Staying GREEN and RAW While On The Road

It takes some determination, creativity and planning, but preparing green smoothies on the road can be done, and it's worth the effort.

Find a Whole Foods Market, or a really good supermarket with an organic section. You will need young Thai coconuts, bananas, pears, and some dandelion or kale. Purchase a jar of organic nut butter. In advance, using containers or zip lock bags, pack a combination of ground chia seeds and hemp seeds and in another bag, cacao powder. Of course, you will need to purchase a Personal Blender that comes with individual containers and covers to store your smoothies in. It is advisable to find an insulated tote bag for this and use it as a "carry-on," however, pack the blade portion of the blender with your checked baggage. Some Personal Blenders also offer a mini cutting board and spatula. These can come in handy and easily fit into your carry on.

Take a trip to the hotel restaurant manager, explain your dietary needs, and see if you can borrow a sharp knife, large bowl, and a a few utensils. There are great videos on line that show you how to open a young Thai coconut easily. Otherwise, pack a knife carefully in your checked luggage.

Using two Personal Blender containers, put half of the coconut water and meat in each and blend. Split one banana between the two containers, and if there is not enough coconut water, add additional filtered water. Add a few slices of pear to sweeten the smoothie and blend, Add chopped dandelion greens or kale. Add a spoonful of nut butter, chia/hemp seeds, cacao powder and some crushed ice and blend. Do not let the Personal Blender run more than 45 seconds at a time, or it will overheat and shut off. Be patient. You will create a lovely and enjoyable smoothie, chock full of goodness. If necessary, use a third container to fit everything in, After a few practice runs, you'll get the feel of how much of each ingredient you can use to get the smoothie you want.

If you are going to be out for the day, clean and cut up carrots and celery stalks, put them in a bag and munch on when you get hungry. Apples and bananas are great to have as well. Preparing these raw, nutritious foods, so that you have them later is a huge help in continuing to eat green, raw and healthy, even while on the road. Bring the bag of hemp/chia seeds too. You can pop them in your mouth, or sprinkle on almost anything, for some extra good nutrients.

You can easily make green smoothies without the coconuts, by just using banana, water, pineapple or pears...then add chia seeds, hemp seeds and even cacao powder. Another option is to pick up a bag of frozen fruit and blend that into the mixture.

HINT: If going through airport security, wrap any food you are bringing in either Mylar bags, or many layers of aluminum foil. A really neat trick is to deflate large Mylar balloons, cut them open and use several layers to wrap your food items, sealing with a rubber band or tape. If thick enough both Mylar and foil may protect food from irradiation.

When unpacking, save the Mylar so you can reuse it for the trip home. Vitamins and supplement containers should be wrapped in Mylar as well. You can purchase Mylar bags. These are more costly, but makes the process even easier and they can be reused. (Mark the contents of each bag with a marker).

NOTE: Create a wonderfully nutritious chia pudding in the Personal Blender by using the green smoothie recipe, but adding more ground chia seeds to thicken. Add cacao powder, nut butter or frozen fruits to vary the flavors. Eat immediately or store in hotel refrigerator for later.

Why Raw Food ?

You may have heard about people eating raw food and drinking juices to detoxify themselves but you may not know the ins and outs of why. The truth is, cooked food is considered as poison to the human body, in fact, every time we eat cooked food our white blood cells multiply to get rid of the invader! This process of white blood cell multiplication is known as digestive leucocytosis. Our bodies are not designed to eat cooked food and it has to be eliminated as quickly as possible or else stored in adipose tissue. Human beings are frugivores and can only live healthfully on a diet primarily consisting of raw fruit, nuts and seeds and green leafy vegetables. Raw plant material is the only thing our bodies' recognise as food and eating this way is the only way to achieve maximum vitality and optimum health.

For many years we have been told that we must have lots of protein in our diet, or lots of calcium and, we are told, meat and animal products are our way of providing this. Actually, meat and animal products are the hardest things for the human body to digest and result in poor health, directly or indirectly. This is not only because they are cooked but also because the human body is not designed physiologically to consume flesh foods or flesh products. This means that the consumption of this type of food results in an inevitable putrefaction and the resultant poisonous by-products play havoc with our health. All cooked foods are classed as alien to us and the only way the human body can take in nutrients is when the food we eat is whole, raw and plant. This means that anything other than that is thought of as poison and the body tries to expel it or store it away to prevent it from causing harm. A diet consisting of mainly or solely raw food gives us ALL THE NUTRIENTS WE NEED and is all the body requires for its vital functioning. Don't be fooled by the myths!

On switching to a raw food and juices diet many people have allowed their bodies to heal from life-threatening diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. and have turned around the ageing process.

Vegetarian Wraps Recipe

This vegetarian wraps recipe is so easy to make, you'll wonder why you've never made it before. You can use any bean, but I used aduki, or adzuki, beans that are small and reddish-brown. They are one of the fastest beans to cook, making them one of my favorites for quick and healthy vegan recipes.

The advantages of beans are that they're low in fat, high in protein and loaded with fiber. Gram for gram, they're a much more economical source of protein than meat. Topping off the wrap, sprouts (like alfalfa or clover) are one of the foods most packed with nutrient, and putting them in a wrap is a delicious way to eat a big portion of them.

This vegetarian wraps recipe makes enough for 6 large wraps.

Vegetarian Wraps Recipe Ingredients

• 1 cup canned or cooked aduki beans (or another bean)
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Flat leaf parsley, chopped
• half of a sweet onion, sliced
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cucumber, sliced with skin
• 1 cup sprouts (alfalfa, clover, broccoli, etc)
• 6 wraps

Vegetarian Wraps Recipe Directions

1. Dried aduki beans, if you're using them, need to be fully cooked before you start. Soak half a cup of the dry beans overnight with lots of water. Drain them, add 2 cups of water, bring to a boil and simmer for an hour. Do not use salt during the cooking process. Putting a piece of kombu (seaweed) in the water while the beans cook will help make the beans more easily digested.
2. Using canned aduki beans is less work, but be sure to look for beans that do not have any salt. Some brands actually cook the beans with kombu, which is ideal.
3. Mix the olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice together, and you can add any herbs or spices you like, but be sure to add a pinch of salt. If you are using a vinaigrette from the store, make sure there's salt in the ingredients. If not, add some! Since the beans are not cooked with any salt, they need a bit after cooking.
4. Pour the vinaigrette over the cooked beans in a small bowl. Chop some parsley, then stir it into the beans. The beans will appreciate marinating for at least an hour, but they only get better the longer you leave them.
5. To get dinner together once the beans are flavored, heat a small pan tp medium. Sauté the onions briefly in a small amount of olive oil, to soften their flavor. Feel free to can skip this step if you prefer your onions raw.
6. There are a few ways to heat up your wraps: toaster oven, full-size oven, or heat briefly in the pan you used for the onions. Arrange some beans, vegetables and sprouts in the middle of the wrap, fold one end in, roll and enjoy your vegetarian wraps recipe!