This time of year is great for spending time with family, and usually we like to stuff our faces with holiday treats. What would happen if instead of ingesting food from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.,) we ate something more like, oh, I don’t know, maybe raw Pumpkin Pies with a bit of cream on top? But how about, instead of average whip cream which leaves you feeling congested and prone to flu like symptoms, you put some “cashew cream” on top? Don’t knock it until you try it! I got to sample these treats that Kelly Keough whipped up for us in class. As with everything else I’ve tried of hers, I definitely prefer it over the stuff we’ve all been accustomed to. When the pie crust is put through a dehydrator, which Kelly says she “can’t live without,” it retains it’s freshness. The temperature of a dehydrator is usually around 100 to 110, so that the ingredients retain their vivacity, and the enzymes and antioxidants, etc. that are so necessary for good health don’t get cooked to death. (The standard for Raw food is below 117 degrees farenheit.) Kelly recommended that if we didn’t have a dehydrator, we could start off by using the stove, but heating it at lower temperatures then usual.

Stephanie, a homemaker from Thousand Oaks, figures it’s worth the 40 + miles commute to real raw live for Kelly Keough’s classes. She’s been to the 2 previous classes I’ve written about, and is back today for more. “I’ve made all of the recipes 10 times or more, except the peanut butter cups, because they keep so well in the fridge, I’ve got plenty left.” I told her I was impressed. “I’ve been doing the raw thing a long time,” she said. But like anything worth learning, there’s always more to grasp. That’s why Kelly’s class is a diamond in the rough, and there’s a lot of wisdom to be mined from what she teaches.

At Real Raw Live this past Sunday, Kelly was talking about a woman who is one of the wealthiest women on the planet, and has battled weight loss unsuccessfully for a long period of time. Who is that? Oprah Winfrey. If only she could have some of Kelly’s raw products in her pocketbook, “she would eat that instead of craft services. She has the world at her fingertips. All the money in the world. Access to all the psychologists, diet centers, trainers, and she still has the same problem. What is it? Sugar Addiction.” That is something most of us can relate to.

She went on to describe sugar addiction as a disease, of spiritual, mental, and physical extraction. And raw/ vegan food being a tool that can help this addiction, by providing tasty alternatives- foods that in my own estimation are better than what we’ve been used to eating in the Standard American diet.

Stay tuned for next year’s classes. And if you can’t think of what to buy your loved ones for the holidays, buy Kelly’s cookbook at www.kellykeough.com. Or maybe you can buy it for yourself as a kick off for the New Year’s Resolutions, which should include a healthier you.

Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com





Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: Conquering Sugar Addiction with Kelly Keough: Episode 3. | #

Alright all you rawsome foodies out there. If you haven’t been to Kelly’s class yet, there’s a new opportunity to join her the next few Sundays at Real Raw Live on 5913 W. Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. Her classes are quite affordable when compared to other Raw Culinary classes. Kelly’s classes are currently being priced at $20 for one class, or a package of 3 for $50. The education and inspiration that you acquire from watching and listening to Kelly prepare her sumptuously sexy edibles is worth the price of admission alone. Of course the opportunity to sample the wares is a sweetly savored experience also!

Kelly’s philosophy about food is fairly straight forward,” My creations have to taste good, and they should look gourmet or else you’re not going to eat it.” She doesn’t believe healthy food should be something you have to suffer through, rather a “great celebration.” She added, “If it’s not fun, you’re not going to do it.” I can relate with that! A group of us met up with her to taste some of her delicacies and take in her positive, healing spirit.

“I’m trying to create a series of classes that nourishes the healthy lifestyle and creates community,” She said at the beginning of the class, “By making it affordable, and showing you how to do it yourself, This class actually builds your culinary skills and taste palate to be able to enjoy life to it’s fullest. We are the impetus of this new pioneering idea and creativity here in Franklin Hills, at Real Raw Live. This is a new group. Hopefully, we’ll spread and we’ll be doing some great things.”

Well, I know for sure one of the great things she was talking about were her delicious Hemp Balls, which she originally called “Fudgits” when she was first developing them. Kelly is a self-described sugar addict. I’m glad she’s been able to whip up some nice alternatives, because I’m one too- or maybe now, an erythritol addict, since I’ve been newly enlightened now! (Erythritol or ZSweet is a newer sugar substitute on the market that Kelly encourages us all to try, along with Stevia, Swerve, and Agave, which she recommends using more sparingly..) She believes that combining sugar substitutes properly is the best way to fully bring out a sweet taste in whatever you’re “uncooking.”

The special thing about her products is that because of the heavy dose of nutrient content that you’re getting, even though it tastes like a desert, it’s practically a meal in itself. “These Hemp Balls are dear to my heart,” she says as the class is scarfing them down in effortless indulgence.

“They’ve transformed, like a butterfly over the last four years,” which was when she began creating them, in an effort to come up with something that would replace the other junk foods she was eating to satisfy her sugar cravings. “It’s all about NOT suppressing what you love- the more you start giving yourself what you love, the more love comes into your life.” I’ll have another Hemp Ball, than, Thank you very much!

To wash down the Hemp Balls, or Fudgits, she blended up one of the best smoothies available on planet earth and I’ll tell you why: It combines what she describes as a “great combo for a total elixir of well being,” cacao, which has a muscly supply of polyphenols, and Hawaiian Spirulina, which boasts Iron, and the highest protein content from chlorophyll available. Cool thing about Iron, it helps curb sugar craving. So you’re curing your sugar craving, and curbing it at the same time. Iodine, which is in Sea Vegetables, does that too, according to Kelly. People were wide-eyed when she stuck in the spinach, but we somehow trusted that it would taste fine, and we certainly weren’t disappointed! After 2 Hemp Balls and a small smoothie I was full for several hours. In fact, I found myself having to run extra couple miles that night to drain my body of the extra energy that I was feeling!

Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: Kelly Keough's, Kelly Keough's Uncooking class: episode 2: Making Food a Celebration of Life, Real Raw > Live on 5913 W. Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. | #

The whole problem with diets is that people often don’t sustain them because cravings are so strong. Kelly Keough understands this. She now teaches classes and writes books on the subject. “I know what it’s like to be obsessed with sugar, so what I do is I have people make what they crave, but prepare it alternatively. So they don’t feel like they’re going without, like they’re being punished.” I, being curious about foods and having a lifelong sweet tooth myself, (which I’ve been trying to cure for ages,) had to check out one of Kelly’s classes. It made me think a lot about how we just accept common food falacies as truths, not trying hard enough to correct our diets.

So if you ate too much over thanksgiving, you might want to pause and think about what you’ve been putting into your body. Have you been fueling up on lots of greasy meat and dairy? Are your arteries feeling clogged and your nasal passages stuffed up? I recommend hanging out with Kelly a bit. When I told a friend of mine I was going to a ‘raw cooking class,’ he uttered, ‘isn’t that an oxymoron?’ I guess I should call it a raw preparation class instead. Thing I like about Kelly, is it feels very balanced. Her regiment is not 100% raw, but it’s very healthy. The point is, the food that she makes is scrumptious and yet you don’t feel bloated after eating it. And it’s not like you’re being deprived. Her peanut butter cups are better than any sweets you can buy at the grocery market. They’re prepared with Stevia and agave for sweeteners, while boasting carob and cacao to take care of our chocolate cravings. With coconut oil poured in along with vanilla, and organic chunky peanut butter, these little sweet treats pack a satisfying punch and are able to be stored in the freezer for long periods of time. I thought they tasted rich and wonderful, and if I had a steady supply of these I’d never shop for candy bars again in my life. It’s been a few years since Kelly has, and I can see why.

Kelly is more than a chef. After explaining how she uses less agave than most vegan chefs, rounding it out with stevia and erithrytol so that there’s less fructose, she asks us how we feel after tasting her treats. ” How does your blood sugar level feel? How does your body feel? Do you feel like you’ve eaten anything bad?’ One student excitedly responds, “My brain feels stimulated!”
When I asked her how she got into raw/ vegan preparation, she responded, “my angels told me to do it.” I’m definitely am not one to shy away from spiritual phenomena , so I became even more intrigued. It turns out that she was brought up in a catering family in Western New York, and was used to preparing foods for thousands of people over the years, even working in the family business in her late teens. That brought her into working in craft services for film and television, and then being a studio teacher on the set of the Academy Award winning motion picture ‘Cider House Rules,’ which she described as a magical experience. She soon decided to go to graduate school, choosing to study film at AFI. The stresses of it combined with poor diet choices caused her to begin losing her hair. When she consulted famed naturopath Rhonda Lenair in the early nineties for sugar addiction, she was given a list of what she could and couldn’t eat, and “I really got to know the list of what I could eat.”

“What were the hardest foods to give up? I asked.

“Sugar! and Chocolate of course. So carob was my new best friend. But I didn’t find that out until later.” She gave us all a wealth of information about alternative sweeteners, a few of which I had not heard of before, like Erythritol, and ZSweet. I also didn’t know that cinnamon is considered a ‘heart spice,’ increases metabolism, and is great for people who suffer diabetes. The whole purpose of her deserts is that there is no no boost in adrenals, or caffeine, which she considers a very important factor. And yet they taste out of this world.

Sweets aren’t her only specialty however. Her class was basically woven between the preparation of 2 recipes, the peanut butter cups, and also a Mermaid Salad, which is a filling delicacy complete with sea vegetables, quinoa, spices, and avocado. She stressed the importance of eating Arame every day with soups and salads, especially for women. The Iodine, the B vitamins, the fact that it’s a blood builder, filled with calcium, and considered a superfood convinced us all of it’s healthfulness. She told us about how quinoa is used in Peru, how chickens and people alike grow strong and rugged due to the strong concentration of amino acids and proteins in it, and how popular it is finally becoming here in the United States.

The path to good health was not always easy for Kelly. As we were chowing down on her great food, she told us about a phone consultation she was having with her naturopath. At that point, she decided that ‘not one more grain of sugar would pass my lips.’ and she lived up to that. Friends began asking her if she got botox, if she’d had a facelift. She began to study foods at Erewhon grocery, learning from hard core vegans and raw foodists. She soon became a cooking consultant there. “Because I’m a self healer, I wanted to show other people that they could self heal too.”

Soon, with a combination of her new diet and Chinese herbs, she found her hair growing in better than ever before, but, equally important, she didn’t have to fight off the cravings as she did before. “I never thought I would be released from the prison of being obsessed with food and being worried about that.” She’s on a new mission now, to “encourage people to get back into their kitchen.”

So check out her website, www.kellykeough.com. She has a wealth of information online, and also a television show, ‘”The Sweet Truth,” which is on Veria, Dish/ Verizon. A cookbook, which shares the same name as her show, is also available on her website. If there are more people like Kelly out there that realize that healing begins with what you eat, maybe there’s a chance to change the state of nutrition that many of us find ourselves in today, while still keeping up with the cravings of our sweet tooth, which is something that cannot be denied.



Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: http://www.kellykeough.com, Kelly Keough, Raw food classes, raw food prep. | #

Who knew that you could make milk out of Sunflower seed? I’ve had the almond milk, the cashew milk, the soy, the hemp milk, etc. but last night was my first time trying anything with Sunflower seed milk. So after trying the Mango Lassi at Cru, sorry, but I’ll never be able to ever drink it any other way again. Sweetened with Agave and spiced with cinnamon and cardamom, it was honestly one of the most satisfying raw drinks I’ve ever tasted. Right up there with Juliano’s Chocolate shake. It was practically a meal in itself, really packing a punch of wholesome nutty protein. All of you people who think you can’t get protein from plant based foods, think again. I felt like running a marathon after drinking this. Oh, and thanks Kyler, for the generous serving. And for being patient with my multitude of questions.

Cru is located at 1521 Griffith Park Blvd in Silverlake- it’s practically on Sunset, just a few blocks east of where Santa Monica Blvd. connects. I was just trying to fuel up between watching a show at El Cid and happened to come across this gem. I plan to go back and sample the foodies. Will let you know when I do.

Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: Cru on Sunset, Jeremy Ferrick Mosaic, Mango Lassi Raw Drink, Raw Drink Featurette, Raw Food Los Angeles, Raw Food Restaurant Los Angeles. | #

I learned some health food secrets from David Wolfe when he spoke at Erewhon, and I feel like I just can’t keep it to myself. For those of you who don’t know about David, he is one of the most charismatic catalysts in the raw foods movement. He talked about the Erewhon store on Beverly Blvd. with extreme reverence, categorizing it as the store that other health food establishments spy on to learn their secrets.

He took a crowd of a few dozen or us or so to the produce section and picked up an apple. At one point he held it up to his heart and told us the merits of this particular fruit, which possesses leitril, a cancer fighting agent, and declared that you should eat the whole apple, even the seeds, which also help to fight cancer.

He dove into various subjects, anything from feeding broccoli to your dog, using beet to cleanse your liver, and the woes of iodized salt, describing with horror about passing the salt factories in Chicago where the buildings were these dirty warehouses filled with the stuff, and how toxic it is.
And did you know that Black radishes are liver cleansing, and if you’re getting your greens that’s all the calcium you need?

And that spinach is great for your lungs and you shouldn’t worry about overdosing on oxalic acid?
He regaled us with stories about old medicine shaman types in the amazon who told him that cacao bark soaked in water for 24 hours could produce a solution that could cure male pattern baldness! And about the time when he was starting out as a raw foodist and his group of friends would snag lettuce that wasn’t wanted from a health food store and make lettuce juice.

Lettuce actually is an opiate, by the way, so apparently lettuce juice has a calming quality. He compared it to drinking brews in a pub. So sometime we’ll have to have to watch the game and drink some lettuce brew.


Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: David Wolfe, Erewon. Los Angeles, Raw Food. | #

Zevia is definitely my favorite beverage. It is a fairly new product on the health product market. What is beautiful about this particular beverage, is that although it packs a sugary punch for your sweet tooth, it isn’t unhealthy in the way that your average cola on the market is. It is sweetened with Stevia, which is natural, not like many other “alternative” sugar products. In fact, it is known to enhance glucose tolerance, and is safe for those who suffer from Diabetes. I remember long ago trying Stevia and wondering why someone hasn’t marketed it as a soda. I thought maybe some day I would! Well, the smart folks at Zevia have beaten me to the punch, and I must confess I’m somewhat addicted. If you’re trying to wean yourself off of Coke or any other soda on the market that wears out your teeth, I strongly recommend this drink. It is a bit more expensive and harder to find, but you will definitely realize that it’s worthwhile. I know that it is now carried at Whole Foods, and I get it at my favorite neighborhood produce market here in Los Angeles.

Right now, it comes in four flavors: Twist, which is a lemon lime hybrid and works good as a 7 up or Sprite substitute, Natural Orange for all you Fanta lovers, Natural Ginger Root Beer, which easily beats it’s similarly titled rival, and Cola, which kicks Pepsi and Coke’s behind any day. The Cola is also a natural stimulant containing Kola nut, which is from a tree in Western and Central Africa. So you can substitute it for your morning coffee if you’re looking for that “kick.” ( Actually, the cola also contains a bit of coffee.) Instead of using artificial flavorings for the Orange soda, the brilliant makers at Zevia use annatto, from the achiote tree for the coloring, so they could live up to their “all natural” moniker. Please give it a try, you WILL be converted.

Read more at: http://www.zevia.com/







Article courtesy of Jeremy Ferrick our Raw Food Correspondent

Read more articles from Jeremy Ferrick at: http://jeremyferrick.blogspot.com

No Comments | In: Totally Raw-Some | tags: Healthy soda, Stevia, Zevia organic beverage. | #