FruitMonster.com

Hey America, Spring is Here!

Broccoli and Cauliflower for the Pallet Plot!

Well the temperatures have certainly been heating up back in the U.S. this past month and there is little doubt that spring is in the air! Sure, you might get another wallop of cold front or two before Old Man Winter is finished (with frosts still possible in much the U.S.), but regardless of the specifics, one thing is for certain:

It’s time for YOU to start a garden!

Now I don’t want to hear any excuses.  None of that ‘I don’t have a green thumb’ or ‘I don’t have time’ or ‘I don’t have a space to grow anything’… it’s all NONSENSE!  Yes, I’m calling you out!  You have no excuse, this is the time for you to kick into gear and nurture your inner farmer.

Let’s Garden Ourselves Out of this Mess!

See, if you’re like me, you’re a bit frustrated with all the corporate corruption and political game playing going on in the world today.  From Monsanto getting away with destroying our organic and heirloom seed populations, to the government claiming the right to confiscate all our farmland, we have a lot to be peeved about!  But no matter how you look at it, part of the solution to fixing our broken system and becoming less dependent on this crazed planet killing consumerism machine is to grow our own food.  (Not to mention it will make you healthier…shhhh it’s all a part of my fruitopian fruitmonster plan)

So put aside all your preconceived ideas about how ‘hard’ gardening is… because it’s simply not that difficult!  And there are plenty of resources out there for you to make it easy!  Starting with…

The Pallet Plot!

Put it Anywhere!

Don’t have a place that you can dig up to start a ‘classic’ garden?  Maybe you are surrounded by asphalt or only have a balcony on your apartment?  Perhaps you are not in the best shape or have a bad back and can’t till the dirt as well as you’d like?  Maybe you’re like me and may have to move house soon!

Well look no further than creating your own “Pallet Plot“!  It’s easy!  It’s practically free and it is even portable!

What You’ll Need:

- a wooden pallet (check behind a grocery store near the dumpster!)

- a material to enclose the backside (I used wood)

- staples/nails/screws (depending on your backing)

- compost/dirt (about 75 Liters)

- seeds (greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, herbs)

What Now Fruit Face?

So you basically are one problem solving adventure away from having your own pallet plot:  how do you enclose the back/sides of the pallet?

I used wood from another pallet and screwed the wood planks in place because I wanted mine to be sturdy and portable.  You could also use old canvas, burlap, weed barrier, or maybe even a tarp!  It’s up to you to figure that part out!  Be creative!

Once you’ve covered the backside, you are free to pack in the dirt.  Make sure you stuff it in there firmly enough so that your plants will be able to stand upright, but don’t make the stuff into bricks!  After that, you can start planting!  If you’d like, start your seeds indoors using a seedling starter house like this one!

One last thing, if your pallet gets a lot of sun, be sure to water it often!  Since the pallet is above ground, it won’t retain moisture quite as well!

A Fresh Pallet Plot! Green-age Coming Soon

Dude, That was Easy!

That’s what I’ve been telling you!  And to think, you’ve thought all this time that growing food was hard!  It’s not!  All you have left to do is to remember to water your little green friends and be patient!  Before you know it, you’ll have all sorts of goodies to munch on… and boy will you ever feel fantastic.  Because gardening makes you happy!  But watch out!  It’s a bit addicting…

That’s all for now!  Happy pallet picking!

Fruity Leafy Goodness

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve quite the penchant for green smoothies.  In fact, on this website you can find plenty of delicious recipes to make your own.  You basically just need some fruits, leafy greens and dates and/or juice!  I put a lot of dates in my smoothies to bump the calorie count (they are very calorie dense fruits), but if you want, you can just use a juice as the base (instead of water) and skip the dates!  This gives you a lower calorie smoothie.  Just like the apricot banana one I make in this video!

Green smoothies are the easiest, tastiest way to drastically improve your health!  Use spinach, kale, lettuces, bok choy or collards and you won’t even taste them!  All you get is creamy fruity deliciousness, while directly ingesting an easily absorbable bundle of essential nutrients!  What are you waiting for, go make one!

Yeah, that’s right, three fruits in the name.  And I made it with fresh squeezed OJ.  This is the second plum smoothie, the third tomato smoothie and the fourth peach smoothie.  It is also extremely delicious, as it is a surprisingly good flavor combination.  So GO MAKE ONE  and unleash the monster in you

Tomato Plum Peach Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c orange juice (for the food combo conscious – use water, just add a few more dates)

1 medium tomato

1 medium plum

2 medium peaches (2 large or 3 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

5-10 dates (5 large or 10 small)

Add a peach, then a plum, some tomato, blend and done!

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

A Spherical Trio, Your Tongue's Hero

Look, Sometimes I Cook My Food

A lot of visitors to my site wonder why I even take the time to explain why I cook food, doesn’t everyone cook their food?  What’s so wrong with that?  Well, here at fruitmonster.com, I have essentially two audiences – those who are fruit-curious and those who are already into the fruitarian lifestyle.

For those who are already in the fruitarian lifestyle, there is a very strong emphasis on raw food.  This is because raw foods, or ones that are not cooked (or cooked below ~104 deg F) have all of their enzymes and other micronutrients intact.  They also do not have the toxic byproducts that sometimes show up when we cook things.  So, the theory goes, that by eating raw foods we can achieve the most optimal states of health.  And that is largely true!  Raw foods are fantastic, and I promote the raw food lifestyle on this site!  Especially with smoothies, juices and fruitmonstering sessions!  But I have to explain myself, because a large part of the raw food community will reject my thoughts as ‘heretical’.  I can even be kicked out of some raw food circles for sharing ‘non raw’ food ideas/content.  But I hope that those people will listen to what I have to say.

We Need to Go Local!

Cooked FruitMonster Garden Zucchini with Herbs

But I am also coming to understand in a very profound way, that the key to solving the world’s problems flows through what we put in our mouths!  And to escape the Corporate Crap Sandwich that we are caught up in, we need to shift our diets to locally sourced, organically grown foods!  This type of fruitmonstering diet will naturally follow the seasons and will be based on the foods accessible to us from our local environment.  So, although I love me some bananas, I really can’t sustainably base my diet off of them without shipping them in from a far away place, can I?  I also, living in southeast Australia, cannot grow them (or mangoes!) in my backyard or barter with my neighbors for them.  We need to keep this in mind!

Growing Your Own Food and Cooking It

Monstering Corn I Grew!

BUT, I sure can grow a lot of other amazingly awesome fruits and veggies!  But many of these food items just simply aren’t edible in their raw state (potatoes, other tubers)!  Others may be edible, but they are difficult to digest due to the large amount of cellulose in them. That means one cannot get enough calories from monstering them raw (e.g. brocolli, zucchini).

‘Healthy’ is Bigger Than Just Your Body

But, by cooking my garden grown goods, I am able to feed myself out of my backyard.  And while, yes, this is not as optimal for my body, it is more optimal for our communities and our planet.  ’Health’ has to do more with general well being of the rest of life around you than you might at first realize!  I think that is much more important, and I’m not afraid to shift to a less optimal diet for that cause.  And to be honest, I’m still eating an extremely healthy diet, balancing my non-local purchases (bananas and mangoes) with local ones (peaches, pears, apples, apricots) and cooking things lightly or steaming them for a short period of time (you don’t have to torch them!).

And who knows, maybe someday I will move to a tropical area and be able to monster mangoes at will!

In Summary:

Eat as much raw food as you can, sourcing it from mostly local sources.  Strive to eat seasonally, and don’t be afraid to cook your foods, especially if it allows you to feed yourself out of your garden.  Because growing your own food is power and this ailing planet needs that now more than ever!

You don't know jack!

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said ‘What a good boy am I

Then little Jack Horner

Go up from his corner

And a blender did catch his eye

So he grabbed up some greens

Revved the machine

And said “DANG MAN THIS SMOOTHIE IS OFF DA HIZZY!”

Plum Pear Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c water

2 medium pears (soft and ripe!)

3-4 plums (3 large or 4 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

10-15 dates (10 large or 15 small)

Repeat the above dumb plum poem while blending

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

Succumb to Plum!

Yep! Tomatoes in a smoothie! Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time.  Even it if sounds strange, tomatoes are actually a fantastic smoothie ingredient, as the dates and other sweet fruits, are very complimentary!  Plus, nectarines (or peaches!) and tomatoes are in season here in Australia, so this is a perfect time to try one of these babies out!  I used fresh tomatoes out of my garden!

Nectarine Tomato Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c orange juice (or water, just add a few more dates)

2 small or 1 large tomato

2-3 necatrines (2 large or 3 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

5-10 dates (5 large or 10 small)

Submarine that nectarine into green smithereens

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

Tomato and Nectarine, Tastiest Combo Ever Seen

The FruitMonster on Milk:

You Don’t Need Milk to be Healthy!

It’s time for a FruitMonster FaceMail!  A micro-post accompanied by an informative video. Today, let’s ‘get real‘ about milk.  Recently, the Harvard Medical school released their own version of the USDA’s “MyPlate”.  And guess what?  It omits dairy completely.   In fact, Harvard is outrightly stating that milk is not part of a healthy diet.  They even discuss how we need to move to a plant based diet for health and environmental reasons!  That’s the FruitMonster message! Here’s the ‘plates’:

USDA Version

The Harvard Med School Version

Apricot Banana Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c orange juice (or water if you are concerned w/ the food-combination)

3 medium bananas

2-3 apricots (2 large or 3 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

5-10 dates (5 large or 10 small)

Attack Apricots Angrily with Banana-d Blender Blades

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

Orangutans – The Ultimate Fruitmonsters

A few posts ago, I introduced the fruitmonster mascot – the orangutan!  The orangutan has been declared the official mascot of fruitmonster.com because they are the ultimate fruitmonsters!   They will consume up to 10,000 calories a day monstering fruit all from fresh local and sustainable produce!  They depend on the jungle areas for all of their dietary needs and good ole’ Mother Nature provides them the ultimate feasts of jackfruit, durian, rambutan and even mangos and bananas!  They often spend up to six hours a day eating or foraging for food to satisfy their voracious fruitmonstering sessions, with plenty of rest, play and caring for one another in between.

Mmmmm Naner-monster

Sub-optimal Conditions – Survival Time

But sometimes orangutans aren’t able to gorge on enough fruits to fill their bellies, owing to a scarcity of the fruit resource!  This could happen because one family of orangutans is pushed out of a feeding area by another, or for changes amongst seasons or, more commonly, because of palm oil plantations (save the orangutan! a post on this is forthcoming).  During these times, they realize that they can’t survive without eating other foods.  So, although their optimal diet, the one on which they thrive, is fruit, they are able to shift their diet to other sources to survive.  So when a period of fruit scarcity occurs, they shift their diet to leaves, vines, roots, barks and insects.  But as soon as they spot some delicious fruits, they are quite happy to return to monstering mad fruit piles.  

Aww HECK YEAH!! That is one happy little fruitmonster!

This is EXACTLY how I eat.

No, no, no I don’t resort to eating bugs when apricot absentia strikes, but I do shift my diet to eating a more casual one when necessary.  From one of thriving to one of surviving.  Let’s be honest, as The FruitMonster, my diet is quite different from the standard cuisines of most cultures.  So whether I’m at an acquaintance’s place for dinner, meeting up with a friend for lunch or grazing on nibbles at a conference,  there are many times where I am not served or able to order the optimal food choice (fruit and leafy greens).

What no durian? Pass the 'ants on a stick'!

At such a juncture, the common school of thought amongst vegan, raw food and fruitarian culture seems to suggest that I ‘stick to my guns’ and either demand something from my host that fits my dietary needs, push everyone towards my preference for dinner, or even altogether abandon group dinner outings.  I think that all of these ideas are a bit silly and dogmatic, and at these times, that is when I really start to eat like an orangutan, modifying my diet to a suboptimal condition – eating more cooked foods, processed foods, maybe even milk or cheese!  Now before you freak out and call me a sellout or a hypocrite, let me explain that this is all a matter of your personal judgment (and don’t worry, my non-vegan moments are few and far between).  The ‘right’ answer will vary in any given situation.  Here are a few examples…

Dinner at a Friend’s Place

If you are going to a close friend’s or a family members place for a meal, you are probably able to make more advanced requests for food.  These people may often find it fun to incorporate more fruits and greens into a low-fat meal and will likely be happy to keep it vegan.

Meals with an Acquaintance

Don't Whine, Pass the Vine

But if you are going to a friend of a friend’s place for a meal, it is likely much more gracious to request a ‘vegetarian’ meal rather than a ‘vegan’ one, and impose less restrictions on those poor folks!  You’ve got to remember that veganism is not as widely accepted (yet!), and often can be intimidating to folks who aren’t familiar with it!  BUT, If you approach this situation thoughtfully and carefully, you will likely end up with some very good opportunities to talk about your fruitmonstering habits when they catch you pounding the fruit salad.  Isn’t that worth eating a little bit of ‘normal’ food?  I’d say it sure is!  You don’t have to eat a lot of the less optimal stuff, its the perfect chance for a light meal.

Social Outings

You should also not let your veganism, fruitarianism or fruitmonstering habits get in the way of social opportunities.  Breaking bread with other people is such a foundational part of culture, communication and companionship and you would simply be foolish to skip out on lunch time outings with friends or conference dinners, etc. just to make a point or maintain some dogma.  Drop the self-righteous, ego-driven drama.  This is survival time – its time to ‘eat the ants and bark‘ baby!   There is no reason you can’t order a low-fat, vegetarian option from wherever you go.  I often get pizzas with no cheese and extra veggies, or a veggie burrito or even rice and steamed vegetables.  The possibilities for a healthy meal exist, even if its not fruit-based.  

Eating Meat

Sometimes you might even eat meat.  *GASP*.  Don’t worry, this will very rarely ever happen.  But here is a quick story…  Once upon a time, before I was a fruitmonster, I spent a week with a family in Taiwan, with whom I could not communicate very well.  They were wonderfully gracious hosts, and they nearly never stopped feeding me (wo hen bao!).  At times they fed me food that had meat in it, and although I had absolutely no desire to eat meat, I graciously accepted the meals.  I ate as little of the meat as possible.  Because I was in their home, and they were being so generous with sharing their limited resources – turning it down would have not fostered good relations with them.  You might come across a situation such as this – don’t be afraid to break your own rules.  I would do the same thing today, even as The FruitMonster, if the same situation repeated itself.  Don’t be dogmatic, be aware of all the factors influencing the situation.

Leafy Green Monster

So if you eat a non-vegan, non-fruit meal, don’t worry!  You’re still a fruitmonster! In fact, that’s part of a fruitmonster diet!  A fruitmonster is alright with eating some survival foods, but focuses on eating as much thriving food as possible.

Fruitmonsters are Reasonable Folks!

So in summary, it’s important to note that while you have a set of dietary ideals as a fruitmonster, imposing them on others or creating an uncomfortable social situation does nothing but isolate yourself and push others away from realizing a potentially fruitastic lifestyle.  Heading off to dinner with a crowd and getting the chance to have some great conversation and make some new friends, is far more important than eating a 100% strict fruity, raw-food, vegan diet.

Remember, you share 97% of your genetic code with an Orangutan!  You could learn a thing or two from these red-headed people of the jungle.  So go ahead, get out there and…

eat like an orangutan!

The Ultimate FruitMonster!!!

Don’t Worry, It’s Okay to Cook Your Food

Welcome to a new category on FruitMonster.com -> FruitMonster FaceMail!  In FruitMonster FaceMail posts, all you’ll get is a video and maybe a really, teensy, weensy blog post to accompany it.  You won’t get any fancy editing bits like intros or subtitles, or fixing my goof-ups.  Instead, you get 100% pure, genuine FruitMonster…being myself and probably excited about fruit.  So, here’s your first FaceMail!