Cooked foods and how i feel

The way that i make any big, permanent changes in my life is Little By Little, going back and forth from my old ways and experimenting with the new ways. That way i can notice changes along the way and know they're legit.

So after a few days of feeling great eating just fruit, i switched to eating whatever was presented, which included bread with the most delicious olive oil butter, salt and nutritional yeast covered kale chips, walnuts, salty sesame sticks, chips, hummus, black beans mixed with prunes and bananas (what was i thinking...?)

sweet, fatty, salty.

A few days ago, when I had been eating primarily fruits and salads, with little infidelities like a nut here and there, i was fuggin radiating. A friend visited and took this picture,





and throughout those days i was noticing the effect that radiance was having on people i met throughout the day... Anyway, after i experimented the other way (the hodgepodge food combinations) i had breakouts, gas, and this constipated feeling. And now i look like THIS!










And sure, camera quality, attire, time of day, and facial expressions may account for some variables in this scientific comparison of the differences in food intake and radiance output, but the results are still very compelling.

Very.

let it at least be anecdotal evidence. Eating fruit and salad i felt energetic, well, and radiant. Eating other stuff i got congested with a runny nose, constipated feelings, and zitty.
So yeah, tomorrow i'll be sitting in a bus for 4 to 5 hours, and i'm only bringing fruit, water, and juice with me.

mami's raw japanese dish: traditio~on! tradition!

My mom made this last night with cucumbers, and i asked her to make it again so I could take a picture because it was so delicious. We didn't have any cucumbers anymore, so she used zuchini, squash, celery and tomatoes! Very colorful, and just as delicious as the cucumber dish.


How to recreate this:
Soak dried wakame seaweed to expand
Whatever vegetables you have, cucumbers/zuchini/squash/tomatoes. slice them thin and floppy for nice texture
sesame seeds

For the dressing/sauce/marinade, Sushi vinegar (which is sweeter than regular vinegar) rice vinegar, a little bit of soy sauce, and a little bit of stevia. If you have ponzu you can use that instead.

Super alkaline and definitely nutritious and delicious :)

Arthritis, Cancer, Migraines, oh my...

One of the hardest things for me is hearing of peoples health issues and not having anything to offer them. Chronic fatigue plagued my friend for a while, and i didn't know how to help him. It drove me nuts. My dad gets migraines often and is debilitated by them, locking himself in a dark, quiet room, for a couple hours. A lot of elders have arthritis but their love for a sport will still pull them out to the court to fight through pain just to hit a couple of stupid balls over a net.

I've been thinking a lot about heavy metal toxicity. In the last century our environment has become increasingly heavy metal laden, and cancer and autism has increased. There are a lot of factors that affect cancer, but if you're fighting a disease, its a good idea to rid yourself of toxins and let your immune system work without any squeaks.

A few days ago I learned about Adya Clarity, a black mica extract. Black mica, or biotite, is a mineral that purifies water of heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, and a bunch of other things. When you drink it, it only stays in your system for about 8 hours, and then you pee or sweat it out. In the process of it going through your body, it picks up heavy metals and toxins, and... well, i don't understand chemistry much, but makes them unavailable to your body by encapsulating them in some way and then carries it out of your body through your sweat and urine.

Liquid zeolite, specifically clinoptilolite, does a similar thing, but the chemistry was explained to me better. It has a negative charge and a honeycomb structure, and it attracts positive charge heavy metals to it, and traps them in its honeycomb structure. (hows that for ease of understanding?) Excretion is the same.

Personally I don't have any acute symptoms of disease, so i wouldn't feel a huge benefit from doing this, but i'll probably clear out heavy metals anyway because its been 24+ years of exposure. But i will also give this resource to an arthritic friend and use him as a guinea pig.

Any thoughts on heavy metals? Am i just being paranoid about the unseen things entering my body? According to ChemicalBodyBurden.org, i'm not just being paranoid. Scientists agree.

Well, these two resources, liquid zeolite and black mica extract, emit a huge sigh of relief for me, because i was really worried about our water. Now i have some hope. Do you!?! i hope so.

Raw Food hypocrite's and middle paths.

Last night, after a day of eating greens and fruits, my mother called up to me from the kitchen and asked "Emmy, don't you want to eat something?" by which she meant, she wanted to prepare something and sit with us and eat a meal. I said, Yes! And i went downstairs and she prepared this. Delicious, healthy, pretty. Egg, bread, veggie patti, avocado, salad greens, fresh oversized deliciously sweet tomato.

I ate bread with olive oil butter on it, and it was yummy. I really appreciated it. Earlier in the evening I had guiltily been munching on nuts, thinking about its 70% fat content (first world problems lol) and how it wasn't going to give me energy. But then i read a blog by the "raw food hypocrite" which i greatly appreciate. Because proponents of raw food, especially the best known in the raw food world, say 80 to 100% raw food, and there is a sort of hierarchical better-than-thou attitude that can permeate the raw foodies.

But who am i kidding? I can't be dogmatic about what i eat! Not only is that ridiculous, its ungrateful, nearsighted, narrow minded, and a whole other attributes that i do not want to become. Even as a vegetarian, i was very well known to be flexible, culinarily adventurous, taking bites out of sausage and steaks to know what it felt like, to know what it tasted like, and to keep a social balance. Perhaps its reactionary against vegangelicals, but By Itself, i think moderate middle-paths are a worthy pursuit.

Carrots and Apples, and dr. gerson

Juicing is a great way to get a shitload of carrots and apples into your body. But beyond that, carrots and apples combine really nicely because the malic acid in the apples mixed with the ground carrots helps to release the minerals from the carrots. This is according to Dr. Gerson. If you haven't heard of him, I highly recommend watching this fascinating documentary called The Beautiful Truth. the beautiful truth is that by eating fresh and healthy food, we can reverse the damage of processed foods and environmental toxins.

More Fruit!!

I decided to Up my Fruit intake for the purposes of reducing my sugar cravings and being more full without eating nuts. Switching to raw means eating more to make up for the less dense caloric content. Getting to eat more delicious food? Yay :) So, Yesterday I went to the grocery store and didn't leave the produce aisle, which was a first. I usually at least browse the dairy, bakery, and frozen sections. I spent $22.22 on a load of fruit, and this is what I came home with.

Abundance!

I've never had the courage to buy so much fruit, because i hate seeing it rot. But this time I'm pretty sure i feel i'll have no problem eating it all. Yesterday I only ate fruit and salad. three bananas, a mango, an apple, an orange, a plum, some grape... Thats a lot of fruit. i was fully satisfied the entire day. Before going to sleep i ate some oats. I had enough energy to go for a run in the morning, trek to meridian hill park and back in the afternoon and evening, and be in good spirits.

One of the immense benefits of this way of eating is that I don't have to think about what i'm going to eat! And i don't have to prepare anything! And grocery shopping goes so quickly! I also don't have to read labels to make sure the vegetarian stuff i'd buy aren't just loaded with soy protein isolates or have intense preservatives in them.

A Question for future research: Is there a way to wash off pesticides from fruits? I know pesticides don't really absorb past tough skins and are just topical... I'm pretty sure of that. But does just washing it with water wash it off, or do you need soap and water, or do you need something more sophisticated than that? I don't always buy organic. Its not always possible. And i'm not even sure if pesticide residue is that detrimental to our health. I'd like to learn more about that... if you know, please fill me in :)