The Garden Diet!

A friend of mine recently sent me the link to a website created by a raw-vegan family. The site offers lots of suggestions on living a healthy and natural life. They introduce their website here: 'Our whole family is 100% raw-vegan (with no supplements or dehydrated foods) and thriving! This website started out as a small personal homepage 9 years ago when there were only two other raw vegans online! Now there are hundreds of thousands! Our site has grown too. On this site we offer our before and after photos and stories of how we found the raw diet, photo journalsof the children growing up as raw vegans over the years, articles about raw vegan nutrition from a scientific standpoint, and video clips of raw vegan cuisine being prepared. We offer our 11 raw vegan ebooks and now a movie about our family on DVD!

Our Raw-Vegan Family

Storm, 57 /Raven, 12 /Jome, 9 /Shale, 5 /Adagio, 2 /Jinjee, 39

They have recently released a DVD about their family. 'This film aims to show that a raw-vegan lifestyle is not just a diet, not just a new way to live, but a "breakthrough" in the maximizing of human potential!! This is not an instructional film (our eBooks provide that) but is more of a feel-good film with a "proof is in the raw pudding" attitude. Watch a Preview Online! ' It's worth a look at!

Here's a review of the DVD:
Breakthrough - A Raw Film Documentary - A movie review by Jim Carey
This documentary was assembled from footage that Storm and Jinjee collected over the years. They have four raw vegan children. In the film they share the challenges that they've faced, both personally and with friends and families, and the differences that cooked vegan and raw vegan have made in their lives. They share nutrition information and information about the growth and development of their children, with taped visits to the doctor, and comparisons to CDC height and weight charts. There is a good section on raw vegans and exercise requirements.There is impressive footage of Jinjee during a raw vegan pregnancy, exercising, and walking 5 miles a day, even as she came to term. There is footage of her taken ten days after her child was born, with Jinjee healthy, radiant, active and thin... There is an interview with Jinjee discussing her four pregnancies, both cooked vegan and raw vegan, and how the raw vegan deliveries went much smoother and faster.For anybody raising raw vegan children, or considering doing so, I heartily recommend this film. There are enough beautiful women and hunky men in the movie to keep even the most non-raw spouse interested in the film. (Yep, weightlifters and Swedish blondes.)I understand that the movie will be coming out at theaters soon. You can get a copy now at www.thegardendiet.com. I purchased their "complete package" and found it well worth the money.-- Jim Carey Director, www.chiDiet.com Former Director, Creative Health Institute

Here is a featured recipe from their website:
Bok Choy Salad
Chop up and put in a bowl:~ 4 bunches Bok Choy~ 2 tomatos~ 2 avocados~ 1/2 bunch cilantro
Dressing:~ 4 tablespoons raw tahini~ 2 tablespoons raw honey~ 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar~ 4 tablespoons olive oil~ herbs and spices (experiment with what you have available)~ salt to taste with unrefined sea salt

Another recipe from San Francisco Living Foods Enthusiasts website:

Simple Wakame Salad

1 clove garlic, grated

1/2 teaspoon grated ginger

1/2 avocado

Bragg's to taste

3 cups greens (sunflower, buckwheat, spinach, lettuce, etc)

1 cip soaked wakame seaweek

optional: tomatoes, walnuts, pecans, almonds or pine nuts

Grate the ginger and garlic. In a small bowl, mash the avocado, ginger, garlic and Bragg's together. Break greens and wakame up into bite size pieces. Toss all ingredients together thoroughly.

This is a good link for more recipes http://www.living-foods.com/rawgourmet/recipes.html
It has recipes from the book 'The Raw Gourmet' by Nomi Shannon

Here's one of the recipes from the book:

Mango-Lime Parfait

A soft, cool and smooth dessert. For a strong citrus flavor, add one whole peeled lemon or lime to the blender, along with the lemon or lime juice called for in the recipe. This will result in a tart citrus-y dessert, much like lemon or lime pie. Before adding the dates, taste themango mixture, you may not want to add too many if the mangoes are already sweet.
Almond maple crust mixture (set aside in a bowl) 4 cups coarsely chopped mango (about 5 mangoes)1 cup lime juice (or lemon juice)1 teaspoon of lime (or lemon) zest4-8 dates, pitted and chopped
In a blender, place mango pieces and blend until smooth. Add lime juice,zest and dates and process until smooth. Be patient. Mango is a very fibrous fruit and you want to achieve smooth, pudding-like results.
In a parfait or wine glass, layer the crust mixture and the mango lime mixture. Start with some crust mixture in the bottom of the glass, then mango mixture, a bit of crust mixture and so on, ending with crust mixture on top. Yield: 4 glasses of parfait.
Variation: substitute papaya or persimmon
Variation: Add another layer, made up of thinly sliced Kiwi fruit or strawberries.

Basic Almond Maple Crust

This is a delicate crust that is good for soft fillings or frozen pies because it doesn't overwhelm the subtle taste or texture of the filling.Because the fillings are very rich, this crust is designed to fit a round 1 layer cake pan, or a shallow pie tin.
1-2 cups almonds, soaked 8-12 hours3-4 teaspoons maple syrup
Soak almonds 8-12 hours, drain, rinse then drain again. Put nuts briefly(30 minutes) in the sun or dehydrator (30-60 minutes) to dry off, or dry them off with a towel. In food processor, process almonds until uniformly very fine. Gradually add the maple syrup, only enough until the almond meal holds together. Sprinkle and then gently press the crustinto the bottom and sides of pie plate. Don't worry about getting the crust all the way up the sides.
Note: This is a very thin crust. If you want a thicker crust, increase the amounts in the recipe.

This webpage has links to lots of Raw Food, Raw-Vegan Diet and Lifestyle, and Live/Living Food Information and websites - check them out!