Green books campaign: I am grateful

I was sent a copy of Terces Engelhart’s cookbook I Am Grateful: Recipes & Lifestyle of Café Gratitude to review. I’m not the only one reviewing a book today. There are over 100 bloggers today simultaneously reviewing books that meet a “green” criteria today. It’s part of Eco-Libris’ Green Books Campaign. The goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. 

• Raw food isn’t just eating fruits and vegetables as is. I had imagined those who ate a raw food diet munched on raw fruits, vegetables, uncooked grains and nuts all day long.
• I never imagined that something that looks as amazing as the Hazelnut Chocolate Cream pie pictured in the book (p. 137) would be considered raw food.
• There are a whole host of ingredients out there that I’ve never heard of. Irish moss (a seaweed), succanat (dehydrated, unprocessed sugar can juice), and E3Live (a fresh, frozen blue-green algae) are just a few of them.
• Raw doesn’t just mean uncooked. If a food ends up being heated by friction during processing – such as a nut butter that gets hot just from being mixed at a high speed – it’s not considered raw.
• There is such a thing as raw pizza, soup, and rice, but you need to be open to something very different than what you are used to look at them as such.

In a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving. All around the country, families and friends will be sitting down to share a meal and perhaps asking, “What are you grateful for?” This cookbook helps to remind us that this question should be answered daily, not just once a year.