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... As I hinted at last week, I decided to try changing things up a bit and seeing what I thought of it. The salad you see above included the first cooked food I've had in more than two years. If you look closely, you can see that I sprinkled on a few spoonfuls of black beans. Also, in the upper left corner, there's a small spoonful of quinoa. I don't want to give the wrong impression here: ?This blog will certainly remain a major go-to source for raw food nutrition information. It's just that, today, I want to talk about experimentation a little bit.
First, I think it's generally healthy to experiment with your diet -- especially when you get the sense that something isn't working in your current diet. The fact is, diet is a dynamic thing, not a static aspect of your life. It has to be this way because so many factors affect our physiology on a day-to-day basis. Off the top of my head, these include the facts that:
Read more: Experimentation: The 95% Raw Salad... A Good Idea or Not?
Sorry for the strange behavior of this site over the past few weeks, friends. As a former professional web programmer, and always a?bit of a mad hacker, I'm usually really great at keeping the web end of Pure Jeevan running very smoothly.
But, this is a Wordpress blog -- and so you have things like plugins and widgets and themes and updates, all interacting (and sometimes conflicting) with one another. I've noticed lately that this blog home page has developed all sorts of peculiar issues, not the least of which is a very slow-loading tendency.
Read more: Hopefully Pure Jeevan Loads a *Little* Faster Today!
We'd like to welcome the RawFoodRightNow blog readers to our Pure Jeevan blog! We are a new blog (started earlier this month), so we are thrilled that you have already found us and have taken the time to come and meet us!
Our blog is focused on a holistic look at living life as a raw food vegan (we have a holisitc raw-focused newsletter, too). We write posts that cover the body, mind, spirit, and emotions--as well as just random talk straight from our hearts to the blog page.
We update at least five times per week because we have daily blog features (Makin' It Monday, where we share raw recipes we are making; Take the Time Tuesday, where we introduce people or businesses we think may interest you; Weird Wednesay, where Jim shares observations about strange things; Thankful Thursday, where we share what we are thankful for and ask you to share, as well; and Fun-Filled Friday, where we tell you what fun things we have planned for our weekend).
Have you ever heard about mono meals? When I first did, it sounded like such a great idea. When you eat a mono meal, you eat one item (and only one item) for the entire meal. Eating that way is supposed to be very cleansing and it gives your digestive system a rest from processing different types of foods at the same time. Supposedly there is a boost in energy, as well, since your digestion isn't taking up so much energy.
I recently received an email asking for advice from one of our Hindu readers, asking what I could recommend as far as light eating during the nine-day Indian festival of Navratri. Navratri is traditionally a time of fasting for nine days, however in modern society most Hindus no longer fast. Many do, however, pay more attention to their diets, and they try to eat lighter meals that do not contain animal products. Since our reader is just starting his exploration into raw foods, I didn't want to offer him advice that would make his nine days of Navratri difficult.He recently purchased a Vitamix, so I suggested that he make a lot of smoothies, since he has been enjoying them so much.
Hi all-? Jim here from Pure Jeevan with our next eipsode of "Know Your Food."? This is "Episode 2 (salvaged): Turnips."? As far as that "salvaged" parenthetical... This relates to the story I told in our first episode -- about how we're planning to upgrade our video equipment, audio equipment, video editing software, and more. I hope you like it, though. Still working on getting them down to 3-4 minutes. This one's just over 5 minutes. If you're wondering how Wendi became strong as Xena Warrior Princess, you'll have to watch this vid!
So, to summarize:? Turnips are great for the root portion (the turnips, proper) or the greens. (Here at Pure Jeevan, we like to use turnips as shells for rawvioli, or simply sliced and served with a little salt. The greens are great juiced!)? Turnips are starchy, but not as heavy as potatoes, and are a great Vitamin C source. They contain fiber, manganese, pantothenic acid, thiamine, potassium, folic acid, copper, niacin, B6, E, riboflavin, and more. The greens of course have calcium, and are a particularly great source of folate (esp. important for pregnant women) and many of the vitamins and minerals listed previously, along with Vitamin A.
Hey everyone!? Just one long weekend left for Wendi and KDcat to (frantically) pack for their cross-country roadtrip. Yep, Monday night I'm dropping them on that midnight train to Portland. Wait until you see the spread of trip-snacks they're taking along. (We took some pictures of the raw foods smorgasbord sent by our generous snack sponsor, Natural Zing).
Today, since it's fun-filled Friday, I thought I'd share a little tale of frustration (although meant in kind of a funny way) relating to my own diet. You may have read my mini-manifesto a few weeks ago about my recent quest for simplicity. Well, Wendi and I have both largely maintained that kind of existence for a while now -- especially when it comes to the breakfast smoothies (pineapples galore!) and lunch salads. I have to admit that my energy seems to be trending upward very nicely!
Happy Summer Solstice!
Well, it's officially summer here! This time of the year is extra special to us now that we're healthier. Not only is there an abundance of fresh, local organics to eat, but the sun also shows itself to us a lot more (Pittsbugh is ranked as one of the places experiencing the least amount of sunshine per year). The sun actually used to make me feel physically ill (I wrote a bit about that in an earlier post), but ever since I've switched to a raw vegan diet I find myself drawn to the healing sunshine.
Before switching to a raw lifestyle, we used to go on a lot of outings (picnics) and we'd also go camping. I remember a friend voicing concern when my diet was beginning to change to raw foods. She felt I wouldn't be able to go camping anymore and that things like picnics wouldn't be fun for someone eating a raw food diet. She thought I'd need access to a refrigerator in order to keep all my raw foods fresh and a kitchen where I could prepare the delicious foods she had been seeing me eat.
Read more: Summertime Raw (Video): Out the Door in 10 Minutes!
I've been holding on to some things to share here on the blog, and today feels like a good day to share this particular inspirational gem, below. I hope it speaks to some of you in a way that brings about a deeper love for yourself. Many times I have a feeling, based on emails I receive, that I love some of you more than you love yourselves (and I deeply love all of you). That's okay, though. Your time will come to blossom into the self-loving individual that you know you are at your core. Perhaps today what I share will trigger a deeper sense of self-love for you, as it did for another friend.
Back in October, a friend in an online raw community sent me a message about how she was having a tough time with cravings. I responded to her, as follows:
... You CAN do it, too! For me, it took finally loving myself to make the change. I had to KNOW that NOTHING was going to stop me from loving myself. And loving myself meant never putting harmful things into my body EVER AGAIN! So, once I made that decision, I moved forward. I'm not saying I didn't have cravings, but I loved myself through them! ...
Many times in the online communities, the messages you share with others will also be read by individuals stopping by the pages of your friends. That was the case with what I wrote, above. I received a lovely message from another friend in that community, who had read the message I left for someone else. Here's what she wrote to me:
To continue with our Summertime Raw series, we took a trip to Pittsburgh's Frick Park to enjoy the beautiful day. Before leaving, we packed another meal to show you how easy it can be to eat a raw food diet while away from home.Frick Park was wildly popular among dogs; we saw canines of all shapes and sizes -- all playful, yet calm in comparison to our lovely Julia, a rescued blue Doberman. Joogie enjoyed the outing very much because she was able to snack on cucumbers (a favorite treat), chase after a few joggers (we're teaching her that this isn't proper doggy behavior), knock the cooler out of Jim's hands when we were leaving (which broke a few of our best glass dishes), and lick the faces of a few new furry friends. We've been to many parks, but we have a feeling this is now Julia's favorite. ?
In yesterday's blog and video post, we showed you how easy it is to simply grab fresh fruits and veggies and head out the door for an outing. In that show, no refrigeration or preparation was necessary. However, we also know that many of you are new to raw foods, and perhaps eating simple chopped produce isn't so appealing for you compared to traditional foods you'd normally eat while in a park. So, today's goal is to demonstrate how simple it can be, making it easy for you to stick to a raw food lifestyle and not feel tempted by the cooked foods that may be around while you're out enjoying the summer with friends and family. So, today's video is about stepping it up to the next level.
Here's Part Two of our interview with Hatice Yavuz, co-owner of Cousin's I.V. raw restaurant in Chicago. Yesterday we talked a lot about Cousin's restaurant and the stories behind that (as well as some interesting notes about European and Turkish culture and attitude toward raw foods). Today we'll get into some of the effects experienced by many after going raw -- things like raw food detox and the strengthened connection between mind and body. Interesting stuff!
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