First Day in The CSA

I picked up our first "share" in our CSA with Terrie's Berries Organic Farm today. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You agree up front to pay for your share whatever that might be based on what they actually produce. That may be a lot or less depending on the farm's yield. We have signed up for Spring shares -14 weeks and Summer sampler 21 weeks. The total for 35 weeks was less than $700 - $20 per week. We chose the Summer sampler because we grow so much already that we will be more supplementing than anything else.

I picked up red potatoes, parsnips, Jerusalem artichoke, carrots, Romaine, Swiss Chard, cabbage, apples, pears and onions today. While I was there I also bought some limes and lemons, a bulb of fennel and 2 heads of celery for our juices.

Our two juices each day contain the following ingredients:

1.5 Lbs Carrots
1 English Cucumber
1 Medium Lime
1 Medium Lemon
2 inches of Ginger Root
1 Beet with greens
1 Granny Smith Apple
.5 Lbs Chard
4 oz Kale
4 oz Celery
3 cups of Spinach

Including cleaning up after it takes about 30 minutes to make the 2 juices (4 servings).

These ingredients make 32 oz (2 servings) of our Morning Juice and 28 oz (also 2 servings) of our mid-afternoon juice. I was looking around on some nutrition sites and there is tons of good things for you in them. Surprisingly, there is a lot of Calcium. I'm new to this whole nutrition stuff, but the powers that be say that the calcium from these sources is the easiest  for you to digest. I heard a statistic that in countries that rank highest in dairy consumption the incidences of osteoporosis are actually higher.

Pam has been fighting a sinus infection and has lost 2 more pounds, bringing her total to 14 lbs and I have nothing to report. Damned weather! Damned Foot!

I made a tactical error and asked what pigeon-toed people are supposed to do for snowshoes when we were at REI earlier in the month. My luck, the guy knew his stuff and I now have snowshoes and NO EXCUSES! One day maybe I'll learn to quit complaining! We went on a great snowshoe up at Paradise the next day and the things worked well. No more hiding and watching football.

I've been thinking a lot about weight loss. It is hard to go anywhere without someone asking about it. I have one big conclusion that I hope helps others as it helped me. Here it is. You don't TRY to lose weight anymore than you TRY to go to work or TRY to take care of your children or TRY to mow your lawn for that matter. You just DO IT. You make whatever changes are necessary to your diet and exercise routine and keep on living life. If that isn't possible for you to do, find a therapist and talk it out.


The only other thing to change is the idea that eating food that is bad for you is "treating" yourself. I'm not saying never eat cake again, but just don't lose sight of the fact that your slice of cake equals some extra amount of work that you will then need to do. I hate to admit this, but I agree with Richard Simmons on the issue of unhealthy snacks who says "A sliver is a slice is a slab is a slob." He should know since he lost over 100 lbs at least twice.


Be well!

Good News - Bad News

So a week after the 30 Raw days ended I am pleased to announce that neither of us gained weight so the results have proven sustainable, but neither of us lost weight this week either so more work is necessary. There were no ill effects of going back to a diet with cooked foods  and some animal protein. We continue to juice once a day during the week, and are considering going to 2 juices for a while to try to kick start some more weight loss.

After close examination we found that Costco also carries cucumbers and tomatoes that are certified pesticide free, which isn't as good as organic but certainly less scary than the normal produce with a lovely coating of toxic crap.

I replaced the plastic sheeting on the greenhouse with polycarbonate sheets and we are gearing up to plant our garden. We have always used organic fertilizers and now we will be more careful than ever to produce the cleanest produce we can. We will likely join a CSA (community supported agriculture) which will give us a share of their organic crops. There are three notable options for this type of buying. Terry's Berries http://terrysberries.com/Join_our_CSA.html ,  Spud http://www.spud.com/about/whatsnew.cfm?msg=0#Logme , and Terra Organics http://terra-organics.com/ . Check them out. This is a great way to support Local organic growers.

More soon.....

Easy Breezy

TWELVE pound each! Our 30 days raw ended last night. Yeah chocolate! Yeah wine! Pam and I set out to try something that we both thought would be a little bit of a challenge, but we hoped to detox the holidays away and get a jump start on losing some weight. We didn't think we would learn about a way of life that we both agree we could live with if necessary. We hoped that we would feel more energy even though we would be without caffeine and we found that we did have a ton of energy and barely missed our beloved coffee. We hoped that we could lose weight in a healthy way while we were nursing foot injuries that kept us limited in activity and the results speak for themselves.

This was the easiest thing either of us have ever done to lose weight and the results are fantastic. I now stand 6 pounds from my goal weight of 195 and Pam is now within 24 pounds of hers meaning she is already 1/3 of the way to her goal! 

Since the real test is how you keep it off after the transition back to more cooked foods we will continue to post through the next month or so.

For the record, we broke the raw 30 days with a salad that had some chicken on it. We had Oat Groats with dried apricots and blueberries for breakfast and it was fantastic. The downside is it takes 50 minutes simmering and 10 minutes resting to prepare, but it is tasty. A little turkey chili for lunch and dinner that was "the best chili you've ever made, Paul" according to Pam. She may have been eating raw a little too long, but it was good.

We will likely start next year with a 2 week raw "Holiday Detox" as well. If the doom sayers are right 2012 is the end of the world so we won't need to detox in 2013.

More soon....

Better Raw Than Fileted

On the second to last day of our raw 30 days I actually feel very fortunate since 1 year ago I was having a Thorocotomy to clean up a bad pleural effusion in my left chest. There's nothing like scaring your wife to death to get a guy thinking about being more healthy, and there's nothing better than having no ability to exercise to make you want to do it.

As it turned out, I began walking per Dr's order on 2/15/10 and by year end I had walked or hiked over 1000 miles - most of it in the first 5 months after surgery. The year ended much better than it started with our month in Peru and Ecuador which included the 4 day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Not to mention our fantastic group and climb of Mt St Helens.

We have had some questions about what our daily menu looks like so here goes. Until this last week when we have been having juice for breakfast and mid-morning snack, we were eating muesli with blueberries and almond milk for breakfast, veggie juice for a mid-morning snack, salad for lunch, an apple for an afternoon snack and either a big salad or one of the faux pastas with marinara or pesto or my "not really" chili. We normally have some nuts for a snack in the evening too.

More later.....

Nuts. They're All nuts!

I have been roasting my own nuts for a while, but with the raw food thing I couldn't cook them. I decided to experiment with raw nuts and my spice mixtures and they turned out great. As a matter of fact, the spicy ones are better than my cooked ones because the spices come through better. The difference between cooked and raw is strictly texture. The cooked ones have a crispier texture. The other difference is that the raw nuts have a much fresher flavor. So here's the way I make them.

Costco's mix nut jugs work good for mixing and storing. I use a mixture of almonds, walnuts and pecans. I fill the jug about 2/3rds the way and then add 1 tsp of water to the nuts put the lid on and gently shake the nuts to get them all a little wet. Next add whatever spices you like. I make 2 types - salt and pepper and spicy. For the salt and pepper I add maybe a tbsp of each and I run sea salt through my spice grinder (little coffee grinder) until it is very fine. Replace the lid and gently shake to add seasoning to all the nuts then pour them onto a cookie sheet to dry a couple of minutes and wipe the container out with a paper towel. Store in the container and enjoy.

For the spicy I use fine sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, fine dried parsley and oregano, cumin, black pepper, and my homemade chili powder (if using store bought chili powder add cayenne). You need to add 1tsp of salt with the spice blend on the nuts.

You quickly get used to the texture difference and enjoy the taste difference.

I love smokehouse almonds, but they have enough sodium to kill you and they're cooked so After some experimenting I found my own recipe with much less sodium. You need to buy some Liquid Smoke - available at most grocery stores. Take your almonds (I use a 16 oz ball jar) and fill container 2/3rds of the way. Add 1/4 tsp of the liquid smoke to 1/2 tsp of water and pour on the nuts. Close and shake to coat and add 1/2 tsp (more or less to taste) to the jar and shake some more. Put on cookie sheet to dry for 5 minutes. Clean out jar and store nuts in the jar. These guys are good! If you want more smoky add more liquid smoke and vice verse.

Now you all know everything I know about nuts. If one of you makes some smokehouse pistachios or hazelnuts that taste good let me know and I'll try them as well.

More soon. 2 days left after today!

Easy As Faux Pie

Anyone of you who might be considering raw for a week or month or life should know that it actually gets easier as time goes by. Really! You fall into a rhythm and you actually get used to room temperature or cold food. I made my "Not Really" Chili tonight and it was spicy and delicious. I likely will use some of my raw creations when the weather warms up and you are looking for cooler food to eat, as well as the fact that without meat and dairy it will keep at room temperature much longer.

Not that anyone is counting....

My best guess is that we have used 50-60 lbs of carrots, 8 or 9 packages of the Costco organic apples (15 apples each). 100 beets, 40 -50 cucumbers, 15 heads of celery, 10 or 12 bunches of chard/ kale /collards, 5 chunks of ginger root, 15 heads of romaine, 8 Costco containers each of Baby Spinach and Mixed greens, 15 zucchini, 4 Costco bags of mandarins. 20 bananas, 40-50 lemons and limes, 40 avocados, 6 or 7 Costco bags of broccoli, 40 - 50 tomatoes and an assortment of raw crackers and some other miscellaneous health food store stuff. Our fridge is a very green place these days. Whew!

My precious music studio in the basement is now a gym equipped with a Concept 2 ergometer, a stairstepper, a Sole E35 elliptical, a TRX system, a few free weights and our road bikes on wind trainers. We have it set up with a flatscreen and a DVD player that is WIFI so we can stream lots of stuff while we work out. Sometime I will steal the smaller bedroom down there for a studio again.  It has proven to be a great place to work out!

I learned that the better Omega 3 fats are really only available in salmon, sardines, and supplements so I am now taking a fish oil pill that provides me with 750 units of the good Omega 3s. Apparently, the ones from nuts and avocados are only so digestible. Something new every day...

Counting Down

With 5 days to go counting today it seems sure that we will complete this adventure. We didn't go into this planning a long colon cleanse, but it has been interesting. First, when they say you'll shrink your belly doing it they're right. I'm not sure there is anything more magical than the fact that the cleanse helps to flush things out. The goal in the book is that you would have a bowel movement shortly after each main meal (30 minutes). They say the first time through a lot of people could take 2 weeks to get there depending on your original diet. My diet must have been pretty good because I am not even a full 4 days into this and I am like a clock now. There is the proof I always needed that I'm not full of crap or at least not literally.

Pam remains at 10 pounds lost and I just jumped past with 10.5 pounds. That is obviously related to the cleanse and it's results. I'm actually chomping at the bit to get into the Dr. for my yearly checkup so I can see the difference in  the lab results from last year. I have to wait until early March for that, and since I turn 50 in April I know he is going to send me off for a colonoscopy, but I still can't wait.

Here  are some things to consider. 90% of the pesticides left on citrus fruit is in the peal. If you are planning to peal and eat your citrus buy whatever is cheapest, but if you plan to squeeze it into a drink or zest it for a recipe, or run it through a juicer buy organic. The last thing you want is concentrated pesticides in your juice or recipes. The same is true of cucumbers, squash, and anything else that grows above ground. If you don't buy organic peal it.

The cheapest place to buy organic salad greens, carrots, baby spinach, and apples is Costco. They don't have organic cucumbers or citrus. Trader Joe's has organic lemons and some other veggies. Fred Meyer has lots of other organic green such as Kale and Chard, cucumbers and squash. Since the peal of most vegetables carries a lot of nutrients it is worth any additional cost to reap all of the benefits.

I'll stop preaching after this last one. We vote for what is available and actually what is produced with our shopping dollars. When stores see the organics going faster they order more and the wholesalers do the same and at the end of the day the farmers that actually care about the quality and healthfulness of our food supply grow more and prosper which makes it more viable for the next organic farmer to begin and prosper.

Pesticide free food sounds good doesn't it? More later.....