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

Nutty Friday, RAW Food, Recipes by OrganicClimber
cashew, cashews, lemon, nuts, pepper, RAW, seasoned, seasoning
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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
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Recently I had posted about my homemade version of YUMNUTS. Not too long after making the post Yumnuts Naturals sent me some free samples, so I decided to review them here on my blog. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I was pretty excited when the packaged arrived at my door, containing one 5oz bag of Chili Lime flavor and sample sizes of Sea Salt, Toasted Coconut, and Chocolate. I was skeptical about all of the flavors except for the Chili Lime, which really resonated with me. They closely resembled the Cajun flavored nuts I had bought in the store and made on my own. They had a bit more of a kick to them though, which I liked a lot. At first I thought it was going to be impossible to consume the nuts in one sitting, which I was happy about because I can easily devour a 5oz bag of the Cajun flavor in one sitting. However, I quickly found myself picking the bag back up and polishing them off. As with any nut, these are extremely filling, but also flavorful; they left little to be desired.

Next up was the Toasted Coconut flavor, which I found to be lacking. I’m not a huge coconut fan, but do use coconut flavor fairly frequently in raw food recipes, but the flavor combination didn’t do the trick for me. The Sea Salt flavor was the bare bones version of YUMNUTS but were very tasty and just as addicting as the spicy flavors, but nowhere near as tasty. The plus side of these is that the only ingredients in them are sea salt and gum acacia. But if you have read Michael Pollen’s Omnivorous Dilemma you will know it’s best to avoid such foreign ingredients.

My favorite of the flavors YUMNUTS so far have ben the Chocolate flavored nuts. They remind me a lot of peanut M&M’s which was perhaps one of my favorite candies before I gave up eating candy (for the most part). I have already consumed more bags of these than I can count on one hand and look forward to making my own raw version once I get my dehydrator out of storage. For now I will have to do with a mild addiction to a still healthy nut, although less healthy than any of the others.

The Chocolate nuts contain: honey, sugar, cocoa powder, milk powder, and soy lecithin. The biggest disappointment in the Chocolate nuts is that they contain sugar in addition to honey. Why go overboard with the sweetener? Although there is a lot of debate about soy going on, soy lecithin isn’t all that bad and is a great source of Vitamin B. Granted these aren’t really the healthiest nut you can be addicted to, but it sure beats candy and other sweets. The only truly healthy nut is 100% organic raw nuts, but I am learning that truly raw nuts are hard to find and organic nuts come at a really high price.

So in conclusion, give YUMNUTS a try, but remember moderation is key with anything. I would also like to mention that Yumnuts are roasted, so you don’t get as many beneficial enzymes as you would with raw nuts. Also, YUMNUTS don’t use any oils to season their nuts, which is good in the sense that you don’t have a lot of added calories, but the down side is they are using foreign ingredients (gum acacia) to coat the seasoning on the nuts. Again, it comes back to moderation, so enjoy these healthy snacks. They are an excellent replacement for just about anything you would find in your break room vending machine.

Health & Fitness, RAW Food by OrganicClimber
cashew, nuts, seasoned, snack, yumnuts
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