Goji Coconut Balls

Goji Coconut Balls

1 cup shredded coconut flakes
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 1/4 cup hempseed
1/2 cup goji berry powder (I grind my gogi berries in a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cup goji berries
1 cup tocotrienols (mechanically powdered rice bran that can be left out)
2 1/2 Tbsps. raw honey
1 pinch of celtic sea salt

Method
Grind seeds and nuts separately in a coffee grinder, then add the remainding ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and blend until turned into a mush. Roll this into balls and then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Coconuts Can Save Your Life

The first time I ran into anything coconutty was via a well known bar that is sold in Europe called a Bounty bar. These delicious chocolate covered sticky coconut treats, became an absolute favourite of mine. However, when I realised that my almost daily indulgences were causing my skin to itch and my chest to wheeze, I was devasted and I thought I'd never find anything similar again. Little did I know how untrue that was. It was during one of my nutrition courses that my favourite treat was about to become an old favourite of mine again, but without all the processed rubbish.

I am all to aware that for some, the taste of coconut is just a no no, but in writing this small piece I hope to appeal to those inner tropical paradisers among you who think it's as wonderful as I do, but also to appeal to those who find its taste less than palatable. I do hope you will reconsider after reading the following.

In Sanskrit, the coconut palm is know as "kalpa vriksha", meaning "the tree that supplies all that is needed to live". According to David Wolfe, no matter how badly you have treated your body, or what you have done, fresh young coconut flesh, coconut water and coconut cream/oil can save your life.

Coconut Cream and Coconut Oil
This causes some confusion in many raw food recipes, but really the two are interchangable and they are both extremely beneficial to your health.

The coconut oil is made by grinding the mature hard, white coconut meat into a coconut cream and extracting the oil out separately. Even though we would expect coconut oil to be a liquid, coconut oil will be solid at room temperature, but will become liquid when heated. For maximum nutritional benefits, the oil should be used raw. For the oil to remain raw, it must be extracted using a temperature no greater than 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

By weight, coconut oil has fewer calories than any other fat source and unlike the cholesterol soaked, long chain, saturated animal fats found in meat and dairy products, coconut cream and oil are made of raw saturated fats containing mostly medium chain fatty acids that the body can metabolise efficiently and convert to easily to energy. So just remember, not all saturated fats are bad for you.

Coconut cream is sometimes referred to as coconut butter. Coconut cream/butter is make from the hardened white flesh of the coconut. This meat is shredded and collected and put through stone grinders. Over a period of about 24 hours the meat is broken down into a type of nut butter which is what we have termed coconut cream. Nutritionally there is very little difference between a fat and an oil and they can both be used interchangeably.

More great news about coconut oil/cream is that they contain absoultely no cholesterol and can actaully help balance cholesterol levels. Recently coconut oil received recognition by many health professionals and has even been dubbed the "diet fat" because it helps the body to beak up accumulated fats in the system and metabolize them.

If that isn't enough to sway you, hopefully, the following benefits from are from coconut product in general:

Benefits
1. They are incredibly valuable to the immune system as they contain many antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial saturated fatty acids.

2. They improve the absorption of many fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E and K).

3.The improve the blood sugar levels by lessening the sympthoms of hypoglycemia.

4. They consist of 90% saturated fat (medium chain) - essential building blocks for every cell in the human body.

Ways of Getting Coconut into the Diet.

Coconut Water

Young coconut water is almost identical to human blood plasma and therefore makes an excellent universal donor.

It is also excellent for rehydration and makes a wonderful base for your smoothies.

It is also an excellent tonic for all ages and for infants in particular.

Coconut water is easily available in health food stores nowadays, which makes this wonderful product more accessible than ever.

Coconut for Cooking

Using coconut oil for all your cooking needs is the most valuable piece of information I learned many years ago. Coconut oil is the most stable oil (of any known butter/oil) at high temperatures. This means that you should definitely throw away the sunflower oils and good quality olive oils for cooking. When most oils are heated to the high temperatures needed for cooking they become carcinogenic, with the exception of coconut oil. This is one change to your kitchen cupboards I suggest you make.

Coconut Cream/Oil for Desserts

This is my favourite way of using coconut products. I just adore making raw desserts with coconut oil/cream and dessicated coconut. I have already posted my raw macrons on this site, but the following is another great dessert that was created by Sandy B from Chocolate Face.

Goji Coconut Balls
1 cup shredded coconut flakes
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 1/4 cup hempseed
1/2 cup goji berry powder (I grind my gogi berries in a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cup goji berries
1 cup tocotrienols (mechanically powdered rice bran that can be left out)
2 1/2 Tbsps. raw honey
1 pinch of celtic sea salt

Method
Grind seeds and nuts separately in a coffee grinder, then add the remainding ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and blend until turned into a mush. Roll this into balls and then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Stinkin Thinkin

When I was studying for my B.A. degree, I was introduced to a concept called "The Ghost in the Machine". This was used to explain how the body could be influenced by the mind, without making too obvious a reference to the much mistrusted idea of "a soul" and was based on the work of the philosopher, Rene Descartes. There was much speculation about how something that was not mechanistic in nature i.e. our thoughts, could actully affect something that was not only mechanistic but chemical and biological too. Of course in today's world we know only too well that our thoughts carry powerful consequences.

Is it true that the mind can not tell the difference between something that is imagined and something that is real? Amazingly, the answer to this question is yes. When explaining this concept, most people ask you to imagine a sable tooth tiger in close range to you, however, I believe choosing something more personal to you is better for encouraging the right response. So I now invite you to choose your own example of something that might illicit a physical response from your body. Personally, if I think of being locked into a particularly small room, my beathing begins to quicken, until I change the image. To be honest, I usually change this fairly rapidly as I do not like to spend much time in this state. Don't spend too long here, it's just to make the point about how our mind/thoughts affect our body.

Where am I going with all this? I want to help you see that while we may not be fully aware that our thinking controls much of how we spend our day, it does. Our thinking also has more to do with the food choices we make than we realise. It is also said that 95% of our thinking is unconscious. Wow! perhaps you would like to reflect on that for just a short moment. 95%. What a staggering number! This basically means that until you become aware of something, it may be very difficult if not impossible to change it. Difficult, but not impossible.

With many of my clients, one of the first questions I ask them is to outline their top three values. If I don't hear that health is up there in the top three, I ask them to put it there. Good health is one of my top three goals in my own life as I know and value it more than anything else. If it's ever been taken away from you, you will know exactly what I mean when I say this.

However, even though I really value my health, some days my thinkin is so stinkin that it really is only fit for the rubbish heap. Am i alone in this? I think not. It is in these off days that I find myself at the chipper door ordering a single of chips and a veggie burger (was I not listening in the hydrogenated fats lecture!!). After eating, I feel a sense of stillness, almost as if someone has put a muzzle on me. Listening carefully for my motor mouth mind, I can no longer detect any stinkin thinkin. It has been silenced. Actually, I no longer think or feel anything. It is unlikely that we will reach for the mung bean sprouts when we are in this state of mind, and yet, it is almost exactly what we need. Yes, I did just say that!

So what do I suggest you do when it attacks? My suggestion is to run with it, but if you are at home when it hits, at least have your kitchen filled with whole and healthy foods that will lessen the impact. If all you can find are Kimberly Mikadoes(and coconut creams:)), then guess what you're going to much on?? You got it in one. And if you are not at home and happen to be passing the chipper and there's absolutely no way your Ghost in the Machine is letting you away with anything less than a single, then only have one, make it a small bag and do not get the the extra scoop! Oh, and have a handful of sprouts when you get home.

No one is immune to these bouts of madness, but as anyone will know who has started a diet (not a favourite word of mine), when these stinkin thinkin attacks, the chips are eaten, washed down with diet coke and a few squares of dark chocolate that has turned into a whole bar and sure I've ruined it now I might as well finish the Ben and Jerry's and start again tomorrow..but when tomorrow comes, guess who's forgotten to go shopping!

I suggest you, stand strong and stare down your stinkin thinkin...Why? because you're worth it!