This has never happened to me before.

My nails have been growing faster than I can trim them.

Ok that sounds like a stretch but with my crazy busy days of late (husband’s away for 2 weeks, with 2 little ones, also getting back into my regular workouts as well as planning for my online video class e course due to launch soon) you can see why some things may slide.

But honestly my nails have never grown so long and strong EVER.

Here’s why…

Yesterday I had to remind myself to trim them – sounds crazy but each time I’d notice they were getting longer I would make a mental note to do it, before I knew it they’d grown even more.

I used to be a chronic nail biter as a kid, and when I was a flight attendant I either kept my natural nails short, or wore acrylics (yuk!) as nails were constantly broken, heaving that metal trolley up and down the aisles.

And usually when pregnant, women find their nails; skin & hair improve or give them grief, one of the two.

Mine was the former, with my hair beautiful and thick and nails not bad, but skin was the best it’s ever been (with both PREGNANCIES) only to go back to it’s average, combination complexion with occasional breakouts.

So in an effort to get my skin back to it’s pregnancy glory, or at least try, I’ve been increasing my healthy fats. Not only is this great for my skin, but my hair, nails and of course healthy fats are UBER IMPORTANTE for breastfeeding mothers.

Joanna Steven who wrote The Milky Way, talks about the importance of these fats (Omega 3’s and 6’s) for not only the quality of the milk, but also to assist with the brain development of our bub.

WIN WIN WIN I say.

So I’ve been enjoying more

• chia puddings,
• flax crackers,
• coconut & coconut oil in balls & fitness fudge
• and my fruit salads
• as well as way more avocados than ever before.

I really like my avocados massaged into my salads aka guacamole salad, however if I get to the end of the day and have felt I’ve been a little short on my healthy fats, and am not really feeling like a savoury treat then…

I’ve been experimenting with avocado sweet smoothies.

And that is how this recipe came about..

Berry Yoghurt/Smoothie.

Total accident but WOW.

If you feel you are missing your dairy yoghurts then this is the one for you.

Feeling a little silly though because yesterday I did post that it was NUT FREE. Oops. You’ll see that it is not in fact nut free (almond milk is in the recipe) – that will teach me for posting a teaser after I have nothing left (in my brain!) after boot camp class!

Please let me know if you make it and what you think of it in the comments below. I originally made this as a smoothie, but if it thick enough to eat with a spoon. If you prefer your yoghurts more thick then reduce to 1 ½ or 1 cup of almond milk. Play around with it.

Also did you have any other weird and wonderful things happen whilst pregnant that you wish had continued into non pregnant life?

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE

Getting caught up in the busy-ness of life?

Yeah me too, but I know I bring it on myself.

But is being busy really all it’s cracked up to be?

For a very long time, my friends have always said how busy they perceive me to be. It’s true. I just cannot sit still really for very long. Hell, I have a 4 month old and I’m already back working on my biz, as well as running a household of two babies and helping to support a full time working and studying husband.

I fill almost every moment of every day and get to the end of the day exhausted in a heap, promising myself not to do it all over again tomorrow, only to find myself back in the same spot all over again.

Often wishing for a clone, or for more hours in the day to finally get to read that book I’ve had sitting on my bedside table for weeks, or download that song playlist, or respond to those emails, probably on my iPhone while I am doing something else!!!

How do we get so overwhelmed and busy?

Just as it’s important to schedule time in our diaries for tasks or to-do lists I really think it’s important to schedule ME time or DOWNTIME or FAMILY time or whatever applies, and I’m sorry to say I’m guilty of not doing this lately.

Sometimes afraid to say no to people for fear of letting them down with social engagements, or work commitments, it’s no real difference to staying late at the office or working overtime (by choice).

And does that make for a good worker, or a bad time manager?

Dr Hallowell wrote Crazy Busy, and describes that nowadays we sometimes just do not know how to be un-busy.

With gadgets like iPhones & Blackberrys meaning emails are just a tap away, and even sitting in traffic can mean a minute or two of responding to text messages, we are more available than ever, but also more stimulated than ever too.

Here are my tips to help stop the Busy-ness

1. Allow yourself a set number of social events per week and stop when your punch card is full.  Some people are fine with 2 or 3 social catch-ups, whereas others feel overwhelmed with over 1. If I’ve reached my limit of 1 play date or social catch up for the week then I have to practice my ‘Thanks, but no thanks.”

2. Only answer your emails once per day as per this technique. Not only will you not be wasting precious time that could be served elsewhere (including REST TIME), but also it will enable you to prioritize your responses (if required) when checking them all at once. Emails are very rarely serving you; they are almost always serving the sender.

3. Schedule REST. Rest is not being lazy, and too often we find ourselves working all week, only to get to the weekend and cram more activities, to get back to our working week needing another weekend to recover. There is no shame in having NO plans. The weekend was originally created for REST and to recover and rejuvenate to be ready FRESH for the week ahead.

4. No MORE FOMO. Fear of missing out. Saying no can be difficult if you fear missing out on something whether work or personal, however there is always going to be another night out, or another opportunity to catch up for a cup of tea, or another even better offer, if this one just doesn’t work this time. There is always a next time, and this is not the LAST time you will ever be asked.

5. Recheck your priorities. At a rare lunch date I had with 5 of my girlfriends today which I had scheduled a month in advance (crazy!) one of them mentioned that you don’t get a cheque at the end of the month to pay for the extra stress you put yourself under. You don’t get a medal. What are your priorities? More family time, less technology, more exercise, eating healthier? Work out what is most important to you and work out how it could fit better into your life.

6. Meditate. This is a big one for me. Last year Pat and I did the AOL breathing and meditation course and it was very powerful stuff. They even offer free guided breathing & meditation (Sudarshan Kriya) every Friday morning to previous class participants on our compound, but we never seem to find the time to go. We’ve suggested each of us taking turns each week to do it while the other looks after the children and I think that when you have the least amount of time is when you need it most. If not, just 5-10mins of clearing your mind and sitting quietly will do wonders and we’ve both been making an effort to do at least that.

7. Be present. Get off Facebook, email, twitter etc. for a break and just BE for a moment. Need I say more?

I hope this list has helped you as much as it continues to help me right now as I go back to this list and continue to work on reducing my own busy-ness.

I’d love to hear if you have any solutions or advice for reducing your own busy-ness if you have any in the comments below.

Good luck

Last week I took Manus to have a playdate a friends house.

Little did I know it was going to be a fancy afternoon tea (my favorite!) made especially for ladies.

With gorgeous vintage & antique home decor, and stunning tea cups that looked straight out of the mad hatters party from Alice in Wonderland, my stunning host from LA served us up some delights.

Including delicious rustic spelt banana bread and the best fruit salad I’ve ever had. Hands down.

My friend was delighted when I queried the sweet addition of coconut in the salad, saying she wasn’t surprised a raw chef could detect that.

So this week I’ve been craving that delicious and decadent fruit salad and served it up for today’s lunch.

There’s something about eating fruit more if it’s already cut. As a kid I would eat apples and oranges if mum cut them up and placed them on a platter in the busiest room in the house. It be so easy to drop by and grab a couple of pieces on my way past.

This fruit salad takes it to a new level and makes it very easy for you to get more than your minimum two servings of delicious fruit per day.

Here are my ingredients but you can play around with your favourite and in season fruits.

California Fruit Salad

Equipment

Chef Knife

Ingredients

1 cup watermelon

1 peeled orange

1 apple

2 pears

1 punnet blueberries

1 punnet strawberries

1/2 cup pineapple

1 banana

(kiwi would be nice too!)

All roughly chopped except for the blueberries

Juice of 2 lemons

3 Tbsp melted coconut oil

Handful of soaked (refer to soaking chart here) roughly chopped walnuts (pecans would be nice too)

1/4 cup shredded coconut (we used fresh shucked coconut from mature coconuts – a service offered here at our local supermarket)

1-3 Tbsp maple syrup, honey, agave or your favourite sweetener to taste

Method

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir gently. The lemon juice acts to reduce the apple and banana from oxidizing and going brown.

And serve!

Voila.

{Milk Mama Giveaway Winner}

The winner was drawn randomly from the entrants in this post here.

Congratulations to Jade – mama to Jet.

Jade, please send an email to contact@girlonraw.com with Milk Mama in the subject to claim your eBooks.Thank you to everyone for their entries.

Breastfeeding has been such a joyous experience this time around with my little girl who turns 4 months shortly.

Going in this time I was a little more emotionally prepared for the worst unlike the taxing time I had with Manus when breastfeeding didn’t go according to plan.

You can read more about my breastfeeding woes with Manus in my Post Pregnancy Part 1 and Part 2, but the purpose of this post is to encourage other mummies who also had troubles with no 1 that no 2 is not always going to tread the same path.

When Chloé was first born and I spent those first 2 nights in hospitial with her, she was on my boob all the time, as you do, leading up to milk coming  in. I gave myself permission to give her a little formula if I felt she wasn’t settling or I felt she was too hungry.

I guess my fear was that she would get dangerously underweight like Manus had when I had pledged to only breastfeed, pump, take drugs to bring on more supply, compress, feed, rinse repeat (all while compressing my breast for more milk) during my breast feeding experience with him. Nevermind trying to get a shower in or brush my teeth, those were luxuries my friends.

Whilst I am thankful that I didn’t have other issues like mastitis (touch wood) I’ve heard some mum’s talk about, only the other night, Pat said that I must have really wanted breastfeeding to work considering I taped a tiny tube (nursing supplementer) to the side of my breast to enable Manus to feed on my nipple while we supplemented with formula at the same time.  This was to ensure nipple confusion didn’t occur and breast stimulation was also being done to bring on more milk!

Feeding Chloé has been a dream.

First of all I worked on building up my supply by having Chloé feeding or sucking at least every 3 hours, or less if she was wanting it.

Initially I was supplementing Chloé with a bottle of formula milk of an evening as I was finding her to be the most unsettled then, but after talking with my amazing lactation consultant and breastfeeding extraordinaire from La Leche League, who also was there for me every week with Manus, she told me this was normal for most babies, as there was less milk after a day of feeding.

At 6 weeks, we trialled no bottles for almost a week but Chloé just had had it and was really distressed (which says a lot for a baby that hardly ever cries) on the 5th day and I gave her an evening bottle.

Now at 15 weeks, I just unconsciously noticed (isn’t that funny! But life’s a little more hectic with 2 babies now) that she’s not had a bottle in over 2 weeks. I always offer breast first, but so far lately she has been satisfied with my breast so I’m needless to say, over the moon.

While I am not ruling out that she will not need any more formula, especially during growth spurts, I am truly thrilled that my body has been able to supply my gorgeous little girl with the milk that I so desperately wanted to provide for Manus.

Giveaway

in celebration of all mama’s out there, Joanna Steven whole foods nutriion coach and author  of eBooks The Milky Way and Well Rounded (must haves for pregnancy and mamahood for the healthy inclined) has generously offered her two books up for grabs for one lucky Girl on Raw reader.

 

Good morning! Well it is here in Saudi, and I’m sitting here in my exercise gear ready to hit my boot camp class but my sitter is late so I thought I’d share some tips with you instead on how to eat more raw in a family that just isn’t as into it.

I’ve mentioned before that even though my husband is just as health conscious as me (he owned a champion juicer way before we met and he often only eats fruit only until lunch time) he still wants to eat meat. I’ll only cook chicken or fish, if he wants red meat he’ll eat it when we go out for dinners. And that’s fine by me.

Over the years of progressing from being single to a wife, to a busy mama to 2, running a business from home but also being the main meal provider I’ve learnt how to turn more complicated gourmet dishes cooked and raw, into simple quick and still nutritious meals that don’t mean I have to spend ALL day in the kitchen.

This means I still get to make my husband and children the cooked meals they want without compromising my own desire to eat a high raw diet.

Here’s some of my top tips!

1.  Meal prep 1 day a week. Previously this used to take me hours to do, but I am fine tuning it and on Sunday I also took part in my Canadian friend Angela Peters’s online class The Sustainable Healthy Kitchen   (Meal Prep Workshop) click for details to glean some tips from her. She has some wonderful suggestions for spending just 1 hour per week prepping the meals for the week ahead. You can also download my Kitchen Prep PDF here for ideas on what you can prep for your raw meals.

2. Invest in equipment that will work for you. I use my 5 in 1 (pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, soup maker, steamer) at least twice per week to make cooked dinners for my family. This morning I put in all the ingredients  for apricot chicken in the slow cooker for my family by 830am. All I need to do it pull out our separate rice cooker an hour before serving time to cook up the brown rice to serve with it.

3. Eat what your family is eating for dinner but half or third the portion size and serve with a big tasty salad. Last night I made bean enchiladas for my family and I ate half an enchilada with 2 servings or my guacamole salad.

4. Make your raw dinners easy and delicious. Sometimes my family will be eating a cooked meal while I am sitting there with my nori pinch up wraps. I even will have a huge smoothie for dinner if that’s all I’m feeling like.

5. Make dinner buffet style. Include some cooked and raw choices so you can encourage without pressuring  your family to eat more raw food. If you get adventurous, you can even pick out something a little more complicated like a raw pad Thai or lasagna which doesn’t look like a salad, and leftovers could be your lunch or dinner the following day.

6. Try to recreate your familly’s favourite cooked food in a raw way to invite them to enjoy a raw meal with you. Things like pizza, pasta, sushi, burgers, etc could all be considered.

7. For fancier dinners, have a raw starter like vegetable crudites (sticks) with a delicious raw dip or dressing. I love Kristens Raw Tuscan Sundried Tomato Pesto. It’s a crowd favourite! Or give a delicious raw dessert a shot!

Love to hear your suggestions on how you make eating healthy work in your busy family in the comments below.

Today’s YouTube video from him comes at at opportune time, following on from my recent post on Which Diet is The Right Diet and a much older post I wrote on Diet Labels.

As a mother of two and a wife of a VERY omnivore husband, I more than realise that acceptance of different people’s diet choices is just a normal way of life.

I, too believe, that of course MY DIET is the right diet FOR ME because if I wasn’t why would I be eating that way???

I also believe that YOU choose which is the best diet for you too, and what I discussed in my previous post is that different diets for different purposes (pregnancy, weight loss, weight maintenance, ethics, disease treatment etc) is also strong in my belief system. No judgements, no ego.

I merely promote MY lifestyle, not just  diet, but also encompassing healthy lifestyle because it’s the one that works best for me and my family.

As a Raw Food Leader, MY MISSON is to inspire those who aspire to or are already living a high raw food diet, whether that means you are vegan or not is up to you, emcompassing whole foods and being more conscious of the foods we feed ourselves and our families. Because it’s hardly rocket science that eating more vegetables and fruits is a healthier choice.

In an ideal world I’d live on a large rural piece of land, and grow most if not all or our organic fruits and vegetables, have a couple of chooks and be off the grid and not have to worry about usual daily issues that most of us face like being time poor due to heavy work schedules, family and social commitments etc. And I realise that just isn’t the norm for most of us. But hey I’m working on this and one day it might just be a reality for me and my little family

Anyway take a look at the video below,whether you are a Raw Foods Leader yourself or have been turned off by the many different ‘sects’ that you find yourself faced with in your research on a raw food life.

For the record if you want to know what kind of raw foodies like and benefit from  working with me, it’s usually those that are :

- just getting started on eating raw

- just curious and may not even make the step to a high raw diet but want to learn more about health

- want to increase their raw foods in their cooked diet

- need practical solutions and inspiration for eating a raw food diet, whether it’s 50%,75% or even 100% raw when the rest of the family does not.

But as I’ve always said, YOU ARE ALL WELCOME XXX

Check out the video below and as always, I’d love to hear your courteous feedback below.

My friend is healing from breast cancer and it’s such a wonderful, unique, supportive place we live in here, that plenty of the women have signed up to make dinners for her and her family to allow her time to heal and rest.

Such a great idea and it is all managed through a facebook group and this website called Meal Train. You could even set something up like this for a pregnant friend for when they give birth, so they don’t have to worry about their dinners for the first few weeks and can focus on bonding with baby and family.

Anyhoo, short post today, as I slowly get back into the swing of business here post baby.

If you make this soup lemme know in the comments below. It’s a favourite in our household and tonight I am making it with homemade bread- well our lovely helper Mulu from Ethiopia has taught me how to make it today and the ingredients are, flour, orange juice, salt & water. Amazing! It’s a treat but at least I know what’s going into it! Plus my family eats very differently to the way I do!

Curried Lentil & Vegetable Soup

Equipment

Chef Knife

Pressure cooker/slow cooker or large pot

Ingredients

1 cup of dried lentils soaked overnight and rinsed (you can use canned if you wish I prefer dried)

1 whole cauliflower chopped finely

2 stalks of chopped celery

2 peeled and diced potatoes

juice of 1 lemon

1 diced onion

6 diced tomatoes (you can use a tin of whole or chopped tomatoes)

6 cups of water

2 bay leaves

1 diced zucchini

1 1/2 Tbsp Himalayan salt

2 Tbsp curry powder

1 tsp tumeric

Method:

Place all ingredients in your pressure cooker and cook for 30mins.

If using a slow cooker place all ingredients in slow cooker and follow instructions – ideally place in the morning, ready for dinner in the evening.

Cooking in a pot on the stove? Bring all the ingredients to a boil then simmer for 45mins to an hour with the lid on. Same as the pressure cooker however cooking time will probably be between.

Lasts us all week for quick dinners and lunches.

Enjoy and let me know what you think down in the comments below if you go ahead and make it

Saturdays are my usual day for fridge clean out which involves making fridge clean out juices, smoothies, pasta sauces and stir fry’s ready to be replenished with newer and fresher produce from my weekly shopping trip.

I’ve already posted this Kitchen Pre-Prep PDF to my newsletter subscribers last year: if you are not already signed up to grab your free raw recipe eBook here.

It’s a useful guide I use most weeks to ensure I stick to our reasonably flexible but necessary meal plans each week.

You can click on the PDF here to print out your own copy.

For more Getting Started PDF’s visit here.

Love to hear your suggestions on sticking to your healthy goals in the comments below.

Raw food, for the unaquainted, is generally coupled with veganism and for me this was true for a period of time however when I first ventured into raw food I was neither vegan nor vegetarian. That came 2 years later and was a gradual nondeliberate process.

My veganism lasted 2 years, until I fell pregnant with my first baby, not for any other reasons over than cheese just tasted good and absolutely nothing else for my first trimester.

It was never a conscious or deliberate decision, and even when I was vegan I never really made a song and dance about it, in fact people just assumed I was vegan because i was into raw food and a formally trained raw chef. I even wrote a blog post on labels here when I was vegan but never did I identify myself as vegan nor encourage others to.

When a friend and previous fellow blogger Natasha of the now defunct blog Voracious Vegan came out  after months of  dealing with her change to an omnivore diet due to health issues, I couldn’t believe the outrage over the nets. Honestly? I know many people become vegan for animal activism and sustainability and that I applaud. However I make no apology for choosing a human’s health over an animal especially if it’s your child’s health. Motherhood brings something tribal out in you. And you will never know it until you are one. On a side note, Natasha’s never looked better since changing to an omnivore diet.

Kevin Gianni from Renegade Health also wrote about why his baby will not be a raw nor vegan baby and neither was his wife during their pregnancy on his post here 5 Reasons We Do Not Have a Raw Baby and their Follow Up Thoughts here.

So what sparked this post? Last night my dear friend, mentor and the girl that got me into this raw thing, Kristen Suzanne blogged last night that she is no longer vegan. My first reaction was cool and ambivalent, but who cares – in a nice way, really girl. I guess because Kristen is perceived as an expert in raw vegan circles she felt the need to explain and I get that.

Sayward Rebhal of popular vegan blog Bonzai Aphrodite recently blogged about her failing health as a vegan but refusal to veer away from her vegan diet. {Edited to add: she got better using vegan foods to heal herself.  She found a way to stay vegan AND get better}

Heathy from Sweetly Raw also blogged about her problems on a vegan diet in 2010 here, and Joanna Stevens from rawdivas.com mentions in her eBook, Well Rounded Pregnancy “an unsupplemented raw vegan and vegetarian diet is difficult to follow for many reasons.” She notes soil depletion, over-pasteurisation of some foods, lack of availability year round of local produce etc.

And it’s not just about leaving veganism, but Penni Shelton, head of biggest raw food space in the place Raw Food Rehab made a video post about full disclosure on her starting to eat cooked foods again here.

In a twitter conversation last year Dhru Purohit of Clean Program but former mastermind behind premier but now defunct raw food hub We Like it Raw, we talked about how it’s not about raw food anymore it’s about being ‘healthy’.

So all this got me thinking that what is it about eating a certain way for a period of time that works, but one day just does not. Well Kristen touched on it in her post, that perhaps it’s a cleaning up of a previously poor diet or placebo. Honestly I think it’s more of the former. Also I think that our bodies are amazing and can cope with so much that we throw at it even if it’s not in it’s best interest. Eating a poor meal choice one or twice may not result in an overall calamity but denying your body of variety and sticking to a militant regime over time can possibly cause havoc.

Of course you are going to feel great after a juice fast, because you have cleansed of years of poor choices, but ongoing you might start to deplete of certain nutrients and vitamins. Same with going vegan after years of a highly processed diet. Yep you’ve cleaned up your act but long term you may suffer deficiencies. These are just examples to give you an idea and not necessarily anecdotal.

Like a friend said to me, some people can thrive on a vegan diet just like some people thrive on an all junk food diet, I just think we are all different.

Do you think our ancestors had to give as much thought to what they ate? How about third world countries? It’s all about survival. And one could argue that we have a longer life expectancy than our ancestors and some of our poorer cousins however we do seem to have an abundance of diseases of affluence.

It’s amazing how much emotion one’s dietary choices bring up in others, good and bad. Again I appreciate the activism and as an animal lover I get it. But again when one’s health is in question would you sake you or your children’s health or life to save an animal. Honestly I really don’t want this becoming an activism speech there are many other forums for it.

In Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Dr Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat to Live says eating meat once or twice a week can still form part of a healthy diet, despite generally promoting a vegan diet. I admit this is still less than most omnivore household’s current consumption.

The purpose of this post is not to dictate a militant diet regime and honestly I’ve never been about that anyway, plus who am I to talk. I am a chef, I make food taste delicious I don’t prescribe diets, I merely offer educatied guidance. Plenty of my readers and clients are not even vegetarian but are just wanting to eat healthily (whatever that means to you) and I’m all about encouraging more consumption of fruits and vegetables in a society that is either too busy or too unaware to eat their veggies. But I really encourage you to find your own way, and I’ve always been about that.

If you want to add more raw meals into your diet then you’ve come to the right place. I’m all about that too, sometimes even a yummy vegetarian/vegan cooked dish. And for those living in a family like mine where you want to just eat a smoothie for dinner but your meat eating husband and sometimes son wants some salmon and steamed veggies or even a roast chook and your role is to provide then I can relate. I’m not a chemist (i just like making vegetables taste delicious) and if eating a certain way requires supplementation to sustain my health then I’d rather not,  but if it floats your boat go ahead.

Whenever anyone asks what kind of diet I adhere to, I am reticent to put a label on it for fear of it backfiring on me when as a human, I change my mind, but I will say this, I am committed to learning and practicing the healthiest diet I can based on the information I have, what intuitively feels right and what works for me and my family. I feel the closer I stick to nature the better off we will be and am everyday grateful for having the luxury of choice. Especially when I live in a cross section of cultures and backgrounds here and have daily reminders of the adversity and struggle many of us will never experience, every day I step outside my door and am greeted by the company labourers on my compound. Many of which send most of their money home to their families in Bangladesh or Pakistan, and only get to go home every 2-4 years to see them.

I honestly feel there are different reasons and stages in life where different dietary choices are required. For eg a cancer patient can thrive on a juicing regime (Gerson Therapy) whereas juicing and cleansing is not advisable for pregnancy and nursing, weight loss/maintenance, diabetes etc. Seasons and reasons and lifestyle and climate. And so many more.

I believe in moderation in all aspects in life. You will forever find a for and against for any argument you wish to have in life. The thing is, health ‘facts’ and science appear to change all the time.

I’ll leave you with this awesome quote from Josh Rosenthal (founder of Institute of Intergrative Nutriton)

Nutrition is a funny science. It’s the only field where people can scientifically prove opposing theories and still be right.

Well hello there!

It’s been a while between green drinks, but I’m slowly creeping back into work now that Chloé is almost 9 weeks old (and a dream might I add) so hopefully I’ll get to pop in here and post a little more frequently now as I begin to find my flow as a mama to two beautiful babies.

Last week we celebrated our little man’s 2nd birthday, so I can no longer say I have two children under the age of 2 but they’re still pretty close in age.

Last week I dipped my toe back into presenting some more workshops and classes with a presentation on the benefits of juicing to the Garden Group up at another compound in our area.

I’m also kicking off some raw food classes, so if you’re local and interested in attending, check out the details here. Remember I’m in Saudi Arabia, Dhahran to be exact, but I’m planning some events hopefully in Australia later this year. You can sign up here to be notified of any upcoming events so you don’t miss out – Click HERE 

This week I showed one of my favourite movies, Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, to 26 people in my local community and that has sparked a need for me to lead a gentle group cleanse commencing April 1.

We have started our own little local Facebook group to encourage, support and answer questions and for those people REALLY wanting to attempt a full juice fast (7days) we will be talking pre cleansing these next two weeks, with introducing more raw foods and less unrefined foods and meat & dairy. It’s going to be a challenge, but I think we’ll have strength in numbers. Wish us luck!

So here’s a little something I filmed for my group tonight to answer some questions on the difference between juices & smoothies and thought you might like it too. This is something I have covered on the blog before and in my eBook, Smoothies & Juices for Newbies.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please pop them down below.

See you soon!