These pancakes are just one of the many delicious meals that are going to be enjoyed by my guests who join me on my Raw Food Retreat.

In fact those who have already said yes are shaping the menu plans for the weekend – don’t miss out! Learn more by clicking here

Ingredients
For the Pancakes
2 bananas
2 cups of strawberries
2 dates

For the Cream
1 cup of cashews soaked for at least 20 minutes
¼ cup of water, or for desired consistency
2 Tbsp agave or sweetener
1 Tbsp of vanilla extract

For the Strawberry Sauce
1 cup of strawberries
2 Tbsp of dried strawberries, or other dried fruit
1 Tbsp of agave or other sweetener
1 Tbsp of rose water (optional)

Equipment
Dehydrator
Blender

Directions
For the Pancakes
Blend the ingredients together
Pour the mixture onto your non-stick dehydrator sheets 
Spread the mixture evenly into your desired pancake shape and size
Dehydrate for about 6-8 hours on 105 degrees F
You want the pancake to peel of the sheet, but still be soft enough that you can roll it
For the Cream
Blend all ingredients together until smooth and creamy
For the Strawberry Sauce
Blend all ingredients together

Assembly
Place a layer of cream on to the pancake
Top with a layer of strawberry sauce
Roll the pancake
Finish with a drizzle of strawberry sauce 

For more raw food recipes click here

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Ingredients
Base
1 ½ cups of hazelnuts
8 pitted medjool dates
1/3  cup of cacao
½ tsp of vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 tsp of water

Topping
1 ½ cups of cashews soaked for 2 hours
1 cup of nut milk
½ cup cacao powder
½ cup agave syrup
½ cup of coconut oil
Pinch of salt

Equipment
Food processor
8 inch spring form cake tin
Blender

Directions
Base
Place the hazelnuts and salt in the food processor until finely ground
Add the dates and process until the mixture becomes sticky
Add the cacao and vanilla and process
Add the water if needed to make the mixture stick together
Press into the base of a 8 inch spring form cake tin
Place in the fridge to chill until the topping is ready

Topping
Place all of the ingredients, apart from the oil, into the blender and blend until smooth and creamy
Add in the oil and blend until well combined

Assembly
Pour the topping onto the base and place in the fridge for 6 hours or the freezer for 2 hours to set
Remove from the freezer 15 minutes before enjoying

For more quick and easy raw food recipes click here

Are you ready to live a life that makes you truly come alive, where you fully embrace your life and the opportunities that come your way?

Let me ask you a question:

When was the last time that you experienced a peace and an ease where all is well with your life, where you are excited about the limitless possibilities that could come your way?

When was the last time you felt really ‘connected’ and enjoyed the sense of inner strength and confidence that comes with it?

Sometimes it can feel easier to play small than to step into your magnificence

If you are ready to embrace you and your life, ready to leap out of bed in the morning with a spring in your step, a yippee in your heart and a sparkle in your eye 

Then I have created the perfect space for you to re-connect with you inner sparkle and AWAKEN your true gifts

This is perfect for you if:

• You feel as if something is missing from your life, but your just not quite sure what it is
• You feel stuck and are not sure what to do next
• You have spent time doing the personal development ‘thing’ but feel you have reached a plateau
• You know you were meant for more, perhaps even something bigger…

For the full details click here

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A life where you felt fully connected to yourself and the universe.

A life where each day excited you, because you couldn’t wait to explore the opportunities that were going to come your way.

A life in harmony, a life in flow, a life of passion and purpose.

For many years this is what I searched for…

I’d read countless books, attended seminars, listened to telesummits but still something was missing, something wasn’t clicking for me.

Then one day I realised (as clichéd as it is) – I had the answer all along, I just had to learn how to uncover it!

So here’s what I learnt and what I believe:

Inside each and every one of is magic – not a witch and a broomstick type of magic, but a brilliance beyond our understanding. Every single person has their own unique magic, a special gift that only they can offer the world.

However, in our modern times this gift is often hidden away deep inside, buried deep within us under layers of busy-ness, responsibilities, feelings of should’s, comparisons, and playing small

Hidden under layers of ‘protection’ that we have created because we want the world to see us in a particular way and not see the ‘Real’ us

How many times does someone give you a compliment and instead of receiving it and saying ‘Thank you’, you simply dismiss it and say ‘it was nothing’? It’s as if you are embarrassed about your own importance and significance

When was the last time that you experienced a peace and an ease where all is well with your life, where you are excited about the limitless possibilities that could come your way?

When was the last time you felt really ‘connected’ and enjoyed the sense of inner strength and confidence that comes with it?

Sometimes it can feel easier to play small than to step into your magnificence

I want to live in a world where people share their gifts with the world, where everybody works towards empowering themselves and the people they come into contact with

Where people live lives that make them truly come alive, where they fully embrace their life and the opportunities that come their way

This isn’t a world where everything is perfect; it’s a world where when things go wrong, people have the confidence and inner strength to move through it

A world where people wake up with a spring in their step, a yippee in their heart and a sparkle in their eye

Does this sound like something you would like too?

If so, the very first thing you need to do to step towards this life is to get your solid foundations in place and understand the following things about yourself:

1. Your Values, Purpose and Unique Magic – These will give you a solid foundation, creating confidence and inner strength – they will guide you authentically throughout your life
2. Your BIG Dream – This will give your life focus, meaning and fulfillment

I know that sounds very simplistic, and it really is, but it can be hard for us to be sure of ourselves and our truth for the reasons outlined above.

Today’s Shining Challenge

Often establishing your values, purpose and unique magic is harder than working our our Big Dream. However there are clues to these within your Big Dream.

So I want you to schedule yourself 30 mins (an hour would be best) and just brainstorm what you would like for your life, what would you love to do, feel and  achieve if time and resources were no object. You may want to think about the following areas of your life:

• Body and Health
• Career and Lifestyle
• Relationships and Community
• Self and Spirituality
• Creativity and Learning

In my next article I will show you how to take this deeper and help you get really clear on what it is you are here to do and share

If this speaks to you and is something you would like to explore at a deeper level, then I have created the perfect space for you to re-connect with you inner sparkle and AWAKEN your true gifts

This offer is for you if:

• You feel as if something is missing from your life, but you’re just not quite sure what it is
• You feel stuck and are not sure what to do next
• You have spent time doing the personal development ‘thing’ but feel you have reached a plateau
• You know you were meant for more, perhaps even something bigger…

For the full details click here

They were:

• Calorie counting
• Eating diet foods, shakes, powders, supplements….
• Eating according to if it was a ‘red’ day or a ‘green’ day
• Food combing/un-combining

There were books, magazines, videos, weigh-ins; an endless obsession over food.

There was exuberance when 1 lb was lost and upset if a 1lb was gained; happiness appeared to be dictated by the scales.

However what I found most intriguing was that these women thought it would somehow be okay to eat crisps and chocolate, and let’s not forget the cream cakes and alcohol, on their ‘diet’, if they were eating ‘low fat’ meals and drinking ‘sugar free’ soda.

The results were the same, a yo-yoing of their weight and dissatisfaction, almost self-loathing, of themselves.

Somewhere over the generations we have lost touch, or perhaps given away, our own power and trust in our own knowledge and communication with our body’s.

We believe the hype and marketing of weight loss programs, all with the same message of ‘change your weight, change your life’. When in fact we should be loving our body and loving and living our life.

We somehow believe the marketers and not common sense.

We believe that if we eat ‘diet’ food we will lose weight – But this is just simply not the case. 20 years later, these women that I grew up with, are still eating their ‘diet’ food and still hoping to lose weight once and for all.

The truth is diet food may be low calorie, sugar free or fat free, but to make it still taste and smell desirable it has had to be turned into a food-like substance and contains substances our bodies were never designed to eat or process.

If you take butter for example it contains one or two ingredients, both of which your body can digest and if you wanted to you could actually make the butter yourself with ingredients from your kitchen. However I looked at one typical low-fat margarine and it contained 11 ingredients, including flavouring and colourings, and other ingredients that won’t be found in your kitchen and I bet you’ve never seen a recipe for margarine.

The message is so ingrained in us that I bet many of you will be shocked at the very thought of me suggesting that butter is better for you than margarine.

But if you really thought about it, common sense would tell you that the answer is simple.

We need to be eating better quality food, food that is actually food.

When you do eat real food, you actually find yourself eating less of it as it supplies your body with good quality, nutrient dense calories, as opposed to ‘empty calories’ that leave your body wanting more food as it’s not getting the nutrition you need.

Many of my clients think that they will never be able to give up chocolate. One lady, and she is not alone, said that she could quite often sit down and eat a 500g chocolate bar to herself and still feel like she could eat more. This bought with it feelings of guilt, shame and greed.

We also know that when you tell yourself not to eat something, that is often the only food that you find yourself thinking about and then actually eating.

So let’s look at chocolate. A regular bar of the best selling plain milk chocolate has nine ingredients, including two E numbers.

However to make your own amazing chocolate, which you could do in less than 10 minutes, has only three. Your own homemade, real-chocolate is also so nutrient dense, yes that’s right, full of nutrients. So much so, that you find that you only want to eat and need a small amount. So the lady who could eat a 500g bar of chocolate, is now satisfied by one small square of chocolate.

Common sense would tell you, that if you just up-graded this one food choice to real food, you would start to lose weight as you are drastically reducing your calorie intake and now feeling good about your choices.

Just imagine what else you could do.

However I don’t want you to think that this is time consuming or that you will spend hours in the kitchen.

In fact I have over 100 recipes that are tasty and nutritious and most of which can be made faster than it takes to boil your pasta.

To start to have a look at how easy real food is to make and enjoy, visit my recipe page, or if you have a smart phone search ‘Shine on Raw’ in your app store to download my free recipe app.

Your body, waist-line and health will thank you

I love shopping for food and I have to admit that I am one of those people that read labels.

Not because I’m interested in the calories and the fat content, but because I love to see how many ingredients processed and packaged food contains that I either don’t recognise or that I can’t pronounce.

Food is a far cry from what our Grandparents called food. The choice as we walk up and down the supermarket aisles is staggering.

As your senses are bombarded with colour and promises where should you really begin and how do you know what you should be eating?

Let’s look at labels:

• Refined
• Wholemeal
• Fat-free
• Zero sugar
• Free-from
• Gluten-free…

It’s hard to understand what it is you’re actually buying, let alone if it’s good for you. You know that you have recently seen some of these labels mentioned in magazines that you’ve read, but was it to add to your diet or was it to avoid?

There is so much information available about what you should be eating, what you should be avoiding and what you should be adding to your diet, it can actually leave you so confused you end up making no change to your diet at all, especially when much of the information contradicts each other.

All you want to do is make better food choices for you and our family. Food choices that support you, give you more energy and prevent you from piling on the pounds, but it just seems too difficult to know what to do for the best.

It’s almost impossible to keep up with what super-food, super-nutrient, super-grass you should be eating, blending, juicing…

So where should you start?

I love food, I can spend hours in the kitchen creating new recipes – however this wasn’t always the case for me. When I was younger my idea of cooking used to be toast.

Today I love cooking, but the simplicity of my cooking remains. All my recipes use real food and most can be made in under 30 minutes.

I say ‘real food’ for a reason. Most food that you find on a supermarket shelf is processed and bears very little resemblance to the ingredients that are lovingly shown on the packet. In fact just to read many of the ingredients on the label you need a science degree!

So let’s go back to basics and keep it simple.

Here’s my easy guidelines to taking the first steps to improving your food choices:

• If it contains ingredients that your Grandma wouldn’t recognise, don’t eat it
• If it couldn’t be made in your own kitchen don’t eat it
• If it contains ingredients that you wouldn’t keep in your own kitchen don’t eat it

Food is absolutely essential to our existence, but what we call ‘food’ today, is often actually a ‘food-like’ substance. A product that was made in a plant, when what we should actually be eating should be grown as a plant.

Making healthy choices doesn’t mean that you miss out on anything, in fact as you eat more and more real food, you taste buds wake up to the delights that food actually has to offer.

Our taste buds are so used to bland, beige food (breads, pasta, wheat, dairy), that they have forgotten what an exciting and  abundant range of fresh and vibrant foods are out there waiting to delight your senses.

If you want convincing I would start with my 10 minute, no bake, dairy free Chocolate Brownies. I know they sound as if they should be bland, but you’ll love them! I can’t tell you how many people don’t believe that they are not traditional brownies full of sugar and fat  - Click here for the Chocolate Brownie Recipe

You’ll love the brownies and this is just the beginning of up-grading your food choices.

Once you realise how quick, easy and tasty it is to make healthy choices, and that there is no need to be confused or overwhelmed by all the hype there is about healthy food, you will wonder what all of the fuss was about.

Rather than feeling guilty about your food choices, you will begin to feel empowered as you step into vibrant health.

Adding to Sparkle to your day and the Shine to your life

Ingredients
For the Pasta
2 courgettes

For the Pesto
¼  cup pumpkin seeds
¼ cup of pine nuts
½  cup olive oil
2 Tbsp lemon
2 cups lightly packed basil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp salt

Equipment
Spiraliser or vegetable peeler
Food processor

Directions
For the Pasta
Spiralise the courgettes or use the vegetable peeler to peel strips of courgette so you end up with a ‘tagliatelle’ style pasta

For the Pesto
Blend the ingredients in a food processor
Pour the pesto over the courgettes and mix well

I love cleansing. I love it how it makes me feel, the clarity it brings and the feelings of lightness that I experience.

But I also know that the very idea of a cleanse can seem daunting…

Or you may have heard stories of ‘detox’ symptoms and this has just not inspired you to take action

I have put together a FREE 5 day Sparkle Cleanse

It is designed for you if you have ever experienced the following:

• You feel a little sluggish and think that you could do with a ‘tune up’
• You feel as if there’s something holding you back but you can’t put your finger on it
• You have lost your inner sparkle, or at the very least it’s dimmed
• You think a cleanse would be beneficial for you, but you don’t know where to begin
• You would like to do something for yourself, but don’t think you have the time

During this five day cleanse I will take you by the hand and show you how easy and enjoyable cleansing can really be

If you would like to:

• Leap out of bed each morning with a yippee in your heart and a spring in your step
• Feel energised and refreshed and ready to take on the day (and possibly the world)
• Feel truly connected to who you really are
• Feel clear, focused and confident as you move forward with your life

I’d like to invite you to join me on my free 5 day Sparkle Cleanse

As soon as sign up you will receive:

• Daily emails to encourage and inspire you
• Hints tips and advice on how to successfully cleanse with ease and joy
• Delicious recipes to increase the sparkle in your life
• Coaching exercises to really get you connected and ready to uplevel and move your life forward with joy as you cleanse

 To join me for a Sparkling 5 days just complete the form below:

Adding to Sparkle to your day and the Shine to your life

People often think I must lead a deprived life and nibble on celery and carrot sticks, the second question is ‘why would you want to do that?’

Raw food is quite simply food that has not been processed and not heated above 46 degree Celsius. It includes:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Sprouted seeds and legumes
• Seaweeds
• Nuts and seeds
• Dried fruit

I love food, so it might seem strange that my diet appears limited. However since eating a high raw diet I actually eat more food, as in a greater range of food, than many people I know who eat mainly ‘beige’ foods – bread, pasta, potatoes and cheese.

In fact would it surprise you to know that from everyday raw food found in the supermarket I can make ‘pasta’ and ‘rice’ dishes, chili’s, curries, strawberry tarts, chocolate brownies and the best cheesecakes that I’ve ever tasted! All of them free from wheat, dairy and gluten.

Raw food really is a healthy way of eating, but without compromise.

When I started to increase the amount of raw food that I ate, what I actually found was that not only did I lose weight, have clearer skin and have more energy, I also had more clarity in my thinking and felt more confident. I later discovered that this wasn’t unique to me and this clarity I call the Raw Food Shine.

For me the connection seems quite obvious, the food you eat literally becomes you. You eat food and it creates your body and your experience of the world.

If you eat food that is lifeless and bland, this is how you can expect to feel; lethargic and numb. However when you eat food that is fresh, vibrant and full of colour, this is what you can expect to enjoy; a life of energy and vitality.

One of the things that I love most about raw food is its simplicity. And because the recipes are made with simple ingredients/real food, and not food-like substances, your body can digest the food more easily and leave you feeling lighter and cleaner inside. This leaves you with more energy to get on with your day to day tasks.

Your body is not clogged up with substances your body was not designed to eat. Therefore you do not feel ‘clogged up’ in any way either; physically or mentally.

Most major food groups are associated with dis-ease and illness. Too much sugar can lead to diabetes, too much meat can lead to high cholesterol, too much fat can lead to obesity, however too much fresh fruit and vegetables does not lead to any illness, in fact quite the opposite.

When people develop these health conditions they are often told to actually increase their intake of fresh fruit and vegetables and decrease the processed food that they are consuming.

Most illness in the western world can be prevented as much of it is due to food choices, so to me it makes sense to add more real food, especially raw foods to your day.

I’m not talking about all or nothing and never eating a cooked meal again, but simply adding more raw food to your day. It’s much easier to focus on increasing the amount of ‘good’ food in your diet, rather than trying to avoid the ‘bad’ ones.

Here are 5 quick and easy ways to add more raw food to your diet:

1. Eat fruit or add fruit to your breakfast
   Why not enjoy a bowl of your favourite berries or add a banana to your normal breakfast
2. Make yourself a smoothie
   It’s the ultimate fast food and an excellent way of getting your five a day. My favourite smoothie is water, 2 bananas, strawberries and raspberries (fresh or frozen)
3. Make your smoothie lean and green
   Add a handful of spinach to your smoothie, you won’t even taste it but it’s a great way to increase its nutritional value and sustain your energy.
   In fact if you have children and call this smoothie a ‘Shrek’ smoothie or an ‘Incredible Hulk’ smoothie or even a ‘swamp’ smoothie – stand back and watch them gulp back their greens!
4. Add a large salad to your lunch
   No matter what you have for lunch, add a crisp, juicy and colourful salad to your meal
5. Treat yourself to some raw chocolate
   That’s right you can even buy (or make) raw chocolate.
   The best thing about this chocolate is that it is guilt free! 

I don’t want you to think making raw food recipes is time consuming or that you will spend hours in the kitchen.

In fact my recipes are not only tasty and nutritious, but most can be made faster than it takes to boil your pasta.

To learn more about these amazing recipes, click here: Raw Food Recipe Cook Book

Raw food recipes to make you Shine Inside and Out