By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
I was in Whole Foods the other day and saw an Easy-to-Grow Mushroom Garden and I thought how cool is that! What is just as cool is the story behind the company that makes these kits, Back to the Roots  (the acronym, BTTR is pronounced Better). It was started by two strangers who were in the same class at Berkeley University where the professor talked about how one could grow mushrooms in used coffee grounds. They individually emailed the professor who actually had no idea how to actually grow mushrooms, but suggested they contact each [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
Are we all counting the days when our youngins’ head back to school? I am already thinking about the 160 lunches I will have to prepare for my daughter throughout the year. Yikes! Plus this little 6 year old has been a vegetarian since she started eating solid foods. Thank goodness I discovered these Pure Organics bars. Veroncia Bosgraaf created these bars when her 6 year old daughter made a conscious decision not to eat meat again. They are raw, organic, gluten-free, kosher and full of fruits and nuts with no refined sugars, no chemicals, no genetically-modified [...]

By Natalie Greggain, Contributing Raw Food Editor
If you read my last article on Raw Foodism (here), you are well aware that I am a firm believer of balance in your life. In my opinion, you will only ever be able to truly enjoy the succulent things in life once you have your health figured out. You need to get to a place where you can feel good about yourself every single day and develop a lifestyle that does that for you; that would be one where you’re not constantly counting calories or constantly feeling hungry.
Getting there can take a lot [...]

By Natalie Greggain, Contributing Raw Food Editor
Note: The Succulent Wife is thrilled to welcome Natalie Greggain of Purely Juicers as a raw food expert & contributing editor. Yeah!  Natalie’s upcoming articles will certainly demystify raw food and juicing practices while providing all the essential tips & tricks on how to easily introduce raw foodism into our complicated lives. Stay tuned for more how-to articles on raw food and juicing along with some pretty fantastic (and easy) recipes.
Raw Foodism has been around for centuries but it has become increasingly popular over the last 5 years. I find that whenever the [...]

Although I love how I feel when I conform to a raw food diet, it’s oftentimes challenging for me to maintain. Breakfast raw meals are very do-able, since everyone in our home is on their own for breakfast. It’s either a plentiful bowl of fruit & g-raw-nola, raw pancakes or a smoothie. All these choices are wonderfully satisfying to me. Lunches are easy too. I usually brown bag a salad with a raw-foodist dressing (today’s is Kreamy Curry, my fav). But dinners… My kids are not into the raw stuff. Guacamole and salsa are pretty much as far as they [...]

Just plain berries with a drizzle of agave nectar and a generous sprinkle of raw pecans. A perfect raw food breakfast and it sustains me till lunch time. And it’s just plain… niammmmmm.

At first I thought that I’d fit everything that I wanted to say about Raw Food in one article. Not even close. Duh. (Part 1, HERE) Too long and, as readers and writers, we all prefer digestible nuggets (pun kinda intended). So, the next logical item to tackle in this quest to learn more about raw foodism is to recommend some reading material. This will provide more background about the raw food eating mode and the books will present recipes typical of the raw food diet. As mentioned last time, I’m also a relative neophyte in the raw [...]

When I tell people that I try to mostly follow a raw food diet, they most often look at me as if I had just, that very instant, grown an extra head. Yeah, I thought that was pretty unconventional too until I took a class on raw food – aka living foods, cuisine (given by my mentor/guru/friend Ki Kosut of the Ki-Atsu Institute) about 10 months ago and got to understand the benefits and the practicalities of it all.
Note: By no means do I intend to give anyone a lecture on raw food. I will leave that to the experts. [...]

Since I’m still getting used to the raw/living foods way of eating, I do find myself occasionally yearning for old favorites. In the 112 degree heat (dry heat, I know, but at that point, dry doesn’t help!) of Las Vegas, there is nothing to be done to get me to avoid visions of frozen treats. My very satisfying – and practically immediate – remedy came in the form of this mango sorbet.
I know that it’s a little late in the season to recommend a frozen treat, but a few shivers will be easily overlooked when you try this.

Now, try to [...]

When I have a moment, I need to tell you about the raw food, aka living food lifestyle that my husband and I are incorporating in our lives.
My lunch today looked so beautiful, simple and healthy, I just had to snap it. Mixed vegetable & nut salad with honey lemon dressing and olive-sundried-tomato crackers. Miammmmm.

We took a raw cooking class at the Ki-Atsu Institute and have been running with it since. Delicious and satisfying and beautiful and a remedy to my constant low blood sugar. Love, love, love it!
More on that later!