Sheila Chaffins with the suggestion of apple and cranberry is the winner! Congratulations, Sheila! I have notified the company to get your prize package on its way!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter the giveaway. Check back often! You never know when there will be another one and, who knows? Next time, it might be YOU!!

When I received my sample, I decided I would save the best ’til last (I’m very partial to cherries) so I started out with the Apple and Pear. It had a good flavor, quite sweet, but the texture was a little more grainy than I would have liked.

Next, I chowed down on the Apple and Apricots. I was pleasantly surprised. It had a tartness that the pear didn’t that made my tastebuds sit up and take notice. Now that was GOOD.

Saving what I thought would be the best until last, it was even later in the week that I tried the Apple and Cherries. I was quite surprised. It didn’t taste as strongly of cherries as the apricot had tasted like apricot. It was good, but I would have to admit that my favorite is the second one I ate—Apple and Apricots.

Unwrapped, you can see that the base fruit of each bar (apple) is diced into little pieces while the other seems to be pureed. From the top down, it’s pear, apricot and cherry. I could see these filling in as a quick party snack with each bar cut into thirds. They could even be dressed up a bit by rolling the pieces in unsweetened coconut.

The nutrition information is from the apricot bar. The other two vary very slightly in grams here and there.

Now, for the giveaway. All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment suggesting what one fruit paired with apple would, in your opinion, make a good fruit bar. Apple and Pear, Apple and Apricots and Apple and Cherries are all taken so they won’t qualify. If someone has already made the suggestion you want to, go ahead and put it down, anyway. I’d like to get an idea of what might be the prevailing flavor combo. Maybe the company would like to know, too. The prize? All three flavors X four (12 bars in all) in a variety pack delivered right to you in time for the holidays. (Addresses in the US, please.) The deadline for all entries is midnight EST one week from tonight, December 11. Only one entry per person, please. The winner will be picked on random.org and announced on December 12. You must give a valid working frequently checked email address. If I notify you that you have won and don’t get a reply with your snail mail address within two working days, an alternate winner will be drawn.

Good luck, everyone! Let the game begin!!

Note: This is an uncompensated review. Samples of the product were sent to the reviewer (me) so a complete, unbiased opinion could be given. The prize will be sent directly to the winner without passing through the reviewer’s hands.

And now for the giveaway part! Each person who signs up for the free course will be entered to win a Blendtec blender. Now, I’m a VitaMix girl, myself, but hey! if it’s being given away, I’ll take it! The free course is located on the drop down menu under Green Smoothie Programs.

So, click on the link and mosey on over to the Land of Green Smoothies and may the luck o’ the Irish smile on ya!

Not to keep you in suspense any longer—the winner is none other than Shari! She said she likes to sprout flax and put it in her salads. Now it’s her turn to tell us how to do it.

As soon as I can notify her via email, I’ll let Matt know where to send her gift basket. Congratulations, Shari!

Right on time, the box appeared at the post office. I didn’t open it until I got home. When I unpacked it, here’s what I found:

There was an 8 ozzie package of maca powder which I’d never used, three different flavors of flax crackers (original, hemp and Italian Zest), a bottle of flax oil and a bottle of flax oil dressing (Mike’s Special). Knowing that flax oil needs to be refrigerated, I put everything in the fridge.

My meal that evening was a large (3 quart) salad with Mike’s Special flax oil dressing. Now, I don’t know who Mike is, but he is talented at putting flavors together. The dressing reminds me of what I used to buy at a Japanese restaurant years ago. I put a tablespoonful on my salad and tossed it. That’s the serving size. I think it’s supposed to be on a smaller salad. I ended up putting probably half that much again. Later, I found that it does much better when it’s chilled. All in all, this is a delicious salad dressing—and healthful, too.

The next day, I put a tablespoonful (again, the serving size) of maca powder in my smoothie. It made it rich and oh, so yummy! It’s said to help “nourish the endocrine system, enhances the ability to deal with stress, and boosts energy, endurance, strength, and performance.” Well, who couldn’t use some aid in those areas?

That evening, it was time to break out the crackers. I was a little leery of them, to tell the truth. In the past, I have bought some and only sampled them because the seasoning was overpowering. I cautiously opened the packages and fished out small pieces of each flavor. I was pleasantly surprised. The tastes were good. Just enough. Not too little and not too much. I mashed up an avocado into “butter” and put it on the crackers. As my sister would say, they were “double-dee”! If you have to eat fava beans, the crackers and avocado along with the soup make a very good meal.

From the left, the crackers are Italian Zest, hemp and original. As we all know, flax seed is indigestible but the flax in the crackers has been sprouted before being seasoned and dehydrated. The method Foods Alive uses makes the flax easy to chew. It’s crunchy goodness.

There’s one caution that’s outlined on each of the packages. When eating dehydrated foods, it’s advised that the liquid intake should be increased.

I emailed Matt and told him I loved everything except I didn’t really know how to use the flax oil. There are proponents of taking a spoonful every day but I can’t see myself doing that. He said it can be used like olive oil (except it states on the bottle that it isn’t a cooking oil but I wouldn’t be cooking with it, anyway). Okay. I like fresh lemon or lime juice and olive oil on my salad so I substituted the flax oil. It was good and it didn’t take much!

Emails went back and forth a few times and I happened to think—when I do a review, I always give away whatever I review. This time I was EATING what I was reviewing. I asked if he would consider sponsoring a giveaway and he said yes. A gift basket containing two packages of crackers and a bottle of salad dressing could be shipped to the winner. There was one stipulation. He can only ship to an address in the USA. Sorry, my Aussie friends and those in Canada and elsewhere all over the world.

Now, the people who eat cooked food are probably thinking that these are only for raw foodists. Not so! Anyone, anywhere, would enjoy these unless they have an aversion to anything flax. So don’t be shy! Try something new!

So here are the rules. There will be only one entry per person. The entry will be in the form of a comment. The comment is to be your favorite way to incorporate flax into your diet. The contest opens as soon as this is posted tonight and will run for one week. Deadline for entries will be 11:59 p.m. EST February 13. The drawing will be on February 14, Valentine’s Day. Be sure to include your email address so I can notify you if you win. It will be visible to no one but me.

KAY! She won with only one entry which proves you don’t HAVE to come back and enter every day but it surely does improve your chances.

So, Kay, you will be getting an email from me asking for your mailing address so I can get the book out to you. Read it and let me know what you think, okay?

As for me, my two favorites are The Raw Secrets by Frederic Patenaude and The 80/10/10 Diet by Douglas Graham. The first is the book that showed me the way to the optimal raw food way of eating and the second came along several years later to confirm what I’d learned. If you have questions about eat raw, they’ll answer them for you.

The next giveaway is scheduled for May so stay tuned! It’s a good one!!

I must be upfront about my opinion of this book. It’s another compendium of facts and figures that can easily be found by Googling on the Internet. However, the authors (or hunter/gatherers) have done the work for you and brought most of it together all in one tome. I say “most” because there is only one mention that I could find about the 80/10/10 diet and only one sentence about Dr. Douglas Graham. Those two subjects are combined. I quote that sentence here:

Fruitarian advocate Douglas Graham, author of Nutrition and Athletic Performance and The 80/10/10 Diet, explicitly recommends a fruitarian diet to competitive athletes and others.

I, and I would imagine Dr. Graham himself, take issue with that statement because it is patently untrue. He considers himself a fruigivore. He doesn’t eat just fruit, nor does he advocate that for anyone else. He eats an abundance of leafy greens and veggies as well, according to the interviews I have listened to on more than one occasion. The amount of greens he recommends is 3 to 5% of total calories. If you don’t think that’s much, sit down and do the math.

And now, back to the book. There are charts and graphs and listings of foods for certain nutrients. Sample menus are included and none of them have less than 24% total fat for the day. The recipes are, mostly, ones that I would save for a special occasion. The first one looks good, though, in the nutrition and food-combining category. It’s the Pink Cadillac Smoothie. A blend of fresh squeezed orange juice, mango and strawberries is something I could drink with a clear conscience. Other than that, many of the recipes are heavy on fat. The recipe section is quite small for a 374 page book.

The back reveals two attractive ladies and a handsome man, all three with impeccable credentials. However, I haven’t been able to determine if any of the three is a raw foodist or has ever tried eating only raw food. Of course, I haven’t read every word. If someone out there who has read it would fill me in, I would appreciate it.

The references take up 37 of the pages and I saw that the interview with Doug Graham and Kevin Gianni I was listening to only today is listed there. I went through the chapter it referenced and couldn’t find anything regarding it. The index is comprehensive and repeats itself often.

For this giveaway, I’m asking for the entrants to name (by leaving a comment) a raw food book they have read and enjoyed or would like to read. Once again, each person can enter no more than once a day through next Sunday at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The random selection will take place on Tuesday, April 6 and the winner announced the following Sunday (April 11). Don’t forget to include a valid email address since that is how I will notify the winner. Be assured, your address will be used for no other purpose.

Good luck, everyone!

It is JodyLynn with the last recipe that was submitted before 11:59 PM last night, her “Pumpkin Pie Soup”! Look for it along with five others she contributed on the Awesome Rawsome Giveaway Recipes when I get around to posting them. In the meantime, you can just keep coming back to where they were originally posted and find them.

As for the next giveaway, it’s to be announced. With the holiday season coming up, I’m sure everyone has better things to do with their time. Keep checking back, though! I’ll let you know when there’s something good on the horizon.

As usual, when the time was up for entering, I went to random.org and put in the range of numbers. The qualifying entry was submitted by none other than Terry in the Keys, another forum faithful! Congratulations! So…Terry, I need you to send me your mailing address so I can drop the books in the mail to you. Let me know what you think of the books and if you try any of the recipes, give me your own review.

I’m still waiting to receive the next giveaway item so I’m not promising one for November yet. If it comes in before the deadline, I’ll post it. If not, it may be for December. Stay tuned!