The Elixir of Life

Today's recipe is for my alkalising, super nourishing, enzyme and chlorophyll rich juice. I have adapted this juice recipe over the last year or so. I have changed the recipe and refined it , and I will continue to do so. When I started I just used carrots and apples. It was a good place to start because it tasted good, and it looked nice. I then changed the eating apple to a cooking apple,( they were falling of our trees ) and it tasted better. The sharpness in the apple and the sweetness of the carrot worked well together. I also felt great using our own organic apples. ( Have you noticed that there are NO organic baking apples in the supermarkets ?!! ) But our apples don't keep for very long and again I was changing the recipe. I started including broccoli and cabbage - widely known to contain cancer busting properties. Unfortunately, the drink created is browny green in colour which doesn't look too inviting, and is an aquired taste. My most recent recipe uses spinach or cucumber to soften the flavour, though the colour is still a little muddy. It's not Gerson's recipe, but I can't get hold of the quantity or quality of produce that his therapy requires. I hope to grow more of the vegetables he recommends in the summer, but for now my juice is determined by what's in the supermarket.





I call this drink the elixir of life because it has such life enhancing properties, and because the plants have given their life essence into the juice - just for me !! That thought makes the drink more palatable, whatever it tastes of.


THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

carrots I use 1 kg a day at present


other vegetables as available :
spinach
fennel
cabbage
broccoli
beetroot
chard
lettuce
watercress
rocket
pepper
you get the idea

I juice all at once in the morning, and decant it into small glass bottles and keep them in the fridge to drink through the day. I make between 1 ltr. and 1 1/2 ltrs a day. This gives me a steady stream of nutrients and ensures my body moves toward an alkaline state all day long.

What's for Breakfast ?

Today , like every day, my journey begins to a healthier life. I have done enough reading to know that there are many many benefits to eating a largely raw diet. There's the vitamins, the minerals, the enzymes, and maybe there's a magic in it too. Something not yet identified under the microscope, something of life's energy. I don't feel a need to know all the specifics, but clearly a largely raw vegan diet will create an alkaline, well nourished, and oxygenated environment for my body as well as flooding it with cancer busting enzymes. I have read that having cancer is an indication that my body was/is acidic, that it was poorly nourished, and that somewhere along the way I may also have had less than optimum levels of oxygen in my body's cells. That's got to change, and has changed over the last two years. But !! There's still lots of room for iimprovement. I will be going into a little detail about all these factors in later posts. Today let's just get onto my first recipe.





MORNING PORRIDGE





2 TBSP. OATS (raw if you can find them )


2 TBSP. LINSEEDS (FLAX) ground


1 tsp. CINNAMON ( or nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, etc. )


1 APPLE chopped


SUNFLOWER SEEDS


PUMPKIN SEEDS


NUTS (almonds or walnuts )


Apricot kernals , ground


FILTERED WATER








Soak the porridge overnight in the fridge ( if using raw oats) , otherwise use hot water in the morning. I like the creamy consistency and warm comfort of hot porridge, but nutritionally, raw is better.





Grind the flax seeds and the apricot kernals together in a coffee grinder. I found a nifty little one at lakeland plastic. I give it ten pulses and I'm done !





I mix in the cinnamon, or cloves, or nutmeg, whatever spices I'm using into the porridge. They give taste, aroma, and some contain vitamin B17, and some have anti-parasitic properties.





If using raw, cold porridge the ground seeds can be mixed in at this stage. If the porridge is hot scatter the diced/chopped apple over the top. Follow this with a sprinkling of seeds and nuts, and then sprinkle over the groound seeds.





A word about heat:


Raw food (vegetables, fruits, seeds, grains ) contains enzymes. Enzymes are also created in our bodies and are used to help break down and digest food. One reason for eating as much raw food as you can is to bring in to the body enzymes from the foods we eat. This assists the body by supplementing it's own supply. Heat destroys enzymes at temperatures exceeding 104 degrees F. So cooking above these temperatures ( and all my cooking is at much higher temperatures ! ) destroys these substances. You can see these enzymes at work in your kitchen laboratory. Try marinating fish in lemon juice. The lemon "cooks" the fish. Try pineapple on meat. Pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain which breaks down protein. Pineapple popularly goes well with cheese, again a protein.