Vegan Mofo Epicness!

Vegan MOFO has been a tradition with me since I first started vegan blogging two years ago. Its essentially an entire month of nothing but the best of the best vegan bloggers attempting to make it through an entire month trying to do a post every day! This month is not only my first year eating completely raw and creating this blog, but i will attempt to make it my first to get completely through this epic Vegan Month Of FoOd!

This month, i'm showing you guys the very best of raw style. I will have giveaways from Nuts Online and maybe a few other companies, some epic recipes, and some awesome posts on the different health benefits behind the food you eat! I intend on making some awesome brownies and not to mention a raw pumpkin pie! Lets not forget the ghoulish desires of Halloween deliciosness that my teenage soul desires. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But this year, i intend on showing you guys how its done. I'm kind of curious if my 17 year old self will be the youngest doing it and also if i am the only raw foodist celebrating this month, but i hope to see much awesomness from the blogs of my fellow vegans! May we all unite, sacrificing celery under the full moon and worshipping the gods of raw edibles! (only joking of course. Everyone knows i'm the only supernatural vegan around here.)

Besides my blog, be sure to check out a few of the other participating blogs doing it!

What are you looking forward to for Vegan MOFO?

-Andrew D. Morrison-

USDA's Evil Little Secret

I am so sick and tired of people falsly telling the world what to eat. I'm sick of it! Now before you continue reading this, i'm going to warm you that I do argue against the government just a little bit in this post, but I am NOT planning on protesting outside of city hall in an attempt to make a statement for change in what I truly believe in.

As many of you health minions of mine know, the USDA comes out with a little something every ten years known previously as a My Food Pyramid, although recently it has been changed into My Plate. This guide is essentially the American guideline for what healthy eating supposedly should look like. You can either look at the chart and decide what you need nutritionally based off what you eat, or you can simply go to ChooseMyPlate.gov and have it do everything for you based off of your size and level of activeness.

2005:

2011:

As this may be an excellent conversion from what it has been in the past, the opinions of the USDA have shown to be over-biased for the past couple of years. I mean, think about it. Grains can be found in a chemically-enriched and overly processed piece of bread according to their standards. Meat can easily be greasy and fried as long as its 4-6oz a serving. Not to mention that even a milkshake is considered dairy under their standards. Sounds to me like the equivalence of any fast-food restaurant i've ever walked into.

I will admit that the increase in fruits and vegetables is a plus but by their daily allowance, it could very well be one of those extremely sugary fruit cups packed in syrup that a majority of American kids currently pack in their lunches. Why would such a "loving" government who "cares" for its people ever wish to harm the citizens of out nation?

The answer is actually incredibly simple and has been going on since the foundation of our country. The United States Department of Agriculture gets a large bit of its money from big-buisness farmers and drug companies. When food began to become studied in the late 20th century, protein was thought to be the absolute most important thing for you. Everyone needed protein and you couldn't be strong without it. Meat, being a sufficient source of protein, was then raised and bred to feed our nation. It has always been about getting as much protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and whatever else we've been told, despite the source of our information.

What we fail to realize is that our bodies need good, whole food to be sustainable instead of the overly processed chemical dumps our bodies have been put into. "FIBER" in big bold letters on the box catches your attention and you automaticlly think thats what you need for a healthy diet. So what is it do we need?

Do we need foods that have been grown in horrible conditions and covered with pesticides?

No.

Do we need food that has been canned, cooked, or processed?

No.

Do we need "enriched" foods where all of the healthy parts are replaced with man-made chemical vitamins and minerals?

No!!

Do we need sugary fiber bars and get-slim-now milkshakes?

HECK NO!!! (They taste gross anyway)

We need food that is not only going to bring nourish and sustain our bodies, as well as are going to fill our soil back with nutrients. We need foods that don't require the counting of calories to keep the weight off. What we need for optimum health is food that will teach us to trust our bodies so that we cleanse ourself out and learn to trust our bodies and know what we need. Optimum health is not going on a diet and getting a few nutrients a day. Nutrition can even be a cure for any illness you may have when done right. Getting more and more of one nutrient is not what we need.

Perfect health is when all of the nutrients in your body work together in perfect harmony. So sorry My Pyramid. Sorry to mess up your little USDA plan. Lets see what you guys come up with next time.

-Andrew D. Morrison

Radishes, avocados, and other salady things...

Yeah. I'm a raw-foodist so I WILL have an occassional salad post on here. The enemy of the standard american diet (ironically enough abbreviated to SAD), eating a simple salad every day may just be what you need in order to acheive a better overall health.

Don't let is bore you. Dont force yourself to choke down a plate of green stuff for a weak until you get sick and decide just to give up on it. Put some flavor into it. Put some taste on it. Do it right and make it taste good. I dont have that obsession with salads that some raw=foodies do and i've been doing this for almost a bit over a year. When done right though, it can taste good.

Radish-Avocado Salad

Serves 1-2

Ingredients:

-2c. Mixed Baby Greens

-4 small Red Radishes (sliced)

-1 avocado (pitted, skinned, and cubed)

-2 tbsp. Olive-oil (cold-pressed)

-1 tbsp. lemon or lime juice (freshly squeezed)

-2 tbsp. ground flax seed

-2 tbsp. pumpkin seeds (raw, shelled)

Method:

-Mix together the baby greens, radishes, and avocado together.

-Mix in the olive oil and lemon or lime juice.

-Sprinkle the flax seed and pumpkin seeds.

-Enjoy.

So many different flavors mixed together to form one magnificent salad. This is one of my favorite recipes due to my love for avocado, radishes, and pumpkin seeds but don't let this stop you from making up your own combination.

Radishes tend to have high silicon and sulfur contents which helps to dissolve excess mucus in the digestive track which can be caused by eating heavy loads of carbs (pastas, breads, etc). They help to cleanse out your system and also are one of the highest vegetable sources of vitamin c.

With all of this said, they do have an incredibly strong flavor to them, so I almost always add a bit of avocado with my radishes to cut down some of it without sacrificing the benefits. An added bonus is when a healthy fat is added to a potent food, they tend to help one another digest.

I've always heard my family say after eating something unhealthy, "i'll just have a salad, and that will fix it". Every cell in your body is built based off of what you feed and nourish yourself with so eating junk food may have a toll on this but though a salad won't prevent all of the damage done, it can and will help to ease it a bit by both making your body a bit more alkaline and by putting some nutrients in your system to give you a little something better for your cells to feast off of.

Just remember for your salad that the more leafy and green, the better. Greens are both rich minerals and help to balance your bodies pH by increasing alkalinity.

A truer statement has never been made than "You are what you eat"

What foods are in your ultimate salad?

-Andrew D. Morrison-

Coconut - Macadamia Nut Cake

With a military dad, I grew up with the rare experience of living in Hawaii for a large chunk of my childhood. Many people dream of the chance to move to a tropical island where it is sunny all year long, but i actually tend to be more of a cold weather person. However, one thing I do miss is the wonderful variety of tropical foods that the islands had to offer.

Macadamia nuts and coconut were stocked at even the local gas satations, and came in so many forms that the possibilities are endless. My favorite though, was in cake form that was so rich and creamy, yet crunchy at the same time. Almost like a cheescake you could say. Being a raw foodist, I still love the taste of macadamia and coconut to a full extent and decided to recreate this amazing treat I enjoyed when I enjoyed when I was younger. My results were a lot more stunning than I expected...

(Note: Especially make sure the nuts are raw. I have bought roasted ones so many times on accident, so making sure you have a good source helps. (i buy all mine organic and raw from nutsonline.com )

Raw Macadamia-Coconut Cake

(w/ a pecan crust)

Serves 2

Crust Ingredients:

4 Medjool Dates

1 c. Pecans (raw)

2 tbsp. Coconut oil (raw, cold-pressed)

1 tsp. Himilayan Pink Sea Salt

Method:

-Set your dates in a jar or glass of water for about 5 minutes, or until soft.

-Blend your pecans in a food processor until it forms a fine flour.

-Add the remaining cake ingredients and continue to process until you get a dough-like consistancy.

-Mold your dough into the bottom of a round pan and set it in the freezer while you make the cake.

Cake ingredients:

1 c. Macadamia Nuts

1/2 c. Cashews

1 c.Coconut Flakes

1/4 c. Raw Honey

3tbsp. Coconut Oil

1/4 c. Water

Method:

-Put your nuts into your food processor and pulse them until they are ground up finely into a chunky flour-like consistency.

-Add in the coconut oil, honey, and water and blend until it becomes a smooth, creamy consistency. More water may be added if you need it.

-Add in the coconut and pulse a few times until its mixed in well.

-Pour your cake mix onto the crust and set it in the freezer for about 30 min, or until nice and chilled.

-Enjoy!!

This cake turned out excellently, and tasted best to me straight out of the freezer. It kind of reminded me of a coconut ice cream cake that way, and the crust makes it almost cheesecake like. This was one of the few things i've made that my mom really really liked, so i'm kind of proud of this one.

Thawed a bit, its almost tasted like my old favorite from when i was younger. If i ever do go back to Hawaii, sampling some of the wonderful organic food as the raw foodist I am to this day would be at the top of my list!

What kind of cake would you have, and eat it too?

-Andrew D. Morrison-

Raw Macadamia-Hemp Cake (with chocolate-fig icing)

Making a raw cake actually taste somewhat good was a bit of a challenge, as most of the ones i've found and tried all pretty much tasted the same. They tasted like walnuts, dates, and chocolate. I mean, theres nothing wrong with that, but its too simple for me. No matter what the recipe was, it tasted like that and it just gets old after a while.

That needs to change around here.

Using the subtly sweet and crunchy macadamia nut and the soft texture of hemp seeds, I created a raw cake that is a bit different from the rest. Ladies and gentleman I give you:

Raw Macadamia-Hemp Cake

(w/ Chocolate-Fig Icing)

Serves 2

Cake Ingredients:

1 c. Macadamia Nuts(raw)

1/4 c. Hemp Seeds (raw, shelled)

2 dried Figs

1/8 c. Raw Honey

2 tbsp. Coconut Oil (raw)

1/4 tsp. Himalayan Pink Sea Salt

Method:

-Set your figs in a jar or glass of water for about 5 minutes, or until soft.

-Blend your macadamia nuts and hemp seeds in a food processor until coarse.

-Add the remaining cake ingredients and continue to process until you get a dough-like consistancy.

-Mold your dough into the shape of a cake, and set aside as you make the icing.

Icing ingredients:

3 dried Figs

3 tbsp. Coconut oil (raw)'

1/8 c. raw Honey

1/4 c. raw Cacao Powder

Method:

-set your figs in a jar or glass of water to soak for about 5 minutes, or until soft.

-Put all of your ingredients into a food processor and blend until you get a thick, paste like consistency.

-Add your icing to the cake any way you'd like and enjoy!

This actually turned out exactly as I had hoped. Rich, sweet, crunchy, and delicious. The fig frosting didnt look as beautiful as I wanted due to the figs, but they added a bit of fudginess that made it taste so much better. Definatley better than a walnut cake.

Whats in it?

Hemp seeds are one of the most mineral-rich foods on the planet. In light of not boring you with millions of words, iron, sulfur, and calcium are just a few well-known ones. They also contain the highest protein source on the planet per weight (33.6% of the seed), with the exception of algae. Not only that, but the protein form itself is globular which doesnt cause protein digestion problems. Hemp seeds also are the only seed known to contain the perfect ratio of essential fatty acids (one part omega-3 to three pares Omega-6).

Macadamia nuts have been well established as an unusually rich source of healthy, beautifying oils. They are the highest source of monounsaturated fats (80%), even more so than olive oil. They also the richest source of the beautifying oleic acid(omega-9).

Figs are one of the only dried fruits I ever buy. They are one of the most mineral and alkaline of all fruits and act as both for congestion and digestion.

Both nutrient-dense and better tasting? I would take this over a walnut-based cake anyday.

Whats your favorite nut?

-Andrew David Morrison-

Raw, Organic Basics

I've been posting about raw food and how I like it and how i lost weight and blah blah blah blah yummy recipe blah. But have i really even talked about what the heck it does for you? Its uncooked natural food...yeah...we get it...its super nutritious and whatever...so...one slice of pizza and a salad and i'm balanced right?

Forget that! Raw organic food is one of the best things you can do for your body period, end of story, the end. You may not care now, but about 10-30 years down the road you are going to be feeling like complete crap while i'm sitting here with a salad and looking like i'm half my age.

Alright. Enough exaggeration. Lets get on with this.....

A bit on enzymes

In its pure, raw form, unprocessed form, your food is completely covered both inside and out with tiny little thingies called enzymes. To keep it simple without going all sciencey, enzymes are basically tiny proteins that cause each and every chemical reaction in your body. These reactions are needed to do everything from telling your stomach to break down food, telling your thyroid glands to kick out hormones for your metabolism, telling your brain to send out serotonin to calm down stress, to even the millions upon millions you use to think.

With that said, cooking or processing food destroys a very large dose of the enzymes that were naturally there to begin with. So how is your body going to process that deficient food? It has to use some of the enzymes already in your body. So not only do you gain a much smaller amount of the nutrients that was in food originally, but you also loose some of the enzymes your body already has in it! Your body can be healthy on an all raw food diet, but not on an all cooked food diet.

Why Organic?

A lot of you guys thing the word "organic" is some hippie word for food that makes me healthy and spiritual and whatever, but actually it just means I'm not eating weird chemical crap on my food. Commercial foods are often grown in mineral-deficient soil where they barely grow.

In order to make them look somewhat good enough to eat to all of you guys in the grocery store, they cover them in chemical-steroid stuff that makes them grow bigger and look better. But this covers the food in those poisons both inside and out, which ends up both making our food deficient and our soil deficient in the minerals both we and our bodies need. Now you may not care about the planet now, but in a few years your

going to care when the soil no longer grows anything and all life begins to die.

All living things (including food) contains electrical currents in it that tell it where to go. The nerves in your body sending electric pulses to your brain are pretty much the same thing. And the more electricity in it, the better the message is received. Kirlian photographs are able to capture these electric currents in a picture so here are a few to show a bit of what i'm saying.

The last picture is my favorite. That one image is a tiny drop of raw organic coconut oil. Imagine the benefits of that one drop with such radiance in its glow.

More than just a Salad

This food doesn't have to be boring at all. Though i do eat a salad just about every day, only green vegetables gets boring after a while. Just because you eat only raw food, doesn't mean it has to be horrible. I will admit that at first, you may not like it and it may all taste bland.

After a while, the receptors in your taste-buds rebuild from the damage cooked food does to them. Once this happens, almost every piece of organic fruit taste fully alive. Even salad starts to taste good. Not to mention, i can make some amazing raw desserts in which i plan to post in the very near future.

Less Time Consuming & Less Expensive

I've heard a lot of rumors about how organic is so expensive and takes so much effort to make, but actually that's not quite true. For me, it was a bit more at first as I was trying to find out what I was doing. I bought every raw product could find and experimented with so many recipes that I was always in the kitchen and always spending money. But truth is, I enjoyed that part of it.

If you are creative and want to whip up something fancy for every meal, then by all means go for a bit of extra time in the kitchen. But if not, raw food is pretty easy.

Options?

Think you're limited? Guess again. Raw food can pretty much be any unprocessed fruit, vegetable, nut, seed, seaweed, root, or herb you can think of. It doesnt sound like much to the average frozen pizza-eater but once you take a step into a farmer's market or a health food store (like wholefoods), you'll see an endless array of foods of every shape, size, and color.

Dekalb Farmer's Market, GA

What can raw do for you?

Raw food pretty much heals your entire body from the inside out. Your blood flows cleaner, acne clears, skin becomes vibrant, hair and nails look amazing, and not to mention you have loads more energy. You get better sleep, scar tissue and muscle tissue repairs and heals faster (awesome for athletes), your body gets to its ideal weight, and not to mention that some foods can give you enough energy to get through the day with just a handful of something.

Raw food is food at its most basic. Its food that has not had human interference, been processed over and over, and then cooked to a point to where there's barely any life left in it. This is food at its simplest. Food in its raw form and food that can heal you and keep you healthy.

If you want to start raw, find what works for you. Don't think of it as taking things away and never having them again. Just incorporate new, fresher foods into your diet more and more at your own pace. Once you start to see the changes, you'll want to get off processed, cooked foods for good! Welcome to the RAWvolution....

Whats your favorite food?

(leave me a comment below)

-Andrew D. Morrison-