Egh I feel awful.

WHY? Because i was traveling and all the restaurants, overeating, eating for pleasure, fun, indulgence, and 'because i'm in new york.' and 'because its so delicious' and 'because its there, hot and toasty, and will not taste this good later'

Tera Warner is kicking off another 10 day juice cleanse and I read her inspiring e-mail about the 4,016 meals she's eaten in her years in her body.

I don't have the money to pay for a full-support program via Tera Warner and I don't want to ask her for another scholarship, because I've not yet finished my commitments to her course on Wild Edibles or lived up to my expectations of my contributions to the community... I hope to rectify that with an expose on eating poison ivy and building up immunity and my experiences with that...

Anyway, a good support system would be to just blog about a 10 day juice cleanse, take a few pictures and share it with whoever cares.

I start monday by going grocery shopping and buying fruits and vegetables for two days worth of juice. I shall go grocery shopping again Tuesday, then again Thursday, and then again Saturday and then again Monday.

Budget-wise, i'm luckily beginning this at the receipt of my $500 paycheck so i can spend freely. So i'll buy veggies and apples and pears and begin juicing... I think i need four 8 oz bottles to carry with me throughout the day. The flavor has to vary. We're fighting cockroaches right now, so i'll have to juice outside. Maybe i'll make some videos and share them, too. It'll be scenic anyway with the sunlight, trees, and birds chirping... although the whirr of the juicer will drown them out...

Okay... I'm really going to do this? Its quite a commitment...

But I feel like doing this (here comes the "Why i'm doing this" part) will optimize my other projects. I'll be fueled more efficiently to haul those wheelbarrows of clay, the shoveling of mulch, the planting, the running, the monkey bar climbing, the swinging, the jumping, the hooping, the carthweeling, handstanding, swimming body of mine. And it will fuel my child, too, inadvertently since we share all the food. When i eat crap, he also eats crap. I'd say my crap is still a little more health-conscious than Standard American crap. I came to appreciate that this past week.

I saw so many fat people. Fun fact i learned from an elder today, Fat people avoid talking about exercise, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle choices, and skinny people are 'obsessed' with it.

I had a dream that i told a fat person they were fat and she was in complete denial, so I apologized for my mistake, and woke up.

Alright, enough philosophizing. Tomorrow is Sunday so the bank isn't open to deposit my check, so i can go grocery shopping on Monday for fresh fruits and veggies. Until then... I'll live off of whatever wild edibles I find :) which is abundant enough right now :)

Reasons to abstain from carnivory

1. Our intestines are so long, meat rots in our gut before we can process it.

2. 18% of carbon dioxide we produce are from livestock. Animals killed worldwide for Americans' food in 2009 amount to 8.3 billion land animals and 51 billion sea animals. (So, a total of about 59 billion animals.) Most estimates put worldwide animal deaths for food consumption at 150 billion per year.

3. If you are sensitive to your emotions and the way hormones and chemicals feel, you may notice that meat carries fear and other undesirable emotions. Animals have personal experiences and the feelings they have are translated into chemicals and hormones which stays in the body. 


4. You don't "need it." You're just attached to the culture you were raised with. There are other sources of protein. 

Genetically Modified food

Studies in peer reviewed journals showed that animals fed GMO diets had organ damage, accelerated aging, reproductive disorders, gastrointestinal problems, immune problems, dysfunctional regulation of cholesterol and insulin. (HOLY SH!T! blink your eyes rapidly and shake your head to digest that information before reading on.) When animals were switched to a non GMO diet their health improved: the death rate goes down, stillborn rates go down, litter size goes up...

In humans, allergy rates have gone up in the last few decades, and children are as much as four times more susceptible to allergies. When corn is genetically modified, dormant genes become active as a sort of collateral damage. GMO corn has more allergenic compounds, so oftentimes people are allergic to gm corn but not to conventional corn. The same goes for soy, which is used for infant formula!! eek!! The bt toxin/protein has been found in the blood of pregnant women as well as their unborn fetuses. It also kills larvae of spotted ladybirds (ladybugs) which is a beneficial insect, eating aphids and other undesirable pests.

GMO doesn't require labeling. In November of 2012 california will have a voter-initiative on the ballot and hopefully voters will say Yes to mandatory GMO labeling. This would have significant enough impact on consumer choice (53% of polled people said they'd avoid GMO if it was labeled) and companies would refrain from using GMO. The tipping point may be as low as 5% decrease in sales to get companies to make the switch.




In other GMO related news, Peru has renewed its ban on GMO foods for another 10 years. Their potato crops are so varied and beautiful, they have nothing to gain from GMO!

Monsanto often advertises that they are working on drought-resistant corn crops, but the most recent "drought-resistant" corn crop they created was still inferior to a conventional drought-resistant corn variety. wtf, mate!? They also claimed (and were sued for claiming) that their pesticide was biodegradable when it was not. Their bt toxin was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses. With all the negative effects it has had on animals, it would not be surprising if the rising cancer rates, autism rates, and cases of diabetes were partially or largely caused by this new technology.

So, keep your head up! There are people working to get GMO's labeled, and countries standing strong against companies like monsanto.  Buy organic corn, soy/tofu/soymilk/natto, and avoid packaged food.

Here is some more good reads.
1. An article about the dangers, with a nifty graph on the increase of percentage of acres of land being used to grow gmo corn/cotton/soy

2. the "just label it" campaign, with a video inspiring you to believe that we have a right to know.

3. A creepy article about how companies with pro-gmo interests are getting to the kids through the teachers.

Why, why, why am i eating raw?

I keep flip flopping. I've never had my health significantly challenged, and I'm full of faith that if I ever had some strange disease that switching to raw for a couple months would help my body heal itself without surgery or chemotherapy, but I'd rather not test that faith!

I felt how wonderful it feels eating raw, but there were other variables, like being in love, being inspired, being in a new place, And so I test the difference between diligently eating nutritious food, and indulgently eating temporarily gratifying crap.

Today I woke up and ate an orange, a banana, an apple... And then, because I was sleep-deprived I ate two ginger snap cookies, a birthday cookie, a coconut pecan cookie and a oatmeal raisin walnut cookie. Then for lunch I ate pasta with egg and avocado, and for dinner I ate some pieces of chicken with more pasta. I don't really feel great. I'm very dehydrated and I can't seem to catch up.

Child, REMEMBER THIS!!! There's really no need to keep testing it, is there? Just make the switch already?

I have a few obstacles: I live with my mother who cooks quickly and deliciously. She doesn't share my views, has a cultural attachment to rice, loves ice cream and swears she needs sugar because she's over 40.

Secondly, I have a child. He likes eating fruits and veggies throughout the day, especially if we're out and about. But sometimes when he's cranky and I give him rice with natto and a raw egg, he's beaming with energy, and i can't ignore that. How can I separate what I eat and what I feed him? Not very easily.

Thirdly, Its expensive to eat raw food compared to eating pasta, rice, and beans. I have to eat more than 10 dollars worth of fruit in a day to have energy whereas $5 can feed me and my child with mac & cheese. I intellectually understand that I will be provided for, but I've been trained by my economical parents to seek a better deal. I Also understand intellectually that eating well is a great insurance plan, but it still hurts me when I pay $60 or $75 at the grocery store, only to have to go back again a few days later for more.

Fourthly, I never know quite what to eat. I can eat fruit and salad all day, but after a few days of this I get bored. And I can start preparing a raw meal that will be done the next day (with soaking and dehydrating and all of that preparation) but then what can I have NOW that would satisfy my dissatisfaction? Eating more raw food is an emotional journey!!

Fifthly (sounds funny, i'm sure its incorrect, but i'm gonna keep going) I'm just not that convinced that I need to be doing this 100% right now.

And that's probably sufficient reason to go easy on myself. Today, after a day of shitty eating, I feel like I want to eat only fruit to morrow, and spending $20 at a grocery store for some plums and whatever catches my eye in the produce aisle, that sounds doable.

I keep reading in raw recipe books to "go at your own pace" and I guess this is what that means. I have this perfectionist attitude i inherited from my mom where i want to do everything 100%.

I'm 24 years old, and aware of how my body feels after eating a lot of refined sugar and not drinking enough water or eating enough juicy fruits. I think I'm going to be okay.

I really want to eat a plum tomorrow, and I'm so grateful that i can just go to the grocery store and get one. The days of hunter gatherers have sure evolved. Now we're shopping and gathering.

On another note, today before i devoured the rice+egg+natto mixture, I thought about how everything was grown and harvested, and how the spoon and bowl i was eating from were produced, and how everything was transported, and how many people were involved and how many processes were involved in getting this suboptimally nutritious meal to me, and I thought about how perfectly sufficient it was to sustain me. I also thought about how high caloric grains like rice, wheat, and oats were responsible for human civilization progressing the way it has, and that it was really myopic to see rice as 'bad for me,' when i owe my gratitude to whoever first planted those seeds and thus gained some free time to be creative and progress humanity.

We're gonna be okay!

Wild Edibles

You can eat cicada's grasshoppers earthworms and even cockroaches! But i'm not really eager to try it. I guess its been ingrained in me. I learned my physical aversion while scrolling through these tidbits on this blog.

Burdock and rosehips are more to my taste. Burdock has a velcro seedpod and if you see that, promote their growth by taking their seeds and spreading them where you'd like to see more! I have yet to find rosehips with big juicy fruit which is abundant from November to April, but I'll keep looking for those. Inside there are seeds, and if you plant those, it'll be good for you and the birds. They sell rosehips in healthfood stores, as well as burdock. And dandelion.

Dandelion is great for detoxifying. You can eat the greens, or take the flower and make a tea. Clover is also edible.

I'm taking a class on wild edibles with sergei boutenko led by tera warner. For now i'll just leave you with bugs and common 'weeds'

Here's a recipe:

a bunch of pine, fir, or spruce needles, especially the new growth green tips.
A banana
a bundle of spinach
water

Blend! drink.

Boil some pine, fir, or spruce needles and sweeten with honey. Its rich in vitamin c and MSM too, which is sold as a dietary supplement (like everything else). MSM is an interesting compound. Its a sulfur thats found in eggs, nuts, seeds, cruciferous veggies, onions, and garlic, but is not found in irrigated plants, but only in plants involved in the cycle of rainwater. (Thats from Ornica, a supplier of Opti-msm)

Anyway, If you have access to a sauna, pouring the tea over the rocks is medicinal for when you have a cold, as it releases the pine oil into the air through steam which you breathe in. There are so many correlations historically between people surrounded by these and other oils and being immune to plagues.

Y'know what i love about all this? The answer to a lot of our worlds problems are so simple and humble and sorta Eden-like. I am looking forward to seeing nature and technology fuse beautifully together. I'm benefiting so much from being able to learn about nature through the internet :)

Scheduling for easy rawness

I went to a little presentation in DC given by Khepra. I took a lot of notes, but the most interesting and most useful thing i took home, besides a reminder that the wonderful food of Olives is not to be forgotten, is this:

The cycles of our body could dictate what we choose to eat. Elimination, building, fasting. repeat.

The elimination phase begins around 4am until we get really hungry around noon. During this time its good to eat detoxifying foods, high in water content. Citrus, apples, strawberries, watermelons.

For building, we want something more filling with proteins and fats and minerals. Nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, and greens. In the winter time we need more greens than in summer time, so half of my meal consists of a salad. The filler tends to be two large buckwheat cracker breads topped with something delicious like a mixture of olives, tomatos, nuts, seeds, avocado, or whatever goes into the food processor.

After 8pm its a good idea to stop eating. I used to snack a lot on popcorn and sweets at nighttime, so now that i've become aware of my habit, i can change it. If i really want to stuff my face with something, i reach for an apple. Apple's have a appetite suppressant quality about it. Or perhaps its just purely satisfying with a good crunch and often a great flavor.



So in the mornings, if i'm feeling hungry i drink this above drink: Two or three apples, a banana, an orange, some water, and some spirulina or chlorella. It fills me up so much. The only problem is that i end up having to pee often because i drink it so quickly. Recently i'm trying to stretch it until lunch, but i have this subconscious program that i need to finish whats infront of me. I'm working on that :)

Aaaanyway, i just wanted to share the above schedule as something nice to think about. Thinking of 'building' my body from noon to eight pm definitely changes my eating schedule, though, in that i don't eat breakfast lunch and dinner. I drink some breakfast, and then i have early lunch and late lunch. Well, ideally. The social aspect of dinner turns this around a bit. Anywho, fun journey with food.

Mmm Mmm, Mole!

My dad grew up in mexico, and on a visit a few years ago he brought home a packet of mole. Its still sitting in the pantry, because although the ingredients are in spanish, its got stuff called 'modificado' and 'artificiales' and sugar is the second ingredient. I recently got Cafe Gratitude's recipe book. It took me a year of wanting it to finally order it. Its sort of intimidating, but i had not succeeded in making crackers and breads in the dehydrator and i wanted engelhart's help!

Oh~ That mole is delicious! First i made buckwheat crackers. It used a cup of my veggie pulp, but it was mostly made of buckwheat. Its not good on its own, so i made the mole the next day.

1 avocado,
3 tablespoons chocolate
3 or 4 dates, pitted of course.
3 tablespoons lime
some dashes of spicy sauce, according to your preference
some dollops of tomato paste and some sundried tomatoes to account for their 'two dozen soaked halves of sundried tomatos'
a tablespoon cumin
salt...

i think that was it! Put it in a food processor and blend it up. But it ontop of your dehydrated buckwheat crackers :P or wrap it in your enchilada along with an avocado, some beans, corn, and cilantro.

And here's Engelhart's substitute for sourcream:

1.5 cups soaked cashews (8 hours)
add lemon to taste, i like it with half a lemon.

Thats it! its aight. I'll post a picture when i have all the ingredients to make my mole cracker complete. I'm sprouting some seeds right now to make sprouts, and growing some cilantro, and so when thats ready i'll top my buckwheat cracker with mole, sour 'cream', cherry tomato halves, sprouts, and fresh grown cilantro! (i'm excellent at delayed gratification :)

We really miss basil so i planted some seeds and they became long and spindly and stopped growing. I Learned that the sunlight in the winter is about 1/10th the strength of summer, so i got a 100w fluorescent bulb and now i'm growing basil, cilantro and parsley.

Oh!! I want to share with you an excellent marinated kale recipe:
3 or 4 cups chopped/shredded kale
1 cup shredded carrot
1 cup cucumber or zuchini sliced thin
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1 or 1/2 cup soaked hijiki (they don't expand lol they're just small)
1 cup soaked or sauteed shiitake mushrooms. If you soak them, soak them for a long time in 1/4 cup each of lemon and soy sauce or braggs liquid amino's to make it delicious. If you sautee it just use the soy sauce with water.

1/2 cup olive oil
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/3 cup orange juice
3 tbsp sushi vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt like it makes a difference

toss it all together and enjoy~

PS there seems to be a difference in quality of kale. Some kale is really hard and some kale is really soft. Find a good source of kale, or grow your own. Don't have space? Have you heard of windowfarming?