Easy & Amazing Thai Peanut Sauce, for One or Many

Spiralized zucchini noodles with raw Thai Peanut Sauce, on a spinach bed.

Here is a very simple recipe that takes the fuss out of Thai peanut sauce. Enjoy in traditional fashion over noodles of your choice for a satisfying, quick and healthy vegan dinner (spiralized raw zucchini noodles, cooked kelp noodles, and 100% buckwheat or millet soba noodles are my top noodle picks). Thai peanut noodles make a first-rate potluck dish, too—just increase quantities below. For a raw peanut sauce, replace peanut butter with raw almond butter, and use nama shoyu or coconut aminos instead of tamari.

Serve peanut noodles over a bed of raw spinach (as pictured here) or with a side of steamed broccoli or garlic green beans to complete the meal. A simple salad of grated carrots, chopped tomatoes and fresh parsley makes a delightful companion dish as well.

Beyond noodles, versatile Thai peanut sauce is delicious with grilled tempeh, on brown rice, or as a dip for baked sweet potato wedges, carrots and even celery sticks. Try it!

Easy & Amazing Thai Peanut Sauce

Amounts given below serve one or two, depending on appetite. Save any leftover sauce in the fridge and consume within one week.

Sauce Ingredients

3 Tbs organic peanut butter (or raw almond butter)

1.5 Tbs tamari, nama shoyu or coconut aminos

Juice of one lime or lemon (2 to 3 Tbs juice)

1 Tbs raw honey or agave, or 6 drops liquid stevia

1 small clove garlic, minced or finely grated

1 or 2 tsp minced or finely grated ginger root

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

up to ¼ cup water, or as needed, for consistency

Garnishes (use any or all)

Chopped cilantro, chives or scallions, minced chili pepper, chopped peanuts, lime wedges.

Directions: Using a fork, briskly beat together all sauce ingredients in a medium bowl, adding the water slowly at the end until desired consistency is reached. Taste and adjust seasonings for salty, sweet, hot and sour. Pour over noodles, top with garnishes and dig in.

(I told you it was easy. Amazing, right?) ♥

Raw Butternut Fettucini with Creamy Cilantro Nutfredo

I was born exactly 9 years to the day before the first moon walk, on which date the lunar surface was discovered to be covered with...rocks. Before that, people really had no idea what the moon was made of. Really. I remember one theory, quite popular when I was a child, that the moon was made of green cheese. Yes, people used to actually say this; I have no idea why. Not that I ever believed it, but in honor of tonight's new moon and annular eclipse of the sun, I felt inspired to make some Green Cheese of my own.

I had organic cilantro in the fridge, and a loose recipe for Cashew-Cilantro Paté swiped from an old vegan boyfriend of mine, but only a handful of raw cashews remaining in the nut jar. So, I improvised on the cheese, as I am wont to do. And then, inspiration struck! I remembered that I had a nice, big, smooth butternut squash in the pantry...and Raw Butternut Fettucini with Creamy Cilantro Nutfredo was born.

To create this dish, start by making a batch of Vegan Green Cheese as a base for the Creamy Cilantro Nutfredo. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of any combination of the following raw nuts and seeds: cashews, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts or brazil nuts. You can see I used about 2/3 raw pumpkin seeds, and 1/3 mixed cashews and macadamias.

Put your nut/seed combination in a bowl, cover by about an inch or two of fresh water, and soak for one hour. When time's up, drain soaked nuts/seeds and place in a food processor fitted with the S-blade. Add 2 Tbs virgin raw coconut oil and 1/4 tsp sea salt (I love the Himalayan pink salt, as you know, but any good quality sea salt will do).

Then pulse and process until contents attain the consistency of a coarse meal.

To this coarse meal, add the juice of 2 or 3 lemons; 1 tsp your choice coconut aminos, Bragg's liquid aminos or tamari; 2 Tbs nutritional yeast; 4 Tbs of water; and 2 large cloves garlic, minced. Process this all together for a while, until things start to get creamy (it may be necessary to add a bit more water to facilitate creaming). When the cheese has balled up and come together nicely, add 1/2 cup (packed) chopped cilantro,

and pulse that in. This is your Vegan Green Cheese.

Put Green Cheese into an airtight container and refrigerate while you make your noodles.

Butternut fettucini noodles are ridiculously easy to make. Start by cutting off the long neck of a good-sized butternut squash, and set the seed-filled bulbous portion aside. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin from the neck of the squash,

and then continue peeling off long, orange strips until you have enough for your dinner (and/or you get tired of peeling).

Your squash neck will turn into a beautiful sculpture, by the way,

which can be refrigerated and used another day in, for instance, a tasty squash curry, a creamy butternut soup, or even Raw Pumpkin Pie (butternut squash stands in beautifully for pumpkin in this recipe).

To "cook" the fettucini, it is necessary to marinate the butternut strips in a little oil to which has been added salt and an acid, just like we do for Massaged Kale. For today's marinade, I used 2 Tbs olive oil, 2 Tbs white balsamic vinegar, 1/4 tsp each of Himalayan pink salt and ground black pepper, and the last of some dried Thai basil I had kicking around, just to add a little extra flavor. I also added a teaspoon of Mirin (Japanese white cooking wine), just because I could, but that's totally optional. If you don't have white balsamic, use lemon juice and a splash of agave instead.

Stir marinade ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, then add the raw butternut noodles, and toss. Allow noodles to sit for at least half an hour in order to soften up, tossing from time to time to keep them all evenly coated.

When the noodles are done (al dente, naturally), it's time to assemble the Fettucini Nutfredo. Measure out about 3 Tbs of Vegan Green Cheese per serving, and place this in a medium sized bowl. Heat up some water on the stove; then little by little, use a fork to blend warm water into the cheese, gradually thinning and transforming it into a thick, creamy sauce of your preferred consistency. Voila! Creamy Cilantro Nutfredo!

Spoon Nutfredo sauce onto the marinated butternut fettucini. Toss gently and thoroughly until all your noodles are well coated with delectabe, saucy goodness.

Transfer to plate(s), and garnish with a sprinkle of any chopped green herb you prefer (I used fresh chives from my garden, along with their pretty purple flowers, but more cilantro would be lovely, too, as would parsley).

This meal takes far less time to prepare than the finished masterpiece would suggest, with plenty of leftover Vegan Green Cheese as a bonus. This will last for up to one week in the fridge, and can be used as a spread, a dip, a filling (for celery ribs, nori rolls, romaine wraps) - sky's the limit. Which reminds me. There's a Ring of Fire annular eclipse happening tonight. The oracle says this brings great opportunity for self-knowing and transformation. May it be so with you, and all your relations.

Black Moon Dal, Sweet Potato Sun

This past weekend, skywatchers all over planet Earth were treated to a special event: the largest full moon, or Supermoon, of 2012. As astronomers and terrestrial beings marveled at the bright beauty, astrologers were aware that this was more than just an average supermoon - it was a Black Moon in Scorpio, aspecting the Lilith point, as the sun in Taurus was being conjuncted by magnifying Jupiter. The intensity of these combined energies offered an opportunity to courageously face our shadow selves, an extended encounter which many of us experienced in the days leading up to Saturday night's culminating event as "a controlled dive" into the darkness of our unconscious/subconscious beings.

Meanwhile, a body still has to eat! Which brings us to today's post: Black Moon Dal, Sweet Potato Sun. This rich, coconut dal was made with mung beans, not moonbeams, but even so, it sure looked pretty in the middle of those fat orange rays, all sprinkled with green. I arranged these colorful dinner plates for myself and my son Zack, and we relished them thoroughly before climbing out on the roof to watch the Black Moon rise.

Black Moon Dal

1 1/2 cups mung beans, rinsed
3 cups water or vegetable stock
1/2 - 1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp coconut oil
1/2 large onion, diced
1 Tbs minced ginger
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 Tbs Patak's mild curry paste
1/2 can organic coconut milk
cayenne pepper to taste
fresh chopped cilantro (garnish)

Bring mung beans, water or stock, and sea salt to a boil, then simmer for about one hour or until soft, adding more liquid if needed. In a small frying pan, cook onions and ginger in coconut oil until fragrant, then stir in cumin and turmeric and cook another minute to release volatiles from spices. Add onion-ginger mix to dal, stir in curry paste, coconut milk and cayenne pepper, and heat through. Taste for seasonings and adjust as desired.


Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges

2 large garnet yams
1 Tbs olive oil
sea salt

Cut sweet potatos into thick wedges and place in a large bowl. Toss with olive oil until well coated. Sprinkle with sea salt and toss again. Place the wedges in one layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes, turning with a spatula mid-way. Test for doneness, and continue roasting as needed, until wedges are satisfactorily soft and golden.


Presentation

Arrange sweet potato wedges around plate in a sunburst pattern. Fill center with dal, and garnish with fresh chopped cilantro.

Practically Raw Sprouted Corn Tostadas

Here's something very delicious to make for lunch that whips up in a jiffy and features a brand NEW! product I tried for the first time today: organic Sprouted Corn Tortillas from the Food For Life Baking Company (makers of Ezekiel bread, sprouted grain bagels, sprouted whole wheat tortillas, etc.)

Sprouted grain products are valued for many reasons. Grains are seeds and when they are sprouted, their nutritional value often goes up. The sprouting process initiates the breakdown of protein and carbohydrate compounds in the grains, releasing bound amino acid and sugar components and freeing up nutrients. In this sense, sprouted grains are essentially "pre-digested," to a degree. Another benefit of sprouting is that natural anti-nutrients in grains, such as phytates and protease enzyme inhibitors, are also broken down and degraded in the sprouting process. Finally, sprouting makes grains more alkaline, helping them to favor a preferential pH balance in the body.

All soaked and sprouted grains, as well as sprouted beans and seeds, will offer the above benefits. Sprouting, however, does not remove gluten, a gluey protein that is found in wheat, spelt, rye, and barley. Gluten sensitivity is a rising problem around the world with an estimated 30-40% of people affected. Any food which is made from wheat or any gluten-containing grain, even healthy sprouted Ezekiel bread, still contains gluten.

Corn, on the other hand, is a gluten-free grain. Some people are allergic to corn, but gluten intolerance is not linked to corn allergies, so having a sensitivity to one does not implicate the other. Corn is an ancient New World grain that was sacred to American Indian tribes. Although modern corn has been abused in many ways by agribusiness and industrial development, corn itself is still a high value food, especially when it is organic corn grown in nutrient-rich soils and free of genetically modified organisms.

Delicious Food for Life Sprouted Corn Tortillas are made with only four ingredients: organic sprouted corn, filtered water, sea salt and lime. According to the company, after the corn is sprouted it is ground and mixed with the other ingredients to form a masa, or traditional thick dough, which is then rolled and flattened into characteristic tortilla shapes. The tortillas are baked at low temperatures (250 degrees) before packaging. Each tortilla provides 60 calories of whole grain carbohydrate energy and only 1 gram of fat, plus a little calcium and iron. The flavor and texture is naturally corn-sweet, wholesome, chewy and far moister than some gluten-free tortillas I've tried that crumble when folded.

I forsee this product becoming a new staple in my kitchen and am pleased to be sharing it with you today. I looking forward to creating sprouted corn tostadas with avocadoes and cilantro, with black beans, with tofu-miso paté... but for today, let us begin with hummus, the humble and widely available Middle Eastern sesame-chick pea spread. I used Hot Mama's original flavor hummus in this recipe, but any brand or flavor, including your own homemade raw or cooked hummus, would surely be tasty and satisfying.

Practically Raw Sprouted Corn Tostadas
with Hummus, Salsa & Sprouts

2 sprouted corn tortillas
1/4 cup hummus, your pick of flavor
1 cup alfalfa or red clover sprouts
2 teaspoons salsa
2 black olives

Warm tortillas briefly in the toaster or on the surface of a hot, cast-iron skillet for about 30 seconds to gently soften. Transfer to plate and divide hummus evenly between the two tortillas, spreading out almost to the edges. Top each tostada with half the sprouts, half the salsa and one black olive. To eat, spread the salsa across the center line and fold the tostada in half, like a soft taco. Then, bite in. Yum!

Note: I purchased my sprouted corn tortillas at Green Fields Market in Greenfield, MA and did not receive any product or compensation from Food for Life Baking Company prior to posting this blog. However, Food for Life is welcome to send me free samples and coupons anytime, as I adore their products!

Healthy Comfort Food

Let's cut to the chase. The final weeks of the year can be a tough time for sugar addicts and emotional eaters. Really tough. All those foods that you work so hard to avoid all the other 50 weeks of the year are literally surrounding you! Dark-chocolate-covered almonds at the pharmacy. Cakes and cookies at work. Cheese platters and cracker assortments and sweet drinks galore - even in your own kitchen! (How did that happen?) It can be daunting; it can make you want to throw in the towel. As one client put it, "I don't want to do the diet. It feels like a punishment."

How did we create a world where eating fresh juicy salads, tangy fruit smoothies, creamy avocados, savory raw goat cheeses, sweet garnet yams and quality dark chocolate feels like a punishment?

Clearly, it's not about food, it's about feelings. Feelings are what emotional eating is all about.

To begin, we have EMOTIONAL TIES to certain foods, ties based on our childhood associations and past experiences with these foods and ties based on messages we receive from family, media and society about what these foods represent. "Denying" ourselves these foods cuts to the quick of our inner child. Ouch.

Second, we USE FOOD AS A DRUG, to cover up, numb and avoid our feelings. Eat this, forget your problems (you know the drill). Better yet, have a brand new problem to distract you (you choose: stomach ache, weight gain, despair, guilt, shame, etc.)

Emotional eating comes to a head during holidays because these ritualized moments and events bring up a lot of feelings. Hard feelings for many of us. Our hearts may feel practically ripped open as we are forced to confront personal loss, stressful family dynamics, workplace pressures, cultural expectations and social conditioning all at the same time. No wonder we want to stuff the world into oblivion!

Food doesn't really help, though. We all know this. So the trick is to learn how to negotiate our feelings, recognize our needs and find alternatives.

Blogs, books, counseling all can help. That's why I'm here, dedicating these pages to supporting you. And I am just one of many. When you feel like you are "failing" at following your program, there is a lot of support for you. You are not alone.

Always remember, YOU CAN DO IT! You can achieve your highest potential, you can have the healthy, sane, balanced relationship with food that you KNOW, in your heart of hearts, is your birthright! Your natural, radiant state of being is part of you RIGHT NOW!

Understanding what foods best serve the health of your body-mind-spirit is an important and necessary step in this process. In order to be healthy, you must base your diet upon the evolution-appropriate, fresh natural foods for which the human body was designed. That's just the bottom line, and you know what I'm talking about! It's not factory-generated chicken eggs, or protein bars, or 100-calorie packs of canola-fried tortilla chips or even low-fat ice cream that will help you lose weight and feel great! No matter how much the diet and food industries want you to believe otherwise, you KNOW what is real food, and that's the food you need to THRIVE.

One of my favorite nutritionists, Natalia Rose, addresses this issue in Part One of her newly released e-book, available to members of the Detox the World Community. The following quote made me lol; I share it with you here:

“My friends, no other species in history eats according to a clock or from a package, or chooses their food based on the numbers on a label or the persuasive powers of a commercial! Can you imagine a bunch of bunnies huddled around a TV screen determining what to eat after watching an ad for Mr. McGregor’s carrot chips–or buying into the olestra version? Yes, in our culture, we’d rather consume indigestible fats and have gas an diarrhea than go without our potato chips! Olestra is right up there with saccharine, margarine, and fat-free milk products–marketed as healthful to the addicted, hypnotized masses. This is your brain on social conditioning!”

(Natalia Rose, Emotional Eating SOS Part 1, page 20.)

Can't you just picture those crazy bunnies?!? It's funny because we all know they know better. And so do we.

Overcoming emotional eating involves exercising our intelligence and experience, breaking free of what the mainstream tells us is "good for us" and realizing that our bodies desire something different, something more TRUE and LIFE-GENERATING. Real food. That is the diet piece. It is not the only piece of the puzzle, but it is an important one.

There will always be situations that drive us to seek comfort outside of ourselves. As we progress on our path of wisdom and self-knowledge, we learn ways to cope with these situations that actually help to move through the feelings, even beyond the feelings so that we can solve the underlying problem! These ways do not harm us, they do not sabotage our efforts to be healthy, they allow us to be clear and to attain and maintain our ideal weight.

Of course naturally, in the meantime, we have to eat something! Sometimes, we have to eat a LOT of something. May that something really serve you. May it move through your body with a quickness, leaving little or no waste residue behind. You may need food to help you get through today, but choose wisely and it won't ruin your tomorrow.

My number one rule of thumb is this: you can't go wrong with vegetables. Vegetables are the best health food, the best diet food, the best alkalinizing food, the best food period for humans to eat. Choose your favorites, and when the need arises, eat piles of them. Steamed broccoli and cauliflower and summer squashes, baked roots and winter squashes, beets and parsnips and leafy greens. Serve them with spices, seasonings, butter or flaxseed oil, Himalayan pink salt (my favorite!), or even a sauce (mushroom-garlic-tomato sautée anyone?) Fill up on these foods when you need to EAT. Add salads, add avocado, or substitute raw goat cheese or fish for the starchy veggies. Eat well, and be well.

Here is a list of incredibly tasty comfort foods that help to hit the spot without derailing your best intentions. With deference to Food Combining guidelines, may you enjoy them with gusto!


MEALS

Baked Garnet Yams, served with flaxseed oil or organic butter and sea salt.

A bowlful of Baked Beets topped with pesto if you like, or raw goat cheese.

Organic Vegetable Soup, canned, loaded up with leftover veggies or chopped greens and curry paste

Practically Raw Miso Soup


SNACKS

Dulse seaweed, right out of the bag!

1 or 2 Bananas + 1-2 Tablespoons Raw Almond Butter.

3-4 Medjool dates + a big handful of raw cashews.

Raw carrots dipped in Ginger-Miso dressing.

Raw Goat Cheese, plain or stuffed into leaves (romaine, endive, raddichio).

One Avocado, sprinkled with Herbamare or Spike. Eat out of the shell, or wrap in a nori sheet.



WARM CREAMY DRINKS

Freshly blended or packaged Almond Milk with cinnamon. Sweeten if desired.

"Cereal Coffee" (Pero, Inka, Cafix) with agave or raw honey and Coconut Creamer. (A new product that, while processed, makes a decent alternative to pasteurized Half and Half.)

Nut/Seed-Based Green Smoothie


DESSERTS

Organic Dark Chocolate (70%+) or Sacred Chocolate or other Raw Chocolate Bar

Instant Fudge (1 teaspoon each: raw almond butter, raw cacao powder, agave or maple syrup)

Instant Halvah (equal parts raw tahini and raw honey)

Frozen Banana "Ice Cream" (use juicer Blank or a regular blender + patience!)

Frozen Berry Sorbet (just whir frozen berries in blender - quick and sweet!)

Living in the Raw

On August 17th I started a little raw food experiment, upping my raw food intake from high raw to very high raw. Very very very high.

For those who don't know, the "raw food diet" is defined as a diet that contains eighty percent or more raw food. Not necessarily exclusively raw, just 80%. This will come as a relief to many people who are drawn to raw food nutrition but hesitate to give up all cooked food, the option of going out to dinner with friends, etc.

There's a significant degree of confusion or, in some cases, competition in some circles around the whole issue of "how raw" a person is. For many people, there are times or situations when one wants or needs to commit to being strictly 100% raw. Karen Knowler, the UK's exuberant Raw Food Coach, calls this "going through the eye of the needle." I respect people who choose this path, for however long. I've walked on it myself and there's a lot to be said for adhering to that kind of discipline while remaining soft in one's heart.

The current experiment going on here is a step down from 100% rigidity, although exceptions are pretty much limited to things like miso and other condiments (prepared mustard, curry paste, organic soup broth powder) plus some restaurant-friendly items like goat cheese* or olives that make it possible for me to be relaxed when going out to eat with "normal" people. (This happened today.)

Speaking of normal people, many do wonder what on earth a raw fooder actually eats, anyway? Is it just a lot of salad and fruit? Isn't that boring?! I thought I'd answer that question by sharing a few days of my raw food diet-lifestyle, just to show how varied it is, and how delicious!

Let's start with today, Tuesday. FYI, the tostada shells at dinner are a version of a Wild Rice Flatbread from Living Cuisine, Renée Loux-Underkoffler's magnificent un-cookbook. I made these with red rice instead of wild rice and they are fantastic. The soup was gently warmed to 100 degrees, just steaming, to preserve life force & enzymes intact.


BREAKFAST
water. herb tea. Green Juice (celery, kale, carrot, apple, lemon, ginger)

LUNCH
Greek Salad (From Panera restaurant. Feta cheese and olives not raw.)
Apple

SNACK
Sacred Chocolate (69% dark chocolate; 1/3 bar)
2 Seckle pears (from my tree - delicious!)
tea with raw honey

DINNER
big slice of Manchego raw sheep cheese (appetizer)
Raw Blended Soup (Cream of Sweet Corn and Zucchini Dill)
Guacamole Tostadas (Cilantro-Lime Guacamole, Purple Cherokee Tomatoes, Butter Lettuce, Manitok Wild Rice Flatbread)

EXERCISE
AM - 20 minutes rebounding, yoga
PM - 20 minute dog and cat walk (Bonnie, the one-year old kitten accompanied Stella and I. Her brother Clyde stayed home this time.)

* Note: raw fooders are often vegan, but not always. I admire and aspire to an animal-free diet but as a Protein Type O, do well at this point with some goat cheese and even sushi in my raw diet.

Travel Tips for Road Trips & Waiting Rooms

For the past six months I've been spending most of my Wednesday afternoons driving down from where I live, in rural Western Massachusetts, to my mother's apartment in Westchester County, NY.

The reason for these 3-hour road trips isn't just to visit. Mom has lymphoma and she's undergoing an intensive chemotherapy treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City. So three weeks out of four, I drive down to her place on Wednesdays and on Thursdays, we drive into the city together to the hospital. There she gets bled, examined and hooked up to an IV drip.

The IV is administered through a port that lies underneath the skin of her chest, providing easy to access her bloodlines. The treatment itself lasts from 3 to 7 hours, depending on the day's menu. When it's all over, Mom surrenders one more vial of blood and then we can leave. I drive us back to her place, and either spend another night there or come back home that same day - meaning another 3 or more hours in the car for me, as traffic dictates.

It's a lot, and I am glad to do it. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to care for my mother; it is hard on all of us, and it is life, and it is real.

Spending one day a week in a cancer hospital for the past six months has changed me. I see people of all ages, including very young children in strollers, dealing with this horrible disease. A disease that could very well kill any one of us some day, sooner or later. The fear of death, the dark promise of Cancer, drives all these stricken people, young and old, to seek the very best medical care in the country, as MSK is known to provide. And this care, we know, this cure is poison.

Nutrition is never mentioned in my mother's weekly sessions with the doctor. Never. Nor are supplements, many of which I believe could be very useful in helping to safely counteract the depleting "side effects" of drugs and radiation. Noone ever suggests she eliminate sugar, for instance, cancer's favorite food. Or that CoQ10 might help boost her energy levels, especially since the Lipitor she takes for her high cholesterol depletes all of her own CoQ10, a required compound for energy production.

When I was younger, I would have been irate at this ignorance, and spoken out, but I am older and wiser now, and I know how to choose my battles. My mother made it clear to me last year, in a very heartfelt and tearful conversation, that she is "a medical person, not an alternative person," and she does not want me to suggest, recommend or even mention any therapy, nutritional or otherwise, to her or her chosen caregivers. She respects my accomplishments in my field, but she does not want my help.

So be it. I must respect her wishes and love her as she is, where she is and for who she is. There is nothing else to do, because this is the way things are! My lesson is to accept and to love, unconditionally, without trying to force change where it is not wanted.

Meanwhile, the nurses in the chemo ward are very interested in my work! They were talking about juicing one day, and I joined the conversation, and the next thing you know, I was offering nutritional counseling to one of my mother's wonderful nurses. This lovely young woman is thrilled to have lost 5 pounds in her first week on the program, and others want to follow with appointments of their own. So through the back door of MSK, detox is coming in! (Of course I recommended The Raw Food Detox Diet as a resource, along with my co-authored book, Teri Kerr's Ultimate Detox Diet.)

All this is very thought-provoking and, in terms of the nurses, even exciting, but what I really wanted to write about here was how I manage to eat well and stay "on track" with traveling back and forth, city and highway driving, long hours in the hospital, stress, etc. Here are a few of my tricks.

BREAKFAST: Before I leave home, I make veggie juice or a smoothie with fruit+greens to bring with me in glass mason jars. (Depending on how long I'll be down, I may pre- freeze or super-chill to a slush.) Then, I just bring my jar (with a straw) to the hospital and drink in the waiting room when I get hungry, usually late morning. Yesterday, it was a smoothie: apple-blueberry-parsley-pear with 1 tsp each raw coconut oil, maca and lucuma, a pinch of celtic sea salt and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Very tasty! (Note: If I forget to make drinks in advance, I’ll just have tea and eat fruit - typically, a banana - in the morning. You can always find fruit.)

LUNCH: There is a decent salad bar at MSK, with plain balsamic vinegar available for dressing. Raw veggies, cooked veggies and sometimes shrimp or fish is offered. So usually, I'll get a big salad for lunch. Now that the weather is nice, it's also fun to take a little trip outside to the fruit stand around the corner and buy lunch in its whole form. This is what I did yesterday: a banana, two small avocados and some gigantic purple grapes. (Alas, grapes from Chile - not organic - so I gave them a good scrub in the sink and an infusion of healthy intention, prayer and light vibration.)

SNACK: If I get peckish in the afternoon and didn't bring a snack, I'll go downstairs to the gift shop and buy a bag of raw nuts and dried fruit. These basic, healthy traveler treats are sold in just about every little convenience store nowadays - even roadside gas stations. It's a blessing, really. Just a few decades ago, the only quick snack you could find that came anywhere close to decent were those little blue packets of roasted (and generally rancid) planters peanuts. No comparison.

DINNER: The A & P grocery near my Mom's house is not exactly a health food store, but they do sell organic baby carrots and organic romaine lettuce. So before heading home last night at 4:00, I bought a three pack of romaine, a big bag of baby carrots, and a hunk of sheep cheese (not raw, but the best choice they had: pecorino romano. Another option would have been organic raw cashews, but those are dangerous for me. I didn't want to be trapped in a car with a pound of raw cashews - you never know what might happen!) So, this simple fare was dinner. It was fun and rabbit-like, munching away on crunchy leaves and sweet carrots while driving north through a greening Connecticut. As night fell I ate my fill, and then topped it off a little while later with the second half of a special raw chocolate bar I'd been saving for the occasion (Sacred Chocolate 69%). Incredible!

BEDTIME SNACK: I don't usually eat after dinner, but long drives in traffic and late homecomings (it was about 8 and dark by the time I got home) may lead to discombobulation and exceptions to the rule. (Plus, as a former food addict, I make it a point not to have rules!) So, arriving home, I fixed myself a big mug of herb tea and nibbled on some pickled herring in the fridge. Herring, you ask? Yes, herring. It combined with the cheese (both fleshes) and it was there (purchased for my son), and I was tired, and all was good. Went to bed, woke up and it's a new day to breathe deep and be healthy.

So that's it, my travel tips for cancer trips - life force road food for the 21st Century.

Blessings and Light,
Diana