Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Fine and Raw (and Out of This World)

Happy Friday, all! I’m winding up a busy week with a scrumptuous product review.

You guys know I love chocolate. Like, really love chocolate. Like, I would gladly eat chocolate for dessert exclusively for the rest of my life and not register a single complaint. Ice cream? Meh. Cake? Poo. Cookies? OK. Dates and nut butter? You’re getting warmer. But chocolate? Chocolate dwarfs all of these guys in my favor.

Finding a chocolate brand that pleases you in a high-raw, all vegan diet can be tricky. Typically, I recommend any dark chocolate that’s vegan, organic and 70% or higher in cocoa content. If you can find one that’s also soy lecithin free, that’s preferable. Green and Black is a good quality brand, and it’s widely available (I’ve seen it in run of the mill delis here in the city), but the 70% variety does contant soy lecithin, and the 85% variety is a little tougher to locate. Scharffen Berger makes an excellent 82% bar that’s soy-free. I especially like the Endangered Species dark chocolate, which is eco-conscious and soy-free.

There are more and more high-end, single origin, artisinal chocolates available nowadays. Just take a stroll through the chocolate aisle at your local whole foods, and you’ll be met with an army of elegant labels. I’ve tried and liked Taza chocolate (which has a rich, almost grainy texture) and Theo as well. Many of these brands bleed you dry for all sorts of fancy add-ins (liqueurs, goji berries, acai, cacao nibs, what-ev-er), so be sure to read labels and consider how much “stuff” you really need (and want) in your chocolate.

As far as the world of raw chocolate goes, I’m a comparative dabbler (some raw foodists get REALLY serious about their chocolate), but I’ve sampled enough to know what I like. I’m a fan of my friend Vanessa’s excellent brand, Gnosis, which is taking the world by storm at health food stores, healthy restaurants, and Whole Foods nationwide (and it’s readily accessible on her website). Ever a purist, I like her “simplicity” flavor the best. I’ve also tried Raw Chocolate Love, though I found it a bit too busy for my taste (lots of berries and nuts in there). I hear some pretty cool things about LuLu’s chocolate, too. If you’re in the mood for truffles, I’m a big fan of the UliMana dark cacao truffles.

But my life was changed in August, when my friend Mary introduced me to my favorite raw chocolate yet: Fine and Raw. I do not toss around superlatives lightly when it comes to chocolate, my friends, but this stuff is really special. The Brooklyn-based child company of Daniel Sklaar, a former financial analyst who left his profession to pursue a passion for raw cocoa, Fine and Raw is highly committed to fair trade. To quote from their website:

“FINE & RAW is a fresh new company that believes the future is beautiful. To help bring this thought to life we strive to be green and sustainable where ever possible.

We’ll be the first to admit we’re not perfect. From the big issues, like fairtrade and carbon foot prints, down to using energy efficient light bulbs, we’re learning to be greener all the time.

Our cacao is fairtrade and comes from a small cacao farmers co-op that practices sustainable farming. Cacao is a shade grown plant requiring a foliage canopy to grow. Our cacao farmers maintain the rainforests which provide natural symbiotic canopies for the plant. The farmers also grow an heirloom variety of cacao, which promotes bio-diversity of plant species within the rainforest ecosystem.

All our ingredients are organic, which means no unnecessary toxins, chemicals or pollutants are pumped into the environment. Our packaging is recycled and the inks we use are non-toxic and vegetable based…We want the planet to be strong so it can grow more chocolate.”

I especially like the second graf; every small business owner these days wants to brag about how perfectly green his or her company is, but Dan admits that his strivings are still a work in progress. What I hope you can glean from his voice, though, is that Dan is a conscientious and thinking small business owner; a man who cares as much about the planet as he does the integrity of his products.

And oh, how good those products are. My first experience of Fine and Raw was a taste of their remarkable bon bons. These are the definition of decadence: rich, creamy, and — I promise you — more refined than any conventional chocolate truffle you’ve ever tried. Minus the offensive dairy!

Recently, I emailed Dan to wax poetic about his work, and he responded to my plea for a little sampling by generously sending me two bars of his regular chocolate–78% dark and a lucuma and vanilla flavor–and a small box of bon bons. I conveniantly received these gems on an evening when I was making dinner with my friend Cassie, and so the two of us got to share the goods.

We tried the bars first. The dark chocolate was the winner of the night, for me. While many raw chocolate bars end up tasting a bit bitter, or have a chewy texture I can’t stand, this had all of the lovely attributes of normal chocolate (texture and taste) with a more refined and intense character. Yum. The lucuma took me a moment to adjust to, but once I did, I totally dug it: I’m a fan of vanilla in any incarnation, and this was no exception.

Cassie, meanwhile, couldn’t stop rhapsodizing about the bon bon, and I don’t blame her. Once again, Iwas amazed at how rich and delicious these guys are.

That Fine and Raw also boasts cool packaging, a worthy environmental mission, and a conscious attitude only makes it even more imperative for all of us to go purchase the goods. Now. Who needs candy corn on Halloween when you could be sampling this stuff?

I’ll soon be headed to a favorite spot, Stogo (more on this place to come!), where the products are sold, to stock up again on my new fave brand. In the meantime, you guys can check out this link for a list of local NYC spots that sell Fine and Raw, or information on shipping nationwide. Believe me when I say that, if you harbor even a lukewarm affection for chocolate, you will be very glad you did.

I love starting the weekend with dessert. Happy Halloween, guys!

xo

Bon bon and bar images (c) www.fineandraw.com.

Savory Root Vegetable Mash

Hey guys!

As usual, I am blown away by the thoughtful and intelligent comments you guys left on my last post. If you haven’t had a chance to read it (or the responses) yet, please do!

If you read the comments, you’ll notice that I had to clarify a few times what the purpose of the post was. It wasn’t my goal to vilify food or to suggest that you should avoid eating–people, does that sound like me? And it was not, as some readers thought, to suggest that it’s wrong to take pleasure in eating. There is a tendency among some raw foodists to fixate on moving “beyond” food—to reach a place where food is as incidental and insignificant as possible—and I don’t subscribe to this way of thinking. It’s both healthy and natural to take pleasure in the experience of eating.

The purpose of my post was to say that we shouldn’t invest food with more significance than it deserves, nor use it as a crutch to cope with our struggles. Food isn’t devoid of meaning—it can signify pleasure and memory in a significant way—but neither should it be the prevailing source of one’s happiness, sense of self, comfort, ease, and so on. No single activity in life should so singularly control your emotions—working, studying, sleeping, exercising, sex, whatever—and eating is no exception!

But enough of that. Now that we’ve de-mystified food, let’s, um, talk about food.

Remember how I said I’d begin sharing a cooked recipe of the month? Last time, it was carrot fries. For the month of October, it’s going to be root vegetable mash. To be honest, I was going to come up with something much more elaborate and cool, but my kitchen time has been limited. And root vegetable mash is such a favorite of mine—and so versatile and tasty—that I figured I’d just go ahead and share.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been on a turnip kick. I’ve been spiralizing them, steaming them, roasting them, and shaving them into salads. I love them raw and cooked, but I do find that cooking brings out their sweetness. I’ve also found that they happen to go beautifully with another favorite root vegetable of mine: parsnips.

Though my pal Diana recently discovered she hates parsnips. I love them, A lot. Almost as much as I love carrots (almost–there aren’t many things in life I love more than carrots). And I’m always eager for a chance to eat them. So, with apologies to Diana for ruining a perfectly good turnip dish with the addition of parsnips, I present turnip and parsnip mash.

My basic template for all root veggie mash is simple:

1) Steam two or three cups of your favorite root veggie

2) Blend it in your food processor with a tablespoon of coconut oil, salt, and pepper.

Sure, you can get fancy if you’d like to, and add all sorts of herbs or spices (cinnamon and nutmeg are great; so are parsley and rosemary and thyme), but you really don’t have to; the sweetness of root veggies are enough to make them sing. An addition that can be very tasty is, oddly enough, a teaspoon of dijon mustard; I especially like this with turnips!

I recommend using any root veggies you like, in any combination (with the one cautionary suggestion that you pair beets with something really starchy, like potatoes, or else the beets won’t develop a pudding-like consistency).

A few nights ago, two large turnips, peeled and chopped, met three large parsnips, also peeled and chopped. They hung out in a steam bath for about fifteen minutes, went into my processor with some coconut oil, and got a good whirl (it took me a few minutes and a few stops to scrape the sides of the bowl). I added a teaspoon of mustard, a sprinkle of cinnamon, salt, and pepper, and voila:

A perfectly warm, comforting, and sweet treat.

Root veggie mash is a great way to enjoy root vegetables you might not be a fan of; by mixing them with others, you’ll mask their taste a bit. And it’s a great way to get some starchy food in a quick, digestible form; I love eating these mashes as a pre-workout snack. Try one out for yourself!

And while we’re on the topic of warm food, a few of you have written in to ask me how I stay motivated to eat raw in the winter and fall. The answer is, I never need “motivation” to eat raw—this lifestyle isn’t a challenge I hold myself to, nor should it ever feel that way. When I want cooked foods–and for me, this is usually cooked vegetables or grains–I eat them. This is very infrequent, but it happens more in the cold months, and I don’t hesitate to obey.

If you’re struggling to stay raw through the winter months, the answer might be for you to stop struggling so much! As I’ve said before, it’s not eating 100% raw that matters most, so much as eating a diet of plant-based, digestible foods in good combinations. It’s OK to eat cooked or steamed veggies, soups, easy-to-digest cooked grains, or other simple vegan fare when you want it; just remember to honor your digestion and to also include raw veggies in your diet. A combination of raw and cooked should serve you well, and you may find that by eating some cooked foods, your appetite for raw returns! And if you’re determined to stay the course, check out my friend EarthMother’s useful post on eating raw in winter months. I’ll try to share my own tips with you as temperatures drop, too!

Have a great day, all.

xo

P.S. Please vote for my friend Zesty in the Quaker Challenge!

What Food is Not

Hey guys!

So, I know that everyone is always talking about his or her yoga teacher and how great he or she is, but really: my yoga teacher, Ashleigh, is the best. She’s sweet and wise without being too much of a flower child; hip and funny without being a smartass. (She’s a pretty great yoga instructor, too!)

Ashleigh also happens to be a raw foods enthusiast! We’re often busy chatting about our favorite goodies at Quintessence and Pure. Every now and then, Ashleigh begins class with a food related anecdote (for no class of hers begins without an insightful, honest, and funny story). A few months ago, Ashleigh shared a story that resonated with me as a nutritionist.

The other night at dinner, Ashleigh said, she’d found herself digging into the bread at the dinner table with a little too much abandon. A few days later, she relayed the story to her own yoga teacher–a woman she considers a mentor. Her mentor responded by asking Ashleigh why she’d been so hungry for the bread. “I don’t know,” Ashleigh said. “It was just so soft and warm.”

“Oh, Ashleigh,” her mentor responded. “Was your mother soft and warm?”

As Ashleigh went on to explain her mentor’s insightfulness, I marveled at how deceptive food can be—how it can disguise itself as things it isn’t.

Here in the blogosphere, we spend a lot of time talking about what food is. It’s fuel, nourishment, and sustenance. It’s creativity, inspiration, and artistry. It’s friend and it’s foe.

Rather than fixating on what food is, though, it’s important to periodically remind ourselves of what food is not. Too often, our love/hate relationship with food is the result of our habit of endowing it with too much importance. Ask yourself: how often have you dug into that loaf of bread searching for the mother who wasn’t quite soft and warm? How often have you overindulged to compensate for the father who was never quite pleased? How many times have you looked to food to evoke a cherished memory, or to transport you back to the safety of childhood? Or let’s consider the converse: how many times have you found yourself restricting your meals or your portions out of anger? Purging in an attempt to wipe the slate clean? Obsessing over food in the hopes to invest your life with more control?

If you’re like most women, you’ve probably done one of these things–or a handful of them–on occasion. And who could blame you? Wherever we turn, we’re culturally conditioned to worship, venerate, cherish, resent, fear, or hate food. TV commercials display polished, dewy, light-flecked images of food with seductive voiceovers. Magazine adds bombard us with claims that this or that food will do this or that to make us happier, better, prettier, stronger, or healthier. TV shows devoted to weight loss keep all of us rapt with attention. So it’s no wonder we forget that food is just food. No more, no less.

Now, don’t get me wrong: food is a whole lot! But it’s not  synonymous with comfort, or memory, or escape. It’s not your friend, and it’s not your enemy. Even as we find basically healthy ways to celebrate food’s importance—when we speak, for instance, of its celebration in foreign cultures, or the passing down of cherished recipes between generations of family members—we tend to forget that food is first and foremost the stuff with which we keep our bodies going.

I cherish food just like anyone else—perhaps more than most people! But we all have to be careful to remember what food can and can’t do for us. It may please us and help us to connect; it may nourish us and provide us with creative distraction. It may provide pleasure or joy. But it shouldn’t obsess us, torment us, or control us; it alone shouldn’t give us an illusion of safety or well being. It’s just food. Whatever bothers or distracts us before we sit down to eat will still bother and distract us when we get up to wash the dishes.

It would be nice if, during those moments of eating, food could change our lives. Unfortunately, food isn’t that powerful. And if it is—if you’re looking for it to solve your problems, or to provide you with your principle source of happiness—you’re probably giving it far too much power. What do they say about drugs and booze and other addictions? You can’t look to outside substances for happiness or bliss. So too with food. Happiness, as all the old sayings go, has to come from within.

This is scary, of course: it would be pretty great if happiness came in a bowl of oatmeal, or sat at the bottom of a jar of nut butter, or was hiding in a bar of dark chocolate (and I use these foods as examples because they tend to be the foods that many women are prone to overeating). Unfortunately, we’ve got to rush outside into the world and claim happiness on our own. But this should feel empowering, too—at least as far as your love/hate relationship with eating goes. Just think: if you don’t give food the exclusive power to make you happy, you also don’t give it the exclusive power to make you miserable. Begin looking outside of food for happiness—look to your friends, or look to music, or look to art, or look to your work.

Or, better yet, look inward, which is where happiness really resides. Suddenly, you won’t be looking to food for a mood boost anymore. Instead, you’ll be eating the way we ought to eat: with nourishment in mind. If happiness is a part of the experience, great. Just so long as the primary source of happiness (or distress) in your life isn’t sitting on your plate. Or in the pantry.

Next time you find yourself tempted to overeat, under eat, or simply to approach your meal with a lousy frame of mind, ask yourself: what am I looking for? What emotion or experience am I trying to create through eating? Chances are, what you really want isn’t about to go in your mouth. So if it’s softness and warmth you seek—a softness or warmth you never had enough of—look to the positive relationships in your life, to the songs and books and TV shows that make you smile, or to the activities that make you feel whole.

No matter how great food can be, remember: it’s just food. Enjoy what’s on your plate, and walk away without looking back.

Deep thoughts on a Monday, kids. If you’re not sick of me yet, and if you want to read something a little lighter, please check out my interview with Alison on Health Blog Helper. I talk about this blog, how it came to be, and how my vision of it has changed since I’ve been blogging.

I also talk about my fear of heights.

Have a great night, all!

xo

P.S. Happy Birthday Kath!

Red Pepper and Hemp Soup

Ah, fall. Season of soups.

You guys know by now that I love raw soups. Which is a little funny, since I was never a fan of cooked soups. Or rather, I was never a fan of cooked soups with lots of stuff in them: chicken noodle, minestrone, miso, vegetable barley, whatever. I could handle the blended, creamy ones: butternut squash, cream (ew) of leek, cream (ew) of mushroom, carrot—but that makes sense, since those are the soups that raw soups most closely resemble.

To make a long and not very cool story short: I like creamy soups. I really like them even better when they’re raw. The end.

Why are raw soups so great? Well, for one thing, they’re chock full of enzymes, nutrients, and fiber, but their blended texture makes them highly digestible. This means they’re great for anyone who suffers from impaired digestion, or simply for any occasion when you need to give your digestive system a little TLC (illness; pre- or post-workout; when you’re rundown). They’re also quick and easy: raw soups don’t require making a perfect roux, waiting for vegetables to soften, or spending hours watching a pot simmer. And for most of us, soups evoke sweet childhood memories of simplicity and comfort.

If the thought of eating soups cold upsets you, don’t be deterred: it’s perfectly OK to heat them gently over a very low flame until they’re room temperature. If you’re not strictly raw and don’t care to be, go ahead and warm them up as much as you’d like!

You’ll be seeing a ton of soups—probably more than you’d like to see—as the weather cools down. I’m starting my soup marathon with a new recipe I tried out last week (my friend Cassie is finishing off my leftovers!): red pepper and hemp soup.

I wasn’t sure about this one: hemp is such a distinctive flavor that I worried it might overpower the peppers. But after my success with creamy hemp basil sauce, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. And it didn’t. Quite the contrary. This soup is sweet, creamy, and a little nutty tasting, but what really makes it shine is the kick from lemon juice and turmeric. It’s quick, nourishing, and—for those of you who are hung up on that whole protein thing—rich in protein, too. Enjoy it!

Red Pepper and Hemp Soup

Ingredients:

2 extra large (or 3 regular) red peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
½ cup hemp seeds
½ tsp salt
2 tbsps lemon juice
½ tsp curry powder
¼ tsp turmeric
1 tsp Braggs liquid aminos
Black pepper to taste
2/3 cup water (or to taste – this will depend on how thick or thin you like your soup)

Procedure:

Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth and creamy. You may want to begin with ½ cup water and adjust based on texture as you go along!

You can add garlic or onion to the soup. If you’re into that.

Of course, soup is lonely without a giant salad by its side:

Spinach, radicchio, broccoli. All together now:

Hope you all had a great weekend. I’ll be back this week with a cooked recipe, a question of the week, and more!

xo

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