Zesty dressings are an easy way to increase the amount fresh raw ingredients eaten on a daily basis, and will add innovative flavors and textures to what might otherwise be a hum-drum salad. Often a tantalizing dressing is all that's needed to enliven a simple bowl of greens and wake up our tastebuds. A hearty raw dressing, such as Sundried Tomatoes with Sesame Seeds and Celery (a cousin to Thousand Island Dressing), is great to use with celery, tomatoes, snap peas, carrots, and all salads in general. It's so thick it can even be used as a dip. The sesame seeds add protein, calcium, and give a substantial, full feeling. If you're thinking of steaming some veggies, the dressing will add enzymes to help balance those lost from cooking.

We use the following items for most of our dressings: Napa Valley Naturals Extra Virgin Organic Olive Oil, Spectrum Walnut Oil, Spectrum Organic Balsamic Vinegar, Spectrum Organic Brown Rice Vinegar, Madhava Raw Pure Organic Agave Nectar, Solana Gold Raw Unpasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar, and Marantha Organic Raw Tahini.

Here are some of our favorites. If you are using different ingredients than those listed in the above paragraph you may need to make a few adjustments to create the perfect taste balance.

We often talk with people who are in various levels of incorporating raw food into their diet which can range anywhere from 25-100%. We've been 100% most of the time for three years, but still have occasional forays into eating a cooked dish from time to time. During April we digressed a little more than usual, dropping down to about 95% raw. The weather may have had something to do with it—an endlessly long and cold spring, with very little sun (and little sun for the last eight months), seemed to increase our desire for a few cooked meals, such as soup, or steamed veggies.

Sometimes the emotional calm that comes from not fighting a craving and eating something cooked is better for us than "dutifully enduring", which usually creates negative emotions that have to be processed. We're more interested in the cumulative, overall effects of living with raw foods throughout a lifetime, and where this leads us in terms of health, and spiritual transformation. Sometimes people who would like to eat a lot of raw food simply can't—their digestive tract is not accustomed to eating this much fiber. It's important that we listen to the needs of our bodies and emotions, and to follow our intuition in terms of how to proceed on a day-to-day basis.

We usually allow these fluctuations to occur and not worry too much about what it might mean, recognizing that we're not machines, but living, breathing beings that go through many energetic shifts and changes. When we first started to eat more raw food and we got to 70% it felt incredible. Then the amount increased to 80%. After a couple years we were steadily holding at 90% raw, with occasional weeks where we naturally, without forcing it, reached the 100% mark.

We've made significant changes during this year with our diet: Sprouts—something we thought we'd never learn to love, have become a staple. We're drinking more water. And we've recently started to make fresh juices again on a daily basis. We've discovered that if we blend a few tablespoons of soaked sunflower seeds with ginseng or ashwaganda powder in a little water, then add this to the juice, we feel extra energized, warmed, and strengthened in new ways—perfect for these cold and rainy mornings.

Over the last eight years we've been on quite an adventure—and we are not the same people that we were when we began to dream of greater health. The raw food diet has been cleansing, healing, nurturing, revealing, challenging, ego-busting, and transformational—and has been a tremendous aid to our spiritual unfoldment.

We're delighted that you're finding your personal rhythms and ways to love life that are the very best for you. Remember, this approach to food is not a contest—it's an unfolding to the living power of our divine birthright—conscious awareness, a heart filled with love, coupled with radiant and beautiful health!