The Organic Climber – Vegetarian running, cycling, swimming, rock climbing and raw foods.

Ever since discovering the RAW Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie, I have been somewhat addicted to this wonderful substance known as cacao. But, I will say this. As with any food, moderation is key. I have recently cut back my cacao intake after hearing of some negative side effects of the tasty powder. However, I’m not totally convinced that the positive benefits don’t outweigh the negative.

This recipe is really simple and only requires three ingredients. It takes almost no time to make, other than the time to dehydrate.

The Recipe

• 1 Cup of Cashews
• 1/2 TBSP of Agave*
• 1 TBSP of Cacao Power

*In the batch I made I actually used 1 TBSP of agave, but felt like it was too much.

So, start by placing one cup of nuts in a mixing bowl, then pour in the agave and mix thoroughly. Once the nuts are well coated with agave (add more agave if needed) pour in the cacao powder and mix until well coated. Next, place them on a dehydrator sheet and dehydrate for 24 hours. After 12 hours remove the nuts from the sheet and place on the mesh tray.

Alternatively you could use your oven set at a low temperature as well. Since the nuts are not roasting it is okay if you use a lower temperature, just make sure you keep it under 116 degrees in order for it to remain raw. This tasty little snack will provide you with healthy fats, carbohydrates, antioxidants, and protein. This is also a good “energy” snack because of the carbs from the agave and stimulant like properties in the cacao (called theobromine). But I would avoid consuming too many of them before physical activity because nuts are generally harder to digest than raw fruits and veggies.

Nutty Friday, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
agave, cacao, cashew, energy, nuts, RAW, snack
2 comments

---

Lately I have been bad about recording down my smoothie ideas and successful concoctions. Not intending to brag, but just about every smoothie I create comes out wonderful! There is the occasional mess up though, but it’s usually just too strong in a certain flavor. For example one I made a couple weeks ago contained pineapple and it ended up having a very strong/sharp taste due to having too much pineapple in it.

Most of my creations come about by accident. I don’t typically set out to design a great smoothie. What usually happens is I am out of something what I typically make, so I rummage around the fridge and fruit basket to see what I can find.

My most recent creation is a strawberry pineapple mango smoothie. Typically I would just throw in strawberries and banana, but all I had that I thought would work was mangoes. This is actually my go to fruit to mix in when I am out of banana. That has been the case a lot lately since the grocery store seems to only have non-ripe bananas that I have to wait for to ripen.

Anyway, this smoothie is simple and straight forward….

The Recipe

• Approximately 5oz of freshly cut pineapple,
• About 6 frozen strawberries
• Approximately 4oz of
• ½ dropper of stevia
• 1 TBSP of raw tahini
• 1 cup of hemp seed milk
• Your choice of greens, greens powder, and or hemp seed protein (optional)
• 1 TBSP of optional flax meal (optional)

This smoothie is great for relieving inflammation due to the pineapple and flax seed. I have been making a lot of highly anti-inflammatory smoothies lately due to my shoulder bursitis I have suffered since a car accident last June. I previously mentioned this in the Pineapple Grape Smoothie recipe. It does seem the pineapple helps a lot with the inflammation, but as with any food or medicine the effects wear off. So, I’m trying as hard as I can to keep as many anti-inflammatory foods in my diet. Sadly, some things I really like to eat, such as dates are highly inflammatory so they can cancel out other foods. So, it’s important to keep an eye on this. Web sites like Nutrition Data will help you determine not only calorie count and nutritional information, but they give you an inflammation index as well.

As a parting note, if you have been following my blog for a while know you may have noticed I used stevia for sweetener instead of agave. This is because I am attempting to include less of this in my diet now. I recently discovered that I possibly have a low performing thyroid, and in order to help improve my thyroid health I am cutting back on sugars. This means less stevia, as well as less bananas. This will be somewhat hard for me as I typically consume a few bananas a day, but I have already started replacing those snacks with healthy raw nuts, with on occasional package of Yumnuts (which I will be reviewing on the blog soon).

I have a big sweet tooth, so making things like Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie will have to become less frequent. Both agave and bananas are really high in natural sugar, and agave being high in fructose is not good in mass quantity. I still plan on continuing to use it in my sports drinks and energy bites though as it is high in crabs and releases slowly into the blood stream for longer lasting energy. This is also why it’s safer alternative to sugar for diabetics. But as with anything moderation is key.

Additional Note: This smoothie is VERY high in protein. So, eliminate the protein powder if you want to cut down on this. I think I estimated it had about 28grams total.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
agave, anti-inflamatory, inflamation, pineapple, recovery, smoothie, stevia, tahini
2 comments

---

This smoothie now ranks among my favorite. I still seem to be on this chocolate kick too, maybe it’s the two 16oz bags of cacao I recently purchased. But, this one turned out to be pretty amazing I think. Next time I will probably try it without the cacao, because I think it will be equally as delicious.

The Recipe

• 1 ripe peach (pitted, leaving the skin on)
• 2.5 oz of frozen peaches (1/4 of a 10 oz bag)
• 2.5 -3 oz of frozen mangoes (or about 1/4 of a fresh one)
• 1 banana
• 2 TBSP of raw honey (or agave for 100% vegan)
• 2 TBSP of cacao powder

Combine all ingredients into a blender and whiz until smooth!

A random though just popped into my head… I should create a page listing out my favorite smoothie recipes. So, look for that in the hopefully near future.

And, on a side note. I might be running the Dallas Rock and Roll Half Marathon in two weeks. I will be sure to post if that happens. It will be hard to work in another long run before then though since I will be out climbing in Arkansas this weekend, but seeing how I just did 13.1 last weekend I think I will be okay getting in an 8 mile run sometime next week.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
agave, banna, cacao, mango, nectarine, RAW, raw honey, smoothie
4 comments

---