Raw food class: a review

To start, I would say this is a class geared toward folks who are new to raw food (that would be me!).

This first class covered foods made in the blender. We made a total of 5 recipes: one green drink, 2 puddings, 1 salad dressing, and 1 carrot/almond butter spread (the carrots had been cooked in that one).

She spent a lot of time going over ingredients: why she uses the ingredients she does and what nutritive value they offer. For people that aren't familiar with umeboshi paste or chia seeds (for example), that's helpful. Plus, she lists resources where you can get the more hard to find items, or items you might want to buy in bulk.

We had a couple of breaks and I took some of the time to practice knife techniques with a professional chef who was assisting. That was cool.

A few observations: Lenore leans toward chia and hemp seeds - no recipe she made called for flax seed. I want to ask why. Also, she used a lot more seeds in her green drink than most of the recipes I've read - 3 T whole seeds per serving. She used her seeds in both pudding and salad dressing as a thickening agent. I can see that's a good way to cut back on the oil in dressing - I'll try that one in other salad dressing recipes as well.

After the first class I am definitely looking forward to the future classes. It took a big chunk out of my weekend (basically all day Saturday when you add in travel time) but I think the time investment will pay off in terms of my increased comfort with raw foods.