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:
Today we welcome Shea Lynn Baird from Monday Night Live. As you may recall from a few weeks ago, Wendi and KDcat visited with Shea and her husband Stephen during their 2010 Trip. While there, they all attended a raw food meetup, and Shea brought a wonderful Thai salad. She shared this delicious creation with all of you in this special guest raw chef edition of Makin' It Monday, below:
As promised, here's today's herbal installment, a video on Oregano Oil! Verdict: It's strong, for sure, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be!
The other day, before grocery shopping, I didn't have a lot of food in the house. When that happens, I usually take a look at what I have and then try to come up with something tasty. It's kind of an art form, to create something out of next to nothing. I think I learned the art from my mother, who had to make things stretch on a very minimal budget.
Here's what I created, and it turned out great!
One reason I keep going on and on lately about raw desserts and raw ice creams is best conveyed with an example. ?Here are the ingredients in Cool Whip, a commonly available whipped topping:
- water
- hydrogenated vegetable oil (coconut and palm kernel oils)
- high fructose corn syrup
- corn syrup
- skim milk
- light cream
- less than 2% of:
- sodium caseinate
- natural and artificial flavors
- xanthan and guar gums
- polysorbate 60
- sorbitan monostearate
- beta carotene (color)
Wow, I had a chemistry set in 5th grade that had a lot of things that sounded like some of those items. It's actually mind-boggling to envision the industrial processes necessary to produce everything on that list -- not that it's entirely possible to do so. After all, among the list of ingredients are "natural and artificial flavors." Ever wonder what, exactly, those are?
Read more: Natural and Artificial Flavors, and a Raw Whipped Cream Recipe
In this special five-part series, Joanna Steven uncovers where some top vegetarian athletes get their protein. Here's part two, focusing on Koya Webb's take on this issue.
ALMONDS
?The greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits? is Koya Webb, fitness model, personal trainer, triathlete and body builder's personal motto. Koya's sculpted physique won 1st place in the Ultimate Fitness Events "Fitness Model" and "Bikini Model" competitions and has modeled for Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Muscle and Fitness, Her Sports, Royal Caribbean and Triathlete magazine, to name a few. As a living-foodist (one who eats 60% or more uncooked veggies, nuts, seeds, and super foods) Koya believes eating all natural ?fruits of the earth? can help heal cancer, diabetes, and other diseases plaguing our society today.
Read more: Vegetarian Athletes Share: Top 5 Sources for Animal-free Protein (Part 2 of 5)
in-tu-i-tion n. 1.a. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition. b. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight. 2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.
FASCINATING!? While out to dinner with our friend Debbie, she brought up the topic of intuitive food preparation. This is really amazing, groundbreaking stuff that probably few people have ever seriously attempted. Now, Wendi has discussed intuitive eating many times here on the blog in the past. Intuitive eating is basically when you get in touch with those "perceptive insights" mentioned above -- a kind of communication with your own body in which you just "know" that you should eat a certain food. Ever, say, walk past a large display of apples and simply know that eating one would make you feel good? That's intuition.
What have we been doing lately? Well, one of the highlights would be getting the first and second stages of the All Raw Directory up and running. We have many different stages planned for the future, enhancing the directory as time permits. It's a pretty exciting project, so be sure to become a member of the directory and continually contribute to its growth. It's a fantastic resource for all of us!
For my Fun-Filled Friday and this entire weekend, I'm going to do something fun that I rarely get to do. What is it? It's nothing...literally NOTHING! What's the fun in doing nothing? Well, to be honest I think it's impossible to do nothing. If you decide to stay in bed all weekend, doing nothing, you are really doing something--staying in bed all weekend. Right?
So, what will my nothing include? Who knows! That's the beauty of doing nothing---I have no preset plans, no expectations of myself or others, nothing at all! I have lots of things to do, of course, but I'm not doing any of them this weekend (no working on Pure Jeevan activities, no cleaning the house or doing laundry, no working on the computer, no organizing future plans/activities, no fancy meal preparations, etc.).
Jim here... During one of our marathon sessions at a Border's book store, I recall reading somewhere about the notion of a fruit's "intention" to be eaten. It's been a few years since I've read that, but I immediately resonated with the notion that many fruits, nuts, vegetables, and seeds are actually evolved to be eaten by other living beings and, therefore, to consume them (or their fruits and seeds) is to participate in a wonderfully nonviolent act that is in perfect harmony with a kind of primordial Earthen symbiosis. Whether these plants, vines, trees, etc. feel a conscious intention to have their fruit eaten by others is a matter of metaphysical conjecture. But, within the context of discussing vegetarianism, the argument is certainly relevant and fairly strong.
If you walk up to a farm animal, it may be impossible to estimate what's going through its mind, but I feel intuitively that it isn't, "Please kill me and eat my flesh." In other words, there's no "intention" present in that scenario. On the other hand, it's very easy to imagine that a tree produces fruit, knowingly or not, in order to produce offspring. Throughout the entire evolution of that tree, part of that reproductive process has involved animals (including humans) eating the fruit and then "redistributing" (which is a nice way of putting it, I suppose) the seeds naturally.
Today we welcome Devaki, the yoga instructor at Peaceful Valley Ashram, for another episode of Pure Jeevan s Makin? It Monday ?Guest Raw Chef? edition. In this episode, Devaki demonstrates how to make raw Cabbage-Mango salad. We ate the salad shown just after shooting the video. It was quite tasty and refreshing! Here s the recipe:
Read more: Devaki Makes Cabbage-Mango Salad on Makin' It Monday "Guest Raw Chef" Edition