carefully enough. I pulled the tray off all the pills instead of turning the little end pieces and lowering the tray completely. I did it right the second time around.

Then just put the little ends back on the top of each pill and pull it out of the tray. I usually pushed the cap completely on once I got it out of the tray. They seem to click into place when on well. 

This Italian herb bottle was perfect to hold 300 of my newly capped herb pills. It took 1.5 cups of my herb blend to fill these 300 pills, and since each batch makes 6.5 cups, I end up getting about 1300 pills per batch. All told I spent 3 or 4 hours doing the whole thing, but I was computing, grinding and photographing too, so it will take you less time to finish without all these extra tasks.

I spent almost $80.00, including shipping, for all the herbs and the capsules (NOT including the chromium, $5.49 or the policosanol, $16.99). I bought a pound of each of the herbs except the banaba which was 3.3 oz. (The Cap-M-quik was $12.35, but as one time purchase I didn't include it as a part of the herb price.)

Since I get 3 and a half batches of herb blend from the amounts that I bought and I get 1300 pills from each batch I make, I end up getting about 4550 pills. ( I only get 2.5 batches from the Bitter melon, so add $10.00 to the cost.) The extra cost of 4000 more empty caps is $96.00. Since most pills come in 60-90 count bottles, at 90 pills per bottle I end up getting 50.5 bottles of herb blend for $186.00. That's $3.68 a bottle. Not bad, huh?

Happy capping!

The Ugly Truth

Hello and welcome to Rawvenge!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Emily and I'm a 49 year old, mid-western gal graphic designer trapped in the body of an alien. I mean it! I no longer recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I see myself and wonder "Who the hell am I anymore?". I look like I'm wearing a gigantic fat suit, only it's not a suit. Ahhhhhhhhh......... wake me up from this bizarre reality game show I'm living in!!!

But I digress....

As you can see from the pictures above there is a VERY ugly truth happening here! And there's no surprise how I got this way. The same way everybody gets here; bad food choices, lack of exercise and a lifetime of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, food colorings, preservatives, additives and refined junk I've either ingested or inhaled.

As for the picture above, it's an easy guess that I'm the one on the left. On the right we have my lovely sister, Miss Priscilla, who has been raw for 8 years now! Eight YEARS!!!! I took these photos to give you a clear idea of the urgency of the situation and as a good comparison for how I should look. My sister is five foot eleven inches tall and I'm five eight. There should be three of us standing there though, because I weigh enough for 2...

Uh, it's time for a change.....

So I have a plan. A rather involved plan with several steps to get me back on the path to heath.

Step 1: Modify my diet and do a bowel cleanse.

Step 2: Make the switch to a 80% raw organic diet and STICK to it. Take daily herbal supplements to ease my hypoglycemia so I CAN stick to it.

Step 3: Do an internal cleanse of all my elimination organs and channels (think lymph glands, liver, lungs, skin etc.).

Step 4: Do a sustained parasite protocol to rid myself of yummy things like candida, worms, flukes and other nasties.

Step 5: Reestablish my immune system with a probiotic protocol (the specifics of which I'm still working out)

I'm just now setting up for my big first step, the bowel cleanse! I found a very nice product online from the people at Blessed Herbs. The kit arrived in the mail a couple days ago and I'm very pleased with it so far. This is a 9 day cleanse with 5 juice fasting days. I'll be juicing my own organic apples for the fasting part of this cleanse and promise to report honestly on the effects of the cleanse (including relevant photos) in gory detail.

I don't believe that varnishing the truth does anyone any good. If it doesn't work, is expensive or complicated, then you might as well know it from the get go! And trust me, there is nothing cheap about the health industry, including high quality food.

For now, and until next time....

The Rawvenge is on!