“Cooking is not a requirement for healthy eating. I found such amazing health results as an outcome of raw food that there was no turning back.”  Dr. Douglas Graham, Healthful Living International

How many raw vegetables are you eating each day?

The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.  (Deut. 11:10; NIV)

I know I’ve mentioned the many benefits of eating raw food, on more than one occasion.  There are people who eat a diet of 80-100 % raw, uncooked food.  There are countless books and several websites dedicated to raw food eating. 

There have been times in our lives when we’ve cycled through eating primarily uncooked food.  Even now, as our chronological age increases J (and as the price of groceries continues to climb), I’m preparing more and more raw food for us to eat.  Spring, summer, and early fall are the easiest times to eat more raw food, especially living on the east coast in the mid-Atlantic states.  For those Floridians and Californians in our midst, you’re blessed with abundant produce throughout the year.

Today’s recipe is a mixture of raw vegetables without it being a “regular, green salad.”  Different varieties of raw vegetables can be mixed together with a bit of olive oil and a favorite vinegar and labeled a “salad.”  The recipe today contains avocados, which are a wonderful food.  Actually, avocados are the fruit from the Persea Americana, a tall evergreen tree that can grow up to 65 feet in height.  Also known as the Alligator Pear, reflecting its shape and the leather-like appearance of its skin, avocados are a rich source of mono unsaturated fatty acids including oleic acid, which has recently been shown to offer significant protection against certain serious diseases.  The fat in avocados is a good, God-given fat.  Don’t think of avocados as a “fattening” food that needs to be avoided.

A ripe, ready to eat avocado is slightly soft but should have no dark sunken spots or cracks.  I cut it in half lengthwise and then gently twist the two halves to get it apart.  I then cut each half again lengthwise and then peel each quarter.  The pit will usually come out without much difficulty.  Then the quarters can be cut into pieces for a salad such as today’s recipe, or mashed with a fork to make Guacamole!  Other vegetables used in today’s recipe are cucumbers, which can be purchased all year round.  However, I’ve been buying the English, hothouse grown cucumbers this winter as they are grown without pesticides and herbicides.  I’ve recently found colorful peppers and tomatoes that are also hothouse grown without herbicides.  Even though they’re not grown organically, they are the next best choice for this time of year.  Feel free to experiment with tossing various vegetables together.  Have fun and enjoy!

Prayer Power
Lord, we thank You for all of the wonderful, colorful produce that You created for our enjoyment.  May we partake of more of Your created foods and less of man-made foods.

Link of the Day
Raw Veggie Salad

Blessings on you as you purpose to eat more raw vegetables.