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:
Jim here... Sorry for being away for so long. We've got SO much going on these days, it's mind-boggling! More on that later, as I have something in mind already for today...I should start by clarifying that I've been basically raw for almost 4 years now (high-raw, you might say). During the first nearly-two years, I still ate meat from time to time. Actually, I still ate (and drank) almost everything from time to time -- sugars, processed foods, alcohol, you name it -- only less than I did before, and within the context of a dietary intake consisting of a significantly higher percentage of living foods. In those early years, I'd estimate I was averaging 75-90% raw. Not bad ... I definitely experienced improvements in my health!
The big change in consciousness didn't follow until two years ago. (This is an interesting point because, as you can see, I wasn't "ready" for a bigger change for two years into eating a lot of raw foods!) I suppose the difference was that, during the early years, I was pretty much raw by default rather than by conscious decision. As Jules said in Pulp Fiction, "... my girlfriend's a vegetarian. ?Which more or less makes me a vegetarian..." Yeah, that was my case back then, too, although I certainly grew into it (and am thankful that I did).
Read more: Reflecting on Two Years of an Exclusively Raw Die
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Today for Thankful Thursday, we wanted to say a special THANK YOU to our readers. It means so much to us that you come to visit our blog. With every new comment (both here on the blog and through email) it fills us with great happiness!
Is there something you'd like to see more of here on our blog? Something you'd like us to discuss? We know you are looking for more recipes, since you've told us (be sure to check out our recent posts where we've linked to some fantastic sites offering recipes!). What else would you like to read about or have us share with you?
Jim here... Thought I'd cross-post a discussion I put up on Give It To Me Raw yesterday.
Recently, I saw an article advocating a ban on banana consumption based on the premise that, if you don't live in the tropics, you have no business eating tropical fruit. Pointing to transportation costs and the related environmental impact of such transportation, the article argues that, by eating bananas, you're contributing to the destruction of the environment.
I ordered a case of organic, fresh-picked, perfectly ripe oranges!! Yay! They were shipped in less than 24 hours of my order and they should arrive soon! I asked for some grapefruits in there, too, even though I haven't really liked the taste of them in the past. I'm thinking that fresh ones will taste a lot better--not to mention that I never tried an organic one before. If I still don't like them, Jim and KDcat will eat them. ;-)
If you want to check out the grove from where I ordered them, here's a link: http://www.flnaturalcitrus.com/. I emailed with Dave, who was very nice. It's fun to get to know the people you are getting your food from, isn't it? This past spring, summer, and fall we were members of a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. The produce was amazing and it was so fun to actually see pictures of the farm workers and hear about the daily ins and outs of life on the farm. If you've never heard about a CSA, maybe you'll want to see if you have one in your local area this coming spring.
It's been an interesting week for us here. We've looked at a handful of ways that people may either become obese, or sustain an obese body -- all largely for reasons outside of dietary intake. The three situations we looked at included maintaining weight as a defense mechanism (Tuesday), becoming obese through worrying about becoming obese (Wednesday), and obesity as basically a physical manifestation of a non-physical longing (Thursday).
Without a doubt, these are just three out of hundreds of possible non-physical contributors to poor health. The idea was merely to start a thread on these things, opening people's minds to possibilities that perhaps they'd never seriously considered.
Jim here... A health-conscious friend of mine was feeling sick today. And, while I certainly do not advocate harping on the sick, I did have a very mild discussion with her when she phoned me for some advice. I asked, "Do you know what cognitive dissonance is "
"I'm not sure," she replied.
Announcing: Pure Jeevan's Halloween Raw Pot Luck - A Costume Party for All Ages!!
When:? October 31, 2009, 6:00 p.m. - ? ?
Read more: Pure Jeevan's Raw Halloween Bash -- You're Invited!
Over the next few months and the coming year, you'll be witnessing the continued growth of Wendi Dee and Pure Jeevan in ways you might not ever have imagined! So, stay connected and let us know your thoughts about the changes that are (and will be!) taking place. We're not here for ourselves, we're here for all of you and for those who don't know about us (yet!). We have a mission: to share our stories and inspire others to fully embrace their lives and be all that they could ever desire (including healthy, happy, and vibrant)!
This is a long post, even though I tried to keep it brief. It's mostly a personal entry, but I wanted to share things so that you know a bit about what's going on with me and Pure Jeevan, now and in the near future. I'll break it up a bit with some more photos from Raw Spirit, the most therapeutic and life-changing event of my life.
======Wendi Dee's Growth======
As many of you know, I'm more of an intuitive eater than anything else. I eat what I intuitively feel my body needs most of the time. Well, for the past two weeks what my body has been asking for is cauliflower. I went through a cauliflower stage sometime last year, and it seems I'm back to eating that lovely white flower veggie again!
At first I was making mashed cauliflower (like? mashed potatoes) and keeping the recipe very simple. I've made complex versions of the mashed cauliflower before, but I was really drawn to a more simple taste so all I was adding was some olive oil, salt, and a tiny bit of macadamia nuts. Yesterday, however, as I was cleaning the cauliflower (since my body was telling me it wanted more of it), I had a sense that I wanted something more vibrant, more fun than simple mashed cauliflower. So, I followed my intuition (picking up whatever I felt my body wanted to eat with the cauliflower) and here's what I created...
Greetings, everyone! ?We've been away from regular blogging for what seems an *eternity*. When we left the airwaves, the raw food world was at total peace with itself -- bliss, harmony, sister- and brotherhood. Aside from rare, gentle disagreements among raw vegans on issues such as whether raw chocolate was mineral-rich or potentially taxing to your body's store of minerals, things were pretty much business as usual.
And then we moved away and took a little time off to regroup .. ?and NOW look at the state of the raw food zeitgeist: (1) long-term raw foodists just about everyhwere are now "eating a little bit of cooked food," (2) an enormous schism has emerged after the seemingly improbable development of many long-term vegans returning to meat eating, (3) informational summits and online meetings have been replaced by debates, and (4) let's face it, the supplements being discussed and sold are getting, well, much *weirder* than ever!
Jim here... I'd like to mainly talk about organics today, but thought I'd wrap that subject into a longer, rather quirky piece on ranking produce on some sort of a scale that would indicate how awesome (or awful) it is. See what you think...
Have you ever thought of arranging produce into a sort of "heirarchy of quality"? Well, I'm not going to attempt to do that here, but I would like to discuss the concept for a moment in order to at least explain what I'm getting at. While I've not yet attempted to do this exercise, I nonetheless occasionally envision a large chart or something that conveys my feelings about how I personally rank the quality of fruits and vegetables I put into my body. This all probably sounds vague, so let me share some examples.
Read more: Pure Jeevan's "Produce Buying Tips" Series, #2: Buying Organics