Halloween Meal tonight HELP

[Rawkinlocs]

You think the torte will take too long? It won't take long at all. Just process the nuts and raisins for the base...shape it onto a plate/dish. Process the ingredients for the icing and spread it on and chill for a bit.

That's probably one of the most simple and fastest desserts you'll find :)

[Rawkinlocs]

Un Uh - Alissa mentions that for some recipes nuts shouldn't be soaked because it will produce a "different" (I think mushier) texture. With the torte, you want a firmer texture and therefore, don't need to soak the nuts. Also, she mentions that if you want to create a recipe and don't have soaked nuts on hand, don't let that stop you for the time being.

But as a rule, what I normally do is when I buy nuts, either that day or the next I just get to soaking and then I dehydrate them (or you can just put them on a cloth/paper towel on a plate on the counter and leave to dry perhaps overnight) and then store them (refridgerator is probably best especially if you don't dehydrate them). That way, you always have soaked nuts on hand. But I DO leave some of the nuts in the bag and don't soak them in case I'm making something where non-soaked nuts will do better for the texture.

But no, don't worry about them being soaked for this particular recipe :)

OH! And with the dates, soaking them is only to make them softer and not necessarily to make them easy to digest or anything like that - but MANY times I use dates without soaking them as they are usually already pretty soft and if I need to, I'll just add a little water.

[Rawkinlocs]

Basically, soaking the nuts means for breaking down the enzyme inhibitors so that you activate them again AND makes for easier digestion. The best thing you can do is to maybe try a small handful of nuts that haven't been soaked and see how they make you feel a little while after eating them. I notice for ME, soaking them DOES make a difference because when I eat them unsoaked, I get bad indigestion.

But this one time, for your Halloween dessert, I don't think it should do too much harm to you, but monitor how you feel and how your body reacts after a piece or two of the torte.

As for the detox and craving heavier/denser foods...oh most definitely this is normal. I mean, think about it - going from eating cooked foods and very dense foods to lighter, natural, raw foods...there's a difference in how they make your body feel. You get a lighter feeling with raw foods than with cooked and because of that, your body may think you are still hungry or that you "need" something more "substantial" than that and at first, you will...but rather than reaching for cooked foods or junk foods (as I often have done and sometimes still do) we should do the nuts and nut/fruit combos and the recipes because they help us feel more of the full feeling we experience from eating cooked foods.

As Alissa said in her book, find like one or two recipes that you REALLY like and make them often. Then, try others until you get the hang of it all. Before you know it, you'll be creating your own! At least that's how it happened for me. I sometimes think of a cooked food that I really love and I try and figure out how to make the same thing...raw! Some things come out very successful the first time around and others flop...but that's all the fun of experimenting. It's like with any other (cooked) recipes...some you'll love, some you'll like, some you'll absolutely hate and that's fine. I used to think "Man, I don't like this, I don't like that...what am I gonna eat?" But then I thought about how picky I was when I ate cooked and how few things I had to choose from because of it and therefore, if my choices were limited THEN, why make a fuss over it now? I just eat a lot of what I like and try different things in the interim.

The symptoms you described are absolutely normal part of detox and very common to occur when first switching your body over from cooked food to raw/living foods. But don't despair...just continue to eat whenever you feel hungry and you'll notice these things subside! Your body is just adjusting to this new way of eating and no longer having the toxic, processed foods or the cooked foods in it.


You can add nuts, avocados, and/or greens to your diet by way of adding them to smoothies or making fruit "puddings". That's how I get most of my greens in...by adding kale and/or spinach to my smoothies!

I also do marinated greens or add greens to salads. You can make your own salad dresssings/veggie dips using avocado or nuts.

Hope some of these ideas help!