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:

Wow, so much happened in Chicago that it's taking literally weeks to show it all to you!? But, hey, it's also a lot of fun to share this stuff. Wasn't that a great talk yesterday with Kathy and Danny Living !? If you haven't seen it, definitely scroll down and watch!

Here's another one for you. Meet Hatice Yavuz, co-owner along with Chef Mehmet Ak of Cousin's Incredible Vitality, another great raw destination in the Windy City. "Hatice" is a Turkish name, in case you're wondering. The "c" is pronounced like a "j" -- so, her name sounds like "huh-TEE-jay." Our interview with her ran a little long, so I'm going to have to break it into two parts. Here's part one:

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

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

Welcome to Makin' It Monday, Guest Raw Chef edition. Today, Dave Sokulski of www.BirchCenter.com and www.FoodUnderFoot.com gets a little silly while making some delicious raw cacao treats! Enjoy the video:

I'm excited about something that one of my friends has been working on. Melissa is gifted in so many areas, one of which is wild edible identification. She recently told me she was working on something that would help a lot of people and I was excited about her new project. Well, now it's ready to be shared with everyone!

Take the time to meet...

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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!

Over the weekend, we visited the spectacular Oregon Country Fair in Eugene and, once again, experienced a joyful and overwhelming sense of recognition that we're living in a place where people are much more accustomed to just being themselves.

Personal expression and nonconformity are so valued here that one becomes quickly enamored of the whole ambiance, which could well explain why more people come to Oregon than leave. The region seems to represent, to many, a chance to finally discover and explore an identity perhaps not completely free from outside influence, but at least free from the undesirable influences that society elsewhere seems to insist upon. Or maybe I'm misreading it all and providing just one of many interpretations.

Jim here...? Ahh, yes, you noticed, didn't you ? We'd started posting a video series called "Know Your Food" recently, promising to shoot for it being a DAILY series -- only to have its presence totally disappear as though Harry Houdini himself had taken control of our blog.
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Well, we just wanted to post a quick explanation for you. Short answer: Know Your Food is coming back SOON!? We've been at work on so many amazing projects here at Pure Jeevan, a few of which we needed to complete prior to officially launching Know Your Food in a big way.
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To put it metaphorically, Pure Jeevan can be thought of as an enormous hang glider. With hang gliding, you have to make sure everything's in order before jumping from the cliff and soaring freely above the landscape. (Ummm, not that we've ever actually hang-glided. What IS the past-tense of hang-glide, anyway )? So, we're just checking the rigging and so forth right now.
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When we do step off that precipice, though... wow, you won't believe the cascade of huge announcements we'll have for the raw foods community. Know Your Food (which will return soon, prior to all of the huge announcements we have in store) will return in all of it's YouTube-esque glory very soon. So, thanks for your patience in that matter!
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One more thing:?

Our friend Kevin Gianni is turning 30 this weekend. When you do the math, that means he was born December 7, 1978, which was pretty much the apex of the disco era in America.It's no wonder the man struck the above pose in our back yard; dude's got the Village People in his blood! So, it would be really nice if you boogied down to his site, www.RenegadeHealth.com, and wished him a happy birthday. He's also on Twitter -- cast a shoutout to: @KevinGianni.

In some wonderfully literary sense, there must be some kind of unique metaphor that could be constructed around the process by which cabbage turns to kimchi. Personal growth is not always easy, as any success technologist will surely tell you; ?there's a lot of doubt and oozing and off-gassing involved -- and yet, the final product is surprisingly pleasing to the palate.

Yes, it's time for us to update you on our first-ever kimchi experiment. If you want the short version:? I believe we have been successful! For those of you with a few more minutes, I'll share some of the lurid details. Highlights of our experiment included:

In the comedy film, L.A. Story, there's a scene in which weatherman Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) visits a friend and is asked to taste a *very* green-looking juice. He does, and then proclaims it's "exactly like licking a shag carpet." ?Funny how some people adore intense greens while others experience the polar-opposite reaction. (There are numerous funny food- and health-related jokes in that movie, by the way!)

Yesterday, we discussed some unusual considerations with respect to greens, ultimately leading to a brief discussion of chlorophyll (the green pigment within almost all plants that plays a key role in photosynthesis).

Hey everyone!? I hope you're doing well. We started out the week with a great video from Joe, Tracey, and Heather. I thought I'd stay with the video blog format for a while, as I've been capturing some outstanding stuff here in Chicago. (We're here until Thursday.)? Well, a few of the vids are "okay," but the bulk of them are absolutely amazing, so be sure to check in every day for these great Chicago vids. (BTW, I'll dub this series, "The Chicago Raw Food Scene," although partially misleadingly so, as the videos are not always *about* Chicago, per se. Rather, we shot all of the videos *in* Chicago. So, pardon the slightly misleading banner graphic.)

***** DISCLAIMER: As with all of our posts here at Pure Jeevan, and particularly those tagged with a new term, "Nadi Balance," please refer to the disclaimer that runs at the bottom of all Pure Jeevan pages. Wendi and Jim are health researchers, educators, and extreme self-experimenters, not doctors. ******

Nadi Balance: Part V

  1. Natural and Artificial Flavors, and a Raw Whipped Cream Recipe
  2. Check Out This Raw Bounty!
  3. Part *2* of a 3-Part Series Profiling the Multi-Talented Kevin Gianni!
  4. Super-Fast, Super-Simple Nutrition
  5. My Raw Story: Joanna Steven
  6. Pure Jeevan Tour Postponed
  7. Meet Joe Prostko, Who Has Eaten Almost 50 Pounds of Raw Cacao in the Last Year!
  8. Reader Question: Returning to "Healthy" Eating After Healing with Raw
  9. Organic Gardening and Raw Foods
  10. Acknowledging Changes and Growth: 2008 / 2009, Part 3
  11. Hearts, beets, and a painting