Spring Detox Event
At a networking group recently, I met Diana Maltz — founder of the Zest for Life Marketing Group, which “helps stressed-out professionals stay out of the danger zone.” We thought it might be fun to team up and co-host an event, and we decided it was a good time of year for a good spring cleaning — for your body.
Diana’s an RN, so she gave an overview of how the human body eliminates toxins, why it sometimes needs a little help, and what supplements you can take to give it a boost.
Then it was my turn to talk about detoxing with food. Now, I’ve never been much of a public speaker. In fact, any time I’m forced to address a group of people, even if I know them, I tend to get red in the face and shaky in the hands. But at this particular event, I found myself surprisingly at ease as I discussed foods that one can eat to aid his or her body in the detox process (although when I realized that people were TAKING NOTES, I was so taken aback that I had to stop and catch my breath for a moment). I guess it’s easier to overcome shyness if you’re talking about something for which you feel passionately.
The best part, though, was that I also catered the event, making mostly raw, cleansing food for everyone to sample. Here’s what I made:
Mung Bean Hummus with Almost-Raw Flax Seed Crackers and Spring Crudites
Creamy Raw Spinach Soup with Home-Grown Radish Sprouts
Raw Cocoa-Coconut Truffles
The food was a big hit, although I forgot about Majo’s pepper allergy and hit the cayenne pretty hard when I was making the soup. In my defense, cayenne is good for detoxing. But it worked out because I gave everyone the recipes, and she made it herself. The mung bean and soup recipes will be posted elsewhere later this week, so I’m not going to post them here, but I will link to them. I’m not going to post the truffles, either, because I based those on Ani Phyo’s Mayan Crunch Truffle Balls, and even though I changed the recipe quite a bit, I can’t take full credit for it. But here are the crackers:
Nearly Raw Seed Crackers
Makes about 24 crackers
Ingredients:
1 cup flax seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 cups water
Directions: (For conventional oven, not dehydrator)
1. Preheat oven to its lowest setting, 140-170 degrees. In a coffee or spice blender, coarsely grind together the flax seeds, sunflower seeds, salt and caraway seeds.
2. Place ground ingredients into a medium bowl, add water and mix thoroughly.
3. Line two sheet trays with parchment. Divide the mixture between trays and spread out using a rubber spatula until uniformly about 1/8 inch thick.
4. Place trays in the center of the oven and cook until crisp and all moisture is gone, about 4-5 hours. Halfway through cooking time, cut into desired shapes with a pizza cutter.
UPDATE: Jocelyn at Peace. Love. Nutrition has a lovely write-up of the event, with some more photos, my top 10 detox foods list, and my Mung Bean Hummus recipe.
