Raw Zippy Summer Gazpacho

Today I went to my first PCC Cooks course: Summer Flavors with Fresh Juices taught by Cherie Calbom (aka "The Juice Lady"). It was absolutely delicious and inspiring! She's written a ton of different books on juicing to lose weight, prevent disease, and boost your immune system. I definitely encourage you to check out her work if you are interested in learning more about juicing or detoxing.

I bought a copy of Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life: Unleash the healing power of fresh juices and cleansing diets. It has a lot of information on detoxing and has an entire section on liver, gallbladder, and kidney cleansing. I can't wait to get started!

With my recent gallstone diagnosis, I've been thinking a lot about my gallbladder and working even harder to detox my body. Cherie has her own amazing story about how juicing and incorporating raw foods into her diet changed the state of her health. I've been working towards eating mostly raw food for the last couple of months and had my first 99% raw day today. So far, so good! She said it takes about 3 months for your body to begin to make significant changes. I firmly believe that food should be thy medicine and so my hope is to be able to heal my gallbladder and my body without surgery. We'll just have to see what happens from here.

I'm excited to share with you one of the recipes that Cherie made at today's class. It was so delicious that I had to come home and make it right away for myself. Summertime is the perfect time to incorporate more raw foods into your diet so I encourage you to think about your own body and try some raw food for yourself. Enjoy!

Serves 2.

2 tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 cup fresh carrot juice (about 5-7 carrots)
1 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons cilantro, rinsed and chopped
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 small jalapeno, chopped
3 radishes

Place the tomato chunks in a freezer bag and freeze until solid. Pour the carrot and lemon juices into a blender and add the frozen tomato chunks, cilantro, salt, cumin, jalapeno, and radishes. Blend on high until smooth, but slushy. Serve immediately.