I’m putting this information on here  do to the amount of request I’ve had!

By: Victoria Boutenko

Chapter 1: Dare to Observe

Observation constitutes the foundation of every science.

You and I, like everyone on this planet, have the right to make observations and draw our own conclusions whether we are scientists or not.  Our personal experimentation helps us stay in charge of our own lives.  No scientific data can substitute for our own experience.

When a child is told not to touch the fire, this warning doesn’t mean much until he or she actually tries touching the flames and gets hurt.  Only through observation can we learn to connect consequences with causes, to become aware of what to expect.  For example, if we overeat late at night, we should not expect to feel fresh in the morning.  The advantage of being aware of what is going to happen enables us to act deliberately in our everyday lives and to achieve the goals we desire through conscious actions, instead of constantly and blindly following the advice of somebody “who knows better.”

I was raise in the Soviet Union where everyone was severely controlled by the government structures.  Since early childhood, I was given firm instructions about what I was supposed to do, think, and even say.  I was afraid to try anything new.  However, I was very lucky to meet many incredible people in my life from whom I learned to dare to try everything I wanted.

I absolutely have to tell you about Alexander Suvoroc whom I met several times and who became my hero and inspiration for many years.  Alexander became totally blind and deaf when he was three years old.  Nevertheless, he was so eager to live his life to the fullest that he learned to speak and to understand what other people were saying by holding their hands.  He graduated from high school with an excellent diploma, then graduated as Ph.D. from Moscow University, wrote a number of brilliant scientific articles about helping blind and deaf children, published several books, and created a 40-minute documentary about his perception of life.   This film gathered huge crowds in Moscow in the 70s.  People were deeply impressed by Alexander’s sincerity and passion.  I remember that after the movie was over, nobody left the theater for a long time.  We just sat there bewildered, sobbing, and ashamed or our cowardly lives and stupid fears.  Alexander Suvorov, living his life in physical darkness and constant silence, had a dream to travel to other countries.  So he learned two foreign languages and traveled to several countries on his own.  When people asked him why we went, he replied that he wanted ‘to see the world for himself.”

When I meet incredible human beings, like Alexander, or read about people who dare to “see for themselves,” I begin to want to explore life around me more completely and to know how far my limits can stretch.

As we live our lives, trying new things and searching for true answers, we gain plenty of our own experiences.  Our knowledge becomes familiar and practical. We feel rather confident in any life circumstance particularly when we need to make urgent decisions. Contrary to that, when all we have is a compilation of someone else’s instructions, the best we can do is to hope and pray that the authors of such instructions were efficient in acquiring their knowledge and honest in their intentions. In other words, we hope that someone else cares for u more than we care for our own selves.

When we let other observe and reason for us, in a sense, we consciously choose to stay blind and deaf. We become compelled to follow someone else’s instructions, one after another, and perform actions which do not make much sense to us. We submit to other’s authority. We give our power away.

To observe is our birthright. If we utilize our ability to observe, we can free ourselves from the labyrinth of confusions. I believe that our own conscious observations are a thousand times more important than any rigid scientific claim.

Why have so many books on nutrition been published lately? Obviously there is a big question from the public about health that has not been satisfied by the scientific wing of our world community. Most of us are totally cut off from researchers, and at the same time, scientists are disconnected from ordinary people. I wonder why this has happened since the original goal of science is human well-being.

Most results of pure science are unavailable and unaffordable for common people. For example, in order to obtain a two or three page report from nearly all medical studies, I had to pay a lot of money, sometimes hundreds of dollars for each of them. The average research paper is written in complex, scientific terms, which makes it incomprehensible to people who don’t belong to this particular branch of science. I have observed that the branches of science are increasing in number and the language they use continually multiplies in terms. Throughout my life I have spoken to dozens of different scientists in different parts of the world and I have never met one scientist who was able to understand and explain studies from all the branches at the same time. In fact, the more scientists claim to know about one subject the more they tend to say, “That’s not my field” about the others.

This tendency suggests that science is moving beyond the understanding of the average human beings towards science for the sake of science. While the public wants to know the newest achievements, the scientific world becomes less and less available for their burning inquiries. The informational vacuum begins to grow, especially in the field of health and nutrition.

To substitute for this missing, yet so needed information, the public begins to make its own science. It may not be completely accurate, but it is understandable to the majority of people. Hence, we witness hundreds if not thousands of books on nutrition written by average people, who undertake different research studies, sometimes without the necessary background. Being desperate for answers to their questions, people absorb this abundance of information and often get more confused.

I noticed that many people trust the written word more than the spoken word. Due to the lack of people’s own observations and a tendency to take whole concepts as if they were set in stone, health seekers embrace a certain concept, often depending on which book they have read first. As multitudes of nutritional books are generated, they begin to contradict one anther. As a result, it is possible to encounter hundreds of what to eat, all with hundreds of different reasons that cancel out each other.

When I started to do research about greens, I instantly and hopelessly sank into an ocean of information. In my situation I had to find the true answer or die. I felt responsible not only for my husband and my children whom I dragged onto the raw food diet with me, but all those thousands of people in the world that I inspired to adopt an all-raw diet. Finally, I decided to put everything aside for several months, and to sit down and read through as many original research papers as I could get on the subject of nutrition. I decided to cut away all the opinions and focus only on the original data because human reasoning can build up logical chains of though that smoothly direct the reader to totally incorrect conclusions with devastating results. (Later in my book I will give examples of such mistakes in which I myself got trapped.)

I discovered that there were some substantial gaps in data, and there were numerous important foods whose qualities have never been studied. I realized that if I wanted to draw the right conclusions I had to initiate at least some pilot studies by myself. After all, my life was already an experiment in which I was the guinea pig.

I strongly believe, now more than ever, that it is safer to go on raw food for two weeks and see for oneself how one feels, than to read ten books and follow their recommendations without having any idea why. Through our careful observations we all have the ability to clearly see the results of our actions.

Dear reader! With this book I hope to inspire you to start observing which of your actions make you feel and look the healthiest and as a result to create your own personal plan that will work for you in the best way. You are your own best expert.

Chapter 2: What was missing in our raw food plan?

My husband, our two youngest children, and I have been eating an only raw foods diet since January of 1994, more than eleven years. We went on this radical diet out of complete despair when our medical doctors didn’t leave us any chances to recover from our horrible illnesses.

My husband, Igor, had been constantly ill since his early childhood. By the tender age of 17 he had already survived nine surgeries. Having progressive hyperthyroidism and chronic rheumatoid arthritis, at 38 he was a total health wreck. I had to lace his shoes on rainy days because his arthritic spine would not bend. Igor’s heart rate was 140+ most of the time, his eyes were tearing on sunny days and his hands were shaky. Igor constantly felt fatigues and was in pain almost all the time. Igor’s “thyroid” doctor told him that he would die in less than two months if he would not agree to have his thyroid gland removed. His “arthritis” doctor told him to prepare to spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

I was diagnosed with the same disease that took my father; arrhythmia, or an irregular heart beat. My legs were constantly swollen from edema, I weighted 280 pounds, and I was continuously gaining more. My left are frequently became numb at night and I was afraid that I would die and my children would become orphans. I remember always feeling tired and depressed.

Our daughter Valya was born with asthma and allergies and would often cough heavily all through the night. Our son Sergei was diagnosed with juvenile type 1 diabetes.

One day, after crying through the entire night, I decided that we had to take a different action if we wanted to get different results. That was when we started to try various healing modalities and eventually arrived at the idea of becoming raw foodists. At the time we didn’t know anything about making fancy raw dishes or even that we could dehydrate flax crackers. Nevertheless, by turning off the pilot in out stove and discontinuing all cooking, we were able to heal all of our incurable, life-threatening diseases. Our health was improving so quickly that in three and a half months all four of us ran the Bolder Boulder 10K road race with the 40,000 other runners.

Even Sergei’s blood sugar stabilized due to his new diet and regular jogging. Since beginning to eat raw food, he has never experienced any form of diabetic symptoms. We were greatly surprised not only by how quickly our health was restored to normal, but by how much healthier w were than ever before. We have described the detailed story of our miraculous healing in our book Raw Family: A True Story of Awakening.

After several years of being raw foodists, however, each one of us began to feel like we had reached a plateau where our healing process stopped and even somewhat began to go backwards. After approximately seven years on a completely raw diet, once in a while, more and more often, we started feeling discontent with our existing food program. I began to have a heavy feeling in my stomach after eating almost any kind of raw food, especially a salad with dressing. Because of that, I started to eat less greens and more fruits and nuts. I began to gain weight. My husband started to develop a lot of gray hair. My family members felt confused about our diet and seemed often to have the question, “what should we eat?” There were odd times when we felt hungry but did not desire any foods that were “legal” for us to eat on a typical raw food diet: fruits, nuts, seeds, grains or dried fruit. Salads (with dressings) were delicious but made us tired and sleepy. We felt trapped, I remember Igor looking inside the fridge, saying over and over again, “I wish I wanted some of this stuff”….Such periods did not last. We blamed it all on overeating and were able to refresh our appetites by fasts, exercise, hikes or by working more. In my family we strongly believe that raw food is the only was to go and therefore we encouraged each other to maintain our raw diet no matter what, always coming up with new tricks. Many of my friends told me about similar experiences at which point they gave up being 100% raw began to add cooked food back into their meals. In my family, we continued to stay on raw food due to our constant support of each other.

A burning question began to grow stronger in my heart with each day. The question was, “Is there anything missing in our diet?” The answer would come right away: “Nope, Nothing could be better than a raw food diet.”

Yet, however tiny, the unwanted signs of less than perfect health kept surfacing in minor but noticeable symptoms such as a wart on a hand or a gray hair that brought doubts and questions about the completeness of the raw food diet in its present form. Finally, when my children complained about the increased sensitivity of their teeth, I reached a state where I couldn’t think about anything besides this health puzzle. I drove everybody around me crazy with my constant discussion of what could possibly be missing.

In my eager quest, I started collecting data about every single food that existed for humans. As my grandmother used to say, “Seek and ye shall find.” After many wrong guesses, I finally found the correct answer. I found one particular food group that matched ALL human nutritional needs: greens. The truth is, in my family, we were not eating enough greens. Moreover, we did not like them. We know that greens were important, but we never heard anywhere exactly how much greens we needed in our diet. We had only a vague recommendation to eat as much as possible. In order to find out how much greens we needed to eat, I decided to study the eating habits of chimpanzees since they are one of the closest creatures to human beings.

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Chapter 3: How Chimpanzees Eat

Chimpanzees are very similar to humans. Scientists at the Chimpanzee & Human Communication Institute as Washington Central University believe that “chimpanzees should be categorized as a people.” After closely studying the behavior of these intelligent beings, the researchers at the WCU have become convinced that chimpanzees are significantly smarter than most people are aware. According to the scientists from WCU, chimpanzees have their own language and culture that humans didn’t even suspect of them, probably because chimpanzees do not speak. They do, however, use their own sign language that scientists have been studying closely for over three decades. The researchers at WCU acknowledge: “New evidence indicates that the technology and the communication of the chimpanzee community meets the definition of culture. We also know that chimpanzee’s cognitive capacities are very similar to our own, both intellectually and emotionally. By any reasonable definition chimpanzees should be categorized as a people.

Most medical research institutes agree that chimpanzees and human are very alike. Unfortunately, based on this ground, they use chimpanzees in scientific experiments. Just take a look at the following quotes from numerous medical articles.”

“Chimpanzees resemble humans more than any other animal…Human brains are very like chimpanzee brains. The major difference between humans and apes are not anatomical, but rather behavioral.”

“Chimps have the same A-B-O blood groupings as humans and are used for compatibility studies for tissue transplant for hepatitis research and for other medical studies.”

“Nonhuman primates (play a) critical role in biomedical research of understanding, treatment and prevention of important infectious diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis, and malaria, and chronic degenerative disorders of the central nervous system (like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.)…The close phylogenic relation of NHP’s to humans not only opens avenues for testing the safety and efficacy of new drugs and vaccines but also offers promise for evaluating the potential of new gene-based treatments for human infectious and genetic diseases.”

“Nonhuman primates are excellent models for studying human biology and behavior because of their close phylogenetic relations to humans. Their use in biomedical research is critical to advancements in medical science…(including) the discovery of the Rh factor and the development of the poliovirus vaccine…Their use has expanded into virtually every area of medicine.”

I wonder, if chimpanzees and humans are really so closely related, and studying this closeness is so critical to out health, why don’t we humans apply our studies both ways? How could it be that we put our worst human illnesses on chimpanzees but do not learn from them? Rather than making them sick, why not make ourselves well? Why not at least try out what they eat?

I went online and purchased $300 worth of booths and DVDs about chimpanzees and their diet and lifestyle. I wrote a letter with my questions to the Jane Goodall University. I traveled to three big zoos that have chimpanzees and spoke to many people who feed them and take care of them every day. I discovered fascinating information about chimpanzees that totally changed my view of them.

I was very impressed to find out that chimpanzees can learn to use American Sign Language.

“Under double-blind conditions, we have found that the chimpanzees communicate information in American Sign Language (ASL) to human observers. They use signs to refer to natural language categories: e.g. DOG for and dog, FLOWER for and flower, SHOE for any shoe, etc. The chimpanzees acquire and spontaneously use their signs to communicate with humans and each other about the normal course of surrounding events. They have demonstrated an ability to invent new signs or combine signs or combine signs to metaphorically label a novel item, for example: calling a radish CRY HURT FOOD or referring to a watermelon as a DRINK FRUIT. In a double-blind condition, the chimpanzees can comprehend and produce novel prepositional phrases, understand vocal English words, translate words into their ASL glosses and even transmit their signing skills to the next generation without human intervention. Their play behavior has demonstrated that they use the same types of imaginary play as humans. It has also been demonstrated that they carry on chimpanzee-to-chimpanzee conversation and sign to themselves when alone. Conversational research shows the chimpanzees initiate and maintain conversations in ways that are like humans. The chimpanzees can repair a conversation if there is misunderstanding. They will also sign to themselves when alone and we have even observed them to sign in their sleep.”

When I educated myself about chimpanzees, they became one of my favorite beings. Understanding their intelligent nature, I feel deeply sorry for the 1,500 chimps that spend their lives in tiny indoor cages in medical laboratories in the United States.

Despite all the scientific research, human health is continuously declining. Many nutritionists connect human health problems with nutritional deficiencies. Humans have lost their natural way of eating. That is why I am so grateful that there is another species in this world that closely resembles us. In particular, I was glad to know that there are thousands of chimpanzees living in Gombe Valley, Africa. The most remarkable fact is that the majority of the chimps of Gombe, (as opposed to humans) have not been touched by civilization. That is a great fortune for us humans! It gives us hope to find that answers to our most vital questions: What is the human diet supposed to be? What was it originally?

Understanding chimpanzees’ eating habits may help us better understand human dietary needs. Please look at this chart showing the following diet of the chimpanzee in the wilderness, that I created based on the data from Jane Goodall’s book:

As you can see, the two major food groups for chimpanzees are fruits and greens. Please do not confuse greens with root vegetables like carrots, beets, or potatoes. Also do not confuse greens with non-sweet fruits like cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, belle peppers. Chimps only eat root vegetables in the case of drought or famine as a fall-back food. According to Jane Goodall, a world famous researcher of chimpanzees, the percentage of time that chimpanzees spend eating greens in relation to the rest of their diet various from 25-50% depending on the season.   Two to seven percent of their diet is pith and bark. (Piths are the stems and more fibrous parts of plants.) When the trees are blooming, in March and April, chimpanzees consume blossoms, up to 10% of their ratio. Chimpanzees do not eat very many nuts, but their diet could be up to 5% seeds. Also, particularly in November, they consume small amounts of insects and even small animals, however, Goodall says this part of their diet is irregular and insignificant, as they could go months and months without consuming any animals, and seem to have no ill effects. There is other research that points out that wild chimpanzees’ intake of insects and other animals never comprises more than 1% of their diet.

As long as I can remember, chimpanzees have been depicted with a banana or an orange in their hands, which definitely misled me to the assumption that they eat only fruit. To know that greens compose almost half of their diet was a revelation for me. My research gave me a solid idea that humans are supposed to eat for more green that I would have guessed.

Let us compare the standard American diet with the diet of chimpanzees. As you can see they look totally different. These two diets hardly have anything in common! We humans eat mostly things that chimpanzees don’t eat at all, like cooked starchy foods, oils, butter, yogurt, cheese, hamburgers, etc. While most of our vegetables unless there is drought and fruits and greens are unavailable. It is the intake of greens that has declined most dramatically in the human diet.

Our consumption of greens has generally shrunk to the two wilted iceberg lettuces leaves on our sandwich.

Let us compare the standard American diet with an average diet of typical raw foodists.

I think that a raw food diet demonstrates a vast improvement over the regular diet. Firstly, all ingredients in a raw diet are uncooked, and full of enzymes and vitamins; thus the raw food diet is like a revolution in comparison with the standard American diet. That explains why so many people reported that they instantly felt better on a raw diet. We can see that raw fooders eat a lot of fruit, especially if we keep in mind that bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes are also fruits. However, even though raw-foodists typically consume noticeably more greens than people on an average mainstream diet, greens almost never constitute 45% of their food. So what do raw foodists eat in place of their missing greens? The answer is: most people on a raw food diet consume large amounts of fruits, nuts, and seeds. Often they use nuts as a substitute for carbohydrates, particularly when trying to mimic cooked dishes with raw ingredients even though nuts are 70-80% fat. Also, raw foodists increase their consumption of oils and avocados because the most common way of eating salads, their main staple, is to have it mixed with dressing, sauce or guacamole. Another big quota in a typical raw diet belongs to root vegetables mostly due to juicing. Also, roots taste sweeter than greens and thus comprise a large portion of raw salads.

Considering all of these factors, when we compare a typical raw food diet with the chimpanzee diet, we can clearly see that there are two main ways to further improve our individual eating patterns: to increase our consumption of greens, and to reduce our intake of nuts, seeds, and oils.

For example, based on how much fruit we consume in my family (about 4 or 5 pounds per day) I estimate that we need at eat about two good bunches of dark leafy greens per person per day.

Another striking characteristic aspect of the chimpanzee eating pattern is that they never eat in the late afternoon or evening. Chimpanzees wake up very early, at the first light of dawn. After leaving their nests, they groom each other for few minutes and then begin searching for food. Chimpanzees have to work hard in order to get their food, climbing many trees or searching through numerous low shrubs. Most often they feed on fruit in the morning and a little bit on leaves. After about four hours, they take a break for an hour or two, playing or sleeping in the sun. Then the chimps resume feeding, eating mostly greens until about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, after which they groom and prepare their nests for the night sleep.

In contrast, my own eating pattern is vastly different. I don’t normally eat anything until noon or later, and in the evening I stock up on food. I am currently striving to stop eating after 6 p.m. While I am experiencing positive results and finally shedding some extra weight, I have to admit that restraining myself for eating late is a lot harder than I expected. I attributed this to the larger amount of stress we tend to accumulate towards the end of the day.

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Chapter Four: Green Smoothie Revolution

In my research, I noticed that chimpanzees really love greens.  I remember watching chimps at the zoo and seeing how excited they became when given fresh acacia branches, young tender palm tree leaves, or kale.  I was so inspired looking at them that I went to the nearby bushes and tried to eat acacia leaves myself.  But the truth was, the green leaves were not very palatable for me and that presented another problem.  Eating greens always seemed like a duty for me.  I would think to myself, “I have to have my greens.”  Some days I would “cheat” by juicing my greens.  I would quickly drink a cup of green juice and consider myself good for a couple of days.  Or I would make a delicious raw dressing and sink my greens into it.  That was another way for me to enjoy greens. But I could never imagine sitting and eating two branches of kale or spinach.

Although I didn’t like greens, my husband, Igor, simply couldn’t tolerate them.  When he was growing up he was encouraged to eat mostly meat and bread, “like a real Russian man.”  While living in Russia we had never seen any greens in stores.  Only in the summer people could buy dill, parsley, and green onions at the farmers markets.  I recall seeing lettuce only about twice each summer and considered it rare and exotic.

The more I read about the nutritional content of greens, the more I became convinced that greens were the most important food for humans.  If I could only find a way to enjoy them enough to consume the optimal quantity needed to become perfectly healthy!

I tried countless times to force myself to eat large amounts of greens in the form of salad or by themselves, only to discover that I was not physically able to do that.  After about two cups of shredded greens I would either have heartburn or nausea.

One day, while reading a book on biology, I became intrigued by the amazing by the hardy compositions of plants.  Apparently, cellulose, the main constituent of plants, has one of the strongest molecular structures on the planet.  Greens possess more valuable nutrients than any other food group, but all these nutrients are stored inside the cells of plants.  These cells are made of tough material, probably as a means of survival for the plant, making it difficult for animals so to eat.  To release all the valuable nutrients from within the cells, the cell walls need to be ruptured.  To rupture these sturdy cells is not easy.  This is why eating greens without chewing them thoroughly would not satisfy our nutritional needs.  In simple words, we need to chew are greens to a creamy consistency in order to get the benefits.

In addition, in order to digest the released minerals and vitamins, hydrochloric acid in the stomach has to be very strong, with a pH between 1 and 2.

These two conditions are absolutely, vitally, necessary for the assimilation of nutrients from greens.  Obviously, when I tried to eat plain greens I did not chew my greens well enough and possibly did not have a high enough level of hydrochloric acid in my stomach.  As a result, I experience unpleasant signs of indigestion and formed a general dislike for greens altogether.

After many decades of eating mostly heavily processed foods, modern people have lost their ability to chew normally.  Our jaws have become so narrow that even after extracting our wisdom teeth; we still need to wear braces.  Our jaw muscles have becomes too weak to thoroughly chew rough fiber.  Several times I have heard recommendations from my dentist to be gentler on my teeth, and not to bite firm fruit, but rather to grate my carrots and apples.  In addition to these compromising conditions, many people have lots of fillings, false, or missing teeth.  All of these obstacles make chewing greens to the necessary consistency virtually impossible.

This is why I decided to try to “chew” my greens in the Vitamix blender.” First I blended a bunch of kale with water.  I was thinking, “I will just close my eyes and nose and drink it.”  But as soon as I opened the lid, I closed it again quickly because I felt queasy from the strong, wheatgrass smell.  That dark green, almost black mixture was totally unconsumable.  After some brainstorming, I added several bananas and blended it again.  And that was when the magic began.  I slowly, and with some trepidation, removed the lid and sniffed the air, and to my greatest surprise this bright green concoction smelled very pleasant.  I cautiously tasted a sip and was exhilarated!  It was better than tasty!  Not too sweet, not too bitter, it was the most unusual taste I had ever tried, and I could describe it in one word: freshness.

In four hours I had consumed all I blended, which was one bunch of kale, four bananas and a quart of water.  I felt wonderful and made more.  Triumphantly, I realized that this evening was the first time in my life that I consumed two good sized bunches of green in one day.  Plus, I ate them without any oil or salt!  And I enjoyed the whole experience.  My stomach felt fine and I was happy to have achieved my goal.

That was in August, 2004.  The solution to my greens dilemma was so unexpectedly simple.  To consume greens in this way took so little time that I naturally continued experimenting with blended greens and fruits day after day.

I must admit here, that the idea of blended greens was not new to me.  Eleven years ago when my family was studying at the Creative Health Institute (CHI) in Michigan, we were taught about the extraordinary healing properties of energy soup: blended sprouts, avocado, and apple.  This soup was invented by Dr. Ann Wigmore, the pioneer of the Living Foods lifestyle in the 20^th century.  Although we were told countless times how exceptionally beneficial energy soup was, most of the guests at the institute were not able to eat more than a couple of spoonfuls of energy soup because it was not palatable.

I was very impressed with the testimonials that I head from people about the benefits of energy soup.  When I returned home I desperately experimented with energy soup, trying to improve the taste because I wanted my family to benefit from eating it.  My final attempt to perfect energy soup was ended one day when I heard Valya yelling to Sergei in the back year.  “Run! Mom is making that green mush again!”

Despite all the evidence of the healing powers of energy soup, I found that unfortunately, even people who desperately needed and wanted it, could not make themselves consume it regularly.

I am amazed that eleven years after being introduced to energy soup, when I had completely forgotten all about it, I came back to the very same idea of blended greens from an entirely new direction.  When I first started drinking green smoothies, I didn’t mention it to anybody and did not expect anything significant to happen.  Since I did not have any big health problems, I was not pursuing any dramatic changes.  I just didn’t want to age so noticeably.  However, after about a month of erratic green smoothie drinking, two moles and a wart I had since early childhood peeled off my body.  I felt more energized than ever before, and started sharing my experience with my family and friends.  The next thing I noticed was that those cravings I had occasionally for heavy foods like nuts or crackers, especially in the evenings, had totally disappeared.  I noticed that many of the wrinkles on my face went away and I began to hear compliments from other people about my fresh look.  My nails became stronger, my vision sharpened and I had a wonderful taste in my mouth, even upon waking in the morning (pleasure I hadn’t had since youth).

My dream had come true at last! I was consuming plenty of greens every day.  I began to feel lighter and my energy increase.  My tastes started to change.  I discovered that my body was so starved for greens that for several weeks, I lived almost entirely on green smoothies.  Plain fruit and vegetables became much more desirable for me and my cravings for fatty foods declined dramatically. I stopped consuming any kind of salt altogether, even seaweed.

Two weeks later, my husband and I were walking in California along a grassy trail and when I suddenly began to salivate from looking at the dark green crispy branches of malva weeds growing in abundance along our path.  I kept catching myself wanting to grab and eat them.  I shared my observation with Igor and he listened attentively but didn’t get excited.  He had already noticed that I was eating differently.  Instead of making myself a huge salad consisting of multiple chopped vegetables, a large avocado, sea salt, lots of onions and olive oil, I now chopped a bunch of lettuce with a tomato, sprinkled it with lemon juice and enjoyed it tremendously, rolling my eyes and humming with pleasure.  I did not miss my former food, and felt completely satisfied eating so simply.  Now I know that the human body can learn to crave greens!

There was another change that astounded me.  I used to have cravings for unhealthy food when I got tired.  For example, in the past, when we were traveling and we spent the night in an airplane, or after we were driving all night, I experienced severe cravings for some heavy raw foods or even some authentic Russian cooked foods from childhood that I hadn’t eaten for more than a decade.  Driven by these urges, I would prepare myself some kind of dense raw food, like seed cheese with crackers, or stuff myself with nuts, sometimes late at night.  I have heard from many other people that they experienced similar patterns.  Also, during previous years, when I came home late from my office, often after ten p.m., I enjoyed changing my focus from work to other lighter topics, either by reading a chapter from a book or by watching a nice video.  I noticed that if I allowed myself to grab an apple or a handful of nuts, I would tend to continue grazing and couldn’t ever achieve a feeling of satisfaction.  Even if I used my will power and didn’t touch any food at home, I continued to feel discontent and food kept coming to my mind.

When I began to drink green smoothies, I noticed right away that those kinds of craving disappeared.  That was when my husband really noticed the difference in my behavior.  In the evening after a hard work day, he would still crave something to eat while I was relaxed and content by just reading a book or talking.  When Igor saw how happy I was in the evenings, along with the noticeable improvements in my health, he joined me in drinking green smoothies.  He started to ask for a cup of “that green stuff” whenever I was making it.

Neither Igor nor I had any illnesses, so in the beginning it was hard to tell if we were just excited or if we really felt better.  But soon both Igor and I were able to testify that we experienced rejuvenation and we began to look younger.

After only two months of drinking smoothies, Igor’s mustache and beard started growing blacker, making him look like he did when we first met.

Igor became so enthusiastic about his youthful look that he became the green smoothie champion in my family.  He would wake up early and make two or three gallons of smoothie every day and: one for me, one for him, and one for Sergei and Valya to share.  Both of our children enjoyed including this tasty green drink in their daily menu even though they were already experiencing great health.  They noticed still more benefits, like the ability to sleep less, more complete eliminations, stronger nails, and most of all, improvement in their teeth, which became less sensitive.

One of my fears was that I would get tired of green smoothies one day, and I wouldn’t want them any more.  Yet, after six months of regular consumption I was enjoying them more than ever.  Now I couldn’t imagine my life without my green smoothies, as they had become 80% of my diet.  In addition to smoothies, I ate flax crackers, salads, fruit, and occasionally seeds or nuts.  In order to always have the opportunity to make fresh green smoothie for myself, I purchased an additional Vitamix blender for my office. Whenever friends or customers came in, they saw a big green cup next to my computer and I treated them to a sample of my new discovery.  To my great satisfaction, everybody loved it, despite their different dietary habits.  Unexpectedly for me, some of my friends and coworkers started to comment on their health improvements just from the cup of green smoothie they were drinking in my office!  No kidding!  My web designer began to crave more raw foods as a result of rather irregular helpings of smoothies and lost 15 pounds in a couple of months.  The woman from the office across the road got rid of her eczema by drinking a cup of green smoothie almost every day.  Even the UPS guy liked it.

Inspired by the warm reception,  I wrote and article “Ode to Green Smoothie” and emailed it to all those in my Internet address book.  Almost instantly I began to receive strong, positive feedback and many detailed testimonials from my friends, students, and customers.  While I felt compelled to do more research, it looked like the multiple benefits of green smoothie became obvious to everybody who tried them, and the number of people who were drinking green smoothie turned into a “green wave,” growing rapidly every day.

More chapters coming soon…love your comments!