There s a raw juice movement sweeping the nation, as it seems to do from time to time. I remember my family briefly going through a similar craze when I was young. It seems to be a binge and purge business, there one minute, gone the next. This goes a long way toward explaining the impressive selection of juicers to be found in many suburbian rummage sale block parties. Well, color me a bandwagoner, I m hooked. For how long it will last, no one knows. Many folks in the raw food community are onboard already, such as Phillip, Heidi, and Kris, to name just a few. Last week I wrote about my favorite fresh juice, or more precisely, about its color. This week were showing how to make it. Without further ado, we give you The Director s Cut. The Director s Cut: 2-3 large carrots, to taste 2 ribs celery ½ cucumber ½ green apple 1 small beet 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger Since weve been slow posting this past week, were going to be sure to include a bonus recipe in this week s edition of our mailing list, the Freshtopian. If you haven t already signed up, just enter your preferred email address in the widget at the sites upper right corner. That issue will be coming out this Sunday, so be sure to tell all the neighborhood kids to sign up to receive the free recipe and secret decoder ring. no, there s no decoder ring. Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

I m growing to really love Michael Pollan. Among other things, Pollan s seventeen minute TED Talk (above) takes us on a tour of the survival of the fittest, from a grass-eye perspective. Pollan, director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley, is probably best known for his 2006 book The Omnivore s Dilema. Regardless of your views on omnivorousness, vegetarianism, veganism, Pollan gets people thinking deeper about food and where it comes from, and that is a true service to our surprisingly nature-starved culture. Alas, you won t find many fun graphics or sound effects, but if you re a foodie and care about the world around you, you many find this interesting. This far-ranging talk covers ground from the human genome project to the sophisticated yet simply logical permaculture of Polyface Farms. You can check out some of the other TED Talks here. Oscar Director, Freshtopia.net

I don’t know why I’m only getting around to posting this now, it’s quite a treasure. A few months ago our resident Tanja-avatar-designer and most prolific video commenter, Steelee, told me about this post he had found on how to build a better mousetrap. The contraption is easy to build, effective, mouse-merciful, essentially free, and is more fun to watch than American Gladiators on ice. The jist is this: Flatten one side of a toilet paper tube Put a meal fit for a rodent at one end, a bit of peanut butter works great Get a tall trash can or bucket, 20 inches minimum Precariously place the tube on a table or counter edge, balanced with the treat end hanging over the bucket below The mouse, craving both peanut butter and confined spaces, will crawl into the tube Mouse, and tube, topple into the awaiting receptacle below Drop the critter off in the country, a mile or two away, where it’ll be healthier, if not happier The original post comes from a chap named Chris Glass. I’ve been dropping in on his site often, ever since Steelee sent me the link. The site is filled with great design, photographs, and a journal section worth checking out often. It reminds me of a personal version of one of my favorite art sites, CoolHunting. Thanks for the use of the illustrations Chris! UPDATE :: Speaking of video commenting, Steelee and Jessica just sent me this video of their TP-tube mousetrap. These two are so talented, they didn t even need the tube! Oscar Director, Freshtopia.net

This Valentines day, weve gone buck-rogers with a racy show about aphrodisiacs! For the occasion weve concocted a pulse-pounding chocolate sauce chock-full of sensuous spices like maca, cayenne, and cinnamon to get you in the mood for love. Treat your sweetie, (or yourself!) and use it to top some of our fabulous nearly raw vegan ice cream from episode #0055, or if you live in New York City, grab some awesome raw vegan ice cream from Pure Food and Wine. Feel the love! Ginger-Cardamom Ice Cream: 1 recipe Simply Vanilla Ice Cream Base and add to the blender: 1T fresh ginger juice, OR 2t dried ginger 1/8t cardamom Sensuous Spicy Chocolate Sauce: Serves 2 with extra for drizzling! 3T raw cocoa 1t maca powder 1t carob powder 1/4t cinnamon pinch cayenne pepper pinch sea salt agave syrup to moisten, about 4T water as needed Whisk all sauce ingredients in a small dish, add water if the mixture remains un-saucy. Serve portions of the ice cream topped with the sauce, fresh banana and chopped raw almonds. Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), MPEG4 Video (.mp4), Flash Video (.flv)

Thanks largely to the inspiration of Heidi Ohlander and Philip McClusky, I’ve been on a bit of a raw juicing jag for the last week. This trend is going around at the moment and I’ve finally gotten on board, or at least am beginning to wade in. While many are going on an all-juice diet for a period of weeks or months, that is not my fate, there are too many other components to my cancer diet that I need to adhere to. In fact, this post isn’t even about juicing. It’s about the color of beets. While I have been getting the charge associated with juicing, mostly I find myself drawn to the amazing colors I’ve been finding in the process. I come from an art background; I graduated with my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and spent four years showing my paintings and sculptures before starting my own animation and video business. Yes, I actually made a living as a painter, believe it or not. I’ve always been attracted to earthen tones, black, and deep, brooding reds. These colors found their way into most of my paintings back in the day, circa nine or more years ago. Now fast forward to the present, and Freshtopia.net. I had never consciously considered how my preferred color palette in paintings of old might affect my tastes on the show, be it in food or show aesthetics. I just realized it has. The juicing phenom didn’t really resonate with me until a beet was thrown into the mix. As soon as a small dose of the ruby elixer entered my glass it overwhelmed, visually at least, the rest of the carrot, ginger, apple and celery juice. When the reds hit it was like something was triggered in my mind, making is something that I suddenly had to have. Yes, I like the taste of beets well enough, but in this case it was the color that got me. Interestingly, many foods deep red in color have substantial cancer-fighting properties. Tomatoes are high in lycopene, an anti-cancer powerhouse. The capsaicin found in chili peppers is a powerful antioxidant. And the chemical agent in beets that give them their rich red-purple, betacyanin, is a clinically proven cancer fighter. Beets are also associated with reduced heart disease and birth defect rates. Click here to read more about the health benefits of beets. Oh, and studies cited in the former link suggest that the anti-cancer properties of beets are greatly diminished by heat and cooking, so eat them raw, or at least take it easy on the heat. Sidebar: The thing about juicing that has always bothered me a bit is the idea of throwing away all that perfectly good pulp. As such, two days ago I decided to add a bunch of pulp to a batch of flax crackers I was putting together. The next day when they were finished I was very excited to see that I had two-tone crackers, one side beet-red, the other flax-gold, again a faithful representation of my palette of choice. Apparently the liquid(ish) flax base settled through the more fibrous pulp layer – gold on the bottom, red on the top. Ok, enough romancing the red. This was all just an excuse for a little food porn anyways. Perhaps I’m a vampire at heart. I propose that in a world of vegetarian vampires, beets would be the fix of choice.

This episode we take you on a quick and dirty (and occasionally bloody) history of Valentines Day.  The story of this holiday and its patron saint is still a bit of a mystery.  From Roman pagan festivals (Lupercalia), to saintly love letters sent from the joint, the truth behind the origins of Saint Valentines Day continue to illude.  Be sure to check back next Tuesday, when we ll be showing you how to make some festive pagan treats of your own. -Oscar Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), MPEG4 Video (.mp4), Flash Video (.flv)

Happy Lunar New Year! February 7, 2008 begins the year of the Rat, the first year of the Chinese zodiac, a time of activity and renewal. Today we’ll take you on a quick tour of lunar new year basics, factoids, and food traditions. It is said that this is a good year to make a fresh start, and after the year we’ve had, we couldn’t agree more! As uncertified joy practitioners, we here at Freshtopia.net love a good reason to celebrate and eat some delicious food. So why not wear a little red, do a spot of cleaning (a lunar new year tradition), bring some fresh blossoms into your home and enjoy some healthy, auspicious fruits and vegetables? In addition to tossing a little green, Tanja put together a wonderful, earthy, spicy parsnip noodle salad for this episode. We’ll be putting the recipe in the next edition of the Freshtopian, so if you haven’t already signed up, do so by entering your preferred address in the field at the site’s upper-right. Once you’ve had a chance to check out Tanja’s little nerd-core rap tribute above, take a look at the video below. MC frontalot is making me lose my mind, and his glasses look like mine, which is splendid. Special thanks to Justin Winokur, and Hello This Is Alex for letting us use their music in our show. And thanks to Brian Beggerly, Jakob Montrasio, John Haslam, Jim Winstead, and Laughlin Elkind for releasing their great photos under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.

Sometimes things don’t work out quite like one envisions them. This recipe was inspired by Anthony, aka the Raw Model, and his nifty list of 5 things to eat every day for health and beauty. It was a well-intentioned soup, simple and unassuming, comprised of some of my very favorite things to eat, all in one convenient bowl. What we ended up with however, was a watery bowl of grayish-green horror, with a crime-scene chili swirl. Sorry Anthony. Despite the soup’s tragic disposition, the episode may be worth a check-out, if nothing more than as a cautionary tale. “What not to do with grapefruits.” The music, by our friend Justin Winokur, is great, and there is a healthy dose of nervous laughs to accompany. If we’re still friends after you watch this, consider tuning in next week. Among other things we’ll be showing you how to make our variation of green lemonade, as well as blogging up a storm. Here’s the recipe, so you know what to avoid… Sundried Tomato-Chipotle Swirl: 1/3C olive oil 1/4C sundried tomatoes 1 small dried chipotle pepper 1t mustard Sea salt and pepper to taste Grapefruit Avocado Soup: 2 large grapefruit, peel and pith removed 1 large avocado ½ cucumber, peeled (about 1C chopped) 1/4C sweet white onion Sea salt and pepper to taste Soak the tomatoes and the chili in warm water until soft and pliant, about 1 hour. Remove seeds and stems from the chili and blend all the swirl ingredients in a food processor until saucy, yet slightly chunky texture is achieved. Peel the grapefruit and remove as much of the pith as you want. Place in blender with all other soup ingredients and blend until smooth, adding as little water or oil as necessary to blend. Divide soup among bowls, and top with the tomato-chili swirl. Serves none, if you’re lucky!

Today Tanja takes us on a quick and winding historical journey into the world of the grapefruit. Born in Barbados in the 1700s, this surprisingly young fruit is wonderously bright and precocious for its age. A veritable cancer-fighting super agent, grapefruit is also a cold-killer and an inflammation assassin. Consider signing up for our once-per-week mailing list, The Freshtopian, if you haven t already. You ll receive show updates, Freshtopia news, and free recipes! Just enter your preferred email address in the field at the upper-right of the screen. Thanks to the wonderful Justin Winokur, for the use of his tracks Scary Monster Mobile , and So Alone. Check out Justin s other work here.

This episode would probably be better simply titled “Sage-Pistachio Pesto”, but the allure and onomatopoeia possibilities of the word squash were too many to avoid. This recipe is another winner. We originally shot this episode before we left on our cross-country train trip, but we had the dish again last night and I can honestly say it’s even better the second time. I’ll be asking for this one again soon. The episode calls for shredded butternut squash as a base, though after trying it over shredded parsnip last night, I have a slight preference for the latter. Recipe below the fold! Sage-Pistachio Pesto: ½ Cup fresh sage ½ Cup raw pistachios 1/3 Cup olive oil 1 small clove garlic 1 T nutritional yeast Peel, de-vein, and chop garlic. Add all pesto ingredients to food processor and blend to desired consistency. Serve over julienned butternut squash, or the shredded vegetable of your choice. Be sure to note our snazzy new difficulty rating system, the Freshtopian Blender Scale. I ranges from 1-5, 1 being the easiest and using the least equipment, 5 pulling out all the stops and rolling in all the heavy gunnery. There are some sound glitches in this one… nothing new, but irritating none the less. It’ll be some time before we can do much about that I’m afraid. Hey, it’s a labor of love and it’s free for all. Thanks once more to Justin Winokur for his generous contribution of just the right music. Happy new year Justin! Oscar PS- if you like the show, consider recommending it to a friend! You could also help spread the word by linking to Freshtopia.net from your blog.