This pie recipe, adapted by NCNM's Ericha Clare, ND, MAc from Raw Food Made Easy: For 1 or 2 People, has surprising health benefits. Chocolate contains antioxidants, the avocados and nuts have healthy fats, and the dates are a great source of minerals. Plus, there is no refined sugar, no gluten, no dairy, and no eggs!
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Ingredients
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Here are Mark Bittman's three easy recipes for people who aren't exactly in the habit of making fresh whole food for themselves.

One could set off a heated argument with a question like, ''What are the three best basic recipes?'' but I stand behind these: a stir-fry, a chopped salad, and the basic combination of rice and lentils, all of which are easy enough to learn in one lesson. (''Lessons'' might be called ''recipes,'' and need no ''teacher'' beyond the written word.) Each can be varied in countless ways. Each is produced from basic building blocks that contain no additives, preservatives, trans fats, artificial flavorings or ingredients of any kind, or outrageous calorie counts; they are, in other words, made from actual food. The salad requires no cooking; the stir-fry is lightning fast; the rice-and-lentils, though cooked more slowly, requires minimal attention. The same can be said for other recipes, of course, but not for all of them, and certainly not for the food that most Americans rely upon most of the time.

Christopher Hitchens may have throat cancer, but he still appreciates tea when it is properly made. He has learned, as I already well knew, that you cannot get a decent pot or cup of tea here in the US. And so he wrote an article for Slate about how to do it. All you Americans that think tea sucks, it is because here, it does. But made properly tea is amazing.

Women who eat chocolate 1-3x/week have 26% less heart failure
Mostofsky E, Levitan EB, Wolk A, Mittleman MA. Chocolate intake and incidence of heart failure: a population-based prospective study of middle-aged and elderly women. Circ Heart Fail. 2010 Sep 1;3(5):612-6.
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Great website here on nutrition of beets, right down to the cytokines and blood markers affected by some of the nutrients: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=49

I never used to eat beets. I bought my first beets to prep for my spring cleanse this year. I was eating smoothies of beet, celery and carrot. I think I'm going to learn a few more beet recipes. Got any?

( Notes here. Beets lower IL-6, TNFalpha, CRP, homocysteine, 'bad' cholesterol & triglycerides, and increase 'good' cholesterol and glutathione peroxidase and glutathione S-transferase in the liver. This is all great news.Collapse )

read slim book The Fasting Primer (her other book was The Nutrition Bible)
by Internationally Renowned Naturual Food and Health Expert
Dr Alvenia M. Fulton, naturopath
who was also a pastor, first woman to attend her seminary
she died at 92 in 1999 in Chicago
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Ingredients for last night's new concoction:
green cabbage, chopped (1/4 head)
fresh jalapeno, slivered (1 pepper, seeds and stem removed)
fresh cilantro, stems and all, chopped (1 bunch)
sour cream (3 oz)
mayo (2 squirts)
ranch dressing dry mix (1/7 pkg)

Adjust amounts to suit yourself.
Mix the above ingredients and pile it on your buffalo burger.
YUM.