Green Coffee Cupping

We’ve got a passion – its called peace

How does it feel to choose raw instead of supporting the industry of forcing food thru manufacturing and into packages, in an infinite stream of copies? What is the end result of choosing raw? Do we finally start to see the food that nourishes us? Each fruit, each green leaf, each nut, seed and vegetable is like a snowflake – no two are alike. Each one is a unique and exquisite expression.

Enjoy your health it means so much to you and those around you. Take it in during this holiday with love and peace. Notice what happens to your energy with choices you make. Take a yoga class. Have some oxygen for breakfast.
Best wishes to every single one of you!

Spirulina study in a new medical journal

Just found a cool new journal just starting in 2011: Biomedicine & Preventive Nutrition
Not tons of fun to search yet since there is only 2011 content to search so far, still I am looking forward to it.
Here is one article intro quote, just to wet your appetite:

“Introduction
Blue green algae such as Spirulina species contain C-PC (C-PC).
C-PC is a blue photosynthetic pigment that has both nutritional and
medicinal properties. It has been reported that phycocyanin has
antioxidant, antiinflammatory, hepatoprotective, radical scavenging
properties and neuroprotective effects [1–6]. There is an inverse
relationship between the antioxidative status and the occurrence
of human diseases [7,8]. Therefore, identifying antioxidant compounds
has been an important research topic…”
(Artitle title: C-phycocyanin from Spirulina maxima protects hepatocytes against oxidative damage induced by H2O2 in vitro
Pages 8-11
Authors: Yu Ou, Shan Zheng, Lin Lin, Qian Li)

If the food is too complicated; Migraine Headache and Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

If you search “cheese” in the medical journal Cephalalgia, you find lots of patients associating it as a cause for migraines. One article points to how difficult it is to make the scientific connection between how certain peoples’ bodies are dealing with certain foods and how exactly it is related to getting the headache. What is the biochemical action happening to cause this? There are ideas, experiments and efforts and just not the clear results sought after yet. I am pasting in part of that article and below that is an article citation on the DNA mechanisms related to Migraine Headache and Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.

One thought: if your body is not dealing with a complicated food well for whatever reason, you wouldn’t necessarily then say, well what other complicated food can I eat in its place. You might say I am going to try sticking primarily with simple foods, that have not been manipulated or complicated.

IgG-mediated allergy: A new mechanism for migraine attacks?

Julio Pascual and
Agustín Oterino

+ Author Affiliations

University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, Spain.

Julio Pascual, Service of Neurology, University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, 39008 Santander, Spain. Email: juliopascual@telefonica.net

Despite recent advances offered by modern neuroimaging and genetic techniques, the pathophysiology of migraine has not been fully clarified. As pointed out by Selby and Lance 50 years ago, a relevant proportion of patients report that their migraine attacks are usually precipitated by dietary items (1). In a survey analysing the prevalence of dietary migraine in 500 new migraine patients, Peatfield et al. found in 1984 that 19.2% of migraine patients reported sensitivity to cheese, 18.2% to chocolate ad 11.1% to citrus fruit (2)….One of the obstacles to acceptance of the dietary hypothesis is the lack of a clear scientific explanation of the mechanisms implicated in the development of migraine attacks supposedly precipitated by food. The first obvious proposed mechanism was an allergy mediated by IgE antibodies…

Citation of another interesting article:
Two Common Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphisms are Highly Associated with Migraine Headache and Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2982.2008.01793.x Cephalalgia July 2009 vol. 29 no. 7 719-728 authors: EA Zaki,
T Freilinger, T Klopstock, EE Baldwin, KRU Heisner, K Adams, M Dichgans, S Wagler and RG Boles; Author Affiliations

Division of Medical Genetics and the Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany
Friedrich-Baur-Institute
current address Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Association, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Department of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Division of Medical Genetics, Box 90, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA. Tel. +1-323-361-2178, fax +1-323-361-1172, e-mail rboles@chla.usc.edu

Romaine Lettuce, Cantaloupe, and Listeria

A Romaine lettuce recall happened on Sept.30, 2011, where one farm, has recalled 2,498 cartons of bagged romaine lettuce (shipping to 21 states) after a sample tested positive for listeria.

While we are at it, may as well remind ourselves to be weary of salad bars that don’t look well kept, see an 2011 article on this at Food Science Central.

Also recently ported are the tragic cases of deaths from eating cantaloupes (see FDA). Good for Costco for taking a stand, see New York times article on this. Costco is an awesome way to get a TON of cheap and great produce!

You can always subscribe to RSS feeds from the CDC to get the latest on outbreaks. Or get FDA e-mail updates.

You may want to see the Wikipedia entry on listeria: “The two main clinical manifestations are sepsis and meningitis…Antibiotics effective against listeria species include ampicillin, vancomycin (unclear effectiveness), ciprofloxacin, linezolid, azithromycin.

Mixtures of bacteriophages have also proven effective in the treatment of Listeria.”

Sorry none of that was fun to read. Maybe it beats reading about issues involved with effectively cleaning surgical tools exposed to mad cow disease.

Keep it simple salad

Some of the very best salads are the simplest (especially if anything otherwise will mean no salad).
Buy the largest pre-washed box/bag of mixed greens you can find. Stuff a large bowl with a third or half of the box. Cut up a few tomatoes and add a dressing. SO VERY SIMPLE. AND SO DELICIOUS. And if you don’t want to be someone walking around literally full of shit (constipated) you will get to your veggies and transform your life.

Fill up on the greens daily; that is the high nutrient, low calorie way to bring lightness to your being. Enjoy the amazing forest in your bowl. Each leaf has its own flavor, each is unique. Each leaf was grown and selected for your box. Invite each leaf and tomato to contribute to the nourishment of your life and those around you.

Raw and vegan right in your deli

Check out those grocery delis – some are HUGE and have like 50+ items. You could be doing extra work for the same price. Look for marinades and salads. Last night I found an INCREDBILY delicious dish for the same price had I made it myself. You do have to tell them to pour off the marinade (that reduced the cost by 2 dollars for me – when I asked them kindly to pour that off and reweigh).

The ingredients:
Apple slices (provides delicious light sweetness)
Sunflower seeds (just a few)
Kale (one of the ultimate foods of all time)
Radicchio (I’m a bitter lover so I LOVE radicchio)

There may have been vinegar added; I didn’t see or taste a single drop of oil anywhere – it was fantastic and light – I was SO impressed! They also had a delicious marinade dish of celery, green and black olives, bell peppers, banana peppers.

Check out those delis. Experiment, taste test a few, see if some are the same price as if you had made it yourself. Sometimes items are vegan – you may have to ask. I have complained countless times over the years when everything on the deli/salad bar has mayo, meat, cheese or noodles. It is like – wait are there any green foods without bacon flecks? I was so happy to find some gems out there. It’s a great way to treat yourself!

Vegetables = brain food

Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 2010 June; 29(5): 413–423.
Published online 2010 May 22. doi: 10.1159/000305099
Vegetables, Unsaturated Fats, Moderate Alcohol Intake, and Mild Cognitive Impairment

See (in Discussion) :
“Our findings are consistent with those of other investigators. High vegetable intake was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in the Chicago Health and Aging Project [32]; high intake of β-carotene, flavonoids, vitamins C and E, thiamine, and folate from dietary fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of AD in the Rotterdam Study [33] and with better Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores [34]…Our observation of associations of higher intake of vegetables and of higher MUFA:SFA and (MUFA + PUFA):SFA ratios with a-MCI is interesting and raises questions about the role of dietary factors in the pathogenesis of MCI and AD.” (read the article: at Pubmed)

Chewing and what’s not for dinner

Some people love not chewing. Popular foods are often (not always) mushy foods, think about it. Fast foods and comfort foods are often mushy. Some people hate mushy foods. Some like both.

One day my partner kindly told me why eating raw greens just isn’t her bag. And I never would have guessed the answer because I love chewing and crunching foods (like snap peas, kohlrobi, carrots, celery, etc.). I love the sound, the bursting of flavors, the whole feel of the whole interaction. However like a lot of people, she hates it when it gets all stuck in between her teeth and she has to get it out and just hates knowing that is going to happen. If its not cut small the dressing can get on your face. Many don’t like tearing through fiber and all those “sticks” and strings.

Over many years, we found solutions, for example: green smoothies (high-speed blender), juices (centrifugal juicer), salsas (food processor) and foods like saag (lightly steaming the greens, then blending). A high speed blender will literally spin the nutrients out of the cell walls making them more bioavailable.

Ultimately it’s not so relevant why we dislike a food. What is interesting is when we kindly get in touch with what’s blocking us from a particular vegetable and move on by using creative solutions. Sometimes it’s simple like, I had no idea how flavorful that vegetable was, or how to eat it, or gee my tastes have changed! Pick a vegetable and see if you can peal back its layers, drop the story lines and discover it for yourself. Feel free to leave a comment sharing your story, I’d love to hear your stories.

Tip on getting greens in your life:
So far this summer we have inherited literally pounds of greens from friends with CSAs. CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) often have lots of left overs they want to give away. At one point our house was the pickup point for the neighborhood CSA and whenever someone couldn’t pick up their box that week, we inherited. This year, our CSA is completely paid for by a health insurance benefit. The many pounds of greens that enter our house weekly (what a blessing!) are many more than our household will chew up in one week. However we can juice them, so they don’t go to waste. Juicing is the quickest way to get them into your system.

There are so many discoveries to make. I have so much to learn. The other day a friend of ours pulled an onion right out of the ground, I never saw that before – it was beautiful! We never grew onions in our veggie garden. Green onions are my favorite addition to a salad, now I can picture them growing. She also introduced me to kohlrobi and some variety of a mild radish that was delicious raw.

May you also be able to openly, honestly and kindly find your hang-up with a particular vegetable that has been holding you back. And then, if possible find solutions that work for you and open new doors of nutrients for your miraculous body that carries you through this amazing life.

Ginger in your life

Please someone write an ode to ginger, it deserves it, don’t you think?
It’s only issue: storage. It will fail on the countertop quickly and there you’ll be ginger-less. This will bring ginger forever into your life. It takes a little love and care up front, however the result is tremendous.

Peel with a peeler (like your peeling carrots only a little trickier, persist, don’t be a perfectionist).

Toss into food processor or high-speed blender. If you are using the blender add water.

Spoon into ice-cube trays. Place frozen cubes into zip-lock bag in freezer.

Now they are ready to toss into any recipe; if you spooned in 1 tsp for each that can be handy. My fav these days: ginger, lemon, honey tea. ahhh Enjoy the beautiful life in this beautiful body that you have right now, in this moment.

New favorite Fennel Juice

Yesterday we made a new favorite fennel juice, you can’t imagine how great this tastes! Really. So elegant, so light, and yet so present:
1 fennel bulb (with its leaves)
2 lemons (small, organic and unpeeled)
2 pounds of carrots.

One of my favorite vlogs, jockestonia, is by a rawfoodie, yoga teacher in Estonia, who recently said of all the rawfood options, juicing is the best.

Centrifugal juicing may be the most likely to win over the most hearts. What do you think? It’s a brilliant way to enjoy fresh live vegetables exploding with flavor and life, especially when drank right after being juiced. It works in a hurry or when for whatever reason one doesn’t get the pleasure of enjoying the vegetables whole and uncovered. Enjoying a colorful salad is an exquisite luxury, however everyone loves drinks that can be sweet, colorful, sour, spicy, creamy, etc.

Try resting your cutting board in the sun when you use it, then you can enjoy even more of the vegetables’ beauty sparkling in the light. If you can prepare them mindfully and in no hurry, how nice that is! Let love move right into the dish and onto the table.

We’re all drinking some kinds of fluids. Although, many eat almost no vegetables – lets say you saved all those up that would have ideally been eaten through out the week and put them all into one juice once a week. Hey, that is better than nothing isn’t it? It may be a very important answer missing in the popular habits of healthy eating that people are working for. The motto could be: keep it simple toss it in a centrifugal.

Thanks to everyone enjoying this blog. It’s really fun to be with you on the journey.

Popular query on juicing – Is it Expensive?

Is juicing expensive? For some it CAN cost the same. You or someone you love may be in a situation, where they are not taking in ANY vegetables on some days, THEN if an apple, some celery and a couple carrots would have been gladly budgeted in, a small juice can be the perfect solution.

WHENEVER you’d just be taking in what you would have wanted and that would not have otherwise be taken in – it is an extremely skillful choice. THAT IS WHERE THE REAL STRENGTH OF JUICING LIES. It is GREAT for situations where the cabbage just is not getting eaten and you want those nutrients.

At that point you can see how losing pulp isn’t relevant since NOTHING was being eaten before. It adds vital nutrients to your body. Think of the energy used to produce your multivitamin. There is waste in any processing, no denying. It is a waste that so many farmers can’t move all the eatable veggies they can grow. Its tragic that people are dying from addictions to less skillful habits.

Is juicing expensive? It can be. Were you going to have mostly oatmeal otherwise? Then yes of course it is more expensive. Your actual cost depends on if you have a garden or an insurance-refunded CSA (Community supported agriculture plan), or other access to large amounts of vegetables on the cheap.

Many of us can find a way to the golden opportunity of filling up on juice while passing on cheaper cooked foods like rice, etc. For me, it is not like I just drank of glass of water now where’s dinner. It is like wow I am deeply, refreshingly full and not hungry now.

Get vegetables in your life HOWEVER it works for you. They will change your life. Living on them will set you dietarily and bodily free.

Beet carrot juice – Beautiful Juices for your beautiful body

beet carrot juice

This delicious and gorgeous juice is made of one lemon, one large beet with its beet greens, ~ 10 skinny carrots, and one apple. FANTASTIC JUICE!!! The flavor of these juices have so much depth and interest – it is difficult to describe. And while I have bought lots of “live” juices in stores “freshly” made that day – it is not the same. As juicing books will all tell you drink them right away. The life is just exploding in you – it is pretty amazing. ANYWAY I can add, in my opinion, there is no need to buy a juice book in so far as naturally delicious recipes will just fall out of your fridge. They really will, I am proof being that I am not a natural chef and live with extremely picky eaters who enjoy these juices I make in minutes with our new Breville 1000 watt.

Old standbys that go into any juice: I always keep these around for juices to ensure deliciousness comes out:
apples, lemons, carrots. Additional: celery, ginger.

Great “main dishes” to toss in: cabbage, swiss chard, bok choi, beets, again celery (can be the main goodness), peppers, any green leaves do fine in the breville (spinach, kale, spring mix, parsley, cilantro etc).

One of my favorite surprises is that no veggies ever go to waste, if our greens are going limp, they get tossed into a juice and sometimes the shreds of leaves turn into a dish themselves. Another surprise is the increased confidence with which I take in the largest spread of veggies at a farmers market or grocery. I know I can try any bizarre vegetable I can’t name and if I don’t get inspired later, the juicer saves the day.

Here is another beauty, a purple cabbage carrot juice, please try to notice the fun “cappuccino” froth:

purple cabbage carrot juice

Pickiest eater EVER gulping said purple cabbage carrot juice (you can see this is an older picture with our older single auger juicer):

Wishing you get to enjoy the goodness of taking in vegetables for your beautiful body! However you do it keep on taking good care of your precious body : )

Schools Battle Unhealthy Eating Habits, on/off Campus

New York Times posted a video on its front page today pointing to increasing childhood obesity, the issue of corporations pushing sugar, volunteerism. The spokesperson concludes with a need to regulate. Volunteers stand outside the corner stores and encourage kids to make healthy purchases on their way to school. Kids in school play healthy food games, sing health food songs, etc. Way to go Phily!

Schools don’t generally have a lot of choices about what foods they can buy for their cafeteria. Wisconsin has successfully worked with local farmers to bring in lunch (see article): “Like other farm-to-school projects popping up across the nation, Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch benefits children and local farmers by increasing the amount of locally grown, fresh produce served in school lunches…’Local food is an ideal vehicle, both for enhancing school curricula and achieving economic development,’ says [Jack] Kloppenburg, who serves as project director. ‘The Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch project exposes children to healthy food, teaches those children about agriculture and may develop new markets for local farmers.’”
Click here to see the Philadelphia video.

Healthiest Green “tea”

Juice green leaves, lemon and ginger and voila!

Taking away Medicaid from poor people while providing tax breaks to the rich

Republicans have now broken the law in order to pass their Budget Repair bill. Watch them break the Open Meetings Law on camera to pass this bill. Republicans are taking away health insurance (Medicaid and BadgerCare) from poor people and providing 140 million worth of tax breaks for the wealthiest. For details including the bill see UW-Madison Library Guide. Also see ProgressivesUnited,WisconsinWave, OneWisconsin, UpTake, and UnitedWisconsin

Listen to Gov. Walker talking with who he thought was billionaire Koch and hear part 1 of the conversation for yourself. In a public statement Walker blows it off as just a conversation.

Pink Juice and the Breville juicer

Take a peak at this beautiful juice I just made with a Breville (1000 watt; cheaper to buy via Amazon) also shown in the next video.

Here is the gorgeous juice – two pears, two lemons, one purple cabbage:

Here is the gorgeous juicer Breville 1000 watt. I used a much slower single auger juicer for years, I wish I had found this centrifugal juicer instead – it is lightening speed, easy to clean and produces masses of juice plenty for everyone; in fact you have to watch out or the huge pitcher will overflow it fills so fast! ITS AWESOME! We drink juice everyday now, hopefully I can load a few sample videos like plopping a whole beet with the beet green in there, fennel, celery, etc. It is a sight to behold. I’m truly glad for it because juices are easy to make delicious. Smoothies are trickier to make tasty. Now I show up at the veggie section of the grocery store and anything at all will be fine, things I can’t name, toss them in the juicer with something sweet like apples, carrots, pears and voila your getting all that live, high-nutrient, alkalinizing beauty right into you and your loved ones systems. Life is simple again. Thank you Breville for making a beautiful product. Here is the vid:

Juice Calories

In Fitday.com (my favorite way of tracking) you can take a peak at some of the calorie and nutrition info of foods we commonly juice:

Taking care of your health amidst threats to your benefits

Hopefully we can embrace our efforts towards good health even more in the face of current politics. Current politics where particular politicians are using the economic crash (caused by banks and corporate greed) to use workers as scapegoats and to take away unions and their benefits. If you or your loved ones are facing losing health care benefits or have already lost them or never had them you can especially hope for your health. I was going to say our health is not something a governor can propose a bill about, however so many people are dependent on medication and care that may be affected. It is very concerning and I have written to five of my representatives regarding this issue and encourage others to do so. And as always please take good care of your health!

Nutritional Options for fighting Heart Disease

Andrew Saul, PhD, in a video lesson discussing the importance and practical application of Nutritional Therapy in the treatment of High Cholesterol and Heart Disease. www.foodmatter.tv

Reasons to juice raw vegetables and fruits

1) How often do you eat a 5 QT / 4.7 L bowl of broccoli and carrots? an entire head of celery? You can take in the alkalinizing high-nutrients from this as a juice very easily and enjoyably!

2) The last huge tray of veggies we brought to a gathering went largely uneaten and there it all was – perfect for juicing – voila. If you garden or join a CSA you may find you have huge quantities of veggies – juicing uses them very fast before they get a chance to dry up in your refrigerator. Put anything you want in the juicer, just like a salad, if it is not sweet enough add sweet fruits or carrots – it will be delicious and fresh – you will be adding accessible nutrients to your body.

3) Does someone you love not like eating veggies? They might drink them. IMO it is much easier to make a juice taste sweet and go down easily than a smoothie. That was the brilliance of the deadly and extremely popular sugar soda revolution where Americans happily pour tons of corn syrup into their bodies in the form of a drink. If it is sweet, people almost won’t notice the rest.

4) It is faster to juice than other traditional methods of preparing vegetables.

If you have other reasons leave them in the comments below : )

Eating out and minimalism

I want to reference a writer/blogger/vegan for Zen Habits, via this post on fast food. A minimalist approach to life and aim to eat primarily raw vegetables and fruits have a lot in common. There is nothing as simple as eating for example a cucumber just as it is, not cut or mashed or grated. Many vegetables can be peacefully enjoyed just as they are. In fact so much is missed when we manipulate them before enjoying all they are bringing us. When you see it whole you can appreciate how it got there, how much watering and care and time it all took. Enjoy your food and maybe check out (subscribe to) the Zen Habits blog, it is inspirational and well written.

When I eat out I think simply: what vegetables does this restaurant have back there in the kitchen? Instead of focusing on what I don’t want, I try to find what they have that I want. Then I think how can I order the most of those. Sometimes it is not a problem, they often have a plan for giving you lots of fresh vegetables. When they have no plan I try to think of the simplest option for the chef. Is there a dish where they can just not add cheese or meat? If so could they replace that with more vegetables?

Nearly every time they are kindly willing to work with me. If they aren’t (if I am alone) I am fine with leaving, I really don’t want to support that business. If I am with others I am fine with not ordering.

Just a couple examples (I can’t be an expert here): Panera Bread and Chipotle have salads. Subway has lots of kinds of vegetables and salads. Einsteins Bagels offers all vegetable salads (in an airport two days ago I found this and it was delicious). The coutons and dressing were all on the side so I just tossed them in the trash and enjoyed a great pile of fresh vegetables. In fact it was packed so well I tossed the salad package into my bag on end and ate it on the plane. That’s salad on the go!

People say pizza places have salad bars. However thinking of the smell from so many years ago, it reminds me of closing/clogged arteries and death really. About 10 years ago on a work trip the group chose to go to a Culvers. I was sickened by the smell of grease and sad for the people in line. Thank goodness they ate outside, so I could sit outside with them while they ate and we all enjoyed the sun.

I learned as a child when I did a year without sugar that you can just opt out of what everyone is eating and the sky doesn’t fall or anything really! Happily so many places offer salad options lets support them when we end up showing at places. Countless times I have asked for the manager and expressed concerns. My least favorite response is when they say: veggies options don’t sell that is why we don’t have any option for you. Incidentally I don’t always think they have really run recent numbers. Best of luck to all you in this new year!

Raw in the rustic winter; meet Jocke – Hi Jocke!

Wanted to share one of the many vloggers I am subscribed to via Youtube. They are all traveling on vacation these days. He is heading to Finland (where he and his family are in this video) and later India. He is doing a raw food challenge and I love his honest down to earth way, you can see if you enjoy it; here he is making a warm juice on an actual wood burning stove:

A shout out to all the vloggers and a thanks to
YouTube :
…YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited for being “a ‘Speakers’ Corner’ that both embodies and promotes democracy.”[43][44]
“In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as “nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined.”[32] (wikipedia)

Eating in social gatherings

Thanksgiving is around the corner. My favorite way is to bring a huge raw veggie or fruit tray (people/kids love that with dip so that comes too). I often eat before I go somewhere. I get much more out of being with the people when I am not as distracted by wanting to eat. That way I can be more helpful, you know, let me get napkins for everyone or get a serving spoon, etc. It can make me happy to see someone is happy by whatever they are eating, you know just get into their actual experience of happiness. It’s fun to participate in that and the simple joy of the gathering. What do you gals and guys do/think/bring?

Here David Wolfe (a rawfoodist, author on the topic) talks about eating in social situations (youtube, 2008, from The Best of Raw Food channel).

Gabriel Cousens on Organic Raw Food – youtube

Gabriel wrote popular books on raw food, for example Conscious Eating. Thanks to YouTube you can see him speak on why you might choose organic:

Plug for simply eating raw

There are so many amazing pates, soups, spreads, even cheeses people are making with raw foods. It is a business waiting to happen. A friend of ours has been asked to work on making his fermented all raw cheeses (actually they are delicious, that name doesn’t sound delicious) as a product with a company. These amazing foods are like the gourmet of raw. I think most people aren’t making gourmet anything at home. I do love blending delicious things. However for me right now in my life I am loving the simple. And it really can be so easy. So mornings for me are often just a banana. If I know I will be doing hot yoga or something active I might add a few (think no more than 6) brazil nuts (an important source of selenium). Later in the morning I might have a grapefruit or pear.

I just want to encourage thinking simply. It is simple to add easily digestible healthful foods. It doesn’t have to be complex. I snack on carrots. Eat an avocado just plain like that, it is so nice when it is so simple. A whole tomato can be enjoyed just like an apple. Just take a bite carefully. Green and red peppers are lovely eaten whole like people eat apples. Celery, etc. so much is just so plainly simple. And yet each plant is extremely complex and you can really see that when it is enjoyed in its simplest form. If I have blended it I don’t have a chance to see how beautiful it is just like it is.

I want to send a big shout out to all the readers and writers and makers of this incredible raw movement revolution which really has saved me in so many ways. My digestion SO much prefers a mostly raw diet and now I don’t feel so weird with such a large gang of amazing people jumping on this wagon. We are all riding together. I am so glad I found out about this secret that you can eat so simply. Of course what is popularized by commercial media is not necessarily a reflection of what is most functional and incredible. Best to you all! : )

Green smoothie Blendtec K-tech power high speed blender

Here I’m using aBlendtec (used to be K-tec), my favorite blender for years now, to make a green smoothie: kale, pineapple and flaxseed – enjoy. I mention you can blend a cell phone (don’t do it – the ground powder from electronics is toxic – yuk). Best of luck to all of you in enjoying new ways to include great raw vegetables and fruits.

Waffle sandwich talk by DeAnne Smith

Funny video. Thanks DeAnne. Love the: “…we’re d’unkin our food in other food so we can just be on the go…” It really is a myth that we all need a huge breakfast (that was when we all went to work in the fields for hours). I have had one banana for breakfast for years now. As Joel Fuhrman points out: if you were sleeping, you didn’t exercise all night and if you sit at work all day, you won’t be expending many calories there either. Getting fat is simple, just take in more calories than you expend. DeAnne explains one option, enjoy!:

Fun salad by an amazing yoga teacher Dashama

Just a few notes: if you massage the oil (use Virgin Olive oil for great flavor) into the kale it will really soften it up. Dashama has a nice avocado cutting technique – keeps your fingers clean. Now that it is pumpkin season – get those pumpkin seeds prepared (by dehydrating or low heat) – YUM.

How much land to feed a person and obesity

I have no idea how he comes up with it, however Matt Ridley (on BookTV) says we have profoundly increased the productivity of our land so that we now need much less land to feed each person: in the time of Hunter gatherers 1,000 ha (The hectare is a unit of area, defined as 10,000 square metres-wikipedia), in the 1950s 4,000 sq. m. and in 2004 1,250 sq m (av cereal yield). It is nice to finally see a plug for technology with reference to growing food. If the government (pushed by lobbyists) would replace supplementing corn with supplementing fruits and vegetables for human consumption this would support research for more discoveries there. This will be a great revolution! Imagine the most delicious fruits and vegetables available very cheaply and conveniently and popularly.

At this moment the corn growers are paid to grow corn in the U.S., their surplus corn product quickly makes it into soft drinks (corn sugar) where they can dispose of tons of product for profit. This new addiction is killing people in a slow painful death where people drown their organs in fat. Addicted people are literally drinking liters of soda a day and slowly killing themselves. If it can be any inspiration, the last time I had soda was back in the 1980′s when I quite eating cows and pigs.

Here is the FDA on obesity in 2004:
“In 2002, three states had obesity prevalence rates of 25 percent or more, and all but 15 states had obesity prevalence rates of 20 percent or greater.
Overweight and obesity are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Approximately 400,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to unhealthy dietary habits coupled with physical inactivity. Overweight and obesity are considered risk factors for other chronic conditions such as diabetes and certain cancers, including cancers of the breast, colon, kidney, esophagus and endometrium.
As the prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased in the United States, so have direct and indirect related health care costs. The current total cost of overweight and obesity is $117 billion per year, which is greater than 5 percent of nation’s total annual health care expenditures.”

Yes the U.S. currently PAYS farmers to overproduce a product that raises health care costs. In my opinion, Americans will find a way to kick the corn-fed beef eating habit and move on. I think we are already starting it. People are producing/trying different foods. People are accessing the information they need to help them find better options for themselves.

This is funny! See the metaphor – Repurpose the industry.:

Juicing Fennel

Here I use my simple Samson juicer to juice fennel. Add grapefruit juice and you have a fun healthy drink. I don’t recommend juicing everything; smoothies are generally better overall because they include the fiber which reduces the speed of the sugar absorption. When looking for a juicer consider how long it may take to clean the parts. This Samson is very easy and fast to clean, operate and store (it is small).

Safe cutting techniques; Chiffonade, citrus peeler, Japanese vegetable knife

Also see wikipedia for cutting techniques.
In the video I mention Edward Espe Brown’s book, Tassajara Cookbook, it includes great cutting techniques. I also show how to use a citrus peeler and a Japanese vegetable knife.

Ragweed allergy, sore throat and sore shoulders

Lets find some ragweed allergy relief. Some of the most helpful things I found I didn’t find online so I want to post. The way I understand why my shoulder and neck muscle tension is related to the allergic reaction is that the pollen is seen by my body as an allergen. This stimulates histamine release by mast cells, thereby producing vasodilation and ultimately an inflammatory response. Drainage (and possibly a side affect of Flonaze) cause the sore throat. Sometimes cooling the body down is the best. Sometimes warm moisture brings the most immediate relief.

Neti pot (you can find a nice ceramic version of this and high quality salts)

Lemon, honey, warm water mixture (for a sore throat)

Cold grapefruit juice

Cold cut up fruit (especially grapefruit) can feel good on a hot sore throat

Cold ice rubbed around the sore throat and shoulder area can bring great relief

Splashing cool water on the face and neck and shoulders

Increase fluid intake (there is lots of water in fruits and vegetables; this is especially important if you are taking loratadine and iubuprofen)

Shoulder and neck massage (try using the “Thera Cane Massager” or “Body Back Buddy”, you can get it via Amazon; I need a very deep massage and nothing can replace a tool like this for self-massage, it is just the best!)

There is a prescription liquid that you can gargle that will numb the sore throat (if you are really desperate)

Face massage (you might try gently pressing your palms under your eyes)

Put your face over a pan of soup or warm water and breath in the moist air, this helps you hydrate yourself

Yoga helps stretch open the muscles, tissues and vessels increasing flow. It also helps strengthen the core and open the pelvis and chest areas so that good posture comes more easily.

Pull your shoulders down and away from your neck. This gives room to the area.

Deep breath “into” the areas of pain. Thinking of bringing oxygen to the areas. Your prana goes where your mind goes.

Google “allergy videos” etc. There are tons of fun and educational free videos. Ellen Degeneres says the pollen goes up the nose and pushes her eyeballs out her ears.

I haven’t tried these yet:

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) see youtube informational videos

Stinging nettle and quercetin supplement

Alkalol is a commercially available solution which can be used as an oral rinse or nasal irrigant

Oregano oils

A surgeon once told me that your body naturally produces lots of mucus everyday. I can’t recall the measurement he gave, one site I found said: “Every day the human body produces several liters of sinus fluid and mucus” (wisegeek). Some of this sits in your face sinus cavities and moves out and gets replaced; it is a daily cycle. Your job is to keep it moving, keep it thin enough (by taking in water and moist air). Try to love your sinuses. They filter and moisten the air that we breathe. They also remove unwanted air particles.

Watch Dashama! She has great tips for relaxing the shoulder and neck (THANKS Dashama!):

An aside, I found a dense article on why eating raw food is helpful. You might need to give an email to subscribe (then you can unsubscribe easily I found). The site was recommended to me yesterday by our local community pharmacy.

Green Smoothie from the Garden

Now that enough trees have died and moved on from our (now sunny) yard we have grown a beautiful vegetable garden. The green tops of the vegetables go well in the smoothie. It is a treat to wander into the garden with a huge bowl and find, here and there, whatever looks ready. Last night our green smoothie had carrot green tops, broccoli greens, beet greens, kale and cilantro. Most of these are very bitter greens and for that reason not commonly eaten – still they’re packed with nutrients. They worked well in the smoothie because of the powerful dense sweetness of the pineapple. I also tossed in about a quarter of a cup of flax seeds. All of this will grind nicely in a high speed blender in minutes. Our four year old drank a large cup after we added strawberry juice from a juice box.

I am still a big fan of this simple easy way of enjoying taking in lots of greens. Enjoy your greens!

Another plug for the Green Smoothie and the right blender

Image: Christian Meyn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While a complicated smoothie adds such a nice diversity of nutrients for your body, our favorite still these days is keeping it simple: Kale and pineapple. Done in minutes. Oh yeah I add 1 tbl flax seed. And I can say here I am using a can of pineapple; this can get it sweet enough for our picky four year old to enjoy or more bitter if I add more kale. Either way I can put tons of kale (because of the immense countering sweetness of the pineapple). There is only so much room in a blender and I cram it mostly full of greens (Kale or swiss chard or collards all work well).

A high speed blender will spin the nutrients right out of those plant cell walls and make more accessible all those valuable nutrients. You nearly always add about a cup of water to the bottom of a high speed blender to blend; then pulse a few times and for my Blendtec/K-Tech I hit number 2 (which is a programed blend setting that runs through a cycle that finishes). I have destroyed many average blenders quickly. My Blendtec has paid for itself. I have been using it heavily for about 5 years now and still without a single problem. IT IS SO EASY TO CLEAN. Two pieces, the lid and the jar, done. There are no little parts. Also it is shorter than the vitamix so it slides under the cabinets easily. You could blend a cell phone into dust in that thing. Now when I make almond milk there is no left over almond powder/parts – everything is blended into milk and very fast.

For me the Blendtec blender is the most important plug-in tool in the kitchen. And we have a nice cuisinart (food processor) and a great juicer (also easy to clean; it is a Samson). A great blender is by far the most important tool for us. If you interested in getting any of these, in my opinion, start with the high-speed blender, next important for me is the juicer.

Enjoy drinking your green smoothie made so easily. The green smoothie is fine on the go or on the seat. Enjoy taking care of yourself. You really are worth it!

Are your shoulders dangling from your ears like earrings?

After about six years of mindfulness meditation classes and now over 3 months of intense yoga classes, it is amazing to me to notice myself, as almost for the first time, in the kitchen. Hovering over a cutting board with my shoulders wound up to my ears with tightness and my breath really missing, I am surprised at how someone with my background and love of food, could have for so long entirely left my mindfulness training at the kitchen door. Especially when you pick up a knife to do some prep work it would seem like a very wise time to practice mindfulness, right? Try inviting yourself in the kitchen. The real you, right there in the kitchen, hello you, welcome, come on in, lets see how you are doing in here. Ed Brown offers some great cutting tips in his latest version (2009) of the Tassajara Cookbook. And of course, don’t miss listening to him, per the previous post. Also he is the star of a movie about cooking called How to Cook Your Life, which of course I can’t wait to rent. When you cut the vegetables, cut the vegetables. When you washing the cutting board, wash the cutting board.

Ed Brown – Dogen’s Instructions To The Cook

I invite you to listen to the incredibly amazing, insightful, enjoyable, (etc. where can I stop?) Ed Brown on: Dogen’s Instructions To The Cook

Ed’s are exquisite podcasts here’s is another “Facets of Self”. Ed is just who he is and invites you into that experience of yourself…his is engaging and humorous…many times I am tempted to surf or do something else while I listen, I just couldn’t with Ed, I felt so me afterwards…hard to explain…he gets at the fakeness and the absurdity of it…

A little about Edward Brown which I found in 2007 via Tricycle.com while pouring through their podcast archive:
“Edward Espe Brown has been practicing Zen since 1965 (and yoga since 1980), and has been head resident teacher at each of the San Francisco Zen Centers: Tassajara, Green Gulch, and City Center. He has led meditation retreats and cooking classes throughout the United States, as well as Austria, Germany, Spain, and England. He is the author of several cookbooks including The Tassajara Bread Book and Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, and is the editor of Not Always So, a newly published book of lectures by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He has also done extensive Vipassana practice.”

Mindful, conscious eating – eating with awareness

In the book The World We Have, Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story of couple traveling with their small boy across a vast desert to seek asylum in another land. They ran out of food. “Realizing all three of them would them would die in the desert, the parents made a horrifying decision: they decided to kill and eat their child. Every day they ate a morsel of his flesh, just enough for the energy to walk a little further, all the while, crying ‘Where is our son?’”(p.17, The World We Have) and they are in terrible mourning. Was it easy for the couple to eat their son? Of course not. Thich Nhat Hanh wants us to think about the impact our choices have on the resources available on the planet. Each time we take something away and use it up, we can think about that.

Many people eat twice the calories they need a day; eating enough for two adults or one adult and a child. I remember seeing a great talk by a doctor giving a talk on google video about the value of being vegan and apparently the average american eats a very large number cows (15), chickens (900), hogs (24), sheep (12), etc. throughout the course of their lifetime.

Animal fat is solid at room temperature. It sticks to our blood vessels and clogs them. Whatever organ was at the other end of the clog is what is damaged when the blood can no longer get through the opening. In multiple ways, we actually increase human suffering and starvation by supporting the meat industry. The amount of land and soil and water being used to grow the mono-crops to feed these animals could feed exponentially more people if the land was devoted to growing crops edible for humans.

We were just watching an excellent movie called “Dirt” on Independent Lens. It is about the health of the life in dirt. Healthy dirt produces healthy vegetables. The movie says we are destroying our dirt. For example, when pests find a way to unlock the mechanism for by-passing a pesticide and eating a mono-crop like wheat or corn it then has an unlimited food supply. This problem is currently solved by creating new pesticides. The diversity of plant life is vital to the health of the soil. Also, when one type of plant can not handle one type of weather disaster another can survive and visa versa.

I just ate a couple dates and I thought of how many strong hands may have touched each one. You are eating the sun that shown on it and the water that fed it and the soil that became its body as well. If you go to the date company’s website you can see photos of some of the workers. The site says their dates are picked by hand.

Speaking of Thich Nhat Hanh, he has just written a book all about mindful eating and food choices, called Savor. I just ordered it, hopefully he will inspire another post here! Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh!

To sum it up, where to start in a nutshell

Here is what I am saying when people ask for ideas:
Go for a pound of greens a day (salad, smoothies, steamed, blended into soup bases, etc.)
Greens are primary. Everyone can eat more fruit, that is easy to grow to love. Greens take more thought and care.
One of my favorite ways to get them in is still (after all these years) the VERY simple: green smoothie (think: one can of pineapple, for the simplest possible way to have pineapple always on hand and as many greens (try collards, kale, swiss chard) as you can fit into your blender or less if you want it to only taste like pineapple juice; add water to blend. I add a tablespoon and a half of flax seeds.) The best blender (in my opinion) is the Ktech (Blendtec) see, http://www.blendtec.com/ (I paid ~350$ and have used it countless times over the years, it is still in perfect condition and VERY simple to clean).

Get about an ounce of nuts and seeds a day. Raw walnuts are super and easy to find in the cooking aisle. What I say about tahini (which is blended sesame seeds): I use it in dressings, hummus and one of my favorite things to do is mix it with lemon and a little water for an asparagus dressing (think: a tablespoon of tahini, half a lemon, water to thin). Hummus = tahini, garbanzo beans, water (optional lemon, olive oil, etc.). There are a number of salad dressing recipes that require tahini. I have used/and own a perfect ton of rawfood recipe books. If you want simple I say use the cookbook, Rawsome. If you have just a hair more time and want exquisite taste I go for Renee Loux’s books: Living Cuisine is the cookbook I have used the most, however it doesn’t have a good index and The Balanced Plate has a better index. Watch Ani Phyo’s youtube recipe videos.

The book, Eat to Live has such great tools and concepts. Many years ago (and I still reference Joel Fuhrman’s books, video online) he revolutionized my way of thinking about what a “good” way of eating is. I use huge salad bowls (I like Corelle’s biggest bowls because it is lightweight, stack-able and still feels like you are holding glass) and last and firstly – GO FOR A POUND OF GREENS A DAY! It is such a very beautiful and good fortune to be able to enjoy fresh plants on your plate. They have true beauty and you can enjoy them mindfully. Best wishes!

What is it with all the dairy?

I am struggling with something. Whenever I leave town (which sometimes feels like leaving the country) I so often find that restaurateurs still believe the vegetarian option means the cheese option.

If a vendor is going to (as they sometimes feel – “go out of their way”) to provide a dish that is friendly (inclusive) to the majority of the world population’s digestive capabilities, this food will not include dairy.

Here’s wiki on lactose intolerance (which by the way is not the only reason people can’t do dairy; casein, which is a basis for wood glue, is also a problem and it is often found in soy “cheese” products):

“Lactose intolerance is the inability to metabolize lactose, because of a lack of the required enzyme lactase in the digestive system.[original research?] It is estimated that 75% of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood.[1] The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from as little as 5% in northern Europe, up to 71% for Sicily, to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries.[2]“

I am struggling because even locally for years I have repeatedly asked our large university campus to embrace this idea. With its population of students from around the world and vegans from everywhere, the resistance to the idea is astonishingly strong!

I have often heard/read that dairy is the very first and most important thing to drop because it is so toxic for your system (non-organic has especially intensified pesticide/hormone product in it). That is not even what I am talking about here, I am just talking about accommodating a simple physiological experience of the majority of the world population. It is still surprising to me that I don’t see this changing as fast as I would have guessed. Even it can be hard to find chocolate without milkfat in it (milkfat is a cheap filler and it is used as a way to keep the cost down for many chocolate companies).

I don’t want to say dairy is killing this country because I hate getting people angry who seem to thrive off of it (still, you can see the huge rise in consumption of dairy rise with the increased rate of cancer and heart attacks in this country). Hey if it works for you, don’t come after me! Do what you notice is working for you. 15 years ago I digested dairy fine, I don’t now, it is just the way it is, sometimes people lose the digestive enzymes as an adult.

Since I am complaining I might as well get it out, what I really dis-enjoy, is when you explain the idea to a restaurateur and they look at you with a blank stare like they have never heard of a non-dairy main course food option; like they have never seen food before and how can they not know food – it is their business! I get that they may not know digestion or anything about nutrition, although at least food it seems like they would know. : //

Brazil Nuts, seeds and aflatoxin

Recently I have found brazil nuts right out of their shell are much more flavorful (generally) than when you buy them without their shell. Some companies seem to provide fresher shelled nuts than others. Years ago I read somewhere that it is better to shell nuts and seeds yourself (that they stay fresher longer that way). Each brazil nut can taste different and look slightly different. Sadly, one was all black inside and I swear a ton of spores went flying out when I cracked it open and this puff of dark smoke came out-yuck. We found the OXO nut cracker is a vast improvement to the more standard nut cracker. Why eat brazil nuts? One, they taste a little like coconut and two, the selenium my friend the selenium!

Note, as quoted below, Wiki points out, Europe has a ban on the import of brazil nuts in the shell. I just read this so now I will research aflatoxins. I understand there was proposed U.S. ban on raw almonds (the plan was to require them to be irradiated b/c of the aflatoxins as I recall). I think aflatoxins are the reason peanut butter is going out of style. We choose sunflower butter. However you get them, you might think about getting a few nuts and seeds a day (generally not more than an ounce a day). Wholefoods makes a simple and delicious sesame seed brittle (it includes sunflower seeds and almonds); you’ll find it there in clear plastic boxes (I appreciate that they are not individually wrapped).

Wiki on Aflatoxin: “Medical research indicates that a regular diet including apiaceous vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, celery and parsley, reduces the carcinogenic effects of aflatoxin.[5]”

Nih.gov on selenium.

Wikipedia on Brazil Nuts: “Nutritionally, Brazil nuts are a good source of magnesium and thiamine[citation needed], and are perhaps the richest dietary source of selenium; one ounce can contain as much as 10 times the adult USRDA (U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowances), more even than the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL), although the amount of selenium within batches of nuts varies greatly[14][15]. Recent research suggests that proper selenium intake is correlated with a reduced risk of both breast cancer as well as prostate cancer.[16] This has led some health commentators and nutritionists to recommend the consumption of Brazil nuts as a protective measure.[17][18] These findings are inconclusive, however; other investigations into the effects of selenium on prostate cancer were inconclusive.[19]
Despite the possible health benefits of the nut, the European Union has imposed strict regulations on the import from Brazil of Brazil nuts in their shells, as the shells have been found to contain high levels of aflatoxins, which can lead to liver cancer.[20] According to Tony Farndell, MD of TFR Nuts and Dried Fruits Ltd, a UK importer, the import restrictions on in-shell kernels came as a result of the whole nut including the shell, being ground down for testing. Thus aflatoxins were detected and the restrictions imposed.[citation needed]“

Gut Bacteria May Cause And Fight Disease, Obesity; NPR radio show

Gut Bacteria NPR article/radio show

According to the article different people gain different nutrients from the same food and the same amount of food, depending on the bacteria in their gut. Welcome to this new field of science. Funny to go looking to ingest billions of bacteria in a pill-form from the refrigerated section of your favorite grocery store. Even bacteria can be sought after.

One of my favorite new things to investigate now is how relaxed breathing while eating will increase your body’s ability to digest. There are plenty of books coming out now on the practice of mindfulness and eating. Hopefully soon I will have time to pull a post on this together.

Primates and Cooking

These are notes I started while listening to Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham talks with host Jacki Lyden about his new book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human on NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104755975.

In the talk Wrangham mentioned, 800,000 years ago is the first time period for which archeaologists have hard evidence of our using fire. Wrangham thinks we may have been using fire for cooking as far as 2 million years ago when our jaw and stomach size shrank. It was an evolutionary advantage for us to be able to also eat cooked food, partly because of time saved in gaining nutrients. Similarly some humans developed a mutant gene in order to be able to digest dairy as an adult.

When people ask what did our ancestors eat, I say it depends on where they lived and what they were able to get their hands on. And by the way plants don’t run or swim away from you. Today humans still of course, eat what they can find, which I understand is not always vegetables for many inner big city dwellers. Those among us who have access to fresh veggies can be extremely grateful for that. I am very grateful to all the people who grow and pick and deliver and sell these.

Wrangham notes that each day for chimpanzees involves an average of 6 hours of chewing. We can see how the chimps could easily be obtaining less nutrients than someone taking in both cooked and raw greens. If it takes you half an hour to thoroughly chew 5 ounces of raw spinach you could see by the end of that same half-hour a human could have easily eaten a couple pounds of steamed spinach. For example, I just steamed 5 ounces of spinach and topped it with marinated portabello mushrooms. The 5 ounces of leaves were gently steamed into a few tiny bites. I turned the heat off after about one minute. I think it took less than 5 minutes to eat this little bowl of spinach. A huge bowl of salad takes a much longer time to eat. While it is fun to eat a big salad because you get lots of bites and enjoy the view of a huge bowl of garden, I can see how in less time anyone could consume exponentially more greens by including steamed greens, greens in soups, smoothies and juices.
Obviously this is a huge advantage over animals with fewer options.

Someone recently asked me what is the advantage of juicing carrots, why not just eat them? Of course it is great to eat them, still you can drink 5 carrots in a minute. It is an option to increase the volume of nutrients. Ani Phyo once said she pours out the carrot juice and uses the fiber produced from the juicing. She has a great new desert recipe out by the way and you can always find her great recipe videos for free online – thanks Ani!

It is important to know some nutrients may not be digested if eaten sans processing of any kind. This is sometimes due to the work of chewing raw food thoroughly (humans lack the enzymes to break down the cell walls, the nutrients literally have to be chewed out). Still you lose some nutrients by cooking depending on the length of cook time, degree of heat, moisture in the heat, and the food being heated. More moisture, less cook time, lower heat, and containing the cooked fluids in a soup all reduce loss of nutrients. Apparently we are still discovering phytonutrients and therefore we are still discovering how particular nutrients get affected by varying degrees/methods of heating.

For me, the interest is about the effects of eating over half of my calories from raw veggies and fruits and as much as possible the rest from steamed veggies. For example think of having a goal of eating a pound of dark green leafy veggies a day.

A rawfood focus helps us discover new ways to increase the amount of raw greens in the diet (exquisitely delicious salads, marinades, smoothies, pates, cold soups, dressings, desserts, etc.). Using fruits as sweeteners and nuts and seeds as fats raw recipes transform your palate away from the American diet with ease. It really is true that your tastes change and you start to crave these foods.

What I want to say is go for the greens, however that works for you, if it means steamed or in a warm soup than go for it. If you can also drink a green smoothie – perfect! The point is developing a taste and habit of eating greens will transform your palate and feed your body which is craving these nutrients.

Green Smoothie Breakthrough!

Hoorah! At last my long hoped for green smoothie breakthrough. For years now I have been in search for the very best tasting, best for you, easiest to make smoothie in the world. After lots of experimentation I narrowed it down to kale and pineapple. Problem: one of my key ingredients was intermittently failing. When I pick a fresh pineapple, the first thing I look for is the typical evidence of whitish mold on the bottom (yes, I am not one of the lucky ones with fresh fresh pineapple available, ie Hawaiians, etc.). Sometimes there just is no juicy sweet pineapple available and alas! I have moved to pineapple in a can! It is consistently sweet and comes with pineapple juice all of which gets dumped into the blender. One of the other very nice things: I don’t have to eat the pineapples within a few days, for fear of they’re going bad.
So here are the delicious ingredients to toss into your high-speed blender (I prefer k-tech’s blender, b/c it’s height fits under the cabinets):
20 oz. pineapple
1-2 tbl. flax seed
1 banana (optional)
1 bunch of lacinato kale, de-stemmed (or other kale, I find lacinato stores the longest)
water as needed to get it to whirl and come out as thick or watery as you like

It is Delicious!! Enjoy! This is the first green smoothie we’ve made that our 3 and a half year old will drink (that was part of my goal : )).

Heart disease the number one killer

“Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of disability. The most common heart disease in the United States is coronary heart disease, which often appears as a heart attack. In 2009, an estimated 785,000 Americans will have a new coronary attack, and about 470,000 will have a recurrent attack. About every 25 seconds, an American will have a coronary event, and about one every minute will die from one. [1] “(CDC, Feb. 2009, http://www.cdc.gov/features/heartmonth/)

“The general public must learn how to challenge heart disease as the nation’s number one killer” (Fuhrman, p.112, Fasting and Eating for Health).

How is it possible that it is common to ignore and choose not to even learn about, our great nation’s number one killer, when we live in a country with such a strong will to stop enemies. After 911 many strong people were willing to risk their lives, leave their families and travel to another country. It can’t be that the idea of changing ones diet and/or starting exercising can seem even scarier. Maybe we think we have the cure. Unfortunately, it is not so simple to have a pill or an operation to cure heart disease.

Pills and outcomes of heart surgeries do not keep the problem from continuing to get worst the way changing your diet is proven to do. Also the surgery involves many risks. Being put to sleep in an operating room, having one’s sternum split and chest pried apart, while a heart-lung machine pumps your blood is a procedure that can and has ended in death or decline in mental ability. “…in-hospital death rate for bypass surgery is 4.45 percent for women and 3.33 percent for men.(11) Bypass surgery is also associated with a 13 percent rate of post-operative compilcations, including heart attacks, strokes, bleeding, kidney failure, and infections. In almost every heart bypass patient, some brain injury occurs from the time spent on the heart-lung machine.(12) It is believed that 15 to 44 percent of those who survive such surgery suffer permanent brain damage, detectable as minor degrees of intellectual impairment, memory loss, sleep disturbance, and personality change.(13,14,15)” (Fuhrman, p.104, Fasting and Eating for Health)

Why is it so difficult for many of us to eat vegetables? Well it is obvious they are not addictive in the way sugar is and the process of losing this addiction can be incredibly uncomfortable, although that feeling is temporary. In the face of so much junk food, a plant-based diet requires a conscious development of tastes. It can be very hard even to slowly develop this change after so many years of habits. In my opinion, slight changes to your diet is a great way to start. For example, plan to eat one large salad a day. Also in my opinion, it is best to start by focusing on adding great foods (especially greens) rather than demonizing any foods. See what you are doing that is ultimately working best for you or has worked best for you and plan ways to do more of that; find books/people/ideas/journal articles/etc. that inspire.

Why the rise in obesity? and synthetic food manufacturing

It is easy to demonize “that” industry. It is much more difficult to see clearly what happened. This was a culmination of U.S. policy (for example, subsidizing farmers to grow crops that result in corn syrup), scientific discoveries (for example, synthetic nitrate fertilizer), business opportunities (resulting from the mass production of cheap calories), and the vulnerability of the human condition. This is not about evil being evil or some mysterious force. This is about policy decisions that of course did not predict our current status. It is about people wanting to earn a buck and people just reacting to their natural urge to eat. Of course it is a difficult pickle for the country to get out of and one of the main problems is the cheap availability of the addictive synthetic foods.

I was watching a documentary on potato chip production. I realized many of the same industrial equipment inventions can be applied to producing healthier foods en masse. Apparently it takes four pounds of potatoes to make one pound of potato chips. The documentary didn’t specify if the weight of the oil and salt is included in said pound of potato chips. The rest of the potato goes largely to cattle feed. (An aside: It was interesting to me how they proudly noted this instead of saying, my god, can you believe that? That 3 pounds of “waste” potato (plus multiple other resources) will help put an ounce of dead cow on a heart attack’s plate, instead of feeding a family 3 pounds of mashed potatoes.)

One of the interesting processing inventions was using a sort of log ride for the potatoes to move from one process to another. This saves energy and baths the potatoes at the same time. Afterward another clever machine peels them in bulk (using centrifical force to push them to a blade). The potatoes also had starch removed from them and this went to the boxing industry. The starch is used as a part of the glue that holds boxes together. They also had a system where a camera detected which potato chip was brown and this set off a system of air jets to blow the chip off the belt. It is really interesting to watch these synthetic food manufacturing shows on Modern Marvels. However unbiased these shows may try to be, they lean towards promotional and still end up making the “food” seem repulsive to me.

The talk I am citing here was very interesting and the first speaker bases some of his information from the book Fast Food Nation.
http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/fast-foodfat-nation-americas-growing-obesity-epidemic
Alan Meyers, pediatrician, Boston Medical Center
Location:
Cambridge Forum
April 11, 2007
Pediatrician Dr. Alan Meyers and a panel of experts discuss the link between the nation’s eating habits and obesity. What impact will obesity-related diseases have on the quality of life of the next generation? What stresses will our fast food lifestyle place on our health care system and health care costs?

Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet

I got a question about this topic recently. You are welcome to read the article for yourself it is open access via BioMed:

http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/19

Here is the abstract for the article (titled: Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet):

“It has been estimated that 30–40 percent of all cancers can be prevented by lifestyle and dietary measures alone. Obesity, nutrient sparse foods such as concentrated sugars and refined flour products that contribute to impaired glucose metabolism (which leads to diabetes), low fiber intake, consumption of red meat, and imbalance of omega 3 and omega 6 fats all contribute to excess cancer risk. Intake of flax seed, especially its lignan fraction, and abundant portions of fruits and vegetables will lower cancer risk. Allium and cruciferous vegetables are especially beneficial, with broccoli sprouts being the densest source of sulforophane. Protective elements in a cancer prevention diet include selenium, folic acid, vitamin B-12, vitamin D, chlorophyll, and antioxidants such as the carotenoids (α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene, lutein, cryptoxanthin). Ascorbic acid has limited benefits orally, but could be very beneficial intravenously. Supplementary use of oral digestive enzymes and probiotics also has merit as anticancer dietary measures. When a diet is compiled according to the guidelines here it is likely that there would be at least a 60–70 percent decrease in breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers, and even a 40–50 percent decrease in lung cancer, along with similar reductions in cancers at other sites. Such a diet would be conducive to preventing cancer and would favor recovery from cancer as well.”

The 238 citations for this article each have their own link to abstract in Pubmed.

BioMed has a huge list of medical journals that are open access. You could find many more articles pertaining to this topic via BioMed:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/

Best wishes and happy searching!!

Reference:
Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet
Michael S Donaldson
Nutrition Journal 2004, 3:19doi:10.1186/1475-2891-3-19

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/19

Received: 28 September 2004
Accepted: 20 October 2004
Published: 20 October 2004
© 2004 Donaldson; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Large amounts of nutrient-rich healthy food and frequency of meals

I wanted to quote from the American Dietetics Association’s 2003 statement on what they call functional foods (vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds) with respect to biologically-active phytochemicals, however I need to first make sure I am not running into any copyright issues with quoting from an academic journal which is not open access. So instead here is a great quote from Eat for Health, “We overeat because we are unknowingly seeking nutrients. In addition, these [portion-control] diets reinforce the low-nutrient eating that we now know causes most medical problems in modern countries. They are founded on weak science and perpetuate nutritional myths. To become healthy, disease-proof, and permanently thin, you can’t escape the necessity of eating large amounts of nutrient-rich, healthy food” (Joel Fuhrman, 2008, p.86).

Another really interesting (and new for me) concept he mentions is that eating frequently apparently causes problems. The body cleans out the cells of gunk in between meals so when you snack all day it is just not enough time for your body to empty out. So that, ” in scientific studies, reduced meal frequency increases the lifespan of both rodents and monkeys, even when the calories consumed each week were the same in the group fed more frequently and the group fed less frequently” (Fuhrman, 2008, p.85). There he cites: Mattson MP, Wan R. Beneficial effects of intermittent fasting and caloric restriction on the cardiovascular and cerbrovascular systems. J Nutr Biochem. 2005;16(3):129-137.

Joel Fuhrman on High-Nutrient, Low-Cal Eating

Thank you Joel Furhman for bringing the research to our table. By the way I have been pouring through his new 2 book-set, Eat for Health. The first book includes 16 pages of journal article reference citations from standard medical journals you can read via PubMed or by contacting a local or medical librarian for help accessing these primary resources. Academic medical libraries frequently do include a mission to serve the public and are of course online. Please enjoy this video of an excellent talk given by Joel Fuhrman.

Eat for Health

Joel Fuhrman’s new book, Eat for Health, actually it is a book set of 2 vol., has recently been published in 2008. His (2005) Eat to Live book, is my favorite how-to-eat book. He is convinced, the way I am, that increasing nutrient rich food does have the effect of decreasing hunger. It makes sense your body would hunger for specific nutrients and then in a moment of unconsciousness if you inhale a low-nutrient habitual food you can experience you are still hungry. Or worse you just eat without thinking sans hunger.

Pema Chodron mentioned there have been many studies showing that when you are trying to move out of an old habit you can say I won’t do that and then experience a moment of going unconscious and just do it anyway. Her idea is essentially if it is your mind that is driving you to the fridge, work with your mind; train your mind using mindfulness techniques. Pema’s work is brilliant.

Last plug for Joel, I just reopened Eat to Live to the page where he recommends a six-week plan. I still find this book very helpful, even after a few years it is my fav.

That said, in my opinion, this field has a real need for writers and writing can be a helpful tool for your progress. I strongly encourage you to get writing your blog, your book, your journal, your website, your emails, vlogs, audio, etc. It seems likely this field will ride a large and long wave of popularity and we all need a variety of good material to inspire us. We all have to start somewhere and be willing to fail in order to get started. Mom, I really want you to write a book and tell your experience – please write this book!

A note about Joel Fuhrman’s new book, Eat for Health, I understand it is about to be republished in paper back, it can be tricky to get a copy at the moment. I just had to reorder a second copy through a different online vendor, hopefully this one will actually have a copy.

Monthly posts to this blog may be on temporary hold due to a case of: extremely busy life. Have a great day!