Dear Friends, 

Since August of this year I have been working hard on a surprise project that today, has finally been completed. Apple has just approved my Green Smoothie iPhone Application. If you have an iPhone, you can have instant access to countless green smoothie recipes. What makes my program unique, is the nutrition data that accompanies every ingredient and each recipe. Along with nutritional data, I have included the nutritional highlights of what foods are beneficial for particular health condition. For example, raspberries are associated with colon cancer protective properties, parsley have been shown to inhibit tumor formation in the lungs, and lemons are useful in conditions like colds, flu's, and recurrent ear infections.

It took me five months to compile the scientific information to create this application, and format it in an easily comprehensible manner. All of my nutritional highlights come form the best most trusted sources one of which is http://nutritiondata.self.com/

To make this program esthetically beautiful, and to make the ingredients easy to recognize, I purchased all of the ingredients of each smoothie and hired my good friend and brilliant photographer Robert Petetit to capture artistic images of the produce.

This applications is available for $1.99. This could be a great last minute gift for friends and relatives who have iPhones. To purchase the App go to the iPhone App Store or you can use this link.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/green-smoothies/id409966779?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

For those of you who do not have an iPhone, I have some good news: We in the process of making this application into a website.

Love, Victoria

Dear Friends,

In my family we have been enjoying adding one persimmon per blender while preparing our daily green smoothies. For example today I made my green smoothie out of one pint of strawberries and one bunch of spinach, plus one fuyu persimmon along with 2 cups of water.

This orange fruit improves the texture and improves the overall bouquet of flavors in our smoothies. It is now the season for persimmons so I invite you to take advantage of their many nutritional benefits.  

One amazing nutritional fact about persimmons is provided by USDA trhough their adjacent web site Nutrition Data. According to the scientific research persimmons have an amino acid score of 110 which indicates a complete or high-quality protein.

Persimmons are also high in minerals Calcium, Iron, Phosphorus, and vitamins C and A. Persimmons have been used by traditional Chinese medicine to remedy hiccups. They have been noted to be beneficial for diarrhea, hemorrhiods, lung infections, and asthma.

There are two major types of persimmons:

• Hachiya is the larger variety of persimmon (up to 3 inches in diameter). They are generally heart-shaped, hard and bitter when unripe, but soft, sweet, juicy, and extremely delicious when ripe!
• Fuyu is a smaller variety of persimmon that looks like a tomato. Fuyu appear flatter than Hachiya’s. They maintain their sweetness whether they are soft or hard. Fuyu’s never taste bitter.

 Happy persimmon season to you!

Love, Victoria

This is one of the most confusing topics in today’s raw food world. Several of the raw food leaders recommend almost completely eliminating fruit from one’s diet. At the same time, the other experts suggest eating twenty bananas a day. Who is correct?

In my opinion both sides have valid truth to their views. Let me explain. Recently I visited several big cities in the Midwest of the United States, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and others. While looking for ingredients for my green smoothies I visited many different stores. I was deeply distressed to witness a poor variety and condition of produce in general, and fruits in particular. Some stores had a little bit of organic produce, but many of them had none. The farmers markets also had little to zero organic produce. I was able to find greens that were not wilted but I was almost unable to find any ripe, organic fruit. No wonder my smoothies were so tasteless, only my strong belief in their goodness made it possible for me to drink them. The apples, peaches and pears were all unripe, hard as a rock, and had no aroma or flavor. The berries and grapes were not ripe and often moldy. The oranges and kiwis were unripe and sour. I asked several people to describe the taste of an orange; they all said it is sour. Every time I visited a store in the Midwest my heart ran to all of the customers. I thought, how can I suggest people make green smoothies if the majority of people don’t have access to healthy produce.?

I have done some research about the nutrition in fruit. Unfortunately I discovered that there was very little study done on the subject of nutritional benefits of tree ripened fruit. More so, several sources online claim that the nutrition in the fruit becomes better when it is picked unripe and allowed to ripen in storage. In my opinion, this is the wrong conclusion. Being a raw foodist for seventeen years, I learned that I cannot thrive on unripe, conventionally grown fruit. Every summer I go to u-pick farms in order to get tree or vine ripened fruit, both temperate and tropical, and I have noticed several obvious traits for vine ripened fruit:

• Has a strong, pleasant smell.
• The skin is thin and easy to peel off.
• The taste is distinctive and rich.
• Most humans find the taste of ripe fruit enjoyable.
• There are fruit flies and insects flying around the fruit.
• The seeds are dark.
• When I consume ripe fruit, I feel satisfied for several hours.

  Continue Reading

After my last newsletter, in which I gave recipes for dogs that included avocado (you may see it in Sergei's video below) I have received many warnings from readers saying that avocados are bad for dogs, some people even said they are dangerous. I thank you all for taking the time to write to me, it inspired me to do some additional research and that is what I found.

There has never been any clinical studies done on if avocados are bad for dogs at least I could not find any trace of such research. The recommendations which states avocados are bad for dogs was created by the main manufacturers of  commercial dog food. I totally understand the motive these companies might have behind this claim. In one recommendation they say that avocados contain a toxin called persin, which could cause irritation of the digestive track in animals if consumed in significant quantities. The other source explained that avocados are dangerous for dogs because they could choke on the seed.

In 1998 my family lived for several months in Napa Valley, California, in a large avocado orchard. We witnessed daily  all the neighborhood dogs feasting on the abundance of avocados around the trees, and every night coyotes would come down from the hills and enjoy avocados as well. Our basset hound, Dasha, was not an exception. One thing we noticed was how beautiful and shinny Dasha's coat became from the avocado in her diet.

I also wonder how an avocado pit could be a concern for dogs, when golf course balls and other dog toys are similar in shape and widely used by all kinds of dogs.

Finally, there is one of the most caring dog food companies Avoderm that adds avocado oil to most of their products and have a picture of an avocado on their packaging. This company manufactures organic high quality pet food and has a great reputation with customers (and their dogs:).

I prefer to base my decision on what to feed dogs, firstly on my own observation and secondly on reliable scientific data. I am rather concerned by the advice given to me from the manufactures of pet food who routinely add to pet products questionable ingredients such as:

Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, animal fat (preserved with BHA/BHT), wheat mill run, wheat flour, Carmel Color, Wheat Gluten, Choline Chloride, dl-Alpha lPolyphosphate  Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate , Biotin, Calcium Pantothenate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Added FD&C and Lake Colors (Yellow 6, Blue 2, Red 40, Yellow 5), and so on. All you need to do is look at the package of most pet foods in any store.

One of the best things I have learned from becoming a raw foodie is to go against the mainstream and not to trust everything the authorities tell me. Because we love our pets so much, it's another reason to question what 'they say'.

Love,
Victoria

In this video, Sergei Boutenko takes you shopping to understand the variety of greens available in a super market. These common greens can and should be used for making green smoothies. Sergei intends to give you some new green smoothie ideas to help add variety to your greens selection.

Here are the greens discussed in this video (in order):

1.) Lettuce
a. green leaf
b. red leaf
c. romaine
d. butter head

2.) Swiss Chard
3.) Dino Kale
4.) Bok Choy
5.) Celery
6.) Carrot Greens
7.) Cilantro

8.) Parsley (common & Italian)
9.) Beat Greens
10.) Green Onions
11.) Arugula
12.) Baby Greens
13.) Spinach
14.) Wheat Grass

15.) Herbs
a. basil
b. mint
c. dill
d. chives
e. sage
f. rosemary
g. thyme

16.) Watercress
17.) Baby Bok Choy