I am starting the Monomeal Challenge!  People ask me what I eat and ask for recipes.  My problem is that although I do eat a few times each day, I tend to spend very little time in the kitchen.  Most of my food is 100% prepared by Nature.  I find that a very satisfying way to eat is to have mono meals.  This means that you have one type of food for an entire meal.  This usually turns out to be a fruit.  And so, I wondered what I should do.  I initially thought that I cannot just put up a picture of a fruit and say:  Here, that’s the recipe.  But now that I have thought about it, why not?  This is what I eat.  And so, hopefully my monomeal challenge will serve as inspiration for people interested in changing their diet to a low fat raw vegan diet, comprised of fresh, raw, ripe and hopefully organic fruit and veggies.

The Monomeal Challenge

The Challenge is to each day take a picture of a monomeal and post it on the blog.  Then, I get to enjoy that meal.

This should help me stay on track with healthy eating and hopefully improve my photography skills.

You can follow along on my monomeal challenge here.

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Here is how you make a super delicious salad with a great tasting dressing without turning your salad into a junk food.

Why Most Salads are Junk-Food

Junk food is usually food that contains so called “empty calories”.  These are calories that come without the nutrients.  How do you get them?  You get them by making re-fined foods.  By extracting only a small part of the original product and discarding all the naturally occurring nutrients.  Oil is a perfect example.  You discard pretty much everything and only leave the fat.  100% of the calories in oils come from fat.

How can a fresh salad be turned into a junk-food?  Easily.  Take for instance a head of romain lettuce.  It weighs about 300 g.  That is a rather large volume.  Most would see a salad made out of romain lettuce as a large salad.  Now let us imagine that you add 1 teaspoon of oil to it, as dressing.  All of a sudden you have a meal where 50% of the calories come from fat!  This is now a junk-food.

1 teaspoon of oil is not that much.  Most would add more than a tablespoon.  If you were to add a tablespoon of oil, to the lettuce, you would create a meal where 75% of the calories come from fat!  What is that?  A super junk-food?

Dressings are usually what carries the salad.  But you do not want to turn your salad into a junk-food.  Here is my all time favorite salad dressing recipe, that keeps your salad a healthy salad.

Tomato Dressing Recipe

In the picture you see the happy ingredients of this salad dressing.  They are:

2 regular tomatoes (or 3 small ones)

1/2 lemon without peel (mayer lemon if you have)

6 green, de-pitted olives

3 large, soft, de-pitted dates

The ingredients are then mixed in a blender.  The tomatoes give a nice base.  The olives give a salty taste.  The lemon gives a little acid taste and the dates give a wonderful sweetness.  In the picture you see what the dressing will look like when finished.

This dressing is so good that you may be tempted to just have it on its own!  But the great thing is, that you can.  It is not made out of fat, toxic, dehydrating or stimulating substances like normal dressings.  Regular dressings have lots of fat, salt and some vinegar (diluted acetic acid) and maybe some other additions.  You would not be be able to have a meal made out of a regular dressing.  This dressing, on the other hand, you actually could have as a meal.  But you may want a salad as well.  Here is how I make a salad that goes with the dressing.

Tomato Based Salad Recipe

In the picture you see the ingredients I often use for a nice tomato based salad.  They are:

8 smaller tomatoes

1 cucumber or a part of a telegraph cucumber

1 piece of a red bell pepper

1 zucchini squash

150 g green leaves

I simply cut them all up and add the fabulous dressing!  Try it.

This is my all time favorite salad.  As you can see, I am a big tomato fan.

Nutritional Information:

Salad with dressing:

413 kcal
82 E% Carbohydrates
10 E% Protein
8 E% Fat

Dressing:
257 kcal
88 E% Carbohydrates
4 E% Protein
8 E% Fat
(200 kcal come from dates)

Salad (without the dressing):
157 kcal
72 E% Carbohydrates
19 E% Protein
9 E% Fat

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Most of us know, at least on some level, that we become what we think about.  Whatever we focus our attention on will sooner or later manifest in our life in some way.

A problem many of us experience is that we tend to focus on the lack of things, and consequently manifest more of it.  By focusing on what we want and generating positive feelings around it, we can playfully inspire action that will lead us towards that which we want.

A wonderful too to use are inspirational movies.  Let me give you some background and then share one of my movies with you.

How Inspiration Worked For Me

I once was interested in doing yoga in the mornings.  I wanted to get into a routine, so that I would do my yoga every morning.  The problem was that whenever I tried I usually managed to force myself to do it only for a few days, at most.  I could have used some more discipline.  I had done that on occasions before.  But my concern was that by using discipline I was simultaneously overriding my intuition and teaching myself not to listen to my own feelings.  There had to be another way.

What I ended up trying was the following.  Every day I would spend approximately 2-5 minutes sitting comfortably in an armchair dreaming about the joys of doing morning yoga.  It would usually start out something like this… “I wake up and feel totally refreshed.  As I look at the clock I see that it is not even 6 yet.  I have this urge to do yoga.  I cannot stop myself from grabbing my yoga mat and in the early silence of the morning starting my yoga session.  Every posture feels amazing.  The stretches are liberating…”  and so on.  You probably get the idea.  The important part was that I was actually feeling all the wonders of it while I was imagining it.

After my 2-5 minutes of imagination I would go about with my day as usual.  I would make no other effort what so ever.  After about two weeks of imagination journeys I found that one day I woke up and felt very refreshed and rested.  As I looked at the clock, it was not even 6.  And I had this urge to do yoga.  From that day, I did yoga every morning for the next couple of months.  And the interesting part was that I never did it out of discipline.  I only did it because I happened to wake up at that time and really felt like doing it.

Inspiration is such a great power to tap into.  But for many reasons we tend to stop ourselves from it.  In order to make it even easier here is my gift to you…

Inspirational Movie – Being Raw

One of my challenges has been to stay on the Raw Food path.  I know, logically, that it is so much better for me than cooked food in all sorts of ways.  I can feel the difference in my own body.  And yet, at times I still feel that I would like to have some of the cooked food I used to eat.  With discipline I can stop myself from eating the cooked food.  But I would much rather inspire myself towards the raw food.

Here is my inspirational movie about being raw:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you like it, and are perhaps on your own path towards a healthier diet, I suggest that you watch it every day and try to really feel it, adding your own emotional content to it as you watch it.   Adding your own emotional content means that when you, for instance, see the picture of the grapes you imagine what they taste like, or how it felt when you picked grapes from the vine when you were small and the grapes were still warm from the sun.  With every image you try to associate a positive emotional response.

These types of movies are really simple to make.  My suggestion would be that you made your own movies, with images and affirmations that resonate with you.  This way you could put your emotional potential to work on your preferred subject.

Inspirational movies can be powerful tools for transformation, not to mention a lot of fun to watch, as they generate a sense of well-being while you watch them.  They may also trigger your imagination and get you on the path of thinking positively about what you want, while feeling great.

I would love to hear how they are working for you.

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If you are not quite ready to give up the taste of your favorite cooked foods but really want to improve your diet and start getting some of the benefits of a low fat raw vegan diet… then this is the page for you.

Why Transitioning to Raw Foods Can Be Harder Than Expected

As with any dietary change there is the mechanical change.  You have to learn what to eat, how to prepare it, where to buy it and how to fit all of that into your particular life.  This usually takes a few weeks, and then it becomes a habit.

When transitioning away from cooked foods to low fat raw foods, there is much more involved.  You will soon notice if (or most likely that) you are addicted to certain foods and spices.  Fast food and commercially prepared food is designed to be addictive.  It is loaded with all sorts of stimulants and excito-toxins.   When you stop eating these foods you may experience cravings and withdraw symptoms.

Additionally, you may experience emotional problems.  When you stop eating a regular western cooked food diet you free up a lot of energy and resources for your body.  When your body no longer has to coordinate complicated digestive tasks it will give you more resources to feel.   Learning to deal with your feelings is a task that may take you a few months.  Until then, you will probably have a impulse to just eat something that requires a lot of resources for its digestion.  This way the food will numb you out emotionally- just like it usually does.  Just think about how you feel after a large cooked meal.

These are just some of the things you may experience when going on a Raw Food Diet.  Of course, you will also have all the amazing benefits.    If you are not quite ready to transition completely to a raw food diet then here are a few tricks you can use that will still give you amazing health benefits.

The Cooked Salad Dressing

This may seem like a strange idea at first, but can be very satisfying.  When you have those strong food cravings and you are on the verge of getting some of that Indian or Chinese take-out, try this instead.

The idea is to make sure that stay on mostly raw, low fat food.  However, you will probably be craving some of your former favorite meals.  The idea is to add a healthier version of them, and only as a dressing.   This way you will still eat the bulk of the meal raw, but have the taste you long for.

Here is an example:

Cooked Salad Dressing Recipe

chopped onions

pressed garlic

2 teaspoons of oil

chopped zucchini

chopped tomatoes

tomato paste

something a little sweet, like agave nectar

+ the spices you long for (like indian curry, miso, mexican spices…)

You would put the garlic and oil in a saucepan.  Make sure you only take a little oil.  You still want to keep an 80-10-10 ratio (Carbohydrats-Proteins-Fats) in your overall diet.  Add the pressed garlic after a while.  Then add the chopped zucchini.  Then the tomatoes and tomato paste.  Depending on the taste of your tomatoes you may want to add something to sweeten the sauce up a little bit.  Then add the types of spices that you are longing for and keep on the stove for a couple of minutes until the flavors mix.

The Salad

tomatoes

bell peppers

cucumber

leafy greens

Make a large bowl of salad.  This should be one of those large serving bowls, not just regular soup bowl or so.  Then put some of the still hot salad dressing on top.

You will end up with a slightly warm meal that is mostly raw, still follows the 80-10-10 guidelines but also satisfies your particular craving and taste.

The cooked salad dressing will probably last you for a couple of meals.

This recipe is only an example.  You probably already know what cooked foods and tastes you like the best.  And so making them in very small quantities, while keeping the meal mostly raw may make your transition easier.

Tips for Adding Cooked Foods

• Make it a meal free of animal products
• Make sure it does not contain too much fat
• Make sure it is only a smal part of the actual meal
• Stay away from grains (as they cause digestive problems in most people)

Try to make your breakfast 100% raw.   Have lots of the fruits and berries you love in the morning.  Then, you may choose to perhaps have a large green smoothie for lunch.  A green smoothie will provide you with a healthy dose of leafy greens.  Depending on how much fruit you put in it, it will also contain enough fuel to sustain you until an early dinner.

In time, you may want to start experimenting with dressings made from fruits and vegetables, with small amounts of nuts.

Work on Personal Growth

It is highly likely that you are experiencing problems because of underlying emotional issues.  When you get on a low fat raw diet you stop numbing yourself on a daily basis.  Whatever hurt and underlying emotional distress you may have will tend to make itself known.  This is normal.   This is actually an excellent opportunity for emotional and spiritual growth.  Work on it.  You will probably find that your success on the raw diet will go hand in hand with personal growth.

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Here is a really simple, yet quite tasty recipe for a low fat raw vegan desert.   But there’s a catch.  It is all really simple only if you have the right tools.  In this case you will need a handy little apple corer.  If you don’t have one… well then you will just have to become more creative.  I have actually done these cream filled bananas with a cork-screw.  It took a bit more work, but in the end it was worth it.  I would love to hear if you come up with any other creative hole making tools.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cream Filled Bananas Recipe

2 thick bananas

1 small banana

1 teaspoon of almond butter

some cinnamon

Peel the two thick bananas.  Cut the in the middle.  Use a thin apple corer to make a hole through the bananas.  Plug the end of the banana and stick a tooth-pick through it so that it does not fall out.

Take the cored middles and add the small banana.  Add the almond butter and the cinnamon.  Mix until it becomes creamy.

Fill the bananas with the cream.

Enjoy!

Nutritional Information:

Totalt calories: 347 kcal
87 kcal / filled banana piece

85% carbohydrate
5%  protein
10% fat

Psst….  Don’t forget!  Put a tooth-pick, party umbrella or some other creative device at the bottom the the banana so that it all stays together.

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A Day In a Smile

The other day I met a smile
Its warmth intrigued me deeply.

I tried it on for size a while
And found it fit me neatly.

And so today I wore it proud
For all the world to ponder.
Its beauty speaks with strength out loud
And fills me with sweet wonder.

- by Basia Piechocinska

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Raw Food Lettuce Wraps

Here is something you can make quickly for a snack or light dinner:  Raw Food Wraps.  Just open your fridge and take a look at what you have.  Ideally you will be a happy owner of some kind of lettuce, large leafy green or perhaps red cabbage.  If so, then you will quickly be able to make a nice meal for yourself, and perhaps someone else as well.

How to Make a Raw Food Wrap – The Basics

1. Large leaves
   
2. Creamy sauce
3. Veggies
4. Possibly another sauce

1.  Large Leaves

Whatever leaves you have will probably work well.  Iceberg lettuce will feel very light and crispy.  Kale and cabbage will be more chewy and give more of a flavor.  If you are using cabbage or something with a thicker stem you may want to filé off part of the stem so that it is not so thick.  This way it will be easier to wrap and easier to chew.

2.  Creamy Sauce

Make a nut, or avocado based sauce.  A nut based sauce would contain some nuts that you might currently have (macademia, cashew, brazil nuts,…).  It would also have a piece of lemon, or lemon juice for something slightly acidic.  It might have some olives, for a salty taste.  It might contain some garlic.  You might also add a tomato.  All of this would be mixed in a high speed blender.  If you are going for a Mexican style raw food wrap you could make guacamole based on an avocado.  If you are more into Asian food, then perhaps a mixture of avocado with white miso would fit you best.

3. Veggies

Whatever you have in your fridge will probably work well.  Use the ingredients in the pictures for inspiration.  I usually really like zucchini.  Then, depending on your mood and fridge contents, you might use broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, mesclun salad, olives, etc…  If you are willing to experiment add some fruits like apples for a little sweetness or some other fruits you have around you.

4. Possibly Another Sauce

If you like Italian food, you may want to make an Italian tomato sauce with Italian herbs to top it all off.  If you are going for that Mexican taste, perhaps a hot salsa sauce would combine well with a guacamole as the creamy sauce.  Just mix the sauce ingredients in your high speed blender and you will be ready to start making those wraps.  Just make sure that your sauce is not too runny.  If you are using tomatoes, do not use the runny part of them where they have their seeds, or you might end up with too much water.  Add some sun dried tomatoes to your fresh, de-seeded tomatoes for the sauce.

Making the Wrap

Once you have all the ingredients start with your leaf.  Add some of the creamy sauce and spread it out.  Do not use too much of it though.  You do not want to end up with a high fat food.  Then add the veggies and finally the extra sauce.

Inspired Wrap Creations

Depending on your leaf, you may want to serve it open or wrapped.  Here are three variations on simple ice-berg lettuce.  The first is a half open variation, inspired by … a sea shell.  The Second one is a cup variation, inspired by … the image of a swan.  And the third one is a simple wrap… no particular inspiration… perhaps a closed shell? :)

Have fun creating your artful Raw Food Wraps!

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Here is my favorite lasagna recipe.  It is an adaptation from a recipe found in “The Art of Raw Living Food” by Doreen Virtue and Jenny Ross.  Like many living foods “cook-books” this contains a bunch of beautiful and delicious recipes…but…most of them are extremely high fat.

You can read about the health aspects of raw food diets and the importance of a low fat diet at Perfect Health.  What we are going for is and 80/10/10 diet.  This means that 80% of the calories are from carbohydrates, 10% from proteins, and 10% from fats.

And so, here is a low fat version of raw lasagna that you can have on a daily basis without over eating on the fats.  It contains 1/8th of the fat in the original recipe.

You can eat this lasagna fresh, or you can dehydrate it slightly in the sun or in a dehydrator (3 hours).  You may need to pour out some excess water.  I personally like it better slightly dehydrated, because it is a little warm and the tastes blend better.

Feel free to experiment with the recipe.  You can exchange the cashew for macademia or other nuts.  You can exchange the dates for some other sweetener, etc…

Raw Lasagna Recipe

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Red Lasagna Sauce

6-8 tomatoes

4 sun-dried tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

4 de-pitted dates (or some sweetener)

7 fresh leaves of basil

2 tablespoons of Italian Herbs

Mix all ingredients in a high speed blender until you create a smooth texture.

The White Lasagna Sauce

1/2 cup of cashews or macademia nuts

1 small zucchini

2-3 tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

4 de-pitted Kalamata Olives

1 peeled lemon

Mix everything in a high speed blender until a creamy texture is achieved. If the zucchini is too large the sauce will become too runny.  You may add some more nuts and maybe use the extra sauce for wraps or other dishes.

The Raw Lasagna Plates

4 small zucchinis

4 tomatoes

The plates are created by cutting the zucchinis with a potato peeler.  The tomatoes are cut very thinly with a regular knife in order to add more taste and texture between the layers of zucchini plates.

Start with a layer of zucchini, then the two sauces and tomatoes and continue.  Place red sauce on top and splash with white sauce.

In order for the lasagna to hold together better be sure to orient the zucchini layers in a crossed pattern (see in the video above).

Enjoy!!

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Home made deodorant powders are very simple to make, work very well, and are much healthier for you.  They are, of course, naturally aluminum free.  Oh, and did I mention that they can be a lot of fun to make!?

But Do Natural Deodorants Really Work?

Yeap, they do.  What can I say?  Try them.  Actually, these deodorant powders that I make work far better for the people I have tested them out on than do the natural crystal deodorants that you can buy in health stores.

Another advantage they have is that they are not antiperspirants.  This means that they do not block the body’s ability to sweat.  Some toxins are eliminated through perspiration.  Blocking them is not a good idea.

Tip: Improve Your Odor

If you are on a low fat raw vegan diet, you probably already know that after some time on the diet you naturally stop smelling bad.  Your sweat has no particular odor.  Although, it is fair to say, there are some things that you can eat that will bring back a certain smell, such as garlic.

Lazy Man’s Deodorant Recipe

Baking Soda (bicarbonate of soda)

If you want the health benefits of natural deodorant but lack time and inspiration for their preparation there is a very easy way out.  Just use one single, cheap ingredient – baking soda.  You will probably be surprised to see how well this works.  It is unscented and perfect for anyone with any kind of allergies.

Tip: If you find that your skin becomes overly dry or irritated with the use of baking soda, you can also put on some coconut oil (or try my spicy body oil recipe).

Orange Scented Deodorant Powder Recipe

3 tablespoons of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder

2 tablespoons of cornflour

10 drops of sweet orange essential oil

10 drops of neroli essential oil

Mix the dry ingredients, add the essential oils and mix well.  Store in an airtight container.

For an unscented powder deodorant you can use just the dry ingredients, without the essential oils.  You can also add other oils, ones that you like better.   Mix it as you like and try it out.  The main ingredient that you do not want to be without is the baking soda.

Ideas for Ingredients For Home Made Deodorants

Dried Rosemary

Dried Sage

Dried Thyme

Hempseed essential oil

Patchouli essential oil

Lavender essential oil

These ingredients all fight the odor-causing bacteria.  When you use dried ingredients, such as dried thyme or sage, you can run it in your grinder for a couple of seconds so that you get a nice green powder.  In the pictures you see that one of the powders has a green color to it.  That is because it contains sage and thyme.

I would love to read your favorite deodorant recipe.  Feel free to share it in the comments.

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That which you really want the most, you can have… right now.

How?  You can give it to yourself, right now.  You actually hold that power.  Let me explain it through a little story…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whatever we do we usually do because we believe that we will feel better in some way because of it.  We have been trained into that way of living.  And so, often we end up struggling and doing things we do not really want to do.  But it does not have to be that way.

Guess what?  Feeling good is a habit.  It is something that you can practice and then train yourself into doing, just as you do with every skill that eventually becomes a habit.  It can become your habitual response to your surroundings.

Feeling Good Exercise

Every thing has positive and negative aspects.  Why not choose to focus your main attention on the positive side.  Use the negative to give you a clear direction as to what it is you want.  The moment you experience something you do not like, smile!  Be happy because now you actually clearly know what you do want.  You usually want the exact opposite.  Focus on it.  Feel it.

Soon you will start experiencing all the bonuses of living with inspired action.  Inspired action is actually the main idea behind Inspired-Living.org  – acting from inspiration.  Act from a place of joy and fulfillment and watch your life take off into unchartered joy territory.

Bonuses of Inspired Living

• You will feel happy and joyous most of the time
• You will experience a feeling of flow in your life
• You will find that everything tends to work out for you in an effortless way
• You will free up energy for your body to heal itself

Make feeling good your priority and look for things to feel good about, where ever you may be looking.

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