Check out the below details all about cucumbers…

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance..

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area. (WOW)

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!! (DOUBLE WOW)

6.. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber sliced rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

I’ve been asked by many people recently to upload my recipe for a black forest inspired style strawberry cake – raw foodie of course. It’s just a simple yet different twist on the usual black forest cake made with cherries, but when cherries are in season be sure to use them as this cake is amazing with either cherries or strawberries alike.

If you don’t have all the ingredients raw style, then this cake will work just as well if you only have say ‘roasted’ almond butter in the pantry or rice milk in the fridge. By all means experiment and make it as raw or un-raw as you like. Either way it tastes great!

It’s one of my favorites and so here it is…

This raw food cake is created in layers.

First Layer:

• 1.5 – 2 cups almonds
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• Agave nectar (to sweeten a little)

Second Layer:

• 1 – 2 medium avocados
• 4-6 dates, pitted and soaked
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/4 cup almond butter
• Agave nectar to sweeten
• 1 tspn Vanilla

Third Layer:

• 1 cup strawberries

Fourth layer:

• 2 cups cashews, soaked
• 2 dates, pitted and soaked
• 1-2 cups water

Method for putting it all together:

First Layer:

1. Combine the first layer ingredients in a food processer and combine together until crushed and smooth like, if it’s too dry add a tiny bit of water or almond milk until you get the desired consistancy.
2. Next remove from processor and mold it into a cake tin (I use a cheescake tin so I can easily remove the cake once it is fully set but I have also turned this recipe into a pie on occassions too – it will work both ways brilliantly).

Second Layer:

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
2. Spread this mixture on top of the first layer.

Third layer:

1. Slice the strawberries and layer them over the second layer – or if desired you can crush them up instead of slicing them.

Fourth layer:

1. This is were you will make the cashew cream frosting. Place half the water into a blender and slowly add the cashews in batches. Add water as needed, until all of the cashews are gone.
2. Add the dates and blend until smooth (remember to soak dates you can put them in warm water for a few minutes to soak them or soak them for a few hours if you have time).
3. Spread the mixture over the top of the third layer.
4. Put in the fridge to set.

Then once set add more strawberries or other fruits and mint leaves to garnish.

I happen to find my  ‘The Raw Gourmet’ (un-cookbook) by Noni Shannon a few weeks back and was eager to get into some of Noni’s great recipes once again. Seeing as we’ve nearly been raw foodies over the past month, yep 98% of the way there just getting past a few of those last cooked food happenings whilst we clear out the VS kitchen and cupboards – but once the kitchen is clear of any trace of cooked or processed matter then we won’t be going back down those tragic aisles of the supermarket to endulge in processed stuff. At least not until we’ve decided if the raw food thing is for us or not, let’s just see how the raw foodie detox ends up first shall we!

But to get you all inspired like we have been during this past month, here are a few pictures of the raw foods we’ve been enjoying and having fun with in the VS kitchen recently.

Lettuce Roll-ups with Sunflower Pate

Stuffed Apricots with Blueberries

Orange & Chocolate Raw Foodie Pie

We’ll keep you posted on more of our raw foodie trails, recipes and happenings over the coming weeks. As you may already know we’ve also been putting together a raw foodie chocolate recipe book. So most of our time has been spent on perfecting a few of the recipes for it. But all will be revealed in early 2009 for that one.

This would have to be one of my all time favorite raw food vegan pie recipes, unfortunately I can’t take credit for the recipe but I can take credit for making it and taking it along to any party’s I go to – everyone is always very surprised at the multi-layer style and taste of this pie. Here are just some of the words used by others to describe this taste sensation: ‘devine, creamy, gorgeous, I love it, teach me how to make it’ and with rave’s like that it should be one of those raw pies you should keep on file to send people to heaven every once and a while at any kind of gathering or dinner party you go to.

I usually change the ingredients to what fruit is in season at the time, sometimes add fresh mint or essence into the chocolate candy layer and use my own almond, coconut and date basic pie base crust (as I am somewhat addicted to almonds) but other than that I base it on the recipe I found here on the Raw Inspiration Blog.

If you want to wow your friends and family with a healthy, guilt free dessert then why not give this raw pie a try – you will honestly feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven with the first bite!

(NaturalNews) Eating as little as three small servings of raw cruciferous vegetables per month, such as broccoli and cabbage, has been found to decrease the risk of developing bladder cancer by an astonishing 40 percent. This was discovered by researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. The study is only one of several that have recently added to the evidence that raw fruits and vegetables dramatically lower cancer risk.

In this study, researchers conducted a survey on the dietary habits of 1,100 people, 275 of whom had bladder cancer. They found that among both smokers and non-smokers, those who ate three or more servings of raw cruciferous vegetables each month had a 40 percent lower risk of developing bladder cancer. Compared with smokers who did not eat that amount, non-smokers who ate three or more servings of raw cruciferous vegetables per month had a 73 percent lower chance of developing bladder cancer.Keep in mind that this research only involved three small servings a month! That’s a ridiculously small amount of vegetable matter, and yet it had a profound anti-cancer effect.

Given that these cruciferous anti-cancer nutrients only stay in the body for about twelve hours, these study subjects only experienced a total of about 36 hours with these nutrients (out of a total of 720 hours in a typical month). In other words, they only had these anti-cancer nutrients in their bodies five percent of the time and yet, astonishingly, their bladder cancer rates plummeted by 40 percent!

Also remarkably, the researchers did not find a protective benefit from eating the same quantity of cooked cruciferous vegetables. This indicates that the anti-cancer properties of cruciferous vegetables are destroyed by cooking.

This is exactly what the leaders of the raw foods movement have been saying for years: Dr. Gabriel Cousens (www.TreeofLife.nu), David Wolfe (www.SunFood.com), the Boutenko family (www.RawFamily.com), David Rain (www.JuiceFeasting.com), Nomi Shannon (www.RawGourmet.com), Angela Stokes (www.RawReform.com), Brian Clement (www.hippocratesinst.com), Max Gerson (www.Gerson.org) and many others.

Keep in mind, too, that conventional medicine pill pushers have derided the raw foods movement for years, claiming raw foods have absolutely no health effects whatsoever on the human body. That outmoded view, of course, is considered hopelessly ancient by all but the most out-of-touch doctors and skeptics. What we’re finding today is not only that raw foods are good medicine, but in fact raw foods are the BEST medicine for virtually all the big diseases now devastating Western civilization.

The findings of the Roswell Park study were presented at a meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research in Philadelphia.

Why raw vegetables not only prevent cancer, but REVERSE cancer

Cruciferous vegetables, also known as vegetables in the mustard or cabbage family, are some of the most widely consumed vegetables in the world, accounting for 10 of the most popular vegetable foods. The family includes not only cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, but also arugula, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, daikon, garden cress, horseradish, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, radish, rape (canola), rapini, rutabaga, tatsoi, turnip, wasabi and watercress.

These vegetables are known to be high in important nutrients such as vitamin C and selenium, and they also contain hundreds of plant compounds that are known to fight cancer. One of these groups, isothiocyanates, has gained enormous attention over the last few years as an anti-cancer “medicine” provided by foods.

There have been 55 key epidemiological studies conducted on the relationship between cruciferous vegetable intake and cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. Sixty-nine percent of those studies show a positive correlation between cruciferous vegetable intake and lower cancer risk. Interestingly, few of these studies tracked raw vegetable intake vs. cooked intake, and there is little doubt that the 31 percent of the studies showing no cancer risk decrease were likely tracking the intake of cooked vegetables. (Modern nutritional researchers remain ignorant about living foods vs. cooked foods, and they group them all together, oblivious to the fact that cooked foods lack the natural medicine of raw foods…)

Isothiocyanates inhibit both cancer and tumor development by directly blocking the carcinogenic action of free radicals. In other words, they prevent free radicals from attacking healthy cells and turning them cancerous. One specific variety, phenethyl isothiocyanate, has even been shown to induce cell death in certain cancer lines, including those that are resistant to chemotherapy drugs. (Oncologists remain indignant, however, insisting that cancer patients should never use food to treat cancer… that’s why they also ran Max Gerson out of the country…)

Heat and irradiation destroys the medicine in foods – just what the FDA wants!

These plant-based medicines, however, are delicate molecules that are easily destroyed by heat. Cooking these foods obliterates the medicine they contain. So does food irradiation, by the way: Microwaving broccoli destroys up to 98% of its phytonutrients, including its anti-cancer nutrients.

The FDA, curiously, wants to pass regulations that would secretly irradiate the national food supply without any requirement whatsoever that such treatment be mentioned on the label of irradiated foods. My recent article, “FDA Leaps from Tomatoes to Peppers in Desperate, Fumbling Fiasco of Failed Food Safety over Salmonella” explains how the FDA is exploiting food safety scares as a way to generate a fear-based public reaction that will ultimately result in a mass irradiation of the entire food supply. See http://www.naturalnews.com/023614.html

Why is that an important goal for the FDA? Because fresh produce is just about the only thing keeping many Americans off pharmaceuticals and out of the hospital. Take away the natural medicine found in fresh produce, and you create a windfall of sickness and disease that doubles or triples the profits of the drug companies. Food irradiation is the FDA’s devious plan to sicken the U.S. population and accomplish this financial goal for influential drug companies. (Sound crazy? You don’t know the real FDA. Read about it here: www.NaturalNews.com/the_FDA.html )

Listen to Health Ranger Show #52: The Food Irradiation Plot to hear the full story on this. It’s available as a downloadable MP3 file here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html

Fortunately for Big Pharma’s sick profits, many Americans cook their vegetables right now, destroying their natural medicines and keeping those consumers in a state of chronic degenerative disease. “Cooking can reduce 60 to 90 percent of isothiocyanates,” said Li Tang, a lead researcher of the study mentioned above.

Read more about the health benefits of raw foods in my interview with Dr. Gabriel Cousens at: http://www.naturalnews.com/015187.html

Also, be sure to visit the NaturalNews raw foods page at: http://www.naturalnews.com/raw_foods.html

Yet more science shows the anti-cancer benefits of raw vegetables

Another recent Roswell Park study also uncovered evidence of the protective effects of cruciferous vegetables. Researchers took two groups of rats that had been engineered to develop bladder cancer and supplemented the diet of one group with freeze-dried broccoli sprout extract. They found that rats who ate more broccoli sprouts extract had significantly lower rates of bladder cancer.

(For the record, NaturalNews does not condone the use of animals for experiments, especially animals engineered to develop cancer. But at least in this study the rats were receiving nutrients rather than the usual pharmaceutical chemicals injected into them during drug industry trials…)

The researchers found that the isothiocyanates from the broccoli sprouts were processed by the rat’s bodies and excreted within 12 hours. According to lead researcher Yuesheng Zhang, this suggests that the chemicals protect the bladder while they are stored there, awaiting excretion.

“The bladder is like a storage bag, and cancers in the bladder occur almost entirely along the inner surface, the epithelium, that faces the urine, presumably because this tissue is assaulted all the time by noxious materials in the urine,” Zhang said. Change the liquid being stored in your bladder, and you change your risk of bladder cancer.

In other words, healthy pee keeps you cancer-free!

Healthy poo, by the way, stops colorectal cancer, which is yet another reason to stop eating milk, cheese, beef and other animal products. Soak the inside of your bladder and large intestine with vegetable juices, and cancer just vanishes. Someday, silly oncologists will abandon their toxic chemotherapy drugs and learn to just prescribe broccoli sprouts.

(As a side note, dogs have been trained to smell bladder cancer in human urine. A person who has bladder cancer emits a nasty smell in their urine, and it’s not very difficult for dogs to pick up on this.)

Ninety percent of bladder cancers occur along the inner lining. Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the ninth most common cancer in women in the United States. More than 47,000 men and 16,000 women nationwide are diagnosed with the disease each year. Chemotherapy is utterly useless against bladder cancer. Five-year survival rates are ZERO percent better than doing nothing at all. In fact, chemotherapy is highly toxic to the bladder and kidneys, causing cellular damage that actually leads to more cancer later on.

Adding to the evidence that uncooked fruits and vegetables help protect against cancer, researchers at Ohio State University found that the eastern black raspberry, Rubus occidentalis, offers protection against cancer of the esophagus.

In this study, human patients with a condition known as Barrett’s esophagus, which often leads to esophageal cancer, were fed freeze-dried black raspberries (1.1 ounces for women and 1.6 ounces for men) every day for six months. At the end of that time, researchers measured blood levels of two chemicals that indicate the risk of cancer.

Patients given the raspberries had 58 percent lower levels of 8-isoprostane, which is correlated with cancer risk, and 37 percent higher levels of GSTpi, which is known to protect against the cell damage that leads to cancer.

Black raspberries are particularly high in anthocyanins, a powerful antioxidant found in many other foods, including red cabbage. See www.NaturalNews.com/anthocyanins.html

Anthocyanins are among the pigments that give fruits and vegetables their bright colors. Every bright color found in fresh produce is, in fact, a powerful natural medicine. Studies have shown that anthocyanins protect against not only cancer, but also diabetes, bacterial infections, inflammation, neurological diseases and the symptoms of aging.

The conclusion: Raw foods halt disease and greatly enhance health

The conclusion to all this is that consuming raw fruits and vegetables is an astonishingly powerful way to halt degenerative disease, stop cancer, reverse diabetes, end heart disease and enhance your health. All the pharmaceuticals in the world can’t compete with the protective power of the tens of thousands of natural medicines created by Mother Nature and found in the very plants sitting in your local grocery store right now.

This is why juicing fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis is possibly the single most important nutritional strategy you can pursue for protecting yourself against degenerative disease. I juice every single day. My own personal recipe is as follows:

(All produce is organic)
• 2 large bunches of celery
• 4 large carrots
• 1 large bunch of parsley
• 2 medium apples
• 1 medium lemon or grapefruit
• 1 large bunch of kale
• 1 large bunch of spinach or salad greens
• Small pieces of ginger, turmeric root and beet
• 1/2 container of fresh sprouts (alfalfa or clover) – This can be changed to broccoli sprouts for cancer patients.

I juice all this up, creating a beautiful green / orange liquid. Then I blend 2 cups of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, etc.) in my Vita-Mix, keeping the fruit pulp in the blend, then I pour that liquid into the vegetable juice. This creates a delicious fruit-and-vegetable blend that keeps the fruit fiber but juices away the rough vegetable fiber. I like the fruit fiber because many of the natural medicines in fruit are found in the skin, locked into the fiber. So I always blend fruit into my juice and drink this slightly-thickened juice blend. It’s absolutely delicious!

For people preventing or battling cancer, simply boost up the anti-cancer ingredients: Turmeric, broccoli, cabbage, kale, sprouts, etc. Cancer simply melts away when bathed in these vegetable juices.

To make the whole thing sweeter, add a bit of stevia to the final blend. If it’s still too bitter for you, try adding more lemon or citrus, which masks the bitter taste of vegetables. If it’s still too bitter, you are probably a sugar junkie (like I used to be) and your taste buds are all skewed. Get off the sugar for 30 days and everything natural will suddenly taste better.

Adding watermelon to your juice makes it super tasty, but raw foods experts like Dr. Cousens would strongly recommend you avoid watermelon. The glycemic index is too high. People suffering from chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease need to stick with low-glycemic juicing for a long, long time, until their metabolism gets healthy again. Only then, when you’re fit, active and exercising at least ten hours a week (like me) can you start to take up high-glycemic fruit juices.

Remember, I used to be pre-diabetic. I went through the healing process, repaired my body, and now I have the joy of exercising as much as three hours a day. That affords me the metabolic privilege of drinking just about any fruit juice I want, without any negative blood sugar effects. But that’s only because I’m burning calories day and night. If you’re obese or overweight, you’ll have to steer clear of fruit juices until you get body fat below about 15% for men or 20% for women. Even then, make sure you watch things very carefully. Ideally, you’ll do all this under the supervision of a naturopathic physician. Or just go to the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona and get Dr. Cousens to help in person! (www.TreeofLife.nu)

A great resource on how to do juicing is also found at www.JuiceFeasting.com

I created a 6-hour audio CD course with David Rain entitled, The Secret of Juice Feasting, available here: http://www.truthpublishing.com/product_…

You can also listen to my audio interview with David Rain, where we discuss Juice Feasting, here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html#45

I’ve also got a new interview with Dr. Gabriel Cousens coming soon here on NaturalNews, so watch for that in a few weeks.

Juicing can save your life and get you off dangerous pharmaceuticals

The bottom line to all this, folks, is that juicing vegetables is the secret to reversing disease now and preventing disease for a lifetime. But it has to be fresh, raw, living juice.

Remember, pasteurized vegetable juices purchased in bottles at the store are worthless! That includes all the Naked Juice, V8, Odwalla and other brands that claim to be good for you. While they’re not bad for you, they’re also DEAD JUICE. That means they have virtually none of the nutritional healing benefits of fresh, living juice. Don’t be fooled by healthy-sounding bottled juice products. If it’s in a bottle, it’s dead. And dead juice doesn’t support life.

There is only one way to get fresh, unprocessed, living juice: Make your own juice! This is the simple secret to staying healthy, vibrant and mentally sharp for the rest of your long, enjoyable life: Juice your way to health! (And then supplement with superfoods, herbs, and other targeted nutritional needs.)

Juicing is the future of medicine. It cures cancer. It reverses heart disease. It stabilizes cholesterol and blood pressure. It ends kidney stones and gall stones. It reverses depression and psychosis. It builds strong bones and strong muscles. It absolutely reverses diabetes in a matter of days, and it obliterates obesity in a matter of weeks. And in doing all that, it makes virtually all pharmaceuticals obsolete.

Juicing and raw foods go hand in hand. They are the answers to disease and sickness. No wonder Big Pharma and the FDA don’t want you to find out about the true healing power of plant-based nutrition, huh?

Recommended Resources

Raw foods and superfoods: www.SunFood.com

Best consumer juicer: Breville (www.Breville.com)

Best blender: Vita-Mix (www.Vita-Mix.com)

Spiritual Nutrition by Dr. Gabriel Cousens: Free download of book summary at www.HealthBookSummaries.com

NaturalNews page on raw foods: http://www.naturalnews.com/raw_foods.html

Raw Spirit Festival in Sedona (I’ll be there!): www.RawSpirit.com

Really raw cashews (and Bliss Mix!): www.TransitionNutrition.com

Delicious Raw Chocolate Bars: www.EverythingRaw.com

About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He’s also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics.

>> ref: http://www.NaturalNews.com/023655.html

We’ve been at it again experiementing with all kinds of vegan raw foods here at Vegan Secrets HQs, and here’s just a small sampling of some of the yummo and delish goodies we’ve been enjoying recently . . .

 Vegan Flaxseed and Vege Bread (above) and with salad fillings (below)

Hi folks,

I always feel funny saying this, but is kinda fun everytime I do …

Viva La Raw-Volution!

I hope you don’t think I’m crazy, but following along with Jim over at ChiDiet got me dancing around a sombrero like a patrotic mexican on Cinco DeMayo

All kidding aside, Jim Carey (not the actor), is the living disciple of Dr. Ann Wigmore.

She was a pioneer in the Raw Food Movement, and inspired a whole generation of raw foodist’s.

Over the last 4 years, Jim’s become one of the most respected “guardians” of Dr. Wigmore’s teachings.

In the last couple of weeks, whatever Jim’s been doing on his Chidiet site, has 1,000’s of regular folks, raw-foodies, and nay-sayers mixing it up.

http://www.vegansecrets.com/recommends/rawfoods

Something transformational going on?

On Jim’s Chidiet site, I read over 275 stories (blog posts), from mild to wild…

Warmly,
Rebecca

P.S. I heard Jim is finally selling his RAW Food Home Study course after month’s of it being backordered.

I highly recommend you check it out if you are into raw foods:

http://www.vegansecrets.com/recommends/rawfoods

For those who aren’t familiar with it, a raw vegan diet consists of a vegan eating plan, meaning not just avoiding meat and dairy products but any foods made from animal products, and raw foodism, or food that is not heated past 46 degree Celsius or 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  It can be difficult to follow a raw vegan food diet only if you have not educated yourself ; having some carrots or celery sticks on occasion may be fine, but most can be overwhelmed with the idea of how to eat three times a day, every day, for the rest of their life without meat or dairy or cooking their foods either.  If you’re considering this type of eating plan but are a bit overwhelmed with how to go about doing so, we can help.

Why Follow a Raw Vegan Food Diet?

One of the interesting aspects of choosing to follow a raw vegan foods diet is that there are typically many personal reasons that go into this decision.  Rarely does someone make this decision lightly or decide to do so on a whim.  Following this type of eating plan takes determination, commitment, planning, and often the breaking of some very difficult habits.  It might also mean saying goodbye to some favorite dishes that one has enjoyed since childhood.  Eating a raw vegan diet might also mean some strange reactions from friends and family, and some limitations when it comes to socializing.  Think of all the times we spend with friends at restaurants or over meals at home – those may become a bit awkward when there’s nothing on the menu that you can eat.

However, those who follow a raw vegan diet usually do so because of some deep seated convictions and beliefs.  Not eating or using animal products is usually done because of the belief that animals have fundamental rights, including the right to not be warehoused in slaughterhouses where they are usually held in torturous conditions before being brutally slaughtered just so that humans can eat.  By not using any animal products either, such as wearing leather or wool, a person is not perpetrating the misuse of animals for these reasons either.  Following a raw vegan foods diet is taking this belief one step further – not only are animals being protected but so is the environment, as the cooking mediums used for foods are simply adding pollutants to the environment. 

How to Live on a Raw Vegan Food Diet

It can be very difficult to follow through on your convictions to live on a raw vegan food diet, not matter how committed you are to these convictions.  However, as with any other changes you want to make for the better, it typically just requires some planning and forethought to be successful.

Thinking that you’ll just cut out meat and stop cooking your food is not enough to be successful with a raw vegan foods diet.  It’s always a good idea to find directions and recipes for tasty dishes that you can learn to prepare.  Many also find that they can make up their own salad dressings using natural oils, lemons, and some other herbs and spices, and can follow directions for different types of salads as well.  Simply tossing some lettuce in a bowl and pouring vinegar and oil over it may not be very enjoyable.  When following a raw vegan foods diet, you don’t need to eat only bland foods.  This is a mistake that many people make.  They often think that if it tastes good, it must be bad for you.  In reality, many who follow even the strictest of raw vegan foods diet find that they can enjoy a wide variety of dishes that are in many cases even tastier than the old meat , diary or simple vegetarian dishes they’ve given up.

Talk to your friends openly and honestly about the changes you’re making with your raw vegan foods diet.  Don’t expect them to follow your convictions, and remember that while you want them to respect your choices you need to do the same.  If you follow these tips and remember why you’ve made this decision in the first place, you’re sure to have success.

Article Written by : Rebecca Bennett

Here’s another yummy picture of just one of our recent ’Homemade Vegan Chocolate’ experimental recipes. This recipe is just a simple version of the raw foods chocolate recipe we posted a little while ago.

The only major difference is that with this vegan chocolate recipe we produced our own homemade raw almond butter and used this as the base for the chocolate, then we added some raw macadamias, sun-ripened sultanas and freeze dried strawberries – all wonderful flavors together when smoothered with freshly made raw vegan dark chocolate.

 I’ll leave you with this great Veggie QUOTE from ‘Howard Lyman, (Mad Cowboy – author):

“To consider yourself an environmentalist and still eat meat is like saying you’re a philanthropist who doesn’t give to charity.”

I love this stuff! Spoil me raw vegan ice cream is made from 100% plant foods a fusion of delicious raw organic ingredients that brings us closer to healing ourselves and the planet. This stuff is dairy, soy, wheat & gluten free, has no preservatives, thickeners, fillers or unnatural sugars and is handmade in small batches. 

Rich and creamy purely decadent ice cream makes you forget you are eating something good for you (afterall it’s raw).

The base of the vegan raw ice cream is made from organic raw cashews, organic coconut meat extracted by hand, organic agave nectar, vanilla bean and organic coconut oil.

The flavours available include Vanilla, Chocolate, and Chocolate Chip in 500ml tubs.

So all those raw foodies or vegans living in these areas of Queensland, count yourself lucky that you have access to such a delightful treat. Check out these stores to grab yourself a tub today: Mrs Flannerys – Robina, Logan Home, Woolongabba, Chermside, Wrays – Palm Beach & Broad Beach, Sun& Earth Whole Foods and Celtic Organic Wholefoods.