Healthy Facts & Tips

Below are helpful facts and tips from other people just like you, working to live a healthy lifestyle, and stumbling sometimes on the way. If you have a great fact or tip you'd like to share, please email me.

	Here's a great site on fasting. Click here. They tell you what happens during a fast, teach you the proper way to start and end a fast and prepare you for how you will fell during the fast, both physically and mentally. - Amy I have a tip for making salads a little different: Put your greens in the food processor along with some avocado. Pulse until the greens are chopped very finely. Makes a great base for piling on other veggies and you don't need much dressing since the lettuce is creamy. Plus, you can eat large amounts of greens and it doesn't feel like you're chewing your cud. You can also put your salad in the blender with a some lemon juice, salad dressing and/or water. This produces more of a soup (like gazpacho). My elderly parents rarely eat salad because it's too hard to chew but since I've given them this tip they're eating these blended salads every day. My dad says he really notices a difference. - Erica How to Make Your Potato Chips a Golden Color: Add some lemon juice to your potato slices before you dehydrate them to keep them from turning grey. They'll be a beautiful golden color. - Chef Jeff Riedesel Here's a list of good sources of iron Whole grains: wheat, millet, oats, brown rice, legumes, lima beans, soybeans, dried beans and peas, kidney beans Seeds: almonds, Brazil nuts Dried fruits: prunes, raisins, apricots Vegetables: broccoli, spinach, kale, collards, asparagus, dandelion greens - from emailer, Alan Schechner Want to know how to open an avocado, click here. Want to know the difference between Celtic grey sea salt, regular Sea Salt and Table Salt? Click here. Want to know how to make Rejuvelac? Click here. Can't afford a dehydrator right now? Click here to learn to make your own. Also click here to see a picture of one that Raw foodist, Antonia, made herself. If you bought a dehydrator without a timer, you can go to your local hardware store and purchase an appliance timer (make sure you get one that is meant to shut off appliances and is 24 hours). You can plug it into the wall, plug your dehydrator into the timer and set it to shut off the dehydrator at whatever time you want. - Steve, Mountain Home Basics To learn how to open a mango, click here For all the information you could want to know about dehydrating, click here. To see an Excalibur dehydrator in full use, click here (recipe preparation by Michelle and Denise). If you want to know how to open a Durian, click here. If you want to find a Raw food Yahoo! Discussion Group for the sharing of support, wisdom, and even local raw food event information, click here. If you have a problem with fungus gnats in your wheatgrass, place a bottle in the area of your wheatgrass, add some Apple Cider Vinegar to the bottle (don't need too much), make a paper funnel for the opening of the bottle. The fungus gnats will be drawn to go into the bottle and won't be able to get out. - Teena Craft, Raw Foodist, Wheatgrass Juicer For all the information you could possibly want to know about sprouting, click the sites below: http://members.efn.org/~sundance/Sprouting.html http://www.eatsprouts.com/ http://www.freshlifesprouter.com/ http://www.sprouting.com/ http://www.sprouthouse.com/ http://www.sproutman.com/ http://www.sproutpeople.com/ If you are fighting cooked food addiction, take one positive action today: ~prayer, faith, love ~meditation ~work out, fast, drink water, write... - Raw Inspiration Yahoo! Group Inventing your own recipes: Experiment! - Put any three or four vegetables in a blender or food processor. - Add any 2 spices (lemon, salt, oil, honey, agave nectar, dates, lime, herbs, spices) - Add toppings (lettuce, peas, sesame seeds, get creative) - Shape it, wrap it (in Kale, lettuce, or seaweed), make it look nice! - Raw Inspiration Yahoo! Group Trying to give up coffee, but not quite there yet? I've heard Teeccino is a great way to wean yourself off of coffee (this is not really raw, but this is one step toward freedom from caffeine - a step in the right direction). Click here for more information about Teeccino. - Michelle Reeves, From SAD to RAW I found that if you are only making a one portion size of nut pate, it is easier to use a manual crank cheese grater with a rotating drum than it is to use and clean an entire food processor. - Patricia, Raw Foodist Body clock/plan (a good rule of thumb) noon to 8 PM - APPROPRIATION (eating and digestion) - eating time 8 PM to 4 AM - ASSIMILATION (absorption and use) - no eating! 4 AM to noon - ELIMINATION (of body wastes and food debris) - a time to eat only fruit if anything - Harvey and Marilyn Diamond's "Fit For Life" To see the 12 Steps of Raw Food, click here. - Victoria Boutenko Raw Quote: "[You don't] realize what a prison SAD is until someone enlightens you to see the bars surrounding you." - Raw Foodist, Shannon, 3/28/04 To learn how to sprout your own wheatgrass, click here. - Sprout People You can make your own sprouting lids, for an inexpensive way to make your own fresh sprouts. Click here to learn how. - Dale Wing, His Healing Ways Dry skin is an indication of poor circulation, which means a poor metabolism. (Dry skin brushing, eating raw and drinking lots of water are the cure.) Click here or here for more information about dry skin brushing. - Source unknown If you are an overall healthy eater (ie mostly raw) and you have a "slip" you will not gain the weight you have lost or lose the health you have gained. If you are an overall unhealthy eater (ie mostly cooked crap) and you eat a salad, you will not lose the weight you have gained or gain the health you have lost. - Source unknown Always eat fruit on an empty stomach; wait 3 ours after a salad meal. Best is fruit in the morning. - Rene Beresford, Coordinator of the Fruitarian Raw Food Network It's hard to know what type of juicer to buy, so for a thorough comparison of the various types of low RPM juicers, click here. - Discount Juicers For the best banana chips, use bananas that you might otherwise throw away, really ripe, brown is fine. These will produce the sweetest chips. - Michelle Reeves, From SAD to RAW To learn how to open a young Thai coconut, click here or here.