Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (45 page)

For cooking, choose olive oil (but use low heat), sesame, grapeseed, and coconut oil. Though technically a saturated fat, in a moderate amount coconut oil is terrific for you. It gets a bad rap when turned into a partially hydrogenated trans fat. But in its natural and unrefined form, coconut oil is healing and delicious. It’s about 50 percent lauric acid, the same wonderful substance found in breast milk, and boosts immunity.

Young Thai coconut meat is great, too. It’s loaded with good fats and many nutrients. Coconut water is also a fantastic source of electrolytes, and coconuts boost metabolism and have antiviral and antifungal properties. Add them to your smoothies and look out, world!

Wellness Warriors don’t use swords.
Instead, we fight with kitchen equipment! In addition to a good blender and juicer (check back to
chapter 6
for recommendations), place the following essentials on your wish list.

SLICING TOOLS

Spiralizers and Saladaccos are nifty gadgets that turn a big zucchini (or sweet potato or whatever) into spaghetti-like strands in about thirty seconds. Swap out the blades for slicing or grating. Ditto for a traditional mandoline slicer, which is fabulous for raw lasagna recipes.

Food processors rock! I love the Cuisinart, but any heavy-duty brand will do. Use a food processor for prepping ingredients that require a fine chop but still rely on some texture. A fast way to prep a salad is to use your greens as a base and then slice up a bunch of veggies in your food processor to top.

KNIVES

Good knives are the foundation of any kitchen. Select brands and sizes that suit your gorgeous hands and keep them sharp. My favorites are made by NHS, a Japanese company. Their rectangularshaped vegetable knife is awe inspiring! You may also want to invest in a cleaver for opening coconuts. Just watch your digits, cutie.

COOKWARE

Please avoid using Teflon or other nonstick cookware—the nonstick lining is a carcinogen and can come off into your food at high temperatures. I like cooking in stainless-steel pots and pans. Clay pots and cast iron are good, too. Also—though they’re not cookware items per se, but small appliances—it’s best to avoid microwaves. Too many researchers and scientists have studied the process food goes through when it’s microwaved to make me feel comfortable about using one in my home. For instance, Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel, now retired, worked as a food scientist with one of the major Swiss food companies that do business on a global scale. He found that microwave cooking degraded food. Other researchers have found similar results in controlled studies: Microwaves changed food’s nutrients so that changes took place in the participants’ blood that could cause deterioration in human systems. No thanks!

COFFEE GRINDER

Lay off the java, but save that grinder. It’s great for grinding spices, nuts, and seeds.

NUT MILK BAG

Making your own nut milks is easy and saves a lot of money over buying prepared brands. Here’s how it works: Place 1 cup of soaked nuts in the blender with 2 cups of purified water. Whirl until smooth. Pour the mixture into a nut milk bag and squeeze! You can also grow sprouts in these bags, which is why they’re often sold under the name sprout bags. A down-and-dirty nut milk recipe goes something like this: 1 tablespoon of raw almond butter, 1 to 2 cups of purified water, stevia, vanilla, and cinnamon to taste. Ya don’t even need the bag for that one!

FOOD DEHYDRATOR

This machine is optional, but food dehydrators allow you to make fancier raw cuisine and are really helpful if you have a vegetable garden or belong to a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm.
They’re also great if you have kids—for some reason they love watching vegetables dry. Once dehydrated, surplus veggies can be stored and enjoyed for quite some time. Excalibur makes a good one that’s easy to use.

VACUUM SEALER

If you plan to freeze fresh local food for out-ofseason use, I recommend a vacuum sealer. Air is the enemy of food in the freezer. It causes freezer burn, deterioration, and nutrient loss. FoodSaver’s MealSaver Compact Vacuum Sealing System is a sturdy, affordable machine.

ADDITIONAL GADGETS