Too Many Almonds on Your Hands? A Holiday Idea for You!

You want to get raw almonds in the Group Buy (because you can't get TRULY RAW anywhere else, and the price is awesome), but you don't know how MUCH to get. You love your friends and family. You find the holidays slightly annoying because of all the junk food, right when you want to be strong and healthy against H1N1 and influenza.

If this sounds familiar, I have an idea for you.

Make sprouted/dehydrated teriyaki and candied almonds–all natural ingredients, no sugar, no cooking–from Chapter 7 of 12 Steps to Whole Foods. Pack a bag of each kind all cute in a lined coffee bag (I bought them online) or cellophane bag from a party store, with a sticker on the bag explaining that these are homemade sprouted almonds full of life-giving enzymes with the enzyme inhibitors unlocked, giving you 200% of the fiber and 200-500% of the vitamins and minerals of regular dry almonds.

Give them to your neighbors, kids' teachers, everyone in the family, co-workers, and anybody who shows up at the last minute with a gift for you. It's an easy, inexpensive, unique, homemade gift.

By the way, those two recipes may be better if you add MORE almonds to the mix, if you feel the coating of teriyaki or sweet spices is too much. When I make one or both of those recipes, I make some PLAIN dehydrated almonds, too, because that's what I want most of the time. And that way, you can add more almonds to the mix for either of those recipes. (It's hard with raw recipes to gauge ingredients exactly, because unlike food from McDonald's, whole plant foods vary widely in size, texture, color, and flavor.)

Then whatever you don't use, keep for yourself.

Your friends will love you for caring about their health in the sugar-and-flu season (those two things ARE related). It'll be a delicious treat that they can feel fantastic about eating. They'll know you're a health nut and come to you when they're ready to make some changes.

And if that's too hard, just give them truly raw almonds in that cute bag. Tell gift recipients in your card or sticker on the bag that it's no longer possible to get the most nutritious raw almonds any more, but you went the distance to get them right from the ranch.

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