Day 146

Jamie Oliver's food philosophy..."We just need to re-discover our common sense."

Thoughts:
This blog is thanks to Don Tingle who took the time today to share with me his knowledge of Jamie Oliver and the new project he has taken on to transform lives...So I did some research and turns out Jamie is taking on quite the challenge...

"My philosophy to food and healthy eating has always been about enjoying everything in a balanced, and sane way. Food is one of life's greatest joys yet we've reached this really sad point where we're turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of."

"Knowing how to cook means you'll be able to turn all sorts of fresh ingredients into meals when they're in season, at their best, and cheapest! Cooking this way will always be cheaper than buying processed food, not to mention better for you. And because you'll be cooking a variety of lovely things, you'll naturally start to find a sensible balance. Some days you'll feel like making something light, and fresh, other days you'll want something warming and hearty. If you've got to snack between meals, try to go for something healthy rather than loading up on chocolate or potato crisps. Basically, as long as we all recognize that treats should be treats, not a daily occurrence, we'll be in a good place. So when I talk about having a 'healthy' approach to food, and eating better I'm talking about achieving that sense of balance: lots of the good stuff, loads of variety, and the odd indulgence every now and then."

Jamie has made a new series for American TV about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series was filmed in Huntington, West Virginia.

Jamie's challenge was to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He worked with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat.

"I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It's time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!

You live in an amazing country full of inspirational people and you have the power to change things. With your help, we can get better food into homes, schools and communities all over America and give your kids a better future."

Below is one of Jamie's recipes with only ingredients naturally provided from the Earth mmmmm:)

http://www.jamieoliver.com

Challenges: Absolutely too many people are being affected by what they eat.

Triumphs: Once I know, I can put that knowing into practise and have it be real in me.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice.

Lunch: Sprouts (chickpeas, alfalfa, bean sprouts) with walnuts and an avocado.

Dinner: Indian, yellow rice with lentils and curry powder with dahl (cooked black lentils)

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Walnuts.

Recipe:
Jamie Oliver Salad
• ½ a cucumber
• A handful of fresh basil leaves
• 2 small, just ripe avocados
• 1 butterhead lettuce
• Large handful sprouted cress or alfafa
• 4 scallions
• Extra virgin oil
• Red wine vinegar
• English Mustard
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper



Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" ;) www.themaninthemaze.net

219 days to go!!!

Day 145

Thoughts: What is health? Is it feeling good? Looking good? Just being alive? Who defines health?

We do...the mass population have come to an “agreement” that healthy means being skinny, trim, fit, energetic, eating ‘good’.... really its down to interpretation.

The way I can describe it is that I experience lightness, I feel graceful and at ease with my body and my self, comfortable, peaceful, love for myself and my body, I feel clean, pure, and ALIVE.

If you look at the what’s so of a person with cancer...the what’s so is that a person has a dis-ease in the body. To me health is the absence of dis-ease. Do you experience dis-ease?

So what's a healthy diet? Well I've played with many different diets/lifetsyles like the one 'I will never eat chocolate or lollies again' hehe, I've tried the 'On Sunday I can eat anything and as much as I want' haha, the 'I will start being really healthy on Monday' and the 'I will eat everything in moderation' haha I have a retarded mind ;) . The thing with these lifestyles/diets is that they are to ones interpretations so I can alter my whats 'moderation' at anytime. It becomes thwarted. It wasn't until the Earth Diet that I actually experienced health as I described above.

Some interesting Diets I researched...

The Earth Diet!
Hehe yes the one I created, eating only foods naturally provided from the Earth! So all fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, AND you can eat as much as you want! How fun :)

The Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is widely believed to be one of the most healthful ways to eat, yet much of what we know about it is based on studies of people living on the island of Crete in the 1950s, who in many respects lived lives very different from our own. Yes, they ate lots of olive oil and little meat. But they also did more physical labor. They fasted regularly. They ate a lot of wild greens — weeds. And, perhaps most important, they consumed far fewer total calories than we do.

Vegetarian
There are various types of vegetarian - Lacto vegetarian, Fruitarian vegetarian, Lacto-ovo-vegetarian, Living food diet vegetarian, Ovo-vegetarian, Pescovegetarian, and Semi-vegetarian. The majority of vegetarians are lacto-ovovegetarians, in other words, they do not eat animal-based foods, except for eggs, dairy, and honey. Several studies over the last few years have shown that vegetarians have a lower body weight, suffer less from diseases, and generally have a longer life expectancy than people who eat meat. Similarly, much of what we know about the health benefits of a vegetarian diet is based on studies of Seventh Day Adventists, who muddy the nutritional picture by drinking absolutely no alcohol and never smoking. These extraneous but unavoidable factors are called, aptly, “confounders.”

Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is an international company that offers various dieting products and services to assist weight loss and maintenance. Founded in 1963 by Brooklyn homemaker Jean Nidetch, it now operates in about 30 countries around the world, generally under names that are local translations of “Weight Watchers”.The term weight-watcher, in the same sense, had circulated publicly for several years before the company was formed.Weight Watchers encourages members to select a goal weight that results in a body mass index generally accepted as healthy (18 to 24.9), although a member may also establish a goal weight outside of that range after providing a doctor's note to that effect. In the United States, in order to join Weight Watchers, one must weigh at least 5 pounds (2.3 kg) more than the minimum weight for his or her height.

Vegan
Veganism is more of a way of life and a philosophy than a diet. A vegan does not eat anything that is animal based, including eggs, dairy, and honey. Vegans do not generally adopt veganism just for health reasons, but also for environmental and ethical/compassionate reasons. Vegans believe that modern intensive farming methods are bad for our environment and unsustainable in the long term. If all our food were plant based our environment would benefit, animals would suffer less, more food would be produced, and people would generally enjoy better physical and mental health, vegans say.

Raw Food
The Raw Food Diet, or Raw Foodism, involves consuming foods and drinks which are not processed, are completely plant-based, and ideally organic. Raw Foodists generally say that at least three-quarters of your food intake should consist of uncooked food. A significant number of raw foodists are also vegans - they do not eat or drink anything which is animal based. There are four main types of raw foodists: 1. Raw vegetarians. 2. Raw vegans. 3. Raw omnivores. 4. Raw carnivores.

The Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet, officially called the Atkins Nutritional Approach, is a low-carbohydrate diet created by Dr Robert Atkins. The Atkins Diet is a departure from the previously prevailing metabolic theories. Atkins said that there are important unrecognized factors in Western eating habits leading to obesity. Primarily, he believed that the main cause of obesity is eating refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar, flour, and high-fructose corn syrups. The Atkins Diet involves restriction of carbohydrates to more frequently switch the body's metabolism from burning glucose as fuel to burning stored body fat. This process, called ketosis, begins when insulin levels are low; in normal humans, insulin is lowest when blood glucose levels are low (mostly before eating). Ketosis lipolysis occurs when some of the lipid stores in fat cells are transferred to the blood and are thereby used for energy. On the other hand, caloric carbohydrates (e.g., glucose or starch, the latter made of chains of glucose) impact the body by increasing blood sugar after consumption. [In the treatment of diabetes, blood sugar levels are used to determine a patient's daily insulin requirements.] Lastly, because of fiber's low digestibility, it provides little or no food energy and does not significantly impact glucose and insulin levels.

The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is relatively simple in principle. It replaces "bad carbs" and "bad fats" with "good carbs" and "good fats." "Good carbs" vs "bad carbs"
According to Agatston, hunger cycles are triggered not by carbohydrates in general, but by carbohydrate-rich foods that the body digests quickly, creating a spike in blood sugar. Such foods include the heavily refined sugars and grains that make up a large part of the typical Western diet. The South Beach Diet eliminates these carbohydrate sources in favor of relatively unprocessed foods such as vegetables, beans, and whole grains."Good fats" vs "bad fats" Given that South Beach Diet was designed by a cardiologist, it should be no surprise that it eliminates trans-fats and discourages saturated fats. Although foods rich in these "bad fats" do not contribute to the hunger cycle, they do contribute to LDL cholesterol and heart disease. The South Beach Diet replaces them with foods rich in unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acid which contribute to HDL cholesterol and provide other health benefits. Specifically, the diet excludes the fatty portions of red meat and poultry, replacing them with lean meats, nuts, and oily fish.

The Zone
The Zone Diet aims for a nutritional balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 30% protein each time we eat. The focus is also on controlling insulin levels, which result in more successful weight loss and body weight control. The Zone Diet encourages the consumption of good quality carbohydrates - unrefined carbohydrates, and fats, such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.

Supplements
One last example: People who take supplements are healthier than the population at large, but their health probably has nothing whatsoever to do with the supplements they take — which recent studies have suggested are worthless. Supplement-takers are better-educated, more-affluent people who, almost by definition, take a greater-than-normal interest in personal health — confounding factors that probably account for their superior health.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight_Watchers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5847.php
www.nytimes.com

Challenges: There are so many diets/lifestyle out there it can be overwhelming, frustrating and confusing. Each person will find something that works for them. What works for me is eating everything and anything that nature provides. The low carb diet wouldn't work as I love to eat potatoes and they are naturally provided by the Earth. And we are human beings who love to experience a HUGE variety of everything, places, people, food, emotions, experiences, music, lifestyles, and I believe the danger with sticking to one particular "diet" would be borrrring and be restricting.

Triumphs: Stick to what nature intended and you can't go wrong...the experience of health is unavoidable. Health is one's own interpretation!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A beetroot, celery, ginger, carrot juice. A pear.

Lunch: A avocado with sprouts. Lots of sprouts. To be full and get the nutrition and energy you need, if you are eating things like vegetables, fruits, sprouts, you can eat as much as you want, don't hold back! I eat ALOT of sprouts, mmm I love them bouncing around in my mouth, they are such an energetic, light, happy food :)

Dinner: Indian rice with yellow curry powder, onion, chilli and cooked lentils.

Dessert: No dessert

Snacks: Walnuts! Food for the brain!

Recipe:

Holiday Juice
2 large sweet potatoes
1 bag of cranberries
3-4 Oranges
5 apples
½ Pineapple
Carrots

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze". It is my last week of playing the character 'Megan'. "The Man In The Maze" centers around four college students on a field study to learn more about the Trail of Tears. While traipsing through the woods, however, they stumble upon an Indian mound that marks the burial site of a Native American family that died on the trail. The mound was cursed by a distraught family member, and whoever disturbs it unleashes trouble and winds up lost in his maze, i.e. the woods. www.themaninthemaze.net

220 days to go!!!

Day 144

"If rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide Ladee Dee Ladee Daa."

Thoughts: Are you feeding the machine? If you eat foods that are processed, packaged, take-aways, human produced, then you are feeding the machine. Whether you believe in ego and consciousness, spirit and devil, soul....this may turn into a blog looking more like the script for Transformers 4...either way enjoy!

I will be referring to YOU as in the you you, the real, raw, authentic you, and then I will refer to the machinery, that thing that takes over you, instead of you controlling it. If you have ever had an eating disorder, an addiction or even a doubt about yourself and what your capable of, this is the machine in action ‘I can’t do that, I’m too fat, I’m ugly, I can’t stop, I’m not good enough’, - this is the machine in full swing. During my bingeing mine says “Just one more time, do it again, this will be the last time I promise, tomorrow I will start again fresh, I will just have one huge hit of food and then never again’.

This is an example of the ‘machine’. Kids in America are taught this ‘harmless and fun’ song from the children’s television show Barney.

If rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
If sun beams were bubble gum and ice cream, oh what a sun that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes, oh what a snow that would be.

The way its sung its quite a cheery and happy song. And when you actually write the words down, you can see the twisted-ness of it, why can’t rain just be rain, why turn it into processed sugary foods would make a better rain than the natural rain that we already have?

And it may have even been made up by someone who was trying to make a fun harmless song for kids...however who ever created it, created it out of machinery, without out knowing or with knowing, because if it came from god, light, presence, love, consciousness, source (what ever word you want to use) it would have ....

The machine is hidden in a lot of places, and if we really look we can see the programming everywhere...commercials, songs, movies, television, radio, bill boards, advertisements. When you look into someone elses eyes and they "What are you looking at?" instead of simply saying hello back and sharing themselves at that very moment.

We are turning this organic planet into a machine.

The earth provides us with everything we need, food, medicines, pleasure, sweet and sour tastes, everything natural. There are natural cures for everything! Swhy did we start making processed foods and chemicals and start adding man made artificialness to naturalness? Well the human population grew and grew and we needed to keep up with the demand and feed the demand of the people. Then we leant that we can have rice and meat and special sauces AND a variety of vegetables and meats and rice and sauces all on one plate. Animals don't go up 5 different trees to get food to make a complicated salad or fruit salad. Keep it simple. But we live in a modern world you may think and yes lets look at the health of the earth and human beings. AND ITS NOT WORKING...LOOK AT US!

People are fatter and sicker and more unbalanced than ever before. And skinnier...and unnatural. So why do we keep going??? Why do we keep feeding the machine? Are we that deep asleep???

Challenges: Are we that deep asleep?

Triumphs: Knowing that I too am asleep, means I can choose to wake up.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Abeetroot, celery, carrot, ginger juice. 2 nectarines.

Lunch: Avocado. A pear. Strawberries.

Dinner: Indian

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Green grapes.

Recipe: Indian food mmm mmm rice with dahl.

Exercise: Working on set The Man In The Maze www.themaninthemaze.net

221 days to go!!!

Day 141

Thoughts: The story of how basic questions about what to eat got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and journalism.

This blog is thanks to Daniel Toop!

Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times
www.nytimes.com

Unhappy Meals
Nutrients themselves had been around, as a concept, since the early 19th century, when the English doctor and chemist William Prout identified what came to be called the “macronutrients”: protein, fat and carbohydrates. It was thought that that was pretty much all there was going on in food, until doctors noticed that an adequate supply of the big three did not necessarily keep people nourished. At the end of the 19th century, British doctors were puzzled by the fact that Chinese laborers in the Malay states were dying of a disease called beriberi, which didn’t seem to afflict Tamils or native Malays. The mystery was solved when someone pointed out that the Chinese ate “polished,” or white, rice, while the others ate rice that hadn’t been mechanically milled. A few years later, Casimir Funk, a Polish chemist, discovered the “essential nutrient” in rice husks that protected against beriberi and called it a “vitamine,” the first micronutrient. Vitamins brought a kind of glamour to the science of nutrition, and though certain sectors of the population began to eat by its expert lights, it really wasn’t until late in the 20th century that nutrients managed to push food aside in the popular imagination of what it means to eat.

No single event marked the shift from eating food to eating nutrients, though in retrospect a little-noticed political dust-up in Washington in 1977 seems to have helped propel American food culture down this dimly lighted path. Responding to an alarming increase in chronic diseases linked to diet — including heart disease, cancer and diabetes — a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, headed by George McGovern, held hearings on the problem and prepared what by all rights should have been an uncontroversial document called “Dietary Goals for the United States.” The committee learned that while rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II, other cultures that consumed traditional diets based largely on plants had strikingly low rates of chronic disease. Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.

Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food — the committee had advised Americans to actually “reduce consumption of meat” — was replaced by artful compromise: “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”
A subtle change in emphasis, you might say, but a world of difference just the same.

First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement. Second, notice how distinctions between entities as different as fish and beef and chicken have collapsed; those three venerable foods, each representing an entirely different taxonomic class, are now lumped together as delivery systems for a single nutrient. Notice too how the new language exonerates the foods themselves; now the culprit is an obscure, invisible, tasteless — and politically unconnected — substance that may or may not lurk in them called “saturated fat.”

The linguistic capitulation did nothing to rescue McGovern from his blunder; the very next election, in 1980, the beef lobby helped rusticate the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein sitting in the middle of its plate. Organized nutrient by nutrient in a way guaranteed to offend no food group, it codified the official new dietary language. Industry and media followed suit, and terms like polyunsaturated, cholesterol, monounsaturated, carbohydrate, fiber, polyphenols, amino acids and carotenes soon colonized much of the cultural space previously occupied by the tangible substance formerly known as food. The Age of Nutritionism had arrived.

THE RISE OF NUTRITIONISM
In the case of nutritionism, the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient. From this basic premise flow several others. Since nutrients, as compared with foods, are invisible and therefore slightly mysterious, it falls to the scientists (and to the journalists through whom the scientists speak) to explain the hidden reality of foods to us. To enter a world in which you dine on unseen nutrients, you need lots of expert help.

But expert help to do what, exactly? This brings us to another unexamined assumption: that the whole point of eating is to maintain and promote bodily health. Hippocrates’s famous injunction to “let food be thy medicine” is ritually invoked to support this notion. I’ll leave the premise alone for now, except to point out that it is not shared by all cultures and that the experience of these other cultures suggests that, paradoxically, viewing food as being about things other than bodily health — like pleasure, say, or socializing — makes people no less healthy; indeed, there’s some reason to believe that it may make them more healthy. This is what we usually have in mind when we speak of the “French paradox” — the fact that a population that eats all sorts of unhealthful nutrients is in many ways healthier than Americans are. So there is at least a question as to whether nutritionism is actually any good for you.

Similarly, any qualitative distinctions between processed foods and whole foods disappear when your focus is on quantifying the nutrients they contain (or, more precisely, the known nutrients).

This is a great boon for manufacturers of processed food, and it helps explain why they have been so happy to get with the nutritionism program. In the years following McGovern’s capitulation and the 1982 National Academy report, the food industry set about re-engineering thousands of popular food products to contain more of the nutrients that science and government had deemed the good ones and less of the bad, and by the late ’80s a golden era of food science was upon us. The Year of Eating Oat Bran — also known as 1988 — served as a kind of coming-out party for the food scientists, who succeeded in getting the material into nearly every processed food sold in America. Oat bran’s moment on the dietary stage didn’t last long, but the pattern had been established, and every few years since then a new oat bran has taken its turn under the marketing lights. (Here comes omega-3!)

By comparison, the typical real food has more trouble competing under the rules of nutritionism, if only because something like a banana or an avocado can’t easily change its nutritional stripes (though rest assured the genetic engineers are hard at work on the problem). So far, at least, you can’t put oat bran in a banana. So depending on the reigning nutritional orthodoxy, the avocado might be either a high-fat food to be avoided (Old Think) or a food high in monounsaturated fat to be embraced (New Think). The fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while the processed foods are simply reformulated.

Of course it’s also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness.

If you want to read the full article go to link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2

Challenges: What occurs for me in my world, is that human beings have adapted this backward thinking that the avocado might be either a high-fat food to be avoided (backwards think) or a food high in monounsaturated fat to be embraced (New Think). As said in this article "The fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while the processed foods are simply reformulated." That is disgusting. I even have a friend who doesn't eat nuts because they are "High in fats" yet will happily eat a burger from Mc Donalds...

Triumphs: Sometimes I forget, and I go back to my old backwards thinking and think 'Oh I shouldn't eat too much, they are fatty' and then I remember I absolutely love eating an avocado, I enjoy the richness, warmness and creamyness, and yes I eat them regulary, almost every day, sometimes 2 a day, they are high in fats, but they are great fats. Healthy, organic, earthy and natural fats. And I am not fat!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A pear. Brazil nuts and walnuts.

Lunch: A avocado with salad, green and purple lettuce and baby spinach with some squeezes of lemon.

Dinner: Indian food cooked by Nimi, the directors wife....yellow rice with lentils and dahl (cooked lentils with chilli) mmm mmm!

Dessert: 5 nectarines.

Snacks: A pear.

Exercise: Working on set of "The Man In The Maze" www.themaninthemaze.net

224 days to go!

Day 142

Thoughts: An article about vitamins and supplements...how they don't really work at all...

This blog is thanks to Earth Diet reader Daniel Toop. This aticle from www.nytimes.com

People don’t eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain. Researchers have long believed, based on epidemiological comparisons of different populations, that a diet high in fruits and vegetables confers some protection against cancer. So naturally they ask, What nutrients in those plant foods are responsible for that effect? One hypothesis is that the antioxidants in fresh produce — compounds like beta carotene, lycopene, vitamin E, etc. — are the X factor. It makes good sense: these molecules (which plants produce to protect themselves from the highly reactive oxygen atoms produced in photosynthesis) vanquish the free radicals in our bodies, which can damage DNA and initiate cancers. At least that’s how it seems to work in the test tube. Yet as soon as you remove these useful molecules from the context of the whole foods they’re found in, as we’ve done in creating antioxidant supplements, they don’t work at all.

Indeed, in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers. Big oops.
But we do understand some of the simplest relationships, like the zero-sum relationship: that if you eat a lot of meat you’re probably not eating a lot of vegetables. This simple fact may explain why populations that eat diets high in meat have higher rates of coronary heart disease and cancer than those that don’t.

To read the full article visit link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2

Challenges: I know a lot of people who will take a vitamin supplement so they don't have to eat that particular fruit or vegetable. I say it again and again, the Earth provides us with EVERYTHING we need naturally. And yet we go and rob something that is natural to create vitamins and pills and then market them so well that people believe that we should take supplements rather than absorbing the actual food.

Triumphs: The good news is that every vitamin supplement you see in the stores (if it is a legit vitamin supplement, and by that I mean not made up of a bunch of artifical chemicals, compounds and crap) comes from a food that the Earth provides so you can find it in fruits, vegetables, nuts and meats instead. For example beta-Carotene is found in nectarines, carrots, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, turnip greens, winter squash, collard greens, cilantro and fresh thyme and it helps prevent night blindness and other eye problems, skin disorders, enhance immunity, protects against toxins and cancer formations, colds, flu, and infections. It is an antioxidant and protector of the cells while slowing the aging process. To maximize the availability of the carotenoids in the foods listed above, the foods should be eaten raw or steamed lightly not be stripped from the food and packed in a pill or powder vitamin form.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Juice, beetroot, ginger, celery, carrot. 2 nectarines.

Lunch: A pear. A apple. A avocado. Walnuts.

Dinner: Rice with cooked black beans.

Dessert: Chocolate balls with walnuts.

Snacks: No snacks.

Recipe: Chocolate balls recipe in blog Day 115

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" www.themaninthemaze.net

223 days to go!

Day 143

Thoughts: Meet Thor (Michael Lengies)! Sound master! He has worked in over 50 films from humpback whales to polar bears, from the Arctic to Barbados and is the audio director for "The Man In The Maze" and I chatted to him about food, health and hunting...

The conversation started with "So you had a spiritual awakening last night?”, I responded with “What why?”, Thor said “Because you ate chicken”. Yes I ate chicken the night before, beautifully grilled over coals, and I explained how I do eat meat occasionally, however not often as I know I would not kill a chicken, and I believe if I can’t kill it I won’t eat it. Thor being a meat eater said some interesting things and our conversation got onto Thor’s philosophy about eating from the earth.

“I avoid anything that is farmed. The ideal would be to eat wild game.”

Wild Game is anything wild that you can eat etc moose, dear, rabbit, buffalo, elk, partridge.


Why?
“Less fat, no hormones and they eat naturally from the wild. The secret to internal life is to eat the best animal flesh you can get your hands on. In the wild the animals get better exercise, they are healthy. If you eat healthy meat how can you not look and be healthy?”

Thor on hunting...
“The way I see it ethically you hunt what you eat and you eat everything that you kill. You don’t shoot something you don’t need. You don’t shoot for fun.”

“Hunting is part of the circle of life. So many people are anti hunting yet they will eat a big Mac and wear leather shoes. That’s hypocritical. Someone had to kill for it.”

Currently Thor has little time to hunt as he spends a lot of time travelling and working on films around the country. “I only eat fast food if it’s the only choice. Unfortunately I have to choose it too many times. Where I used to live near Montreal in Canada, our grocery store had an option of dear, horse, buffalo, wild boar, emu, ostrich, pheasant, quail. It tasted incredible because the animals had no fat, no hormones because they graze properly.”

“They produce far too much meat from the farms. The human population is so large that I don’t know what choice we have because of the big numbers. And we can’t all go hunting.” Thor is just like the rest of us, working to make money to live in the modern day society and says “Given the choice I would be on an Indian reserve hunting and fishing." A Earth man by nature and a audio director by machine....

“They way they engineer food these days there is a dumbing down, they put hormones and chemicals to make us sheep. It’s hard I find myself not as sharp as I used to be. I’m not preaching that it is true, I’m just saying in order to make an accurate opinion it is a piece of the puzzle.”

Check Thor out.... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2011252/

Challenges: Livestock production leaves a hefty carbon footprint, accounting for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s cars & SUVs combined. Aside from carbon dioxide, the livestock sector emits 37 percent of global methane, a greenhouse gas far worse than CO2; and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. 2.4 billion tons of livestock-induced CO2 emissions are a result of the deforestation of over 7.4 million acres of trees cut for pastures and feedcrop land each year. This loss of forest means the destruction of billions of trees, each of which had the potential to offset around 1,400 pounds of CO2. According to the FAO report, some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.



Triumphs: Personally, I don't believe there is anything wrong with eating meat, however I do believe that the meat consumption by human beings across the globe is selfish and indulgent. Reading these kinds of statistics above show how out of control the meat consumption has gotten and how we are cutting down trees so we can keep it going. Someone has to cut back on meat. That's why I respect vegetarians and vegans. And also hunting for your own food would make for a more sustainable planet.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice. 3 neactarines.

Lunch: A pear, avocado and strawberries.

Dinner: Indian food, rice with dahl (cooked lentils)

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: No snacks.

Recipe: he recipe for Dahl is on blog Day 103

Exercise: Acting is exercise! Hehe! Working on set all day www.themaninthemaze.net

222 days to go!

Day 140

Thoughts: Nectarines.

Why am I so in love with nectarines? I feel like I could eat nectarines all day everyday, and today after I ate 9 nectarines I wondered what is in nectarines that my body is adoring? So I asked my trusty friend the internet and heres what I found....

Nectarines can be traced back to ancient China, where peaches and nectarines were very symbolic and revered fruits. Nectarines required even more diligence to grow, since they were more vulnerable to mold and peach rot. As trade expanded between China and the West, nectarines became even more popular. European manuscripts dating to 1616 offer the first references to nectarines in the Western world.

The fruit we call nectarines is virtually identical to the fruit we call peaches, except for one noticeable feature. The skin of most peaches contains fuzz, while the skin of nectarines is smooth. The same mutation responsible for the smooth skin is also responsible for the spicier taste and slightly smaller size of nectarines. Nectarines and peaches both grow from the same parent peach trees, which have been known to produce examples of both fruits at the same time. Essentially there are no nectarine trees, only peach trees with a genetic mutation. Wow I did not know that...genetic mutation! What the?!? At a basic level, mutation causes a gene or genetic sequence to change from its original or intended purpose. It can be caused by a variety of internal or external sources, and the effects can be positive or negative for the organism that undergoes mutation.

Because nectarines are the result of genetic mutation, growers must rely on transplanted strains of peach trees known to produce them. Certain peach trees are identified as having at least one recessive nectarine gene, so they are often mated with other strains likely to contain recessive genes. Only a successful pairing of two recessive genes will guarantee a yield of nectarines.

Nectarines are similar to peaches when it comes to their pits. Some nectarines contain freestone pits, while others are considered clinging. Freestone nectarine pits, which are not as convoluted as peach pits, can be removed from the fruit easily. Cling-style pits, on the other hand, are deeply embedded in the flesh and must be removed mechanically. Some consider nectarines to be more flavorful than peaches, and much easier to eat. Nectarines do have a spicier quality than peaches, and the flesh is generally firmer. I prefer to eat nectarines instead of peaches, and in fact I don't actually eat peaches...ever.

The 'what's so' in nectarines
-Yellow-fleshed nectarines have higher levels of beta carotene. Beta-Carotene also helps prevent night blindness and other eye problems, skin disorders, enhance immunity, protects against toxins and cancer formations, colds, flu, and infections. It is an antioxidant and protector of the cells while slowing the aging process.
-Both white and yellow-fleshed varieties are good sources of vitamin C and dietary fibre
-Our sweetness comes from our natural sugar content.
-Nectarines provide an excellent amount of Vitamin A and a significant amount of Vitamin C.

Wow, no wonder I love nectarines!!! :)

Did you know?
-We take our name from ‘nectar’ - the food of the gods
-We come from the same family as the rose and are also related to the almond

Availability
-In Australia we’re available from September to April but at our peak in January and February. In USA California nectarines are available from May through September while imports are available from January through April.





Experts suggest placing ripening nectarines into a loosely folded paper bag at room temperature, along with an unripe banana. The fruit should reach its maximum ripeness after a few days. When buying nectarines, look for signs of bruising or mold. Avoid buying nectarines with any green patches-- they may not ripen before spoiling.

http://www.freshforkids.com.au/fruit_pages/nectarine/nectarine.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-nectarines.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-genetic-mutation.htm
http://www.produceoasis.com/TipOTDay_folder/Tips_folder/Jul18tip.html

Challenges: I always thought I was a pig for craving and eating so many nectarines, and now I get my body was craving and loving the vitamin A an C and the beta carotene which enhances immunity, protects against toxins and cancer formations, colds, flu, and infections. It is an antioxidant and protector of the cells while slowing the aging process. And of course the sweetness!

Triumphs: Do not deny yourself any fruit or vegetable, if you crave it eat it, your body is wanting that vitamin, eat as much as you want!!!! Mmmm mmm mmm fruit and vegetables, the foods of the gods :)

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: 6 nectarines.

Lunch: A avocado with sprouts. A green tea.

Dinner: Indian rice with dahl and potatoes. Half a cucumber.

Dessert: Grapes and two nectarines.

Snacks: One nectarine.

Recipe: Nectarines.

Exercise: gym...ab work...leg work...20 minute cardio and steam room. Oh and fight choregraph for the film I am currently working on "The Man In The Maze". Here is a photo of lead actor Andrew Roth and I, I attack his character in a scene and the rest is a surprise ;)



225 days to go!

Day 134

Thoughts: Ever wondered what the Buddha ate???

Well I did! Hehe and look what I found....(www.buddhatrance.com)

First, who is Buddha?
Buddha Skakyamuni was born as a royal prince in 624 BC in a place called Lumbini, which was originally in northern India but is now part of Nepal. Today in general, ‘Buddha’ means ‘Awakened One’, someone who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and sees things as they really are. A Buddha is a person who is completely free from all faults and mental obstructions. There are many people who have become Buddhas in the past, and many people will become Buddhas in the future….There is nothing that Buddha does not know. Because he has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and has removed all obstructions from his mind, he knows everything of the past, present, and future, directly and simultaneously. Moreover, Buddha has great compassion which is completely impartial, embracing all living beings without discrimination.

What did the Buddha eat?
Well… he surely ate good stuff, because at that time there were no pesticides, chemical preservatives and genetically engineered foods (a.k.a. Frankenfoods).

At that time there were also no refrigerators, nor airplanes. So he had to nourish himself with foods that were grown locally and according to the seasons.

That’s right. No pineapples and bananas, had the Buddha lived in Alaska. No buffalo meat, had he lived in Hawaii!

The Zen way of eating follows the cycles of nature and the universal laws of balance of the two opposite and complementary energies, known as Yin and Yang.

Here, you will be given general principles and guidelines as to what you can do to be in perfect harmony with your environment, which is the foundation of good health. That means, when your outer environment and the inner environment of your body are in resonance.

Disease is not an absolute state of being, rather a temporary condition of not being “at ease” with the surroundings (dis-ease).

Of course, times have changed and technology has offered us wonderful ways to improve our lifestyles. Today we do have refrigerators and airplanes that allow the exchange of goods over great distances – we have to take that into account.

However, if you understand the universal principles (beyond time and space) of harmony and balance, you will be able to use your good judgement and still make your own free choices.

That’s why it is preferable to think in terms of a “way of eating”, rather than a “diet”.

Eating in the “NOW” is simple and fun to do and it will bring your body and mind back to an optimal level of balance and healing.

Whole organic foods, mostly of vegetable quality, will purify the vibrational rate of your body. As a result, you will clear your mind.

All the ingredients listed in the recipes can be easily found at health food stores. You can also shop for fresh organic veggies at your local farmer’s market.

It is important to think of food as energy, rather than merely in terms of daily values, calories and percentages. This kind of information can be valuable, but if we fail to consider the “energetic” part of the food we intake, we miss an important part of the equation.

Because we are all “energetic” beings, whichever external energy enters our field, it will affect us one way or the other. By observing Nature we come to be aware of its energy patterns and start to recognize the cycles and correspondences and our place within them.

Are you ready to begin?

(check out this article on www.buddhatrance.com)

Challenges: I am certainly attached to certain foods, and I have the attitude like "I don't care where avocados, nectarines or cocoa powder are grown, I want them where ever I am in the world". It would be challenging for me to completely eat off the land where I am at. I found this challenging in India too because a lot of rice and beans and spices are grown there after 10 days of eating only that I was ready to head back to Australia and eat raw fresh fruits and vegetables.

Triumphs: I feel that eating whole organic foods, mostly raw vegetables and fruits have certainly purified the vibrational rate of my body. I want everyone to experience this also...if they choose, and why wouldn't you choose beaming with health, vitality, love and light?

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A pear. Half a cucumber. An avocado.

Lunch: Cooked beans (lentils, butter beans, chick peas)

Dinner: A nectarine. A pear. A avocado. Indian, rice with spices and chilli and chick peas.

Dessert: Chocolate balls.

Snacks: an apple.

Exercise: 20 minute ab class, 20 minute bike ride, 15 minutes on the running machine while watching Brad and Angelina in "Mr and Mrs Smith", such a sexy film. Then the steam room. Nothing beats a great workout, great sweatout, and some great food. Mmmm mmmm the love and goodness going in the body...bliss.

231 days to go!