Runi and I have just arrived back from a fun trip to Melbourne. I am so grateful for all the support we received for the "Art of Raw" Melbourne class last Sunday!!!

So much work goes into preparing for the classes and with over 40 beautiful beings in the class we couldn't do it alone. When we are in Melbourne we stay with John and Anne (my parents) who give us so much support: They let us take over their kitchen and use their cars for 5 days plus much more!! Also, I would like to thank Myree for her focussed and loving help on the day and my sister Catherine for giving us a helping hand as well.

Last but not least I would like to thank all of you who attended the class!!! You were all incredibly gracious in hot and testing conditions.

A snap shot of our travel routine
When we travel our daily routine changes: while in Melbourne Runi and I wake up and go jogging around beautiful Wattle Park. Wattle Park is an oasis in the suburbs of Melbourne full of native trees and abundant bird life. The air is laden with the scent of Eucalyptus and it is so delicious to deeply inhale while jogging. When I was a child I used to love visiting this park, climbing all over the old Trams which are parked there and feeling like it was so big it must go on forever.

After jogging for half an hour we meditate for 20 minutes and then have breakfast - for me a mango, paw paw (papaya) and rainbow chard smoothie (2 mangoes, 1 small papaya and 3/4 of a bunch of chard blended with a glass of water) for Runi 1/2 a rock melon and 2 bananas and a handful of lychees. Runi and I often have different breakfasts though we usually share a luscious salad for lunch - including a generous amount of leafy greens, cos lettuce, rocket, baby spinach, parsley with chopped carrot, cucumber, avocado, tomato. We usually make a dressing, one of our favourites of late is the juice of a lemon with 2-3 tablespoons of tahini and a dash of wheat free tamari. I usually like to add some seaweed into the mix. Either nori, dulse or kelp (sometimes all three!) As we were preparing for a class we were also testing the meals we were preparing -in particular -raw pizza, pumpkin soup, chocolate bananas. I find we only really eat rich gourmet raw food around the time of the classes, which is fun once in a while. For dinner I would usually go for fruit such as 2 mangos and 2 nectarines as fruit digests easily before I go to bed. Runi often prefers to have a salad for dinner. However, one evening before the class I was experimenting with chocolate banana icecreams on a stick and I couldn't go to sleep until 3am due to the buzz it gave me!!! Hmmm someone has to do it.

Here is a photo of the some raw cacao butter being melted in warm water. It melts at 40C. We then dip half a frozen banana on a stick into the choc sauce (made from raw cacao powder, raw cacao butter and agave nectar) and here is a some what sexy and suggestive photo of beautiful Runi about to sample the first one. Raw food is so much fun!!! Love peace blessings xxx

Hi, Anand here.

We would like these blogs to be useful as well as entertaining so here is perhaps the most simple and effective recipe you will find. It is so powerful that if you just do it without making any other changes to your diet you will feel the benefits.

This is a photo of what I had for breakfast this morning - half a bunch of rainbow chard and 5 lady finger bananas. It looks like and odd combination and certainly very unconventional, however, in around 5 minutes you can transform this into one of the most nutritious, delicious breakfasts/meals available.

1. Peel the bananas and place then in a powerful blender - we use a 2HP Powermill blender.
2. Add one glass of high quality filtered water. We use an Alphion from Jupiter Science which makes the best antioxidant, microclustered, alkaline livng water. Drinking pure living water is even more important than the food we eat.
3. Blend the bananas
4. Add the greens gradually
5. Add your favourite superfoods. (I have added AFA blue green algae, InLiven Probiotic, and wild bee pollen for extra protein, amino acids and friendly bacteria)
6. Drink

The whole process (including washing up) takes under 10 minutes and sustains me for hours.

It is much quicker than juicing, has the whole food with all the fibre (excellent for getting you going in more ways than one) and your body will thank you over and over again.

Remember the food choices you make today and tomorrow will determine your level of health and well-being in the years to come.

If you do nothing else, add one green smoothie to your day. Ideally drink at least 1 litre. If you make extra you can store it in the fridge in a sealed glass jar and top yourself up during the day.

Love, peace and ecstatically good health

Anand

Hi Anand here.

Runi and I are always experimenting with new living food recipes and new approaches to raw, seeing what feels good and tastes great. So much so it is rare for us to eat the same recipe twice. We have decided to create this blog for 2008 to really expose how we live on a daily basis. What we are eating, what we are up to, the recipes and the effects! For those of you who are new to the raw lifestyle this blog will give you a deep insight and hopefully inspiration into what is really possible on a raw food diet 5 years down the track. We will also be sharing much more than just food - spirituality, love, guidance, purpose, life, intimacy, relationships......................

Wow, what a year 2007 was! We travelled to all states except Tasmania teaching "The Art Of Gourmet Raw Food Preparation" classes. Thank you so much for all of you who attended the classes. Sharing this information and these recipes with you brings me so much joy and fulfilment: for the first time in my life I can truly say I am living my dream and the work I do feels like fun. Over 1000 people have now attended our classes and retreats and in 2008 we will be offering trainings to teach those of you who are passionate about this how to run your own classes and how to inspire and help others as a raw food coach. This new venture will be called "One Luscious Bite" and we will keep you up to date with its birthing process in this blog.

Also we have just relocated our home and business (still unpacking) from busy Byron Bay to a more serene but equally beautiful Murwillumbah (40 minutes north of Byron nestled near the heart of the magnificent Mt Warning (Wollumbin) caldera) Moving home and business is HUGE and we are very happy in our new town and abode.
Here is a photo of Runi, Anand, our new home and Raw Power world headquarters :-)

Ok lets get into it! Here is what currently works for me during the course of a day. (this has evolved and will continue to evolve over the months and years I spend on this beautiful planet)

First up in the morning I like to bounce on a rebounder (mini trampoline) for 20 minutes - this loosens me up, wakes me up, drains my lymphatic system and prepares me for meditation. I currently meditate for 20 minutes simply watching the rise and fall my breath. This really helps to set the mood for the day. Relaxed, focused. After meditation I do another 20 minutes of stretching and weight beating exercise like push ups, crunchies, yoga.

One of the most common questions we are asked is "what do you actually eat in a day?" My answer is simply plenty of fresh organic raw fruit and vegetables - today I ate for breakfast 1 dragon fruit (also known as pitahaya, hu-- lóng gu-- (???/??? lit. "fire dragon fruit"), strawberry pear, nanettikafruit, or thanh long) with 2 mangoes and a tablespoon of wild WA bee pollen
Dragon fruit is an amazing fruit packed withb anti oxidants and is fast gaining popularity where we live in Northern NSW. Mixed with mango and bee pollen it is totally YUMMMMY! A couple of hours after brekky I ate 2 lady finger bananas.

For lunch we had a beautiful salad with nori seaweed finely chopped, a tahini, lemon juice and tamari dressing and guacamole mixed with fresh blended lemon grass, chilli, celtic sea salt. The greens were cos lettuce, rocket, chicory, parsley, coriander plus we added grated beetroot. I just never get bored with salads - there are endless possibilities.

After lunch we indulged in some raw chocolate fudge (we don't usually eat chocolate except for rare special occasions) however, we are working on some amazing new recipes and of course we have to try them - hazards of our occupation! Seriously though, I feel that raw cacao in small doses is not harmful and it is packed with anti oxidants, magesium and other mood enhancing chemicals such as anandamine a "bliss" chemical which helps stimulate the production of serotonin. Without giving away too many of our secrets in the fudge we used, raw organic fair trade cacao powder, cacao butter, agave syrup, almond meal, medjool dates, coconut oil and a pinch of celtic sea salt. You can actually find our original choc fudge recipe on our website

Dinner was another beautiful salad and I have to admit more chocolate which is probably why I am still here writing at 12.26am! Enough for today. Love peace blessings and radiant health to all. xxx Anand and Runi

Wow! What an amazing 5 years it has been since leaving a mostly vegetation "junk food diet" for unprocessed, organic living foods. I thought I was eating well (compared to the average Australian) and I probably was which is scary! None the less the transition to an organic raw food diet was and is PROFOUND in all areas of my life. Health, happiness, clarity, connection to the divine, relationships and work - all have been touched. I could not have guessed that what I eat would have such an effect on my life. We truly "are what we eat" in more ways than one.

Our bodies are incredibly resilient BUT the effects of cooked, denatured, processed, poisoned, irradiated, genetically modified, pasteurised, homogenised food catches up with us sooner or later in the form of chronic degenerative disease (cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, MS, Alzheimer's, Osteoporosis ….the list goes on and on.) The fact is that unless we change what we are doing a very high percentage of us will begin our deaths prematurely only to be kept "alive" with drugs and surgery, living out our last few years in suffering and loneliness. This is just how it is for most people in the 21^st Century. The choices we make on a daily basis today will determine how we live (and die) in the years to come.

The wonderful news is that the above scenario is NOT INEVITABLE when we take the responsibility for both our lives and health back from specialists, politicians, corporations and priests into our own hands.

I have benefited so much from all I have learned and experienced these past five years I just want to shout it from the roof tops and from this place of passion we are offering classes in the "Art Of Organic Raw Food Living" across Australia which demonstrate to participants exciting alternatives to cooking so the food retains it's medicinal healing qualities and tastes sensational at the same time. We are also offering a whole new possibility for living and health which is both uncommon and unreasonable to our mainstream conditioned ways.

But please don't believe (or disbelieve) what I say because these words will just remain a theory until you try what I am sharing for yourself and it becomes your own experience.

When you begin to eliminate the many substances we have come to call food – refined sugars and grains, hydrogenated oils, dairy and meat products and introduce more fresh organic fruit and vegetables miracles begin happen. It's that simple!!! (Obviously there are also other factors to health such as exercise and peace of mind, environmental toxins etc)  It's crazy we have become so far removed from the truth which is right beneath our noses and instead waste billions of dollars researching treatments and drugs which are never going to create health and only add to our toxic overload.

As you can see I am very passionate about this and what I stand for are your highest levels of health and happiness which I know are available.

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