This is a fabulous little tid bit from Divine Caroline I found via Gala Darling about how much food portions have changed over the past 20 years. For the love of obesity, please check out this link………http://www.divinecaroline.com/79975/49492-portion-size–vs–now.

Hello Blog, long time no see! It’s a been a while and I can see you’ve been lonely, my bad. Well, I’ve been on the wagon and off the wagon, on it and off, teeter totter, teeter totter and not at all motivated to write about my lack of success.

My life has been moving in a new direction for the last 6months or so. I got laid off from my job, which was really a blessing in disguise and I’ve started back to school. I’m currently commuting between New York and Salt Lake, it’s hectic but I love it. Amongst all of these new changes I really did have the best intentions of keeping up my raw diet but for some reason I’ve been having a love affair with Taco Bell, no joke.

I’ve come to realize eating raw in NYC was much, much easier, Utah has the best raw food groups and a great raw restaurant but as a whole it’s sooo much harder to stay raw in a city where there aren’t raw options ready made and at your finger tips. In conclusion, I’ve realized my food foundation has some cracks in it and I need more recipes under my belt. I get board with green smoothies and spinach, when it’s cold out, I want warmth. So realizing my raw food plan is inherently flawed, the on again, off again saga continues. This is a good thing, a learning curve, minor set back and an opprotunity to grow into a highly educated raw food woman.

My first steps back onto the road of energy and health included a trip the produce section where I snatched up an entire fridge full of veggies. I’m starting back with what I know and adding a new and exciting raw recipe into my bag of tricks every week. I originally started Raw Food Porn to keep me motivated and share my excitement with my family. I’m going to be posting my experiments, the good, the bad and the ugly to keep me on track.  So yes, you’ll be hearing more from me soon.

P.S. It feels good to write again!!

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

Macadamia nuts and a champudeck, oh this is heaven. The spiky fruit below is called a champudeck (chomp-pu-deck). Never heard of it? Me neither, I had no idea this fruit even existed. I thought it was a durian at first, but I was quickly corrected by. There both spiky right? I consulted the oracle of information (Google) about champudecks and I only found minuscule amounts of information. It may be known by another name but as far as I’m concerned  champudeck sounds pretty good to me. When I asked how to spell it someone replied, any way you want??? I love that line of thinking, I will be applying it to more things in life. So here it is, a chapmudeck in all it’s fruity, fruity glory.

Spiky and soft on the outside and very, very fragrant when ripe. I’ve never smelled such a strong fruit before. Not in a bad way, it doesn’t stink but it’s so fragrant you could smell it from ten feet away, unopened, crazy!

When fully ripe you open them by tearing the soft skin with your hands. Inside are fruit covered seed pods and sticky fibrous fruit strands that kind of melt in your mouth, yum.

This is Olucean, he’s a member of Pangaia and maintains the gardens, he’s highly knowledgeable about exotic fruit and was so nice to share this lovely chompudeck.

The shiny seeds of this exotic beauty are saved with the intent of planting new champudeck trees.

These cute little guys are macadamia nuts! I’m not used to seeing them with  the shell so I had no idea what they were until someone told me. They have two shells, on the left is the dark brown outer shell and on the right is the light brown inner shell.

Pangaia’s macadamia nut cracker makes it easy to open these babies.  I could sit in Hawaii and open macadamia nuts for hours, I love the tropics:) Fresh out out of the shell, so cute, so tasty…hooray for Hawaii!!

P.S. I’m blogging from my very own computer! My last PC was a work computer so I bought a little Macbook and I dig it. It’s my first Mac so it’s taking me a little while to figure it out but I look cool typing;)

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

Sorry to have left you guys hanging for so long! My inspiration and motivation for blogging has been zapped by cold weather. My space heater and I are now best friends, we tell each other our innermost secrets and thoughts, we’re practically joined at the hip;) In the last month I’ve lacked interest in raw food due to living in an urban icicle. No amount of spicy raw foods, hot tea, warm baths or sweaters are solving the problem either. I’ve just been plain cold and want hot food. So what changed Lesley? Why are you blogging now, it’s still an urban icicle here? Well, I’m no longer in NYC Toto. I’m back in Utah where it’s warm and sunny, well, warmer anyway. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the fresh air is reviving my blogging spirit and thawing out my toes.

On my trip back home I happened upon a gem worthy of posting. JetBlue’s new JFK terminal has a self serve salad bar! A nice one with pretty a spring mix, spinach and a hearty veggie selection for toppings. It’s priced per lb but worth the $7.99. It was so exciting to see nice salad while traveling I had to take advantage even though I had snacks. Fresh food at an airport, what a novel idea! No more roaming around terminals only to find gross washed out salads, hooray! Ahhh, if only all airlines followed JetBlue’s trend, some day…..in the not so distant future.

I still like to clean out the fridge before I leave on a trip, taking my fruits and veggies with me. This has been a great asset for keeping in the raw while on the go and you don’t waste your food. This photo was from a trip I took in the summer and those were my very own home grown tomatoes;) Cute little guys aren’t they?

I promise I won’t be such a stranger. I’ve got several fun posts up my sleeve, book reviews, recipes, beauty secrets and yes, the long awaited Pangaia pictures. Stay Tuned:)

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

P.S. You may have noticed, my blog got a mini make over, the photos are bigger and better than ever:)

My package from TheRawFoodWorld.com arrived!! Yes, the very package that raised so many eyebrows;) My fellow blogger Sam from Yardsnacker.com informed me Matt Monarch posted a video clip about my blog, on his blog. Check it out, it’s pretty funny, it made me LOL. Matt  is the author of Raw Success and Raw Spirit as well as the owner of The Raw Food World. I didn’t realize that Matt owned this site when I purchased my goodies. I’ve read his books and found them entertaining and helpful. I’m glad you found my blog entertaing as well Matt;) It’s funny how small the raw world can be.

Wanna know what I ordered??? Two bottles of Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide for veggie washes and mouth wash. Camu Camu Berry Powder & E3 Live Hemp and Maca Powder, say that three times fast.  After reading Yardsnacker’s post on the benifits of the Camu Camu berry I had to get on board that train, choo, choo. The E3 live, hemp and maca combo was too good to pass up. I’ve been putting both these powders in my morinig smoothie and I like em. Neither one of them taste very stong, they’re really mild and blend right in with spiniach, apples and bananas. You can’t go wrong with that.

After watching Matt’s YouTube  review, I thought I’d share some insight as to why I named my blog Raw Food Porn.  I once heard someone refer to cooking shows as  ”food porn” because they would then disire what ever was being made on the show. At the time I loved the sarcasm but didn’t really think much of it.  When I first got into raw I found my self surfing the net for beautiful raw food pics. I had to laugh at myself because I realized I was surfing the net for “RAW” food porn!! The light bulb when off and I thought, bingo, what a great name for a blog. I’m always sufing the net to find more “Raw” food porn. That’s one way I keep up my enthusiasm for raw foods.  I also rely on great companies like Matt’s to feed my raw food porn habbit;)

Thanks again Raw Food World!! 

♥Lesley Anne♥

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫Tis’ the season for goal setting fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la! While your at it, sing some carols, fa la, la, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ♪ ♫♪ ♫♪ ♫♪ ♫ Tis’ the day for New Years resolutions, check out this effective method on how make your New Years resolutions a success.

Recently I found myself in a goal setting class and what I learned made perfect sense, their goal setting structure was very similar to how I started going raw, starting at the bottom, laying out small simple steps to obtain the bigger picture, your goal!!!

My very first raw goal was set and met with the help of David Wolf.  He recommended starting your raw journey by incorporating one green smoothie or juice and one salad into your daily routine.  The little light bulb in  my brain went off at Davids suggestion because I realized, I can actually do this!

He advised newbies to make a list of  grocery’s and tools they’ll need to obtain this goal for one week. This was easy enough to do, I had the tools, a blender for making smoothies and a knife chopping veggies. Making the grocery list was as easy as raw pie, a whole lotta’  fruits and veggies.

Now that you have your tools and supplies your ready to rock’n'roll the raw way. My first week was a success and the next and so on. Once I mastered the salad and smoothies I moved on to making raw dinners, oh boy:)

Davids advice and this goal setting system reminds me of stairs. You start at the bottom and work your way up, one step at a time until you reach the top. Have you ever heard the joke “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!!” Haha funny I  know, my mom says this often but it’s true, we all have to start somewhere. It’s either the first bite or the first step. This system helps us lay out our goals one step at a time.

Blog readers, here’s the goal setting outline I got from the class, I find it’s very similar to Davids structure that worked so well for me the first time. This model helped me put a little more thought and detail into my goal setting and thus far has been pretty rad.

A Model to Illustrate Achievement of Your Goals

Goal: What would you like to achieve?

1.________________________

Objectives: What must be done to reach your goals?

1.__________ 2.__________ 3._________

Daily Action Steps: Create your day toward your objectives.

1.__________ 2. __________ 3._________

4.__________ 5. __________ 6._________

Here’s one of my goals that I’ll share with ‘yall to get ‘cha started. I have one for blogging on a consistent basis, going to the gym 3 times a week, finishing school by June and this one saving more mooollah.

Goal: What would you like to achieve?

1. Save more money in 2009.

Objectives: What must be done to reach your goals?

1. Set up a high interest saving account.

2. Stop buying things I don’t need.

3. Put 10% of what I make into savings.

4. Sell more on Ebay and take more temp jobs. Put that money directly into savings.

Daily Action Steps: Create your day toward your objectives.

1. Get online and compare savings accounts

2. Set up checking account to deposit 10% of each paycheck into savings.

3. Change paypal info to deposit Ebay earnings  into new saving account.

4. Seriously evaluate what I’m buying when shopping, making a grocery list, asking myself if I really truly need that new hand bag, sweater ect.

5. When I do truly need something, shop around and find the best price possible.

6. Follow up with the temp job connections I have. Accept the temp jobs I’m available for. Seek out more temporary gigs.

Print this out and make as many copies as you want, fill ‘em out, put ‘em on your fridge save them in your wallet, put ‘em under your pillow, what ever you do PLEASE WRITE THEM DOWN! For what ever reason we take our goals more seriously when we take the time to commit them to paper, can we say manifest?? As Nike would say, Just Do It!

PS. Remember, were human so no matter what your goals are just always do your best! Wishing you a warm and Happy New Year, this is Lesley Anne signing off till 2009, peace out!!

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

I’m totally excited to be here!!! What a great way to spend a vacation, living of the land and off the grid! Woohoo! I’m here with my mom for a few days and we are teaching a class on how to make water kefir in exchange for 3 nights accommodations. It’s great here, stunningly green, awesome wildlife, great people and great, great food. I have loads of pictures coming up……they will be totally worth the wait:) I’m sorry for the lack of color and photos in this post:( I’m off to a jungle drum circle concert:) Yay!!

www.pangaia.cc/

And

www.rawfoodporn.com

Present

A Raw Food Workshop

“The History and Nutritional Benefits

Of

Kombucha Tea and Kefirs”

When: Dec. 13^th 10 am

Where: Pangaia Demonstration Kitchen

Potluck Rawfood Lunch to Follow

Please Bring Your Favorite Rawfood Dish to Serve 12

PS. You guys out there in blog land are probably very familiar with Pangaia and you don’t even know it. Do you remember Jenna Norwoods “Jenna in the Jungle?” Check out her you tube clips, they’re allllll awesome and I too have been using leaves as TP:)

♥ Lesley Williams ♥

A little holiday humor to help you digest:) Happy Thanksgiving from me to you!!!

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

I want one, enough said!!

http://gliving.tv/architecture-design/baumhauser-from-baumraum/

Any one know who’s house this is???

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

I VOTED TODAY AND IT WAS AWESOME!! If you haven’t voted yet, stop reading right now, get your cute bunz out of your house and go, go, go cast your ballot!

With all this talk about new voting machines I was surprised to see that mine was prehistoric! This ancient beast stood about 6 feet tall, it was gray, mysterious and a little intimidating. It was an old lever pulley voting system that New York is apparently famous for. It was a little confusing at first but I managed just fine. Also, New York does not allow the “I voted stickers,” I totally wanted one, I coordinated my outfit just for the purpose of wearing that red, white and blue sticker! I pay a ton of taxes in NYC and I WANT A STICKER!!

This vintage voting machine made me think about how many people had voted on this exact same apparatus before I did. I wondered who they were, who they had voted for and what era they came from. I started thinking that my grandparents or even great grandparents could have voted on a machine very similar to this one. My trip down nostalgia lane made me a little teary eyed. I was overwhelmingly grateful to live a country where I have the right to vote and so did the millions of US citizens who voted before me. I’m thankful to have a choice.

This is the big red lever that you have to push to the right to cast your vote. It makes a great clicking machine whooshing sound when you do it:)

Being of patriotic spirits I made some red, white and blue popsicle’s to munch on as the polls roll in:) I came across this recipe on Goneraw.com it was made by Hanna Hunnicutt. You know me, I added some extra ingredients to my liking:)

Patriotic Pops

● 1 Cup blueberries

● 1 Cup strawberries

● 1 Ripe banana

● 1 Avocado

● 1 Packet Sweetleaf stevia powder

● 1/2 Cup filtered water

●  Juice of 1 lime

Your going to need a Popsicle mold, if you don’t have one you can use mini Dixie cups and Popsicle sticks, these work great. This is a three step freezing process in order to make the tri-layer Popsicle.

First blend half the avocado with the blue berries and 1/4 cup water. Pour 1 inch of the blue berry puree into the bottom of your molds. Add a Popsicle stick to each mold and freeze. The avocado makes it extra, extra creamy.

Blend the lime juice and one whole banana, pour one inch of the banana puree onto your already frozen Popsicle mold. The lime is so delicious with the banana, they compliment each other very, very well.

Blend the strawberries, stevia, the other half of the avocado and 1/4 cup of water. Fill the rest of the Popsicle mold with the strawberry puree and freeze. The stevia is optional, my strawberries were a little tart so I added some sweetener.

Removing the Popsicle’s from the mold can be a little tricky. Put some warm water into large bowl and dip the mold a few times until they slip out easily. Watch out for brain freeze:)

♥ Lesley Anne ♥

p.s. please check out this great post from Dhrumil on welikeitraw.com about voting with your $$$$$ every day.