My Favourite Raw Dip/Sauce Recipe Of The Moment

Hi there,

I don't do many recipes but I thought I would share one with you.  It is quite simple and can be used in a number of different ways.

Unfortunately I don't have exact measurements but you can experiment and find an amount you like.

So here it is:

Ingredients:

Tomatoes
Tahini
Celery
Dates
Optional Spices

It can be as simple as just the tomatoes and tahini, there is something great in that combination. The additional things give it something extra.

Directions:

Blend a roughly equal volume of tomatoes and celery and a generous drop of tahini together.  Add some mild chili, a date or two and perhaps some lemon juice or other herbs.

That's it!

This can be used as a salad dressing or as a dip (cut up some cauliflower and courgette/zuchinni or any veggies of your choice to use as chips).  One of my favourite things is to dip florets of cauliflower in the sauce then dehydrate them for a couple of hours.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Yours fruitastically,

Ronnie Smith

PS

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What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Healing Colitis

It's been the bank holiday weekend so I have had today (Monday) off.  Thankfully I have been able to catch up on a little sleep and get some exercise.

Despite getting closer and closer to winter the weather here has been excellent.  It has barely rained in the last few weeks and it has been mostly bright.  My brother and I have been taking advantage of this by playing a lot of tennis at a local park.

I have always enjoyed tennis and I think I will try to take it up more often.  If you are up for a game in Glasgow then let me know!

I have recently posted another video interview from Woodstock.  This time it was a conversation with Andrew Perlot.

Andrew has a pretty amazing story of recovering from Colitis through eating a fruit based raw food diet and has gone on to help other people through his website raw-food-health.net (I will provide a proper link at the end of this post).

He is an impressively well researched authority on raw food nutrition and has written a number of books on the topic.  On top of this he is an incredibly fit guy and himself and his partner Brittany performed a phenomenal acro-yoga routine as part of the Woodstock talent show.

Andrew is also known for having performed an over eating experiment in which he was trying to show it was possible to put on fat on a fruit based diet.  This was going against some popular authorities and teachers who maintain that it is impossible to get fat on fruit.  Andrew certainly gained weight during the experiment and you can hear more in the video.

I really enjoyed speaking to Andrew and recommend you check out more of his information at his website and give the video a watch.

Please share the video with anyone you think would get a benefit from it and subscribe for future videos.

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie

www.raw-food-health.net

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLwWbN4g4GU&list=UUvmR3VNNU-YO-q_DpSpIUvAClick Here To View The Interview With Andrew Perlot

How To Satisfy Cravings For Salty, Crunchy Food On A Raw Vegan Diet

Hello and I hope it is a fine day for you.

Over here in Scotland (or here in Scotland, if you are here) the days are getting shorter rapidly.  The phrase used for this here is "the nights are fair drawing in" and indeed they are.

As an animal with a tropical origin I am sure there is some part of me that is utterly confused by seasonal changes as this is something that our genetic ancestors didn't deal with for tens of millions of years.

Anyway we carry on regardless and make it through somehow.

I want to briefly speak about cravings for salty, crunchy food on a raw vegan diet.  If you are following 801010 you probably don't eat a lot of salt or exclude it completely.  I am in the second camp here, I don't eat or use salt in my food.

For many people this is a tough change and something that will prevent them from sticking to a raw diet.  They get tired of sweet all of the time and and want something savoury and often a salad is not what they are looking for.  

I believed in the commonly portrayed idea that if you give up salt then your taste buds will change and become more sensitive and vegetables will all of a sudden become very salty to you.

I never really found this to be the case, and struggled to incorporate more vegetables into my diet.

Indeed for a fairly long period of time I would just eat sweet fruits with no savoury fruits like tomatoes and no greens or other vegetables.

Though we still enjoy the taste and to some extent have a craving for salty food I have usually found that the craving would go away if I ate enough sweet fruit.

I'm not convinced that we need greens or vegetables but I do enjoy vegetable dishes and the savoury crunchy taste.  I thought I would share with you some raw vegan foods that will help satisfy those savoury craving, but be warned many of these things are totally addictive:

1.  Sundried Tomatoes- hard to find in the UK without being drenched in oil and salt.  In the US it seems to be much easier to get untampered with sun dried Tomatoes at local shops.  Delicious and packed with flavour it can be hard to stop eating these.  A good site to order them from in the UK is called The Raw Greek.

2. Freeze Dried Peas/ Sweetcorn- Fresh garden peas have a fantastic savoury sweet flavour and I can personally eat bags at a time when they are in season.  Freeze dried peas and freeze dried sweetcorn are another incredible snack though it is questionable how "raw" they are.  Once again they are not really openly available in the UK so you may want to check the internet.

3. Multiple Dehydrator Recipes- Using a dehydrator opens up a wide variety of different recipes, flavours and textures for a raw vegan.  My favourite so far is to dip cauliflower florets in a sauce made from blended tomato, celery and tahini with some spices added.  Put that in the dehydrator for 2 hours and you have an incredible snack.

All of these should give you some great options that can help satisfy that salty craving.  If you have any more please comment below.

If you would like to subscribe for future updates then fill in your details in the form to the right.  You will receive some great gifts as a result.

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie

Down The Raw Food Rabbit Hole

I was challenged today on my raw food lifestyle in particular about how much I must miss the food I used to eat.  I was also accused of living in fear instead of living in the moment when I spoke a little about the various diseases of society caused by diet.

When I get in to these kind of conversations with conventional eating people I don't tend to put a lot of energy into answering their questions.

My feeling is that it is unlikely that they actually want to be taken down what I call the "Raw Food Rabbit Hole".  The conversations skirt around the edge of the hole but it is unlikely that they wish to be taken by hand down into the hole that you can never really escape from.

I hide the fact that I know a lot more about nutrition that they give me credit for.  My friend asked where I got my fat from and I told him there was fat in fruits and vegetables.  He didn't beleive
me.  Of course there is fat in all whole foods but it is not marketed in that way so the public don't realise that.

But the question of whether I miss the old foods is interesting.  I explained to him that when you start a new habit of eating then your taste buds change and you don't really think about the old foods
anymore.

For me eating fruit is as immediate and enjoyable as eating sweets and candy is for other people.  I don't feel like I am missing out.  But he also tapped into a point about fear.

Up until recently I thought I made most of my decisions in life out of a positive emotion like hope but now I am realising that there is almost always a corollary fear going along with even the most
hopeful vision.  We eat healthy not just for the positives it brings but to avoid the negatives that eating badly used to bring us and each reason is very powerful.

The worst thing is to make choices through ignorance and most people are prepared not to look for the information they need.  If they were genuinely interested then I could take then gently down the rabbit hole of health that they would emerge from unchanged.

Keep on down the path, it goes farther and farther down, there is much to learn.

Maybe it is time you were sharing it with other?

Yours fructiferously,

Ronnie

"So What Disease Is This Fruit Good For?"

Often if I offer someone a new or unique fruit they will ask me what it is good for.

They want to know what particular vitamin or nutrient this fruit is particularly high in.

I really have no idea most of the time as I do not study these things.  To paraphrase Dr Doug Graham, I don't eat bananas for the potassium but for their bananness.

I don't personally think it is helpful or accurate to promote a fruit because of a certain substance. Often the common wisdom on such things.  Such as bananas being number 70 on the list of foods high in potassium and lower than other fruits such as dates.

People mistakenly see potassium as being incredibly high in potassium and worry about getting too much.  The reality is that the body is excellent at adapting to different levels of potassium in the diet and easily gets rid of any excess through the kidneys.

Even though this is my stance sometimes I wonder if it might be helpful to simply go along with the question and say "oh mangoes are great for diabetes, strawberries are wonderful for cancer....heart disease, go for grapes" or whatever as perhaps it would encourage some people to eat more of it.

In general I don't think or worry about specific nutrients.  It is really hard to wend your way through the morass of information on health and diet topics and try to find some truth.  I should probably start doing some more research on these things.  For now I just trust in the fruit and vegetables.  They taste good to me.

In that same vein I did have a look through a medical textbook today that I saw at work.  The information on nutrition was very limited and was more about the specific chemistry of certain substances.

Really we need to start taking a step back and having a look to nature and how other animals are eating.  We need to learn to follow our natural design and go back to growing and eating more free food straight from the vine.

It is likely that if we do this then many of the "incurable" diseases listed in the medical textbooks will vanish and become an obscure history lesson.  Really we have no idea how many of these illnesses could be the result of bad nutrition...it is a little scary.

So that's my thoughts for today.  As ever if you would like to subscribe to receive future updates and get some free gifts from me then sign in at the form to your right.

Yours fruitfully,

Ronnie Ronster

My Problem With Seasonal Changes

I am still pretty sleep deprived.

A combination of late and early nights recently with the referendum have left me drained.  I am in a weird state of emotional and physical exhaustion and not quite knowing what to do with myself.

On Saturday I had arranged another Fruitluck at the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow.  It was a fairly small turnout but we had a nice time.

I have been running the group for nearly two years but never really put a lot of effort into promoting it.  I think I will need to spread the word a bit more and grow it into a more thriving community.

I would also like to put on some talks for the future and other interesting events, so stay tuned.

It feels now that the seasons are really changing and summer is moving on.  Within me these season changes are often a bit difficult and I often wonder if that is to do with our years of evolution in a climate that basically had no seasons.

We lived in a 24/7 summertime in the tropical forests of Africa.  Our closest relatives in the animal kingdom still live in that environment.  The Chimpanzees and the Bonobos still hang out in the sun all year long, eating fruit, socialising, relaxing, playing. Sounds like a great life.

So season changes would have been feared and would have been a sign to get away.  To move to where it was warm and there was plenty of food around.

With my diet at the moment I really need to make a commitment to get to the fruit market more.  I often go a few weeks without getting there and end up spending more on fruit at supermarkets than i really want to.  I don't begrudge paying the money but it would be a lot cheaper from the market.

I hope to create a future where I can spend the winters elsewhere.  I am sure I will make this happen soon.

Yours frutfully,

Ronnie

Interview With Raw Vegan Chef, Illustrator And Festival Hopper- Katie Cr...