Know Any Literary Animal Lovers?

Hi there PureJeevan readers! We wanted to let you know that Jim's new novel CHROO is available on Amazon. It's a crazy adventure involving a billionaire heiress, her Chihuahua BFF ("Chroo") and a host of human and animal characters. Find out more on Amazon! Here are some links:




How does the following menu* sound for your Thanksgiving meal

Nut Loaf, Apple un-stuffing, Mac Mushroom gravy,

Here it is: Putting it all together. Here you'll see what we use for our taco shells and how we build up our taco. Quite often, we also make a raw sour creme using cashew nuts and lemon juice. But, for these tacos, it'll just be meat, salsa, and guac. Enjoy!

Let me take you down,

'cause I'm going to

Strawberry Fields.

Jim here... I was listening to a radio commercial the other day that promised to reveal the "secrets that credit card companies DON'T want you to know." You hear that kind of rather manipulative marketing all the time, right? It's a psychological thing, I suppose -- filling your mind with intrigue almost instantly. My credit is pretty decent, but I was thinking, "Wow, I wonder what those secrets are?!" We humans are curious creatures, aren't we?

But then I started to laugh to myself, imagining a raw foods radio spot adopting that technique. "Buy our special report and learn all of the Secrets that Raw Foodists do NOT Want YOU to Know!!!" And then I laughed some more. Know why? Because, when you think about it, there are absolutely, positively NO secrets raw foodists don't want you to know! Isn't that stunningly cool? In fact, the entire message of the movement is conveniently included right there in the words "raw foods." It couldn't be simpler -- the cure for what ails so much of the planet, neatly summed up in two words.

?

As we'll show over the course of this week, the Raw Spirit Festival is about much more than just delicious, nutritious raw food. In fact, there's usually so many fun things taking place simultaneously while you're there that it's easy to forget about the foods completely!

I'd been there an entire day before realizing that there was a raw food court on site. (Mostly, I'd been dining on fruit I'd brought along and had stored in a cooler in my tent!). Thankfully, I did eventually discover the food court, and it was really something special. To call it a "food court" is almost demeaning, as that phrase brings to mind bland "mall food" restaurants that serve up mostly fast food fare. At the RSF, you're treated with many delicious options, which can make choosing a place to dine rather difficult!

Today we wanted to do something fun and a bit unusual. We raw foodies are a creative bunch, so we? thought, "Why not profile a handful of raw musicians !" Sounded like an interesting project, as we've all heard of at least a few raw foodist musicians out there. So, here are a dozen raw musicians to get you started -- that's right, FOURTEEN wonderful raw musicians!? (Since when does a dozen equal fourteen? Well, we figure that cooked foodies have their "baker's dozen," which everyone knows is thirteen.We figure: Why be outdone by the cooked food world, eh? So, we're redefining things a bit!)

Anyway, some of these bands/musicians are internationally famous; others are names you may not have heard before. We asked some of our friends to suggest raw musicians for today's post and we were surprised with the number of musicians mentioned! All those listed below are reportedly raw (or, in the case of whole bands, at least one or more of the members are raw foodists).Please note that this is by no means a complete list.

Yesterday, we covered the concept of "unsubscribing" from unhealthy practices. This was of course based on the common Internet practice of subscribing and unsubscribing to various things like newsletters and email lists. I receive quite a few of these each day, many raw foods ones and many non-raw ones. Among the non-raw, one that has been interesting to me lately is called the Art of Non-Conformity, penned by Chris Guillebeau. Basically, Chris' site chronicles his adventures in reaching his personal goal -- to travel to every country in the world! Along the way, he writes about all sorts of out-of-the-box things, as the blog name implies.

Today, he posted something that is remarkably insightful and applicable to our subject matter here, even though his context was completely different. The entry, entitled simply "Before and After," discusses the drinking water problems in much of Africa, focusing for the moment on Liberia. Atop the piece (the "before" picture) is a muddy water hole, the only source of drinking water for one village. The next picture (the "after" shot) shows a different, very happy village obtaining fresh, clean water from a newly installed well. Chris closes his article with the following quote:

Continuing with our Taco Week, here's a quick and easy (and delicious) salsa recipe. You can really have a lot of fun with salsa, and can get highly experimental if you like. Almost anything tastes great in salsa. This one is fairly basic, so feel free to spruce it up with some of your favorite ingredients. Let us know in the comments section some of your favorite variations so you may inspire others!

To help keep all of you inspired, we ve asked some

remarkable individuals to share their raw food stories with you. Enjoy!

Jim here...Well, something awful happened today at Pure Jeevan, something utterly shocking to any raw foodie on the planet -- our Vitamix container broke! I know, I know... breathe with me: Deep breath in... deep breath out. There, that's better. It's going to be okay, I just know it!

Here's what happened:? The agitator assembly (the metal part at the bottom that connects to the blades inside the container) wore out. It blew some kind of bearing or something, lost its internal oil, and started making an infernal noise when we blended our morning smoothie. It was pretty clear we'd blended up our last elixir in that container.

I'm makin' nothing today, or for the next eight days! Think of all the time I'm saving myself by consuming only mono meals for nine days. What will I end up doing with that extra time? So far, today, I've spent a long time outside soaking up the sun's beautiful rays that I've missed far too much this Winter. I have no idea what the rest of this mono journey is going to be like, but I'm up for the adventure!

I've started a little journal on my desktop to track my nine days of mono meals, so I'll share what I've written from time-to-time. Here's what I have, so far...