"You should eat meat."

Last night I casually mentioned on Twitter that my cuts and bruises from a bike accident two weeks ago were reaching the "Itchy" stage of healing. Wasn't expressing concern, wasn't asking for advice, etc. 

But I received two private replies suggesting that I'd heal faster if I ate meat. 

?!

What I think is so interesting about being told regularly that I should eat meat whenever I mention any kind of health issue, no matter how minor or unrelated to any possible nutrient that could be derived from consuming animal flesh, is that no one ever tells me to eat more cooked food, no one ever tells me to eat cheese, no one ever tells me to drink milk, and very few people have ever told me I should eat eggs (and those that did were talking more about the ability to produce them locally with urban chickens, which is a whole other messy subject). 

To put it another way, no one ever says I should eat fewer vegetables

So why the stubborn insistence that meat, of all things, is some kind of cure-all health food? It's bewildering. 

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Brunch, sort of.

I guess this is the raw(-ish) equivalent of breakfast cereal for lunch: a bowl full of chopped fruit (Pink Lady apples, Tuscan cantaloupe, black plums, and banana), coconut milk, shredded dried coconut, and buckwheaties (soaked, sprouted, & dehydrated buckwheat groats). Light, mild, and incredibly refreshing.

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Raw vegan deep dish pizza

I'm not gonna lie: I'm pretty stoked about this pizza. I got inspired when Karsten and I went to Karyn's Raw Cafe in Chicago and afterwards picked up a slice of raw vegan deep dish pizza (for $12.99 - remember, that's for a slice!) from Karyn's Fresh Corner, the adjoining shop. The pizza was jaw-droppingly amazing, and impressed each of the family members who later tasted it. I knew I had to recreate the experience at home. 

I found a crust that looked promising in a raw foods book I happened across in a thrift store (yes! can you believe I randomly found a raw recipe book in a Nashville thrift store?) and special-ordered soft wheat berries from Amazon to sprout. After a few days of soaking barley and sprouting wheat, I was ready to pour and dehydrate the crust. The dough as it went into the pan had a springy quality not unlike flour-based bread dough, so I was encouraged that this might just be the thing. Anyway, the crust dehydrated for something like 24 hours and then it's been hanging out in the fridge waiting for me to have time to make the rest of the ingredients. 

Today, despite an injured back (too much gardening yesterday), I got into the kitchen and soaked, marinated, chopped, blended, and adjusted the veggies, the cheese (macadamia ricotta from Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw), and the sauce (also from Everyday Raw), and the finished pizza is in the dehydrator now warming up for dinner. 

The crust going into the dehydrator

marinated veggies 

macadamia "cheese"

tomato sauce

Update: We just finished dinner. It was GREAT. I would add more veggies next time, and make a bigger amount of the crust so it can be thicker, and make more of the cheese, but when your notes for next time are "more, more, more," it's a sign you're already pretty close to the mark. This is going on my "stuff to serve guests" list for sure.

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This is why you're sick, fat, or poor if you're trying to eat healthy

I LOVE a good infographic, and this one nails it.

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Guilt-free goodness

This afternoon's snack is 2 bananas, cacao powder, maca powder, goji berries, and agave nectar blended up with some cacao nibs tossed in at the end for crunch. Seriously, this is one dee-licious smoothie.

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Paralyzed by a hamburger? Disturbing video, but so very important.

People don't want to think about this stuff, but the vulnerabilities in the processing of meat can make you very sick. If you eat meat, you need to care about this, and work to make the system better.

Or just go vegetarian.

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