raw high, home grown strawberries and durian meets cream

strawberries in my Somerset garden

Over the last few weeks have really enjoyed the raw high at its best again - I'm the kind of person who can easily slip into eating too much of the wrong types of food when I'm under a lot of pressure and justify a bit of this and that.  After a while it can all add up and when I go back to eating a fresher lighter diet I really notice how much happier I feel.  It's been so nice to have some time settled working at home in the beautiful summer weather with the abundance of local and not so local fruits. After 3 days (in fact almost exactly 72 hours in my case) without deviation from what I know works for me in terms of sustaining that special feeling that can come when not eating any cooked food  I feel a transformation, a lift in mood, a different feeling and perspective on life, one which I much prefer.  It's like feeling more aligned with the life force and less in the clutches of mental and cultural conditioning. Anyway, a topic to endlessly come back to.

Meanwhile what have I been eating?  Right now, although eating some salad and raw vegetable soups too, I have been mainly enjoying the lovely summer fruits, both local and tropical..raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, cherries (from Cheddar Gorge), mango and durian (bought frozen and thawed).  And complemented with my beloved raw dairy produce - local raw Jersey milk made into kefir and local raw Jersey cream.  I also have a few strawberries and raspberries  grown in my own little garden patch, cucumbers and tomatoes on the way.  Even to grow a small amount is a lovely fulfilling connected feeling.

kefir, mango, cherries, raw cream and vanilla powder

Breakfasts, which I eat several hours after getting up as I prefer to spend the early morning on drinks and maybe a little bee pollen, have been an adventure.  Lovely ripe mango with fresh raw cream or kefir and cherries, lucuma and vanilla powder sprinkled on.  Usually I mix noni powder and lucuma powder into the kefir as the noni complements the kefir marvellously because it opens up the pores in the intestines to allow the large tryptophan molecules in the kefir through.

kefir, mango, raw crea, cherries , vanilla and lucuma powder

Even occasionally I am having durian and cream for breakfast!   Generally durian is a fruit I generally like to eat alone intact but raw Jersey cream and durian seem to have a strange affinity to each other, at least in my taste buds and digestive system, that rich fatty but fresh feeling.  I feel euphoric afterwards and nourished for hours.  In this photo can you tell where the cream beigns and the durian ends?   See what I mean!

durian and fresh raw Jersey cream

strawberries and cream

kefir, raw strawberry coulis and raw cream

So traditional and yet so updated.  And so delicious. 

Of course not that long ago dairy products such as milk and cream were not pasteurised so all our cream was raw.  Traditional diets around the world have taken what is available locally and adapted it to meet our nutritional requirements now that we are away from our wild biological habitats.  In the British Isles where we do not get consistent sunshine we have had other sources for vitamin D often through dairy products.  Pasteurising or heating them reduces the vitamin D content so is slightly missing the point.  

Fruit is a very natural food for humans to eat and strawberries are great as as most berries are with low glycemic indexes (they don't spike blood sugar levels) and with lots of vitamin C and also B17 especially if blended so the seeds become nutritionally available.  Throw in some noni and we're home!  So this is my recipe:

400g strawberries

1 Tbspn sundried noni powder


40g dried mango, soaked

1/4 tsp vanilla powder

1 Tbsp raw honey

Just blend together until smooth.  If you use a vitamix you can just put in the dried mango as is; with a less powerful blender you are best to soak the dried fruit first in spring water.

Here I served this delicious coulis with kefir sprinkled with lucuma powder and vanilla powder as well of course the dollop of raw cream on top.  We have our kefir delivered from Dreamers Farm.  You can see  a list of raw dairy suppliers here.