Want to feel your best? Try the raw diet

It’s possible to find ready-to-serve kefir in health-food stores, but homemade is really the best. It’s simple to make. All you need is a live culture-starter kit or a chunk of kefir culture, called a “bud,” which is really just a spoonful of already made kefir. (I got mine from a friend at a local Indian restaurant.) A bud remains living but dormant when frozen, so you can keep some in the freezer.

Stir at least 1 tablespoon of culture into 1 gallon of raw milk; then wrap the bowl in a towel and place it near a heat source that is no hotter then 110 degrees F. Wait 8 to 12 hours for fermentation to take place. Using a larger kefir bud speeds up the process, while a smaller bud takes longer.

There is no one way to make kefir, so long as the culture is kept alive. During the fermentation process, kefir will separate into soft clumps (curds) and thinner liquid (whey). If you want smooth, drinkable kefir, stop the process and consume it before it gets this far along, but if you want kefir “cheese,” just give it some extra time.

Once you start making kefir, it will become a regular part of your diet. I love to make kefir because I am absolutely sure of the quality, and I can have it whenever I want it!

In the wintertime, I wrap kefir in towels and place it on or near the oil furnace in my house to keep it warm (but not cooked!) and to allow the kefir bacteria and cultures to multiply. In the summer, I leave it in the sun for the whole day. Either way, I keep an eye on it. When it gets to my favorite consistency, I put it in the refrigerator to stop the multiplying process. I mix kefir with granola, agave, or fruits, just as I would yogurt, but in my book, kefir is healthier!

Raw eggs
In 1926, Julius Freed decided to start a business in Southern California. The concept was simple: sell fresh orange juice from a spot by the road with lots of traffic passing by. Freed enlisted the backing of a friend who agreed that fresh California orange juice by the glass would sell, but who also knew Freed needed a marketing hook. If there was something special, something different, about Julius’s orange juice, it might bring people who couldn’t get it elsewhere to his stand. Julius added some powdered sugar and a secret ingredient, and the first Orange Julius franchise was born.

What was the secret ingredient? A raw egg.

In recent years, to address concerns about salmonella, the Orange Julius folks changed the formula, eliminating the raw egg. But fact has been overtaken by fear when it comes to salmonella. In 2002 the US Department of Agriculture officially acknowledged that only 1 in 30,000 chicken eggs contain salmonella, and these figures are usually for commercially mass-produced eggs, not the safer, healthier ones from free-range, organically fed chickens.

Eggs are an amazingly compact, inexpensive source of high-quality protein. They are also a significant source of vitamin A, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, iron, calcium, phosphorous, and potassium. I understand that for raw vegans the issues surrounding eating eggs are serious ones, and many people feel very strongly that it is wrong to eat any animal products. But strictly on a nutritional basis, it’s hard to find a better food than raw fertilized organic eggs. You want fertilized eggs because after fertilization, the enzymes in the egg are released, helping to digest the concentrated yolk and releasing the nutrients (which would nourish the chick if the egg had developed into one). That is why fertilized eggs are easy to digest and nutritious. Several recipes in The Raw 50 include them; decide for yourself if you wish to indulge!

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