SOUP – A POPULAR, BUT MOST OFTEN OVERLOOKED RAW FOOD DISH

Outside of blending a smoothie, or juicing with a juicer, making soup is one of the easiest meals to prepare. If you are a person looking to improve your health this is a sure method. Within minutes (usually less than 15!) you can create a highly nutritious, low calorie dish that can cool you in the hot summer months and warm you when the temperatures drop.

Soup is so versatile – it can be thin (as in a Consommé or stock) to thick, like a gumbo; consumed cold or warm – heated to a warm temperature or ‘heated’ with warming spices (such as chili, red pepper, etc). Keep your soup smooth or serve it ‘chunky’ style. Soup can be served as a snack, a course, or the entre’ itself. Dress up your soup dish with garnishes (e.g. croutons, bread, crackers, veggies, or greens) or not. Soup is a great ‘take out’ meal as well, just pour it into a cup or a thermos and you’re ‘good to go’.

If you’re looking for a way to drop the calories, lose excess weight, and gain bounds of energy while still consuming a nutritiously dense meal, SOUP is your answer. Soup is classified as a ‘liquid’ food or ‘blended’ meal and is typically made with a variety of veggies. Easy to digest, soups can easily supply you with nutrients you may be missing. By not heating soup over 118 degrees, all the nutrients and enzymes remain intact. You get more ‘bang for your buck’ with every nutritious sip of soup! Also because of its high water content, soups prevent dehydration which is not only aging but can cause low energy among other things (e.g. dizziness, feeling hungry, blood sugar disorders, cramping, etc)

Soup is a GREAT way to keep you from ‘over-eating’, something we are all guilty of. Consuming soup before a meal will give you a full feeling due to its high water and fiber content and nutritional concentration (assuming the soup is vegetarian/vegan). Starting your biggest meal of the day with a cup of soup is a ‘sure fire’ way of lowering your calories while boosting your immune system. It also ‘fires up’ the digestive enzymes in your mouth allowing for easier digestion of the food to follow.

On the raw food diet, preparing soup is extremely easy. There are several ways to make it. You can blend all the ingredients in a high powered blender at once, or you can blend the ‘stock’ until warm then pour over veggies in a bowl; or you can prepare the ‘stock’ (using warm to hot water is the fastest and easiest way) then ‘top’ with garnish or veggies. Adding sprouted beans, peas, lentils, and grains makes for a more condensed, thicker soup.

Even being a raw food consumer, warming soup is easy. If you warm your soup in a pan on the stove keep a careful eye on it to see the soup doesn’t heat over 118 degrees – a thermometer is a handy tool or you can check the temperature with your clean finger to see it is not getting too hot. You can also warm your bowl of soup in the dehydrator 1-2 hours at 135 degrees (the safest method), or in a high speed blender. Yes, the Vita-Mix blender and those other high speed blenders can ‘boil’ water if left on for a length of time. I personally find it faster and easier to warm the soup on the stove while maintaining a watchful eye on the temperature, use a double boiler if you’re not confident you can remove the pot when the soup starts to warm.

If heating a soup that has an avocado in it, bring the soup up to the temperature you desire and then blend in the avocado last. Remember to make preparing warm soup easier, bring your veggies to room temperature helps simplify preparation and warming time.

Warming spices and seasonings will give you a ‘warm’ feeling when the temperature outside drops. Hot peppers, Cayenne pepper, ginger, wasabi, horseradish, black and white pepper, coriander, and turmeric are all considered warm, energy enhancing spices and/or seasonings that make great additions to your soup dish.

So lets not forget the power of SOUP and just how easy and versatile this dish is! Experience just how energizing, healing and delicious soup is.

Bon A Petite
Beth Wilke, Raw Food Chef

I’m craving warm apples, apple cobbler, apple pie, caramel apples, apples….apples…..apples!

This morning I jumped out of bed, only to jump back in again when I realized just how chilly it was! Burrrrr! How quickly the temperatures start to drop in October! A glimpse out the window only added to my feeling of ‘being cold’ as a cluster of dark clouds dotted the grey sky. There was no getting around it though, I had to get up. I was going to conquer the world today, or at least, my part of the world.

If you’re like me, you wake and bless the Almighty for being alive and feeling alive with new energy pushing you out of bed. If you’ve been eating the raw food diet, you discover you don’t require as much sleep as you did when you were eating the standard American diet. With fewer toxins to clean from your system and with a more efficient system your body enjoys a higher level of energy and well-being!

I’m fully awake now, but still feeling the chill of the fall season and crave a warm breakfast! Most people think that when you eat raw that you can’t eat anything heated, they’re quite surprised to discover they’re wrong. A food is still considered ‘raw’ if it isn’t heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit; all the nutrients and enzymes remain intact. Eating heated foods is highly desirable when the temperatures drop!

I’m craving warm apples, apple cobbler, apple pie, caramel apples, apples….apples…..apples! Apples are in season now and everywhere I look their bright colors beckon and memories of childhood favorite apple dishes surface. Did you know that there are over 7500 varieties of cooking and dessert apples? They range from very tart (crab apple) to deliciously sweet! You can eat them out of hand, prepared in a raw dish or a heated one. If you’re like me, you want lots of options particularly when you’re transitioning to a high raw food diet. As a Recipe Club Member I share my favorite apple recipes with you – recipes I know will satisfy and delight you for both how tasty they are and with how easy they are to prepare.

Learn more about this wonderful healthy fruit on my website: www.sensationalrawfooddiet.com.

The sun is peaking through the clouds now, and I’m off to get breakfast. I wonder, “Why would anyone wish to eat a boxed cereal with milk when there are warm sweet apples beaconing?”

Have a terrific day!

Bon A Petite
Beth Wilke

DIABETES CHANGED MY LIFE – HOW IT CAN CHANGE YOURS ON THE RAW FOOD DIET

Diabetes, a condition where the body can not make use of insulin correctly, is one of the fastest growing diseases in America……..and it is deadly. Diabetes is the number one cause of kidney failure.

The first time I entered a kidney dialysis unit with my husband, an ‘uncontrolled’ diabetic, I was shocked by the number of people in the waiting room and in the numerous beds and chairs tightly packed in the unit, each one hooked up to a dialysis machine. There were elderly people, children, teens, and people of almost every ethnicity I knew. I was appalled at the ‘sign of the times,’ and I shook my head in disbelief, aghast that the “the numbers are increasing!”

Statistics indicate the number of people (between the ages of 30 and 39) with diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate, as high as 70% over the recent 10 years! Currently over 20 million people in the United Sates alone have diabetes. Are you diabetic? Have you been checked? Many diabetics don’t even know they’re diabetic – yet. Diabetes often has no symptoms or warning signs, but the symptoms include: feeling tired, feeling irritable, urinating more than normal, being very thirsty and/or hungry, unexplained weight loss, and/or blurred vision.

My husband like so many other diabetic patients believed a ‘miracle drug’ or ‘miracle procedure’ would be developed that would cure his condition; he paid little attention to dietary guidelines or the need for physical exercise. Then neuropathy (a condition where the blood no longer circulates to the extremities or other organs, including the stomach) set in and his pain level in his hands and feet worsened with each passing year. Before his passing, he often held his hands up away from his body to protect them from being hit, any pressure on his fingers was excruciating. He could no longer eat most foods because his stomach no longer functioned properly and the muscles to move his food lay dormant – the toxins were killing him. His kidneys didn’t work. His will to live ended when he no longer could pet his dogs, hold his wife, or hold cards in his favorite game of Sequence. His vision was blurred to the point that reading was impossible and watching TV was his only outlet.

You ask me, ”How did diabetes change MY life?” I took care of this man I love and watched his decline and suffering. I urged him to try the aggressive raw food diet as explained in the SIMPLY RAW: REVERSING DIABETES IN 30 DAYS video, a ‘proven’ method of reversing diabetes. Though he started eating more raw food his love for eating animal products, fast food, and all time favorite junk/processed food continued. He doggedly believed a ‘cure’ would come soon. It didn’t, not the cure he was looking for. It is not in a pill, it is not a surgical procedure.

The miracle my husband was looking for was right there in front of him, it was in the raw foods. The healing power of whole fresh foods in their natural state has been proven to cure or control most diseases, and Dr. Gabrielle has proven it can reverse diabetes. For those people seeking to be free of this disease, this is the ONLY proven program that works. Yes it requires discipline, yes it requires changes……………yes change is uncomfortable………….but not nearly as uncomfortable as neuropathy I assure you.

No, I didn’t suffer from diabetes, I suffered through it………….through my husband. He’s now dead and yes, my life is changed. After 32 years of sharing my life with this man, a part of me died that day too. I think of all the families of all those people in the dialysis unit and shed tears for every one of them, and those who have yet to be diagnosed.

I urge you to view the video, no other program has proven to reverse diabetes. Dr. Gabriel has proven the raw food diet program can.

If you keep doing the same thing but expect different results, you’re fooling yourself. There are no ‘miracle’ breakthroughs in the medical community. You have to take the initiative – the raw food diet works. Please don’t become a statistic.

- Beth Wilke, Raw Food Chef

OFTEN NEGLECTED MINERALS, AND HOW TO GET THEM

SEA VEGETABLES:   DULSE

Dulse is just one of the numerous edible sea vegetables that is easy to come by and is packed with very rich nutrients, phytochemicals, chlorophyll, fiber and minerals (e.g. sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, iodine and many other trace minerals).  Dulse, like all sea vegetation, is low in fat, and has a significant amount of omega-3 fatty acids.  Omega 3 fatty acids help lower cholesterol and raise HDL levels.

Other benefits of Dulse and other sea vegetables include their ability to help prevent aging and chronic disease, solve mineral deficiencies, help detoxify your body (from heavy metals, environmental pollutants and carcinogens), help control growth of viruses, bacteria and Candida, balance the thyroid function and fight constipation.

One third cup of Dulse provides up to 30% of RDA for iron, which is four times the amount in a serving of spinach.  It is packed with approximately 22% protein – higher than chickpeas, almonds or sesame seeds.  One handful of dried Dulse provides more than 100% of the recommended daily intake of B6, iron and fluoride and 66% of the recommended daily intake of B12.

Add to salads, pate’s, and roll-ups Dulse (as most other sea vegetables) are an easy, cost-effective, way to add those much needed, often missed minerals to your diet.

Dulse is available in whole stringy leaves or powdered (as a condiment).  Dulse, reddish brown seaweed, does not need to be soaked as some seaweeds do; it can be eaten directly from the package.    It has a rich taste, a slightly chewy texture and is a little salty which easily provides an excellent substitute for regular salt and satisfies the person craving salty foods. 

Sea vegetables do not need to be refrigerated and can easily be stored in your cupboard or desk at work.

Start to develop a taste for these nutrient dense, alkaline, whole foods and see and feel the difference in your body!  Your skin, hair, nails and internal organs will THRIVE!

Bon A Petite’

Beth Wilke, Raw Food Chef

RAW FOOD DIET – IS IT GOOD FOR YOU?

I get asked this question all the time, particularly by people who consume animal products in the way of meat and dairy, as well as vegetarians who consume large quantities of cooked beans and rice.  There is an unfounded belief that if you eat nothing but raw fruits and vegetables that somehow you will be missing vital nutrients………….or worse, deprive yourself of a wide array of favorite cooked dishes.  These same people are typically taking numerous prescription drugs or supplements, and are suffering from at least one of the more typical diseases (e.g. obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart disease, etc).

The raw food diet is not an ‘all or nothing’ diet.  Without question, the more raw fruits and vegetables you eat the healthier you’ll be as all plant based foods are extremely high in easily assimilated nutrients that feed the body at a cellular level.  “Fruits provide the highest percentage of vitamins per calories consumed with vegetables coming in second.  Vegetables provide the highest percentage of minerals per calories consumed with fruits coming in second.”* With a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds to choose from in the raw diet, nutrients such as bone-strengthening calcium, protein, iron, vitamins C, D, E, and B’s to name a few can easily be obtained.  “Almost every vegetable that can be eaten whole, fresh and raw contains all eight of the essential amino acids and therefore provides us with complete, usable, easily assimilated protein.”*  Processing nutrients from whole foods to sell as supplements is the most costly way to improve your nutritional balance.  Most nutrients are known to interact symbiotically with at least eight other nutrients, WHOLE fruits and vegetables provide a superior complete source of vitamins and minerals.

Fiber found in plant-based foods is lacking in a meat-based diet; fiber is important to keep the digestive tract clean of waste products which can lead to disease. 

Plant-based foods are alkaline in nature, as apposed to animal products and grains which are acid forming.  A highly acidic bloodstream pulls minerals from our muscles and bones to neutralize the acid content.  

Most animal products have been treated with antibiotics, steroids, coloring agents, flavor enhancers, growth hormones and other chemicals that humans ingest when eating these foods.  How healthy is it to eat THAT?  Whole fresh organic fruits and vegetables are free of any of these treatments. 

Cooking foods changes its atomic structure, creating a toxic food where up to 80% of the nutrients can lost in the cooking process.  Cooking foods at high heat (such as steaming, boiling, and grilling) creates carcinogens that can lead to cancer and auto-immune diseases.  The body’s first line of defense is the white blood cells; research has proven the white blood cell count increases almost 300% after consuming cooked foods.  The body perceives cooked food as toxic and rushes to its defense.  Cooking is a process of destruction, not of ‘construction’.  If you placed your hand on a hot burner, within seconds the skin would reflect how destructive ‘cooking’ is.  It matters little if it is ‘slightly’ cooked or blackened………..the result is the same. 

Switching to a raw food diet, high in low calorie nutrient dense fruits and vegetables increases your energy and unwanted pounds melt away as you are no longer consuming food that is made up of processed sugar, processed flours and grains, and cooked foods – all foods that put on the weight and drain you of energy.  With there being over 150 varieties of available fruits and vegetables to choose from, meals are seldom boring.  Couple this with learning HOW to prepare these fruits and vegetables into great tasting familiar recipes (e.g. pasta, desserts, ice cream etc) you’ll soon be experiencing a higher level of health and energy, beyond anything you dreamed possible.

It is interesting that people think little about the quantities and health quality of prescription drugs, supplements, or processed foods they consume and yet shy away from eating whole fresh fruits and vegetables as being ‘radical’ and ‘difficult’.  It couldn’t be any simpler.  Sometimes we’re looking so hard for the dietary cure-all, we don’t see the bright colored jewels in our produce markets beckoning us to ‘just try me!’   

Is the raw food diet a healthy diet?  It is all that and then some!  It is a diet/lifestyle that fits everyone, whether you’re consuming 20% more fruits and vegetables or 100% more, with every bite you’re improving your health.  Who can argue the benefits of THAT!

Bon A Petite’

Beth

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*Dr Douglas N Graham, On Nutrition and Physical Performace: A Handbook for Athletes and Fitness Enthusiasts

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