Archive for October, 2008

ideas for those putting together a larger raw almond group buy

by Robyn Openshaw on October 16, 2008 in Raw Food with 13 Comments
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For those of you wanting to make some money in addition to get your own raw almonds free, I have some suggestions based on phone calls I am receiving around the U.S.:

1.  Contact owners of small health food stores.  (Several health food store owners have called me.)  Ask if they want to get some RAW/UNPASTEURIZED almonds and/or if they want to hand out flyers to their customers for a profit split with you.  Then, make up a flyer using information from your GreenSmoothieGirl.com e-letter of two days ago and/or this blog.  You have to educate people about the issue–most people don’t know.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some health food store owners don’t know about the fact that they aren’t getting raw almonds any more.

2.  Contact someone you know who is interested in nutrition, and ask who SHE knows who is the earthy-crunchy type.  Keep going like that and making phone calls to build your order and your email list.

2.  Make it easier on yourself and don’t break down the 100# orders.  That will make work for you–trust me, every person in your buy will create work for you, because you have to arrange for them to pick up and answer their questions, email or call them if they don’t come to pick up, etc.–but then you’ll have TONS more people buying fewer pounds of almonds.  I make the 100# a minimum, but if you want, you can make 50# the minimum, because the nuts arrive in 50# boxes.  If you make 100# a minimum, then someone can always go find a friend(s) to go in on the order.  In my experience, this works well without killing you off, and it brings more people into your group buy list.

3.  Keep track of all the email addresses you collect.  Those are all people who are interested in (a) food storage, (2) nutrition, and (3) good prices.  This is the beginning of your group-buy business, if you want one.  You can help people, make a lot of cool new friends you have something important in common with, and get your food for free or even make money as your group grows.  Do group buys only on things that they can’t get without your bulk purchasing power (raw almonds being one example of that).  Stick close by GreenSmoothieGirl.com and I will let you know of things as I become aware of them.  Right now people are HIGHLY MOTIVATED, for the obvious reasons, to prepare for emergencies.  (Here in Utah County, for instance, NO CANNING JARS can be found, anywhere.  Ball and Kerr cannot manufacture them to keep up with demand!)  People are very grateful to people who organize group buys.  Co-ops are a rewarding and fun space to be in.

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Q&A about raw almonds / group buys

by Robyn Openshaw on October 15, 2008 in Raw Food with 7 Comments
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I apologize for this impersonal way to talk to everyone who wrote asking q’s about the almonds.  But some of the questions are duplicative, so I’m killing all the birds with one stone.  Wait, that’s a bad analogy.  No one likes to be compared to dead birds.  Point is, I’ve got more emails than I can answer one at a time.  You’ll find the a to your q here:

 

1.  Are the almonds organic?

 

No. If they were, they’d be at least $8/lb. (I looked into it). If you read

GreenSmoothieGirl.com, the site and the blogs, or my book, you know I

believe in buying organic if its price is 50% more, but not 250% more.  And

if you google looking for the experts’ lists of “Top 10 Foods You Don’t Need

to Buy Organic,” tree nuts are always on that list.  That’s because they’re

sprayed when the thick shells are on the nuts.  In 12 Steps to Whole Foods,

I teach you to SOAK (germinate) the nuts as well, further eliminating any

possibility of toxins.

 

2.  Are the almonds shelled?

 

Yes.

 

3.  I’ve been buying raw almonds from Trader Joe’s and Costco.  If they’re

not raw, what are they?

 

They are flash pasteurized (at high heats, and ANY heat about 116 degrees

destroys all enzymes).  If the California almonds growers win their lawsuit

against the FDA, this may change one day.  Right now, no labeling laws

prevent retailers from saying that pasteurized nuts are “raw.”  But they are

NOT.

 

4.  What’s the loophole in the law you refer to?

 

Under California’s new law, a person can buy up to 100 lbs. per day directly

from the rancher.  Most ranchers would not deal with us.  Only a couple of

them would.  I will be converting your checks to money orders, one per

family, and taking them directly to the rancher to satisfy this requirement.

Most of the ranchers would not sell to us unless they saw EACH buyer IN

PERSON at the ranch.

 

5.  I’m from X city in Y state.  Can you hook me up with others to put

together a larger order to cut down on shipping?

 

Idea #1: Just post your email address on this blog (call yourself, for instance, trina

at gmail dot com to avoid your email address being harvested by spammers)

and ask other readers to hook up with you.  

 

Idea #2:  One GSG.com reader says she posted on Craigslist and was getting quite a few responses.  You may wish to do the same in your local area.

 

6.  Do you take PayPal? How much is shipping to X state?  When I mail you a

check, is there tax?

 

No PayPal (fees too high to justify since this is a group buy, not a profit venture).  No tax.  Just click on the link in the email you received about the group buy (or in my blog) to go to the store, and in the ordering page you’ll see the shipping costs. It’s the same nationwide.  Shipping prices are also in the email you got, $0.75/lb. for 100-500 lbs., $0.50/lb. for 600-1,000 lbs., and $0.25/lb. for 1,100 lbs. or more.

 

7.  The LOCAL group buy–can I get the colloidal silver shipped to me? When

will pickup be?  What’s in Anti-Plague and how would I use it?

 

Sorry, we aren’t shipping colloidal silver or Anti-Plague; it’s for local pickup only.  I’ve tried lots of natural remedies, but these are the ones I keep around because they WORK against colds, or any virus/infection.  The order closes on Oct. 30 and we will email you when the items are here in Lindon, Utah, by mid-November.

 

 

 

 

I am making the colloidal silver.  I have brand-new all-stainless steam distiller and silver maker; no plastic will leach BPAs into your solution and you will get it in reusable canning jars.  It does not ever “go bad.”  I like to keep a couple of gallons on hand in food storage; it’s great for flushing eyes/ears/nose/throat.

 

 

Anti-Plague is raw honey/apple-cider vinegar/garlic + 8 immune-stimulating herbs.  I have found these items to be downright miraculous in knocking down any virus or infection, and you keep Anti-Plague in the fridge and take it with a spoon a couple of times a day.  It takes a couple of weeks to make, and my master herbalist friend Charlene hand-makes it once a year and has committed only 27 quarts to my local group buyers. 

 

Again, LOCALS ONLY for these items and the raw/organic agave (case of 4 gals. is $130).

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recipes to use your raw almonds

by Robyn Openshaw on October 14, 2008 in Raw Food, recipes with 8 Comments
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Those of you who subscribe to 12 Steps to Whole Foods (http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/12-steps-to-whole-food-eating.html) have recipes to use raw, germinated almonds in Ch. 7 and will have more in Ch. 11.  But here are two more recipes for you:

SPROUTED ALMOND PATE (WRAP FILLING)

2 cups almonds, soaked overnight and drained

3 carrots

handful of fresh basil, chopped

1 small yellow squash, diced

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 tsp. sea salt

2 tsp. kelp granules

Put almonds and carrots through the Champion Juicer with the blank (homogenizing) plate on. Stir in other ingredients well. Serve a generous portion in a sprouted-wheat tortilla with cucumber spears (and optionally, any homemade dressing from Ch. 3 of 12 Steps to Whole Foods). You can send this to school or work by rolling the wrap up tightly in plastic wrap.

SPROUTED CURRY ALMONDS

4 cups raw almonds, soaked overnight and drained

1 Tbsp. red curry

1/3 cup water

2 tsp. Original Himalayan Crystal Salt (or sea salt)

2 tsp. agave

1 tsp. kelp granules

1 tsp. cayenne

Dehydrate soaked and drained almonds for several hours until mostly dry. Blend remaining ingredients in a bowl, and stir almonds in well, allowing to sit for a while to absorb liquid. Dehydrate below 116 degrees until dry and crunchy. Keep in fridge if almonds will last you more than a week.

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direct links to ordering pages for raw almond group buy

by Robyn Openshaw on October 13, 2008 in Raw Food with 11 Comments
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If you’re local (Wasatch Front), here’s the direct link to the ordering page to get wholesale raw almonds, colloidal silver, agave nectar and Anti-Plague formula:

If you’re non-local, here’s the direct link to the raw almond ordering page:

http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/bulk/index.php?shipping=1

 

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Earn $825+ getting RAW ALMONDS for you and your friends

by Robyn Openshaw on October 13, 2008 in Raw Food with 40 Comments
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You can earn $825 or more by having your friends participate in this buy–read details below.

 

California’s almond trees have just been harvested, and it’s a bumper crop!

 

Almonds should be on anyone’s top 10 list of most-nutritious foods.  When you soak truly raw almonds, they sprout and are nutritionally worth 200% to 500% more: they double in fiber, and minerals, vitamins, and those all-important enzymes go through the roof!  Enzyme inhibitors are neutralized and the almond’s plant energy is released—for you to use.  This item should be in everyone’s pantry.

 

Unfortunately, you can’t get raw almonds from any retailer, unless they’re $8-$12/lb. from Spain.  Not Costco, not Good Earth, not Wild Oats, not Azure Standard.  It’s been illegal since Sept. ’07 for California to sell raw almonds to retailers, and California produces 85% of the world’s almonds—it’s the state’s largest agricultural export.  For that you can thank the mandatory high-heat, flash-pasteurization law that the FDA is currently being sued for, by a coalition of almond growers.  Some nuts are labeled raw (because no restrictions on this are imposed by the government), even though they are flash pasteurized and WILL NOT GERMINATE.

 

I’ve found a way to now make my local group buy available nationwide!  Wait till I tell you the price (wow)!  With prices going up, this is a nice lull in the storm of rising food costs, an opportunity to stock up on an important food at a better price than you can find elsewhere. 

 

I’m getting them directly from a ranch in California under the loophole in the law wherein you can buy 100 lbs. per person, per day, directly from the rancher. I’m getting BIGGER, NICER ones (25-27 nuts per ounce rather than 30-32 per ounce) than we did in our local buy several months ago, for the SAME PRICE.  (Can you tell I’m excited?)

 

An order is 100 lbs. for $300 ($3/lb.).  So, not only are these raw, but they are much less expensive than you could get them anywhere else!  If that’s more than you want, forward this email to friends and get someone to go in with you.  The order comes in two 50# boxes, so it’s easy to split with one other person.  The nuts are FRESH OUT OF THE TREE and will be good at least a year (longer with refrigeration, cold storage, or freezing).

 

Canadians, please don’t order unless you have a U.S. delivery address across the border.

Go to the group buy section of the store to place your order, then mail a check by Oct. 30:

 

http://greensmoothiegirl.com/store/

 

 

If you want to organize a group buy and get your friends and family involved, shipping gets CHEAPER at 600 lbs. and REALLY CHEAP at 1,100 lbs. because that’s when we can use a truck instead of UPS.

 

To organize a group buy in your area, I suggest making it worth your time by charging everyone $4/lb.  If you round up 1,000 lbs. of orders in your community (plus your own 100 lbs.) and place the order online, you’ve earned yourself $825 through the $0.25/lb. you marked the almonds up plus the $0.50/lb. you saved on shipping.  (It’s easy—in my last local group buy, we did 11,000 lbs.)  If you round up only 5 other buyers of 100 lbs., for a total order of 600 lbs., you still earn $300—that’s your own whole 100-lb. almond order free. 

 

You’re welcome to cut and paste any part of this blog to send out to your nutrition- and food-storage-oriented friends to round up your order.  You will be rewarded for your efforts AND bless other people’s lives who will have one of nature’s most perfect foods in their pantry against winter and emergency.  If you don’t want to organize a group buy, at least forward a link to today’s blog to your friends, because this order closes Oct. 30—and I don’t know if/when I will be able to do it again.

 

I teach you how to germinate and preserve really yummy ALMOND SPROUTS as crunchy snacks that virtually any kid will eat, in Ch. 7 of my e-book, 12 Steps to Whole Foods:

 

http://greensmoothiegirl.com/12-steps-to-whole-food-eating.html 

 

It’s so easy to just soak them overnight and dehydrate.  Almonds are not only wildly nutritious and a fantastic fresh source of Vitamin E and fiber, they’re also lower in fat than all the other nuts.  I’ll post two recipes for using sprouted almonds, CURRY ALMONDS and ALMOND PATE (a sandwich/wrap filling) as free recipes on my blog tomorrow. 

 

LOCALS ONLY: You have your OWN area in the store to order, and your order is a pickup at my home, NO SHIPPING, just $3/lb.!  Also in this group buy you can order for great wholesale prices:

 

1. Raw/organic cases of 4 gals. of agave ($130).

 

2. Half gallon of colloidal silver for your food storage in reusable glass canning jars. (Bonus for today’s readers: hurry to the store because it’s marked $20 but will change to $25 in the next 24 hrs.  The silver will last indefinitely and does not go bad, 10 parts per million concentration, made with steam-distilled water and no polycarbonate collection methods or parts, so no plastic flavor or BPAs.)

 

3. For the first 27 who order, Charlene’s Anti-Plague remedy that my family has used for years and is AMAZING at knocking down any virus or infection.  Everyone should have these last two in their arsenal for the winter.  Use a spoonful of colloidal silver 3 times daily, internally, or to flush ears/eyes/nose/throat for any infection or virus.

 

—Robyn

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Energy drinks: attention, parents of teens!

by Robyn Openshaw on October 12, 2008 in Raw Food with 8 Comments
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Visiting my best friend in San Francisco recently, I sat outside her high-end convenience/grocery store in the very affluent suburb of Piedmont grading papers.  The high school kids arrived en masse, at lunch and after school.  An amazing amount of candy and energy drinks walk out of that place—thousands of dollars’ worth daily.  Kids walk up and throw their backpacks in a pile (not allowed in the store), and they walk into the store with their wads of cash and come out with all kinds of junk food.  (These kids have money!)

 

One day the lead singer of the rock group Greenday was there (he is a resident of Piedmont).  So to impress some of my (new) teenaged friends, who dared me, I got a photo with him.  Unfortunately, the kid who took it with his cell phone emailed it to me, but I haven’t seen it!  Turns out, my own teenagers tell me, Billy Joe Armstrong is the most foul-mouthed rocker alive today.  Clean-cut Christian mom poses with edgy, famous, potty-mouth rockstar.  That’s kind of funny, no?  His kids play on the soccer teams there in Piedmont, and he and his wife were having lunch together and seem so nice.  I have a hard time imagining him screaming from the stage what I’ve been told he does!  (It’s shocking, is all I’m going to say.)

 

So I came home and read about these energy drinks the kids were guzzling by the gallon.  They’re called Alcopops or “flavored alcoholic beverages” because they have more alcohol than beer!  Beer has 5-6% alcohol, but these have 6-12% alcohol.  Here are some examples of the alcohol content by weight:

 

Tilt (8%), Rockstar (6.9%), Sparks (6%), Four (6%), Joose (9-10%), Monster, 3Sum, 24, Charge, Torque, and many more.  This is a $3.2 billion annual industry!  No soda bottler can pass up the opportunity to jump on this growing bandwagon.  And guess who drinks the most?  Yep, teens aged 12-17.  They consume 31% of the total amount sold.  These drinks contain alcohol, which is a depressant, but also massive amounts of the stimulants ginseng, guarana, and caffeine.  (And no, caffeine doesn’t cancel out alcohol.  If you drink alcohol and caffeine, you’re still drunk.)  And of course they are full of sugar or chemical sweeteners, plus lots of other unpronouncable chemical garbage.

 

Parents, beware.  Are you okay with your 12-year old drinking beer?  Please educate others about this.  (And thanks, GSG reader Camille for sending me source material.)

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the campaign to make high fructose corn syrup a health food

by Robyn Openshaw on October 11, 2008 in Raw Food with 7 Comments
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Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: I’m a doctor and have patients influenced by the ads lately promoting high fructose corn syrup as a nutritious food.  How can I convince them otherwise?

Answer:  I believe HFCS to be the most destructive of the refined, concentrated sweeteners (with white cane sugar being a close second).  Please read labels and avoid it.  I could write my own article on HFCS, but I’m going to give you a link to an article by Rich Stacel, who summarizes research on the subject well and describes how ludicrous the ads by HFCS manufacturers are:

http://www.naturalnews.com/024466.html

Adding my two cents: the ads say that the stuff is nutritious because it’s made from corn.  As vegetables go, corn is no power player.  In its whole form, it’s fine–go ahead and eat it.   But in the 50′s when canned goods became the rage, homemakers thought a little canned corn or peas on the edge of the plate covered the bases for “vegetables.”  Corn’s a plant, right?  And plants are good!  Fritos are made from corn, too.  So are some gasolines.  The drug Digitalis started as a plant.  Want to feed any of these to your toddler?  I paraphrase the great and wise, late Ezra Taft Benson, once head of the federal government’s agriculture department: Any time we alter a food, we do it to our detriment.

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GreenSmoothieGirl Nutrition Quiz: new! improved! interactive!

by Robyn Openshaw on October 9, 2008 in Raw Food with 29 Comments
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http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/nutritionQuiz.html

Here it is, at last, the refined quiz to test how excellent, energy promoting, and disease preventing your diet is.  It should identify ways you can improve, and of course you know that EVERY ONE of those ways is addressed in 12 Steps to Whole Foods.  It’s interactive, so your score is totalled automatically–it will take you two minutes!

Some of you beta tested this quiz a couple of months ago and gave me feedback through email and comments on the blog.  I believe this would be the nutritional equivalent of what we call in academia “rigorous.”  That is, it demands a lot of you.  It isn’t going to tell you, like the USDA will, that you’re doing well if you mix in a salad now and then.

It does, however, give you extra credit to cover for some of your nutritional sins.  I have carefully considered, based on the volumes of data available, HOW important each area of nutrition is, and I have weighted questions accordingly within the 100 points.

I would like to hear from some of you lurkers!  It’s so easy to comment–you don’t even have to register in order to comment on this, my blog, I think.  If anyone beats my score, and I’m sure someone will because some raw foodies read this, please let us all know!  (If anyone’s mad because the quiz doesn’t give them the score you believe you deserve, feel free to sound off here, too!)

My score is 97.

Here it is again: http://www.greensmoothiegirl.com/nutritionQuiz.html

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You don’t eat meat? Then where do you get your protein?

by Robyn Openshaw on October 8, 2008 in Raw Food with 8 Comments
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I know, I’ve blogged about this more than any other subject.  But I’m going to say a few more things about it today, just in a slightly different way, because of that old statistic that people have to hear something 11 times before they believe it.  And because that’s the question we plant eaters get most often, “But where do you get your PROTEIN?”

 

The World Health Organization says humans need 5 percent of daily calories to be protein.  The USDA says 6.5 percent.  On average, here’s what plant foods contain:

 

Fruits                                                    5 percent

Vegs                                                    20-50 percent

Sprouts, nuts, beans, grains, seeds:       10-25 percent

 

So you get plenty of protein from plants.  When you eat these proteins raw, they’re undamaged by heat and therefore more usable by your body, too.  Greens are highest in protein of the vegetables, so they are ideal for building and repair in the body.  We have a protein excess in the Western diet, not a protein deficiency.

 

Amino acids are protein’s building blocks.  Animal flesh combines those amino acids in a highly structured way—that’s all it means when people talk about “quality” proteins.  On the other hand, vegetable proteins are comprised of free-floating amino acids.  The first 8 amino acids are called “essential” because we have to acquire them from food.  The last 14 are built from the first 8.  Vegetable proteins, in free form, are easier to digest, give you more energy, and contribute to beauty and feeling well!

 

Some say, “But I feel better when I get much more protein.”  Years ago, I felt the same way—I noticed I had more energy eating chicken and fish.  Then I recognized truth when a book I was reading said that many animal protein eaters experience weakness/fatigue when they go off animal protein because of the inevitable cleansing that results.  So they attribute the difference in the way they feel to “needing” meat rather than feeling poorly when they cleanse as an adjustment to ending an addiction.  (These opinions are then further supported by diet-plan promoters who advocate for unnatural amounts of protein, as well as scientifically unsupported “blood type” and “metabolic type” authors.)

 

I put the idea that my “feeling better” was related to cleansing, not need, to the test.  I can honestly say I have more energy now than ever before.  It’s not true what people say, that you’re just going to feel worse in your 40’s than you did in your 20’s!  I feel MUCH better at 41 than I did in my 20’s!  I just had to go off chicken and fish for LONG ENOUGH.  I plan to never go back to eating those foods that promote cancer and heart disease, and are full of antibiotics, steroids, foodborne bacteria, and all kinds of pathogens.

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Manifesto 12 Questions

by Robyn Openshaw on October 8, 2008 in Raw Food with 7 Comments
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Okay… so now I’m freaking out. I have been 80% for 2 yrs and 100% vegan on and off during that two years. If it comes in a package I don’t buy it let alone eat it. I cycle 25-30mi 3 times a week and walk 4 miles a day when not on the bike. I help build houses for Habitat and am generally a very active person. Single mom of two, etc. I just saw the recommended wt charts posted for your Myth #12 and I have to say WOW!! I haven’t seen that weight in 36 years! And I wear a size 6! According to that chart I have 30pounds to loose!!!!!!! I consume only one quart of Green smoothies and one large salad a day now! Is anyone else blown away by this or is it just me?

Lynn

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