When I first started Miss Best the focus was mainly on food. This is where I have my roots. I have been interested in nutrition for over 10 years. Sexy healthy food has been in my life for nearly 20 years, but two years ago I started to shift my focus when, as a business owner, I realized I was neglecting my personal well-being by solely focus on food. It’s hugely important of course, but I really did notice a certain lack of balance when I didn’t pay attention to other areas of my life like exercise, healthy relationships and my attitude to money.

This experience prompted me to widen my scope to life coaching as well as health coaching. Everything is connected. We can’t address our eating habits without considering other beliefs that we have. Take overeating, for example; does this habit mean that you ‘only’ have an issue with food, or does it mean you are eating addictive foods because it helps numb the pain you experience from not being fulfilled at work, or because you are lonely? Our physical actions start from the mind, whether we are conscious of it or not!

I was reminded of the power of the mind this week while working out. I usually really love exercising. Even if it can feel challenging at times, both finding the inclination to get into those running shoes, and sometimes during a run when reaching that 5 km target seems to take years rather than minutes; but I know that by doing my exercise not only will I feel great afterwards, but I will also avoid being disappointed with myself for not ’showing up’. To me the ‘pain’ of ‘forcing’ myself to run on an ‘I am really not in the mood’ day is less than the ‘pain’ I will feel for not sticking to my health goals.

So, the other day I was at the gym. I had been eating well. Had slept well. Physically I was on form for a good work out. But my mind didn’t want to play and it was letting me know by making it really, really hard work! ’I know you are physically able to do this …but you know what? I haven’t had enough fun with friends this week, so I am going to make as much noise as possible so that it’s really hard for you to reach your exercise goal today,’ That’s exactly what I heard it say. Well, not straight away. It took me a while to tune into what was going on. So, after my workout I made sure that I planned some fun things for the following days. And guess what? Two days later I easily reached one of my exercise targets and set a new personal best. My mind and my body were well taken care of and worked amazingly as part of a team! Wooo!

Take Action!
The Mind is so influential; our physiology and internal chemistry too affect our motivation and ability to take action. So, we need to pay attention to looking after ourselves as an entirety. Which parts of your life are you not paying attention to? Are you having enough fun? Are you allowing yourself to have rewarding relationships with supportive people? Are you treating your body to healthy food and good exercise? Are you taking care of your finances so that you are not worrying about your security all the time? Are you bored of your food or exercise routine, or your social life or work? We need variety, and to feel fulfilled and that we are contributing to something!

What one small step can you take this week to remedy this? If you have more than one area that needs improving, pick the one that has the biggest impact on the other areas of your life.

Please do feel free to leave a comment below, Gorgeous! It’s great to share tips and experiences, and I personally love to hear what you are up to.

Have a fantastic weekend!

If you would like to have help with working towards your goals and balance body and mind you may be interested in my coaching programme. You can read about it here >>

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I am a very lucky girl because I know some really scrummy and inspiring people. One of these is the gorgeous Corrina Gordon-Barnes from You Inspire Me who helps many, many people turn their passion into a profitable business.

Corrina recently interviewed me about the lack of energy that business owners frequently feel, and what we can do about it. She captured this interview on video, and I am very happy to share this with you today. So I invite you to take a peek…this is actually my first video appearance, and is a great opportunity for those of you who I have not yet had the pleasure to meet to get to know me a little better!

If you would like to join us on the 27th November in London to help burst through that energy block and get things moving again then scoot on over to this page and secure your place!

Interesting fact: Do you know how Corrina and I met? A few years ago, I was working on a project and wanted the domain name youinspireme.co.uk. When I discovered it was taken, I had to go see which clever person had already bagged it. It was love at first sight, and the rest is history! And it’s thanks to Corrina that I met the lovely Rosanna and Blanka, who are co-hosting the workshop! See…amazing what curiosity can bring!

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In April 2009 I bought a house. I wasn’t so much in love with the house as with the surroundings. Commuting distance from the center of Stockholm but set on a beautiful peninsula. Venturing outside the house, a two minute stroll would bring you to a peaceful lake, complete with a petite sandy beach and jetty that stretched out, out into the water towards the sunny horizon. If your legs took you further, a wooded path would take you along the water’s edge, across a meadow and back into the woods.

For lazier moments a giant garden with fruit trees and all-day sun (when Ms Sunshine was out to play) provided a grassy bed for reading and sky gazing.

But this house needed some work. For two and half years it was in varying states of progress. Paint pots. Boxes of homeless possessions while room x or y was being worked on. Dust. Oh the dust! Sometimes it felt pointless trying to be tidy. It never felt clean or orderly no matter how much one excelled at being a domestic goddess.

But now she is finally complete. She is enjoying her new beauty and flirts tremendously well, posing magnificently for photos and batting her luscious eyelids at anyone who cares to glance her way. And I am finding it so much easier to be a domestic goddess. Oh the joy of having decent storage! Oh the joy of living in new, sexy surroundings! And I find it very motivating to keep things clean and tidy for I can easily see the results.

Living in a bit of a mess for 2.5 years is a somewhat familiar feeling as it is how I feel about my body. There have been stages in my life where I haven’t exercised regularly, where I have been eating the wrong kind of foods. Comfort eating. Eating out of boredom. Eating just to feel something! My rationale then was ‘ well I look and feel like crap anyway, another tub of ice-cream / bottle of wine / 3 of Nigella Lawson’s fatty buns won’t make any difference.’

But when I am eating well and working out I feel good. It is so much easier to keep eating well and exercising when I can easily see the benefits and I certainly don’t want to regress to my previous state of a lumpy sack. Sure in the beginning it takes some work to get into the routine (for that is all it is!) of knowing what to eat and planning time for exercise, but after a while it becomes just part of your life. This is what I eat. This is how I spend some of my time. I work out. I am a runner or I go to the gym. I feel good.

Please don’t think I am bragging or looking down at anyone who doesn’t have the pleasure of feeling good. What I am trying to say is that if something is in a good state it is easier to keep it that way! Going from lumpy sack to bouncy goddess may require a bit of a push, but once you get going, momentum grabs you by your hand and pulls you half way.

This is one of the reasons I love coaching. It doesn’t have to be a life-long experience, but many people benefit from getting help in the early stages to find out what they want to achieve and how they can do it, and most importantly being supported by someone who cares so damn much about you achieving it that they will prod, poke and hug you into getting it done!

I have recently been working with a delicious woman business owner here in Stockholm. I helped show her what healthy foods to eat to increase her energy, loose weight, and beat those pesky sugar cravings. Just after one week she was looking so good! After a few months of working together she now has the knowledge and motivation to keep things ticking along the track she wants to follow by herself. Maybe she will want some more coaching in the future when she decides to approach new challenges, who knows! But for now she is looking and feeling so much better than a few months ago!

This is what she says “The advice and help she (Miss Best) has given will be priceless to me for many years to come and will help me to continue growing in both my business and personal life.” Read her full testimonial here!

If you feel that you need some help, encouragement and guidance to getting your momentum going to grab your life and business by the hand and dance in the direction you want it to go (rather than the other way round) then please feel free to get in touch! You don’t even have to live in Stockholm to work with me! Email: hello@miss-best.com

Have a fantastic weekend!

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As I mentioned in my previous blog, I have been going through some pretty exciting major life changes recently. Naturally, the need to create a new path didn’t just happen over night, but in my case, it certainly made itself heard overnight. Or rather, I suddenly heard it overnight…and boy by the time I did hear it, it was SHOUTING!!

It actually happened one weekend in March on a visit to the UK. That weekend I had met up with my lovely friend Rosanna and met, for the first time, another delicious girlie, called Blanka. The lovely Rosanna is a fab and funky yoga teacher and the beautiful Blanka is a goddess of the raw kitchen.

I had no idea that this highly delicious weekend would so dramatically crank up the volume of my inner voice and launch me into a dynamic period of change (as well as the amazing energy of the girls, I swear Blanka’s raw chocolate cake had something to do with this…seriously!). But I easily sensed that the seed of an exciting project was about to germinate. You know that feeling, when something just clicks so nicely that it’s impossible to not turn ideas into action?

Since us three girls have a similar love of funky, healthy, energetic things, we decided to pool our knowledge and skills together to put on a rather delicious workshop to help and inspire other self-employed women to boost their energy, re-ignite their passion for their business, meet like-minded ladies and generally show them a good time.

And so our workshop ‘High Energy for Entrepreneurial Women’ was born. We are holding our first one in London on 27th November 2011 and would love, love, just love you to join us for a day of energizing yoga, delicious vibrant food (all raw!), inspiration for goal setting, a talk on energizing (raw) food plus tips on how to boost your energy.

We are ridiculously excited about this event. During my recent trip to the UK, I had a reminder of how fab these girls are by attending a couple of Rosanna’s yoga classes and sampling more of Blanka’s amazing food (raw vegan cheese and crackers, and raw banoffee pie lingers seductively in my taste bud memory).

Indeed, we are so excited about the possibility of you joining us, we are offering an early bird discount on the price of a ticket, so that you can save a yummy £40 to spend on other things. So scoot on over to this page and check out this event. Make sure you secure your place before Sunday 14th August 2011 to slurp up the special price!

In the meantime I shall do my very best to sample as many of Blanka’s desserts as possible, just to make sure that the perfect selection is made for you. Perhaps some more of that life-changing chocolate cake would be just the rocket fuel you need…

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I have been a bit quiet recently. But just on the blogging and newsletter front. You see there are huge, huge changes going on in my life right now, so there have been other priorities in my head. I would really like to share these exciting experiences just because I am learning so so much from them and my developments are just a living proof that with the right knowledge and support we can emerge from something potentially crushing simply shining, empowered and hugely excited about life.

Before I start, I would like give myself a little high-five for being so publicly open about my personal life in this post. A few years ago, I was too shy to even register on a forum let alone leave a comment, or write a blog post or anything like that. I’ve not always been this brave, but boy, is life fun when you start pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone!

Basically my whole life has gone upside down, inside out, side-step, tango, waltz, fox-trot and jitterbug.

Since April I have done the following:

- amicably ended a very lovely 8.5 year relationship

- changed my ‘day job’ (I quit an unfulfilling job in finance and now work part-time in Business Development for an inspiring company that works with personal development and leadership training and I will soon go on to facilitate workshops and coach individuals)

- finished renovating my house in order to put it on the market

- thought long, long, long and hard about where I want to live in this world (I’ll keep you posted on my decision!)

- re-homed my beautiful dog (heart-break city!) as I wont be able to give her the attention and time she needs to thrive after my house is sold

- started doing fun but brave things such as Dj:ing

- expanded my social life in Sweden and UK by about a million % (which takes quite a bit of coordinating actually!)

And at the same time making exciting progress with my company:

- qualified as a Vegetarian and Vegan Nutrition Consultant

- launched my coaching services and seen some amazing results with a fabulous client!

- joined up with 2 lovely girls to plan a fab High Energy workshop in London in November 2011 (read all about it here)

When writing this it just feels like a list of things, but it when you are actually in it and living it, it really is incredibly intense and challenging. And I am sure that if you have ever done any of these things you will appreciate just how much they can impact your life…let alone when all happening at the same time in the space of a few months!

The most amazing thing I have experienced is that by applying all the things I learned over the years, I have not only managed to survive this incredibly turbulent time, but I feel that I am leaping from it full of love and life and zest for new exciting things.

Here is what has been the key to keeping me sane, happy and healthy:

1. Raw Food
I have been really motivated to keep as high-raw as possible simply because I immediately notice the positive effects. Cooked food does not give me the clear mind and the super high energy that I have needed for this period. Having a clear mind means that I am able to analyse my feelings much better and make sensible decisions. It has also prevented me from comfort eating and numbing any pain with things like refined sugar or heavy comfort food like toast! Working through these feelings is far more progressive and healing I find!

2. Avoiding stimulants
Staying clear of coffee, refined sugar and alcohol has also reduced the risk of feeling any extra anxiety and keeps my blood sugar stable. If I feel I need pepping up then I will either go for a run, or have a little nibble on some raw chocolate instead, which does not shock my body like coffee does. If I need the relaxing effects that alcohol can give, I do some yoga or exercise and make sure I take a few deep deep breaths. I have also been very kind to myself and when I do really feel I need time out, I will take it. Sometimes that means saying no to some people and commitments, but in the long run this ’selfish act’ is a great investment and actually makes me a nicer person to be around!

3. Exercise
This has really been a saviour. Exercise relieves stress tremendously and there is nothing like a good work out to release mood-elevating endorphins. I am also finding it really fun to set myself physical goals and challenges which offers a great respite from the emotional ones I have been experiencing!

I have also found that I have stayed away from comfort eating rubbish food or binging on booze (like I have done in previous years when facing a challenging time) because moderate exercise makes me feel a lot better. And since I know how good working-out makes me feel, it means that I don’t want to feel hungover or sluggish from comfort eating and therefore refrain from eating and drinking naughtiness.

4. Positive supportive and inspiring people
I am so in love with the people that I have in my life these days! I find I tend to stay away from people who deal with their unhappiness by trying to bring others down with negative remarks and energy. At a time when you need to be really brave, you need people who support you. Even if you don’t personally know people like this, reading inspiring books and blogs, or connecting with others on the internet or by attending inspiring events is a true gift!

5. Coaching
I draw on the wisdom I get from my coach and from my own knowledge of coaching. This is such a powerful tool for personal growth and bursting through challenging times. Becoming aware of why we think and act in certain ways is hugely empowering, and mastering the skills of breaking things down into small achievable steps is so useful . Oh, I could go on and on about this, but I wont. But it really has made the difference between crumbling into a heap of despair and rising out the ashes like a glorious, sassy phoenix!

So, dear friend, that is what my life has been the past few months. There are lots of exciting and challenging times ahead, but I am learning so much and am actually feeling pretty bloomin’ spectacular.

I really hope this post inspires you to see any challenging period you experience as an opportunity to grow and do brave things. It really is quite amazing!

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Sugar addiction is extremely common. Especially for us girls. We just seem to love our cakes, chocolate, tubs of luxury ice-cream, cookies and well let’s face it, anything that’s sweet and yummy!

Sugar is a naughty little monster as it messes with our blood sugar, causing spikes and dips which means that we get a sudden rush (woohoo) followed by a huge drop in energy (gimme more chocolate!). So we get stuck in this loop of kicks and drops. You need an energy boost, so you feast on sugary snacks, then when the sugar wears off you need more to get through the day.

And of course sugar creates an acid-state in your body, (disease, especially cancer, loves acid and sugary bodies) and contributes to obesity and diabetes. If these dangers don’t motivate you enough to address your sugar consumption (‘I might get run over by a bus before I sick…’) then you can certainly benefit your ‘now’ by tweaking your habits. Changing your eating habits and reducing the amount of sugar (refined sugar in particular) will really help your energy levels. As an ex-sugar addict I can certainly confirm this!

I do believe that part of the solution is actually realising that sugar is an addictive substance and that you really don’t ‘need’ your cookies and sweet treats. Of course they are yummy, and can socially bond us (Is anything better than sharing a yummy cake with your best girl friends?…well, apart from the obvious ) but often if we really look at the reasons why we are munching on sugar all day, we can make great steps to breaking unhealthy habits and replacing them with equally (if not more) yummy, energy-giving and fun things!

Here are some tips for you:

1. Do you turn to sugar snacks when you need an energy boost?
Have a look at what you are eating. Make sure you are eating wholefoods (eg brown rice and whole wheat pasta or bread) instead of eg white rice, bread and pasta. The complex carbs in wholegrain alternatives give you a more sustained energy release, so you are less likely to dip heavily after a meal. If you do need a snack choose something with fiber and natural sugars to prevent further blood sugar spikes eg some fruit and a handful of unroasted, unsalted nuts like almonds or cashews. And make sure you are eating lots of fresh, energy boosting raw veggies like salads! And don’t skip any meals…you are more likely to make better eating choices with a level blood sugar and clear head!

2. Are sugary treats a helpful prop when you need comfort?
Explore other ways that can bring you relief and love. How about calling a lovely friend or going for a walk with someone to talk things through? How about getting some exercise? It really boosts your mood and if you choose a sport/exercise class that really requires your focus it is great for shifting your mind from a certain problem and giving your heart a little break from sadness and worry. Or try treating yourself to something else. A massage maybe (ask a friend/lover for a free one!) or a nice relaxing bath. Don’t have time? PLEASE make time. You have to look after yourself. If you don’t then who will? Really…

3. Do you just love the taste? Well, you are not alone! I love desserts so much I made it my goal to become a healthy-dessert goddess so that I can have my cake, eat it and not feel horrid afterwards! Try out some new recipes that use healthier sweeteners such as dried fruit or low GI agave syrup. Check out my recipe book for 43 super sexy ideas!!

A little warning: dried fruit and raw desserts can still raise the blood sugar. Of course they also deliver minerals and other great nutrients, and are heck of a lot better than refined sugary treats. Just don’t live off them ok!? Remember to eat your greens!…

4. Add more greens to your diet!
The more greens you eat, the less you tend to crave sugar. Drink green juice and green smoothies. Add lots of green leaves to your salads. Try spinach, rocket, lambs lettuce, watercress… Find your favorite! Wheat grass juice is particularly good for battling sugar cravings!

5. Switch those sugary/caffeinated drinks for water!
Even fruit juice can cause blood sugar dips (still healthier than soda of course) but just keep an eye on that, and dilute with water if necessary. Water keeps you hydrated and energized! Explore which herb teas take your fancy instead of coffee or black tea. Caffeine also messes with your energy levels!

6. Taking a yummy sugar trip out of boredom?
Maybe your job makes you yawn, or you find yourself stuck to the sofa and TV in the evenings? What steps do you need to take to change your job? Is there a hobby you would like to start/take up again? Start thinking about how you want your life to look like. Maybe you need some motivation or guidance from a friend or coach to get you started, but once you change your habits you will have more energy to start living the life you actually love!

I hope this helps you start thinking about those naughty little sugar monsters! Let me know how you get on!

Remember to check out my other blog posts for yummy healthy desserts to help you on your way!

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This morning I woke up with a bit of a sore throat. Fortunately, I do not suffer much from things like this, and if I do I am not one for running off to the chemists for a pharmaceutical remedy.

I am, of course, much more into the ‘let thy food be thy medicine’ approach. I had recently learned that pineapples are good for easing a sore throat, as is ginger, and this reminded me of a smoothie that I tried in Copenhagen that I wanted to re-create and share with you. And as I happened to have a lovely organic pineapple just begging to be used, I thought that this would be the perfect occasion.

As well as helping ease the throat, this smoothie contains a lot of vitamin C which is excellent for the body, especially if you feel you are fighting something like a cold. But it’s really yummy too, so you don’t have to be under the weather to enjoy it!

Feel free to play around with the measurements; we all like different tastes (eg more or less ginger), and not all fruit tastes the same (eg some apples may be sweeter than others).

Serves 2
1 pineapple
3 apples
Fresh ginger – around 2 cm piece
2 bananas
100g -200g blueberries. Fresh or frozen. If using fresh, you may like to add a little ice.

Juice the pineapple, apples and ginger. Pour the juice into a blender and blend together with the bananas and blueberries.

Slurp, enjoy and be well!

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Oh, dear Reader. It has been an age since I last wrote to you. There have been some exceptionally interesting changes to my life of late. I’m sure I’ll fill you in on these, piece by piece, but one thing I can mention is that I have been fortunate to add some extra zing to my days by indulging in a spot of country hopping.

At the beginning of the year, I made a promise to myself to spend more time with family and friends, and since we all are spread out a bit over Europe, it has meant that –what a shame- I have had to combine this with a spot of travelling.

I gave some tips when travelling in the raw in a previous post, and I am still totally into seeking out juice bars whenever I arrive or depart from an airport or train station.

I write this from Copenhagen airport in a deliciously funky juice bar called Joe & the Juice. I am totally digging the vibe here. Upbeat dance music, good choice of juices (including some nice and green ingredients like spinach and celery) and rather club-like furniture. Oh, and of course there is the titchy-tiny bonus of an all male…sorry, all young hot male…crew behind the bar.

They have a juice called ‘Sex me up’, and on my first visit here a few days ago, I so longed to ask the young man behind the bar for such an order, but alas I didn’t feel that the ingredients – passion fruit, apple, ginger – would be what my body needed since I was actually a bit hungry and wanted something more filling. The good news was that they had a smoothie with avocado, which I knew would do the trick. Not too sweet and nice and satisfying. The downside was that it had the rather un-sexy name of “Fiber active”. Damn! I may as well have asked for a litre of prune juice and an enema kit.

I was, however, able to redeem myself on this visit by telling the youthful blonde who served me that I would really love some “young blood”. And so I am sipping this rather delicious and cleansing cocktail of celery, lemon, apple and ginger as I write this. As I mentioned, I prefer more green in my juice. Too much sweet fruit will make my blood-sugar levels crash and leave me without the zingy energy that I love so much.

The great thing with topping up on juices when travelling is that they really hydrate you without making you all heavy and sluggish before your journey. Such a better alternative to booze or coffee. Especially if you are getting a bit of eye candy while you suck on Joe’s juice!

If you are not lucky enough to find some decent eye candy, sorry, I mean juice, while travelling then do make sure you carry some groovy snacks in your bag to keep your energy up while scooting around the country/world. Here are some ideas.

• Apples
• Celery sticks
• Cucumber (These days, I literally just travel around with a whole cucumber in my bag. I have given up being dainty and cutting it into sticks. I find it much quicker to throw the whole thing in my bag and munch on it as and when. I find that if you don’t cut it into pieces, the cucumber stays fresher if you don’t eat it straight away; besides, cutting it would require a knife, which you may not always have on you, seeing as though you are not MacGyver!
• Nuts (raw and unsalted if possible. You don’t want the salt the dehydrate you)
• Seeds eg hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds
• Raw energy bars
• Raw chocolate bars
• Raw crackers

To stay really refreshed I try and eat more green things like the cucumber and celery with apple rather than going crazy on sweet fruit, dried fruit and sweet raw bars, which again can mess with your blood sugar.

I also usually carry a dodging looking bag of spirulina, barley grass and maca to stir into juice if I am really feeling that I need some green. Though I did refrain from that this time. Well, rather I forgot, since I was a tad distracted by the view…I mean yummy juice …

You can find Joe & the Juice bars in Denmark and London

www.joejuice.com

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During the week, I am very happy to drink green juices or green smoothies for breakfast, and then munch on fruit and a few nuts during the morning, but on the weekend I really do enjoy making more of an occasion of breakfast.

Instead of stodgy croissants and muffins, this raw apple pie will make you feel that you are treating yourself to something very special, yet with all the goodness of a super healthy breakfast. It’s pretty quick to make, and it doesn’t require any planning (as long as you have the ingredients, of course) so if you get the urge you can whip this up on a cosy Sunday morning.

Obviously it also makes a wonderful dessert or snack. Seriously, I LOVE this way of eating – when ‘treating’ yourself to something actually treats your body too! When your yummy dessert-breakfast is healthier than most people’s choice of food for the entire day, you know you are on to a great thing!

So here is the recipe. Enjoy, enjoy and enjoy some more!! You are worth looking after.

Apple Crumble
Serves 2 – 4

I really do think this is a fantastic alternative to apple crumble. OK, so it’s not hot, like an oven-fresh crumble, but it really does resemble the room temperature ‘left-overs’ of a cooked one that I have enjoyed on more than one occasion. Serve this with raw (or regular dairy-free) versions of ice-cream or vanilla sauce and you will be even more convinced!

Crumble Topping
1 cup mixed nuts e.g. almonds, cashew, hazelnuts
4 dates, stones removed
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoons Maple or agave syrup (or a couple of moist dates)
Pinch salt

Filling
500 g apples plus 1 large apple
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/5 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/5 teaspoon ground ginger
1/5 teaspoon ground cloves
1 ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
4 dates, stones removed
½ tablespoons agave syrup (or 2 extra dates)
Pinch salt
Pinch of vanilla powder / ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon psyllium powder
¼ cup raisins
½ teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Core and quarter the 500g of apples (reserve the large one for later) and process to a purée in a food processor. Add the orange juice, cardamom, ginger, cloves and cinnamon, dates, agave syrup, vanilla, and salt. Blend together well. While the food processor is on, sprinkle in the psyllium powder. Stir in by hand the raisins and orange and lemon zest. Core the remaining apple and chop into small pieces, then stir this into the filling mixture, also by hand.

Spoon the filling into a dish. Make the topping by processing all the ingredients together to get a nice crumble texture. Spoon over the filling. Store in the fridge if you are not eating this dessert straight away.

Did you like this recipe? Enjoy 42 more in my e-book ‘Loving Life – Loving Desserts: 43 delicious, but secretly healthy, recipes to make you smile’ is available from www.miss-best.com

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As you may have heard, at the end of October Kate Magic held a talk and workshop here in Stockholm. It was a true pleasure for me to host Miss Magic, and a real honour to get to spend a few days with her.

We had a really good turn out with very high quality guests, and I really look forward to getting to know my new raw friends from the events.

I would love to share with you what I learned from the talk and the workshop, but I could probably fill a whole book with the inspiration and information I gained, and seeing as though Kate has already done so, I recommend instead that you read Kate’s book Raw Magic and/or go to one of these events if she comes to a venue near you. Check out her events page here >>

There are, however, three things that I can summarise:

1. Going to events like Raw Magic will bring you more than you can imagine. It’s not just about information, you come away with a new spark of passion, a perky boost of inspiration and a pocket full of phone numbers and email addresses for like-minded people in your area
2. Sneaking superfoods into your food is actually pretty easy when you get the inspiration. Maca, for example (a powder made from maca root that is a great energy booster and helps balance the body and hormones) is not very tasty on its own, but a little spoonful in a raw mayonnaise for example will bring some potent power without the taste.

   And I am sure that not many would disagree when I say that eating a little superfood-laced raw chocolate cake is a rather heavenly way to increase your nutrient intake! I believe it’s just about getting into the habit of pimping up the nutrient content of your food with potent superfoods. The Raw Magic events and book really help you get into the habit!

3. When you need to boost your body and mind into overdrive without burning yourself out, raw food is really the premium choice. The week of Kate’s visit was pretty intense (especially as I had been organizing everything while working full time on other projects) with late nights and early mornings, but I felt really focused, and each morning I woke up thanking the power of raw and superfoods that my energy levels were sustained despite missing meals and being on the go all the time.

   It can be easy to get used to the benefits of eating a high raw diet, and sometimes I take it for granted. When I compare how I felt during that week with previous times before I discovered raw food, when I used to work with organizing conferences, for example, having enough energy to actually enjoy the event rather than being burned out just from the organization is a true gift. My recovery after this intense period was also a lot quicker!

It’s been three weeks since the Raw Magic events and I am happy to say that the magic remains, and my witchy intuition tells me that it’s going to lead to some great things for many people.

I have another exciting event in mind, so watch this space for some more inspiring events and raw cake! (If you don’t want to miss out on future announcements, make sure you sign up for my e-zine!)

Thanks to Hedvig for the great venue for the workshop and the lovely images!
http://www.pudlarpelargoner.blogspot.com/

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