It’s difficult enough to stay raw while being out and about and doing business everyday. You pretty much have to bring your own meal and/or start having meetings in venues where food is not the focus.

I’m bringing this up because I don’t go to salad bars anymore.

I ran across an old email correspondance I had with Souper Salad, a salad bar chain.

I had noticed that my tongue felt numb after eating the salad. Other people I had salad with said the same thing. A waitress I asked said they only washed the produce in water. She didn’t know or didn’t want to say otherwise. They wash it in something called “Victory Wash.”

Here is an article about the wash stating that produce must be rinsed in water after using the “Victory Wash.”

The fact that Victory Wash is purchased through chemical companies like EcoLab is scary. EcoLab says the chemical does not need to be rinsed. Yum, chemicals.

Souper Salad washes produce in this chemical and then doesn’t rinse it off.

I emailed the company and received this email in return – I left it as is, the person didn’t take care to correct any misspellings, including the name of the town the store resides, (Sugar Land) or her own title.

_______________________

My email:

Souper Salad has been a family favorite for many years. The past few visits at this store, my mom and I both noticed that something on the salad bar items would make our tongue slightly numb. I wondered if any ingredients were rinsed in some sort of ‘food fresh’ stuff. We thought it might be the jicama or zucchini or celery – something to keep it discoloring. But this time I didn’t have any of those ingredients on my salad. I asked the waitress if the lettuce was washed in anything like that and she said it was only washed in water. But again a strange taste and odd numbing occurred after eating 2 pieces of lettuce – I didn’t eat the rest of the salad and just ate watermelon. This never used to happen in the past and don’t know why it is now. It’s not just me, it happened to my mom last time we ate there and it happened to a client last time I had a meeting there (it used to be a good place to meet clients because it offers something for everyone). We all couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but I’m thinking the lettuce and/or celery, (not sure). The usual manager wasn’t there at this time so I didn’t get to talk to him.

Thank you for your response,

Julie Howell

_____________________

their response:

Dear Ms Howell,,

Let me first say thank you for taking the time to write to us about your recent visit to our sugarland location. Our goal is to provide you with a great dining experience.

We take reports such as any possible food related issue very seriously. Please advise me if there is any further information that you need to share with me regarding your visit to our restaurant. I will certainly conduct further investigation. We do wash all our produce items in a Victory wash. The product is odor less and taste less. So that leaves me to believe that something else could of cussed your tongue to become numb.

Your feedback is very important to me and I take it very serious. Please feel free to call me if you wish to discuss this further. My phone number is 832-515-9386 and I am available anytime. I hope both you and your mom are better now and that you will give us another try. We take pride in our food quality and the food safety practices in our restaurants.

Thank you,

Jana Oravec
Distict Manager-Houston
Souper Salad, Inc.

KALE – The most nutrient dense of our greens and so beautiful. But most people only use it as decoration on their plate or you see it as decoration on salad bars.

One cup has 2.2 grams of protein.
10302 IU of vitamin A
80.4 mg of vitamin C
90.5  mg of Calcium
299 mg of Potassium
121 mg Omega 3 fatty acids
90.5 mg Omega 6 fatty acids

There is a lot more, but these are the ones with high numbers that I grabbed from NutritionData.com

I usually consume my kale in green smoothies with papaya and banana. But if you are in the mood for a crunchy tastey snack….

Kale Chips to the rescue!

Remove stems, tear up 1 or 2 bunchs of kale in big pieces. In a big bowl, drizzle some Braggs Amnios, Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar (or fresh lemon juice) on the kale pieces. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of tahini and a tablespoon or 2 of nutritional yeast.

Massage in well until everything is coated. Spread on dehydrator screens and dry at 115 degrees for an hour. Check them at this time and see if all the pieces are crisp. If not, continue to dry. They dry pretty quick, no need to have the dehydrator running all night on this one!

You can’t ruin this recipe. Adjust the recipe to your taste. Search the internet for “raw kale chips recipe” and you will find lots of variations. Some add garlic, some add blended cashews and more. Check it out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You are going to wish you bought more kale when you make these. They really do get delicate and crispy and you will be surprised how delicious they are!

Jack LaLanne made his transition today, he was 96. I grew up with that name – his name was synonymous with good health. He was a renown body builder, he wrote books, had television shows, he has a star on the walk of fame. Everyone knew of him for his outlandish feats of strength and of course because of his juicing. His website says in big letters: “YOUR HEALTH ACCOUNT IS YOUR WEALTH ACCOUNT!” and “LONG LIVE LIVING LONG!”

Really great and so true! Visit this page on his website to see some of the old television exercise shows “The Jack LaLanne Show” Do a google search for images and see him in his bodybuilding days!

At a young age he was influenced by another vibrant health maverick – Paul Bragg. Raw foodists will enjoy what Jack said during a Katie Couric interview – “If man made it, don’t eat it.” There you go, that’s really as simple as it is! 

Thank you Jack for changing the world for the better.

Jack LaLanne (September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011)

It’s time for the Urban Harvest Fruit Tree Sale! January 15 — held at the University of Houston Robertson Stadium. There are 9 pavillions like the one above right next to the stadium – with every fruit tree imaginable that can grow here on the Gulf Coast. Such a fabulous set up. This is the tropical fruit trees – avocado, bananas, star fruit, dragon fruit. The bananas were sold out in the first 30 minutes.

But we were on the hunt for dragon fruit! I sprouted some seed a couple of weeks ago – fast growers but we didn’t want to wait. Dad has a huge green house and these fellas are going to be so happy! Here he is with a good size American Beauty. Medium to large pink fruit. I also picked up a Purple Haze which has large red fruit.

These were from TreesearchFarms – owner and fruit tree expert Heidi Sheesley. Here she is answering questions for the customers today.

It was very exciting to see so many people loading up their wagons with all variety of fruit trees. If you ever want to plant trees, it should be some sort of food tree that grows well in your area!

We stood in line about 45 minutes to check out. Next year we will grab a wagon like everyone else – I guess you could tell we were first timers. The line snaked around and ended inside the covered area of the stadium. They take cash, check and credit card. Everyone… ever single person was happy and smiling! Fruit trees make you happy! Plant one today.

We’ve seen the Iron Man drinking green drinks in his movies – I rememberd a Big Screen Green Drink Alert from the 1999 remake of the Thomas Crowne Affair starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Many times in the movie Rene Russo’s character, Catherine Banning, is seen drinking a thick green drink. Obviously the green smoothie is why she has that sexy trim body!

Another more recent Big Screen Green Drink Alert…

I just saw Queen Latifa in her role as Leslie Wright in Just Wright.  She is a  physical therapist working with an NBA All-Star Scott McKnight. During his recovery she hands him what looks just like a green smoothie. (I’ll post a green smoothie scene pic when I can – this photo is just clipped from the preview).

 Have you seen a green drink on the big screen?