Planet Organic have worked tirelessly to give Raw Food more awareness in the UK. As their finale to a mega successful RAWvolution- their month of raw, I was invited to round it off as their expert guest chef.
July 2013






Jesse van der Velde - the CEO of Detox Your World and Superfood.nl interviews me.
May 2013


WOW TALKS - Special guest for Food + Drink London event.
February 2013

Describe your typical day of eating and drinking.

This is a pretty typical day with the addition of some cooked beans or quinoa a couple of times a week, a cooked vegan meal in a restaurant on weekends and some gourmet raw foods prepared by our students at lunch.

6am: 1 cup jasmine green tea
7am: 12 ounces warm water with lemon
8am: 3 ounces E-3 Live Brain-on
9am: 12 ounces fresh fruit smoothie (orange juice, bananas, blueberries, peaches, kale and VitaMineral Green )
10am: green juice (kale and other leafy greens, cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, parsley)
1pm: full meal salad bar (spring mix, sprouts, tomatoes, shredded root vegetables, veggie kraut, 1/2 avocado, seaweed, pumpkin seeds, vegetarian support formula nutritional yeast, dressed with Liquid Gold (see page 151, The Raw Food Revolution Diet)
3pm 12 ounces water
4pm 12 ounces water
5pm: 12 ounces water
5:30pm: My favorite Vitality Soup with chopped tomatoes (see recipe below)
7pm: 12 ounces water infused with peppermint oil and or ginger juice


What (or who) inspires you to eat well and stay healthy?

I inspire myself. I want to be the best that I can be so I can set an example for others and show people what is possible if you take care of yourself.


What is your biggest weakness when it comes to food and how do you deal with that?

I don’t have any food addictions. I am addicted to feeling good. And, I am not afraid of eating cooked food when I want it and it serves me – I eat well chosen water-cooked foods like steamed broccoli, legumes, and quinoa, which are health promoting and add to my enjoyment. I do not consider it a weakness.


Complete these sentences...

Improving your diet is an ongoing journey.
Staying healthy while travelling is something that takes planning and determination.
Detoxing is important from time to time.
Immunising is not for me.


What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to you?

“You will never know what an inspiration you have been to me.”


If you got to keep only 3 of your belongings- 1 thing from your kitchen, 1 thing from your garden, 1 thing from your bookshelf - what would they be?

My favorite chef knife. The rich soil I have spent years building.  My most recent book, Raw Food For Dummies, which I coauthored with my husband, Dan Ladermann. It was a labor of love that people tell us is making healthy living easy and delicious for them! Our goal in writing it was to give people everything they need to make tasty raw food meals for themselves and their families. We included how to travel raw, how to find restaurants and other raw food enthusiasts, how to set-up your kitchen and I even created a 31-day meal plan with advanced preparation instructions, so it reminds you when to soak the oat groats to make the oatmeal in time for breakfast! It’s the compilation of my years of experience and the most complete raw food book ever written.


Why do you believe that life is Better Raw?

I advocate a whole food, plant-based diet that is fresh, ripe, organic and mostly uncooked. Some water-cooked (steamed or braised) vegetables, legumes and non-glutinous grains are more health promoting than some raw foods that contain condensed fats and sweeteners. A balanced, health-promoting diet can contain some water-cooked foods (not fried, baked, grilled or sautéed), providing that nutrient dense raw vegan foods make up the majority of the diet. Whether cooked or raw, I recommend nutrient dense foods that are delicious (or people won’t eat them). My goal is to make food that is both healthy and delicious.


Our Master of the Month shares her favourite raw food recipe...





1 cup orange juice
2 cups stemmed and chopped kale or other dark leafy greens
1 small cucumber, peeled and chopped
1⁄4 cup fresh parsley, basil, or dill weed
1 tablespoon light miso
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1⁄2 teaspoon garlic, crushed (1 clove)
1⁄2 green onion, chopped
1⁄2 avocado, peeled and pitted
Filtered water as needed for desired consistency

- Combine the orange juice, kale, cucumber, herbs, miso, lemon juice, garlic, and green onion. Blend the mixture until smooth.
- Add the avocado and blend again — no more than 1 minute — until smooth.




For more about Cherie Soria and the amazing Living Light International, take a tour around http://rawfoodchef.com.

To see Cherie LIVE in action, check out her UK event in September! I am definitely not missing this opportunity and have my ticket already! Come on by and say hi to me too...

It feels like forever and a half since I wrote my last recipe post. I've been so busy writing articles for various magazines and websites, that my own little gem of cyber haven got neglected. Sad face.

I shall make up for it over the next couple of weeks with details on our Croatia visit and our engagement party too. But first, there was Venice...

The only two places I've been to in Italy prior to this trip were Rome with my sis and Turin for skiing. Elliot's been all over Italy many years ago when he did a Contiki Tour around Europe.

He had great memories about Venice. I've always wanted to go. It was [kinda] on the way to our Croatia destination. Why not?

Being the usual fuss-ball with food, I brought a bunch of pre-prepared snacks with me, as well as my own pH booster green powder (a mix of alkalising greens, grasses, herbs and algae - the healthy traveler's dream!) and continued drinking them, as I was also on the Acid Alkaline Breakthrough program along with all my members. When the program was finished, I welcomed the opportunity to do a little research...

A tiramisu sort of research. You know- 'when in Italy'.

Well it didn't take long for me to realise, that all the time I've spent salivating over a vivid memory of the world's best, most divine, heavenly, orgasmic scoop of coffee sponge fingers and vanilla mascapone cream, was simply the tricks of my cogent imagination.

Still, I was convinced that tiramisu really had to be the best dessert on the planet, it was just that the non raw food version was no longer satisfactory to my tastebuds. As usual, this trip provided more than enough inspiration to return home and create my own version of the heaven I dreamed up in the first place...




For the hazelnut milk
1 cup hazelnuts, soaked overnight
3 cups pure water
4 pitted dates
pinch Himalayan salt

For the coffee cake layer
1 cup macadamia nuts
1 cup hazelnut meal (pulp left over from making hazelnut milk)
1/2 cup sunflower lecithin granules
1/4 cup cacao powder
1 cup pitted dates, soaked 2-3 hours
3/4 cup espresso (3 tbsp ground coffee brewed with 3/4 cups boiling water)*
1/3 tsp Himalayan salt

For the vanilla cream layer
2 cups cashews, soaked overnight
1/2 cup hazelnut milk
1/2 cup melted cacao butter
1 cup sunflower lecithin granules
1/2 cup maple syrup*
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out only
pinch Himalayan salt

*This is not a raw ingredient, but is regularly used in raw food recipes.


-Make the Hazelnut milk by blending and straining all the ingredients. [If you've never made a nut milk before, watch my step-by-step YouTube video here>>]

-Prepare the coffee cake layer by processing the first four ingredients in a food processor, until finely ground. Add the dates, brewed coffee and salt, and process again until you have a mixture resembling a runny and grainy cake dough.

-Prepare the vanilla cream layer by blending all of the ingredients in a high powered blender. Use a tamper to make sure that all the ingredients are touching the blade and combine well into a cream.

-This recipe should be enough for 5 small glasses or ice-cream sundae bowls (cup size or 250ml). Layer each glass by scooping in a tablespoon of coffee mix and spread it along the bottom.
-Pour in some cream, until the glass is filled to a half level mark.
-The next step will have to be done more carefully, as the cake mixture could sink into the cream if you were to throw it on top. Simply scoop little bits of cake mix around the inside edge of your glass and then add a bigger spoonful into the middle. Use the back of your spoon to lightly even out the surface, careful not to apply any pressure.
-Cover with a layer of cream and transfer to the fridge to set overnight.
-In 4-8 hours, sprinkle with some cacao powder using a sieve and serve.

[The tiramisu could be prepared well ahead of time, as it will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.]


And there you go. It's pretty straight forward, but the result is incredible!
And here are just a few snaps of our trip...

Buon pomeriggio :)

Venezia loving!!

Just 2 people in love...

Still trying to figure out why I love this photo so much, but I do.  It makes me happy.

Beautiful, Venice, beautiful!

Raw peeps won't go hungry! Fresh coconuts are everywhere, so is every kind of fruit. I went nuts for cherries.

Happiness.

Where are all the people?

'I'm on a boat!'.

Sun + Elliot + Venice + Boat = can hardly handle so many favourites in a single image!

Just cruisin' and soaking up final moments of Venice.

Trieste in all its glory.

Miramare Castle visit.

Not sure what happened here, but this was my natural reaction to so much overwhelming beauty around.

A refreshing water break on a super hot day.

Nothing unusual here, folks.

Only four years ago, when I first moved to London, the words 'raw' and 'food' put together would do one of three things when mentioned to Brits:

1. Confuse/irritate,
2. Make you feel like an expert, because you've had sushi, then once explained that neither fish nor rice are on the menu.. confuse/irritate,
3. Make you proud for having a fruit salad that morning, then guilty for realising that is was coated in dairy yoghurt, sprinkled with processed sugar and flushed down with a milky coffee, and then... confuse/irritate.

What a difference four little years make.

Your enthusiasm for raw food these days blows my mind.
Your demand for organic produce is helping bring down prices.
Your realisation for the importance of cleansing is making the planet lighter and you healthier.
Your new wellness fuelled attitude -after seeing what raw foods can do to your entire life- is making you and everyone around you happier.
Your hunger for health, means there are now over 12 raw vegan restaurants around London and hundreds which offer raw meals on their menu.
Your thirst for energy, means there are now hundreds of juice bars too.
Your sparked curiosity to learn more, means I can no longer count the number of raw food teachers here with my two hands.

And now for the very first time...

Alternatives in London will have a presenter tell their story of a raw food journey, for the first time since they began hosting talks for the world leaders in spirituality and personal growth, all the way back in 1982.

I can't even put into words how honoured and blessed I feel to tell you, that the presenter is me.




Even if you are new to the world of conscious living, it is highly likely that you've heard of at least one of these names before:

Marianne Williamson, Tim Ferriss, Brandon Bays, Dr. Michael Beckwith, Byron Katie, Dr. John Demartini, Joseph McClendon III, Julia Cameron, Gabrielle Bernstein and Deepak Chopra.

The Alternatives have hosted all these unbelievable speakers and so many more. Can you tell just how privileged I feel right now?

It is time for our diets to take centre stage, so please join me tomorrow 7PM-9PM Thursday 18th July at Swiss Church, 79 Endell St, WC2H 9DY, London. Book your spot>>

I can't wait to meet you!

xTanya


P.S. If you can't make it tomorrow, I will be interviewed on Radio Verulam at 8:15PM tonight. West Herts peeps- tune in to 92.6FM or listen in LIVE online, here: http://www.radioverulam.com