Aleta and I attended a “raw food” workshop at the local (and only) Whole Foods Market. As usual, I was the only dude there that was not wearing a small T-shirt and horn-rimmed glasses, was clean shaven, and did not have product in my hair that made me look an alt-rocker (you know, that dry pomade stuff). I was thinking about carrying my Glock 19 and wearing cammo (actually, I don’t have cammo and don’t have a gun or a concealed carry permit…yet).

Eating 100% raw is pretty hard core. It makes us vegans look like health heathens. However, incorporating some decent raw foods and meals into any kind of diet can be extremely helpful. The lady doing the cooking demonstration had an amazing story of health restoration and weight loss after having chronic illness for 20 years. There are plenty of testimonies like this if you google hard enough.

She whipped up some eg’gless e’gg salad in one of her demos. I was a total skeptic until she passed out samples. Once the demo was over, I ran over to the store and bought all the ingedients. I have been eating it every day for lunch this week.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium lemon squeezed (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
• 3/4 cup raw macadamia nuts (soaked for 4 hours)
• 3/4 cup raw cashews (soaked for 4 hours)
• 1/4 cup diced celery
• 1/4 cup diced peppers
• 1/4 cup relish or diced pickles
• 2 diced scallions
• 1 tsp of agave nectar (or sugar)
• 3/4 tsp of tumeric (key ingredient)
• 1 chopped garlic clove (or tsp of powder)
• Salt to taste
• Water for consistency

Blend everything but the vegetables in a food processor for 5 minutes. The mixture should be very smooth and yellow by the time you are done. Add water a 1/4 cup at a time until you get your desired consistency (like how thick or thin do YOU want it). Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the veggies and mix it.

You can eat it right there or chill it for a few hours. It does get better with age. From that point on, you can basically use it on whatever you want. You can make sandwiches, celery boats, or add it to a salad. The stuff is very filling and very good for you. You are getting a ton of protein and good fats and zero cholesterol.

And you don’t have to wear horn rimmed glasses to enjoy it…

This is my 4th and final installment on really small foods that pack very large punches and avoid you having to eat 50 lbs of salad a day to get nutrition. I have previously talked about chia, flax, and blackstrap molasses. My fourth installment may sound kinda illegal, but it isn’t. Shelled hemp seeds. They can be obtained (legally) at your local health food store. They usually come in the form of a toasted snack or simply raw.

I prefer the raw seeds. They are tiny little guys and very soft. These seeds are considered a complete protein, a source of omega 3/6/9. One tablespoon is loaded with protein and significant nutrients (click on each to see why: vitamin E, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and maganese). Grind these up in the coffee grinder and mix them in anything: smoothie, peanut butter, cookies, pancakes, etc. I buy Ruth’s Soft Hemp here at the Akins, the local grocer. An 8 oz. bag will run you $11. Much cheaper than the illegal alternative (or at least from what I remember in my college daze).

Peanuts, to be exact.

We started eating almond butter a couple years ago simply because it was not as “strong” as peanut butter, but it also packed all the nutrition with less saturated fat (make no mistake, it still has fat. Almond butter is expense in general ($6 as opposed to $2.50 peanut butter) , but ridiculous in the two stores in Tulsa that sell it ($11+). This has caused me to pick it up at Trader Joes in CA on my biz trips.

Since I have already started throwing nuts in a blender, I decided how hard would it be to just make my own nut butter of some kind. So, I threw a handful of almonds, pecans, flax seed (gotta have the flax), and walnuts into a blender. They chopped up to a sticky powder. This was hardly spreadable. Instead of pouring oil into it to make it more “creamy”, I opened a can of conconut milk and threw it in. That definitely worked. I finished it off with some cinnamon and sugar to add a little sweetness.

When it was all said and done, I took a wiff of the stuff. It smelled like a cross between maple pancakes and tropical something. When I tasted it, I was shocked at how well all the flavors came together. Since then, we have been making a batch a week and just kinda throwing it on bread, in cereal, or even in my smoothie. Compared to peanut butter, it has a wider spread of protein, nutrients (especially calcium and iron), and is very “basic” (as in chemistry) to neutralize stomach acid, a natural antacid.

After we had finished our meal the day before, I had about 4 tablespoons of the pesto mix left. We decided to make grilled veggie sandwiches for lunch. I made these two weeks before we went vegan just to experiment with taste. We liked the sandwiches then and we wanted to try them again now.

I took a red pepper, green pepper, yellow squash, green squash, and an onion and sliced them into big pieces. I kept the marinade simple with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. The veggies were grilled on our backyard grill for about 15 minutes (7.5 on a side) at 425 degrees. For bread, Aleta brought home some nice french bread. I cut some big slices, coated them with olive oil and grilled them nice and brown.

Back to the pesto. I added 2 tablespoons of vegan mayonnaise (which is quite good) to two tablespoons of the pesto mix. We could have dipped it on the bread right there and called it a day. The sandwiches were crafted with the pesto spread on both sides, squash, peppers, onions, and fresh avacado.

Flavor explosion.