Day 161

Thoughts: Pepsi has created a "raw" softdrink claiming to be 'natural born cola' to cater to the growing market of Raw Vegans. Their slogan is "Do what comes naturally". Smart. And a smart person also knows that pepsi is not naturally provided from the earth. Why Are Corporations Trying to Go Raw?

Isn't it bizarre that Pepsi is trying to make a Raw Food Beverage. Any rawist knows that you can't mass-market a really raw packaged food unless it is dried or dehydrated or powdered.

You gotta hand it to them, they are a smart bunch. The big food manufacturing companies know we are sleeping and they're taking advantage of us.

Pepsi has decided to try and woo the health conscious people of the world with it’s newest Pepsi incarnation, Pepsi Raw which is claiming to be all natural, less carbonated, and less fattening. The fizzy caramel cola we all know is losing the artificial ingredients and are instead being replaced by apple extract, coffee leaf, cane sugar, and sparkling water. However, Pepsi is reopening hostilities by launching a new "healthy" option.

If you like artifical flavourings than Pepsi raw is somewhat of a healthier alternative then traditional soda because it does not contain HFCS and it is a more “whole food/natural form” which is ideal for any diet. However, it does contain sugar which means you’ll be taking in chemicals and empty calories.

The new drink claims to have 90 calories and have the following ingredients:

* Apple extract
* Plain caramel colouring
* Coffee leaf
* Tantaric acid from grapes
* Gum arabic from acacia trees
* Cane sugar
* Sparkling water



The question is, why would Pepsi bother with such a small demographic? Because the raw vegan market is growing over 100% a year, with popular raw food bar Larabar making over 15 million dollars last year.

The Raw-Vegan Diet is reaching critical mass and is moving from the fringe to the mainstream via numerous retreats, restaurants and books.

According to John Robbins, there is a Food Revolution taking place. This is a movement towards eating more locally grown whole vegetarian foods for health and for the planet. A major movement within this food revolution is a rapidly growing health trend known as the raw-vegan diet. The raw-vegan diet is similar to the vegan diet (a diet that excludes meat and dairy) and adds the additional caveat that all food should be eaten raw. The raw-vegan diet consists of fruits, vegetables, sprouted grains and legumes, seeds and nuts. Raw-vegan food is considered healthy because of its living enzymes. The enzymes in food aid in digestion and are destroyed at 118 degrees of heat. Therefore in order to digest cooked food your body has to use its own metabolic enzymes which takes energy from your body and leaves you feeling sluggish. Heating also depletes food of vitamins and minerals which is why cooked food is thought to lead to excessive food consumption in the body's attempt to gain adequate nutrition.

What does this mean for the raw vegan consumer? It means a lot more raw and vegan options will be available to us everywhere! Wooo wooo! Shopping malls, restaurants, and hopefully one day theme parks and airports! But if the big food manufacturers see the potential to make millions, they will jump all over it and try mass produce so we have to make sure we read the labels, not just the front title that may claim to be raw organic vegan.

"If there's an ingredient and you're not sure it is raw, write it down and look it up online before you decide to buy the item in question. Once you start eating a non-raw ingredient, you might find yourself craving sugar or other cooked foods addictions you thought you were over, or find yourself losing interest in raw foods. Some ingredients to avoid: braggs amino acids, nama shoyu, miso, natural flavors, lecithin, cocoa butter, vegetable protein, canola oil, soy oil, and anything with the word hydrogenated." - The Garden Diet.

The healthiest foods have no list of ingredients. They are what they are.

This blog thanks to the beautiful Jiveny Blair-West.

http://healing.about.com/od/vegan_diet/a/rawveganfood.htm
http://www.thegardendiet.com/news/
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-513523/Clash-cola-companies-Pepsi-launches-healthy-option-natural-ingredients.html#ixzz0kzMxRzsy



Challenges: For the past 6 weeks since being here in the USA and working on films, long hours and less time to prepare I have eaten quite alot of cooked meals. I have eaten more meat in the last 2 weeks that I had eaten in 3 months. I have noticed that once I start eating a non-raw ingredient, I do find myself craving sugar and other cooked foods addictions I thought were over. I have also found myself losing interest in salads and eating raw foods. I have stopped exercising as much, I have put on weight and I feel sluggish. My face is puffy and my skin has even aged and looks droopy. I have been thinking about food and eating alot and becoming consumed in living to eat and searching for new flavours. I am unsatisfied.

Triumphs: Wow there is such a huge difference from when I am eating raw vegan. So tomorrow I am going to go on a cleanse for 7 days on raw vegan. And I don't want to, which is how I know I need to.

What I ate today:

Breakfast: Strawberries and blue berries.

Lunch: A beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice. Warm water with lemon squeezed in it. A bowl full of raw cauliflower. I love cauliflower!!!

Dinner: Wild boar chop. A potato with a sprinkle of olive oil and himalayan salt. Raw green snow peas mmm so sweet! A salad with green lettuce and cabbage.

Dessert: 4 chocolate balls with peanut butter.

Snacks: Strawberries.

Recipe: Recipe for chocolate balls on blog Day 115.

Exercise: A walk around the block in the beautiful warm and sunny Florida weather :)

204 days to go!!!

Day 159

Our food is being saturated with chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides.

Thoughts: Can I have 10 pesticides with that peach?

Peach's are the top produce grown using the MOST pesticides, followed by apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines and strawberries.

Can't afford to buy organic produce? Here is a list that shows the most contaminated to the cleanest foods. So you can still buy regular produce and consume less pesticides.

According to the article "Fear Of Pesticides Persuades Consumers To Go Organic" by Susan Salisbury, eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 10 pesticides a day, on average. Eating the least 15 contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides a day.

The Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide showed the "dirtest" foods, the most contaminated, here is a list ranked from most to least pesticides. (Note this study was done in USA)

1. Peach
2. Apple
3. Bell Pepper
4. Celery
5. Nectarine
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Kale
9. Lettuce
10. Grapes
11. Carrot
12. Pear

Peach's are the number one produce that use the most pesticides to grow.

The cleanest produce using the least pesticides to grow are, ranked with the best first,

1. Onion
2. Avocado
3. Sweet corn
4. Pineapple
5. Mango
6. Asparagus
7. Sweet peas
8. Kiwi
9. Cabbage
10. Eggplant
11. Papaya
12. Watermelon
13. Broccoli
14. Tomato
15. Sweet potato

Onion is the number one produce that is lowest in pesticide use.

Is it worth paying an extra 30 cents for an organic apple? What about organic strawberries, $4 a pound versus $1.88 a pound.

The difference between organic grown and conventional grown produce is that with convential farmers use chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides. Organic growers must avoid these to meet the Department of Agriculture organic standards.

"People don't realize how toxic regular convential produce really is. You don't just wash pesticides off" - Kathy Carroll founder of the Awesome Organic Fruit and Vegetable Club. They are grown with them and the chemicals are embedded in the produce's cells. Environmental Working Group in Washington agrees that rinsing reduces, but does not eliminate pesticides.

The philosophy behind the guide is simple: give consumers the information they need to make choices to reduce pesticides in their diets. In this spirit, the Guide does not present a complex assessment of pesticide risks, but instead simply reflects the overall load of pesticides found on commonly eaten fruits and vegetables.

"Pesticides cause many adverse effects in well designed animal studies, from cancer to nervous system damage to reproductive effects. Rather than assign more weight to cancer than birth defects, we simply assumed that all adverse effects are equal. There is a significant degree of uncertainty about the health effects of pesticide mixtures. This ranking takes this uncertainty into account in the most defensible way possible, by simply ranking fruits and vegetables by their likelihood of being consistently contaminated with the greatest number of pesticides at the highest levels." Environmental Working Group.

Every year, new research is published demonstrating the toxicity of pesticides to human health and the environment, often at doses previously declared "safe" by the pesticide industry and the government.

As acknowledged by the U.S. and international government agencies, different pesticides have been linked with a variety of toxic effects, including:

Nervous system effects
Carcinogenic effects
Hormone system effects
Skin, eye and lung irritation

Children are especially at risk. "Chemical Free Kids" is a book on how to raise healthy children in a toxic world. www.chemicalfreeparenting.com I also learnt alot for myself!

www.foodnews.org

Challenges: Pesticides are unique among the chemicals we release into the environment; they have inherent toxicity because they are designed to kill living organisms, insects, plants, and fungi that are considered "pests." Because they are toxic by design, many pesticides pose health risks to people, risks that have been acknowledged by independent research scientists and physicians across the world. AND even in the face of a growing body of evidence, pesticide manufacturers continue to defend their products, claiming that the amounts of pesticides on produce are not sufficient to elicit safety concerns. Yet, such statements are often made in the absence of actual data, since most safety tests done for regulatory agencies are not designed to discover whether low dose exposures to mixtures of pesticides and other toxic chemicals are safe, particularly during critical periods of development. In general, the government demands, and companies conduct, high dose studies designed to find gross, obvious toxic effects. In the absence of the appropriate tests at lower doses, pesticide and chemical manufacturers claim safety since the full effects of exposure to these mixtures of chemicals have not been conclusively demonstrated (or even studied). Disgusting.



Triumphs: I am so grateful that we have organic farmers out there!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Warm water with lemon juice suqeezed in it. A beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice. Rockmelon (Cantaloupe).

Lunch: An avocado with walnuts and a salad. The salad was lettuce and raddish, carrot and edamame beans.

Dinner: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion and garlic fried in olive oil. With raw green snow peas.

Dessert: Chocolate balls with peanut butter!

Snacks: Chocolate balls with peanut butter!

Recipe: Recipe for chocolate balls is in blog day 115.

Exercise: Walking around John G's doing a video submission for a travel show directed by Josh Hodgins :)

206 days to go!!!

Day 160

Thoughts: Is yogurt really that good for you?

Basic food can be very healthy, until it is corrupted in the hands of food manufacturers. The more food is processed, the unhealthier it becomes. The healthiest foods have no list of ingredients. They are what they are.

Milk was once apon a time pure and uncorrupted. Now it is a multi billion dollar industry producing mass to keep up with the demands of the people. So is yogurt.

Yoghurt or yogurt is a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. Fermentation of lactose produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yoghurt its texture and its characteristic tang. Dairy yoghurt is produced using a culture of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus bacteria. (Wikipedia)

This blog thanks to Jiveny Blair-West and Carolyn Wagner.


The yogurt section in the grocery store has gotten pretty complicated. Instead of just choosing between regular and light, or fruit on the bottom versus premixed varieties, customers can now select what kind of bacteria they wish to devour with each cold spoonful.

What is sold in mainstream supermarkets under the name yogurt is really a dairy dessert loaded with sugar and processed fruit, disguised as a health food. Stay away from yogurt altogether and if you abolutely cannot live without it, try plain, organic yogurt and add your own fruit.

"Is Yogurt As Bad As Soda?" This article was written by Dr. Todd M. Narson who is a Chiropractic Sports Physician. "This FAT epidemic in the United States started about 30 years ago. Just about the time a then little known substance called High Fructose Corn Syrup was introduced into our food chain. Initially it was just in sodas. Now, it's in everything from Ketchup to Yogurt. Yes yogurt has the same nasty man-made sugar crapola that Coke & Pepsi and other sodas have. And..This stuff is killing our friends, our children and us. So, this got me ticked off enough to start writing about it and that's why you're reading this today. Simply because I've had enough.
The big food manufacturing companies know we are sleeping and they're taking advantage of us. But yogurt? I thought that was a healthy snack? Nope, not any more. Although there are a couple yogurts out there that have regular sugar in them (Thank you Stoneyfield Farms for keeping it real!!) , you must....YOU MUST take your health into your own hands and read the labels on everything. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!!!!!"

Marie Clare even wrote an article 'Foods that make you fat"
FAT FOOD TRAP: Fruit-flavored yogurt.

Though yogurt has been around for thousands of years, most people didn't know about it until fairly recently. And when it was introduced it wasn't very popular. Yogurt was manufactured in some northeastern U.S. cities by Turkish and Armenian immigrants in the early 1900s, but serious commercial production didn't begin until 1940, when Dannon Carasso bought an existing yogurt factory in the Bronx and began making yogurt using a culture of bacteria brought from Europe. Yogurt found a ready market among certain ethnic groups in the New York City area but didn't catch on with the rest of the country until the 1970s, when strawberry preserves were added, successfully masking the natural sour taste that some people disliked.

Others have also taken issue with Dannon’s marketing strategies. In January, a Los Angeles firm served Dannon with a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company intentionally hyped its probiotic wares and made millions based on false claims.

Are probiotics a prescription for glorious guts or just a gimmick?

Probiotics are microorganisms that provide health benefits inside the body, but some scientists say that probiotics remain poorly understood. Of the thousands of probiotics that exist, very few have been tested for their effects when consumed by humans as part of their diets. Laboratory research does not necessarily translate into real health benefits, these researchers say.

As the list of digestive ills that probitoics can allegedly cure expands, so do the number of probiotic drinks, cereals, and shakes. Now, there’s probiotic dog food, probiotic ice cream, and probiotic treatments for farm-raised salmon. Ha what a joke! The only problem: Some so-called probiotic bacteria don't contain strains medically recognized as beneficial.

"At present, the quality of probiotics available to consumers in food products around the world is unreliable," says a 2006 report by the American Society for Microbiology. Yeah ya think! There are few FDA regulations on marketing claims made on probiotic products, as long as those products do not claim to be equivalent to drugs that have the ability to cure diseases.

These probiotics, they say, can regulate digestive health, lower cholesterol, strengthen bones, and make you and your stomach happier. Consumers are encouraged to imagine good, little critters colonizing their stomachs. The stuff is allegedly so good, in fact, that yogurt containers seem like a better fit in the medicine closet—alongside Nexium, Prilosec, and Protonix—because of their medical-sounding prospects of transforming your digestive tract.

Who invented yogurt? No one really. It was undoubtedly discovered by accident, since yogurt is simply milk that has been converted into a weak solid by the action of bacteria. This happened more readily in warm climates, like the Middle East, but yogurt was also familiar centuries ago to those who lived in cold climates, such as Scandinavia. Given time and the right weather conditions, certain bacteria that occur naturally in milk from any mammal can cause milk to sour or ferment.

We’ve been introducing bacteria into our stomachs for millennia—not to mention the some 50 trillion microbial cells and thousands of species of microflora in the gut already—but many of the scientific-sounding claims surrounding probiotic bacteria have nothing to do with the actual science itself. While some recent studies have suggested that Lactobacillus bacteria aid in digestion and play a role in our body’s immune defenses, many of the contemporary claims seem almost as exaggerated as Metchnikoff’s longevity theory. Until his death in 1916 at the unremarkable age of 71,the Nobel Prize-winning Russian scientist Ilya Metchnikoff promoted a theory for prolonging human life. His recipe for longevity was simple: yogurt. Metchnikoff thought that the consumption of the bacterial cultures enabled Bulgarian peasants to live for an average of 87 years and he sought to bring its transformative qualities to the West.

But most people don't eat yogurt to reduce their cholesterol levels or fight an upset stomach. Many eat it because they believe it's low in calories. That may be true of plain low-fat and nonfat yogurts, but yogurts to which flavorings, sweeteners and fruits have been added have many more calories. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the calories in an eight-ounce serving of fruited yogurt average about 230 (compared to 350 calories in a cooked, three-ounce hamburger and bun). The surprise is that there is an insignificant difference in calories between eight ounces of unflavored whole milk yogurt and unflavored nonfat yogurt--about 145 versus 125--so the calorie-counting consumer who prefers the whole milk type needn't feel too guilty.

People also think yogurt is chock full of vitamins and minerals. For many nutrients that's true, although the amounts vary depending on the milk from which the yogurt is made. And guess what...MILK IS POISON! So we are taking poison and fermenting it into more fermented poison. My friend Dwayne Peachey says "yeah lets take some food and make it rotten so we can eat it. I guess the same applies with cheese." (Read my blog on milk Day 135).

But the chief reason yogurt is such a big seller in supermarkets and health food stores is that people like it. Sales are increasing by 11 percent a year--with an estimated $1.3 billion market predicted for 1990. This has encouraged other manufacturers to introduce similar fermented milk products.

In 1977, Dannon made a TV commercial for its yogurt repeating a similar claims, only this time it was Soviet Georgians who prolonged their lives by eating spoonfuls of creamy, fermented milk. Many of these longevity claims have been refuted, but yogurt companies continue to market the bacteria that break down lactose and turn liquid milk into lumpy yogurt—like Streptococcus and Lactobaccilus—as beneficial.

"Deceptive advertising has enabled Dannon to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ordinary yogurt at inflated prices to responsible, health- conscious consumers," said attorney Timothy G. Blood.

http://www.theearthdietforvegans.blogspot.com/
http://jiveny.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/love-thyself/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoghurt
http://www.livescience.com/health/top_10_good_food_bad-1.html
http://www.good.is/post/is-yogurt-really-that-good-for-you
http://naturalsportsmedicine.blogspot.com/2006/12/is-yogurt-as-bad-as-soda.html
http://theearthdiet.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-135.html

Challenges: I do get activated, mad and feel cheated when I hear more and more each day what 'they' are doing to our food and earth. Destroying people's lives and health for money. 'He insulted me, he cheated me, he beat me, he robbed me' those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.' Buddha. It would be easier for me to think this, however I choose to take responsibility, and I have a responsibility as a consumer, and I choose not to buy these corrupt money making products.

Triumphs: If we all stop buying them, they will stop making them!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Warm water with lemon squeezed in it. A beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice.

Lunch: Strawberries and 2 apples. A chocolate ball with peanut butter (crushed peanuts) . Walnuts.

Dinner: Roast chicken with garlic and himalayan salt. A potato. Cauliflower. A quater of an avocado.

Dessert: 3 nectarines.

Snacks: 2 tablespoons of peanut butter (crushed peanuts)

Recipe: Recipe for chocolate balls in blog day 115.

Exercise: A walk around the block, and then it started raining so it turned into a run round the block! Hehe I loved running in the rain woo woo!

205 days to go!!!

Day 154

Thoughts: The 64,000 Mile Question: What Did It Take to Get You that Taco?

Living in Los Angeles, knowing where to find the best tacos is a matter of pride. Tasty, cheap and convenient, tacos are a staple of the city's diet, and without a map or GPS, most Angelenos can still easily locate the nearest stand or truck.

Finding out how far the ingredients have traveled to get to your taco, however, is significantly more challenging—for starters, you definitely need a map. Which is exactly what a group of architecture students from URBANlab, a program of The California College of the Arts, set out to create. By tracing the origin of each ingredient in a single taco, the students made a map that illustrates the complexities of globalization and the industrial food system through the prism of a single taco. And for such a seemingly simple meal, that lone taco can rack up some serious food miles—64,000, to be exact.

Each student followed one ingredient back to its source, untangling a confusing web to create a map that includes farms, factories, corporate offices, and even the routes taken by trucks, planes and shipping containers. The students didn't just immediately condemn the ingredients that had traveled the farthest, as many rabid locavores are wont to do. Instead, they looked closely at the overall impact of producing and shipping the ingredients. Good explains:

“ Key to this process was a close look at the embodied energy in each ingredient, or the sum total of the energy necessary for its entire life-cycle. The students compared tomatoes grown in a greenhouse with those shipped from the Southern Hemisphere, where they’d been grown in summer weather. They looked at aluminum foil, which originated as an aluminum alloy that was mined in New Zealand, and had traveled farther than the elements of the taco, but can be recycled indefinitely without degrading in quality. ”

The research was conducted with the help of landscape architect David Fletcher and members of the art and design studio Rebar (also responsible for the Victory Garden at Slow Food Nation), and the group plans to publish a book on its findings. You can learn more about the project from Good and stay tuned for a thorough explanation of the research in the next issue of Meat Paper magazine.

YOUR TACO DECONSTRUCTED

Examining the ingredients in a taco paints a picture of the globalization of our food production network.

Look closely enough at anything and you can start to see the sum of its parts. Even, for instance, a single taco, which, when examined recently by a group of architecture students, became a window into the complexities of globalization. The assignment was part of URBANlab, a program of The California College of the Arts that took place under the guidance of landscape architect David Fletcher and members of the art and design studio Rebar.

The goal was to map the local “tacoshed,” which, much like a watershed, establishes the geographical boundaries of a taco’s origins—the source of everything from the corn in the tortilla to the tomatoes in the salsa.

By thoroughly understanding what it takes to make a taco, the class hoped to become “better able to propose and design a speculative model of a holistic and sustainable urban future.” The final product is a surprisingly useful microcosm of the industrial food system and its “richly complex network of systems, flows, and ecologies.” According to the class findings, within a single taco, the ingredients had traveled a total of 64,000 miles, or just over two and a half times the circumference of the earth.

For the project, each student worked to trace one ingredient back to its source, a task that turned out to be harder than it sounds. “It was difficult to trace the origins of these foods because of the intense obfuscation by the corporations that produce them,” said Rebar’s John Bela at a recent unveiling of the research at San Francisco’s Studio for Urban Projects. The students spent hours on the phone, spoke to customer representatives in corporate offices and eventually gathered the data necessary to create a map that includes farms, corporate offices, and the exact routes traveled by planes, trucks, and shipping containers.

The taco the group deconstructed was from Juan’s Taco Truck in the city’s Mission District, where every ingredient had been purchased from either Costco or Restaurant Depot, and had been chosen because it was the absolute most economical option possible—making it the taco most people are likely to eat.

“We talked a lot about what the moral taco would look like, or the locavore taco, but this was the cheapest taco you can produce in San Francisco,” said Annalise Aldrich, a CCA student who helped present the group’s findings. Aldrich and another student, Rachael Yu, walked the audience through some highlights of their research.

The students were surprised to find that several ingredients were produced locally, such as the salt, which had come from just south of San Francisco. The cheese, which appeared at Restaurant Depot as an in-house brand called Supremo Italiano, was actually from a company with 10 regional plants around the West that source ingredients and sell locally, despite their larger national brand.

Other ingredients had come from much further away. The various spices in the Adobo seasoning, for instance, had traveled a combined 15,000 miles. The avocados had traveled from Chile, home of the world’s largest avocado grower (a company that was said to produce 300 million fruit per year). The rice was imported from Thailand, despite an abundance of California-grown rice, and was packaged under an array of brand names. “The taco truck owner may have bought the bag with the Sombrero on it, while another shopper at Restaurant Depot might have bought the exact same rice with a Buddha on the package,” said Bela.

Rather than emphasize the current polarity between local and globally produced food, the students were given a chance to examine the values of both modes of production, from a systems perspective. Key to this process was a close look at the embodied energy in each ingredient, or the sum total of the energy necessary for its entire life-cycle. The students compared tomatoes grown in a greenhouse with those shipped from the Southern Hemisphere, where they’d been grown in summer weather. They looked at aluminum foil, which originated as an aluminum alloy that was mined in New Zealand, and had traveled farther than the elements of the taco, but can be recycled indefinitely without degrading in quality.

“We left the project critical of the dogma that tends to frame the issue of provenance,” David Fletcher said. Or, as Edlrich told the audience: “We came away with the idea that global isn’t necessarily bad.”

Read more: http://www.good.is/post/your-taco-deconstructed/#ixzz0kLE1Fd7g
This article on http://www.takepart.com/news/2010/03/03/your-taco-deconstructed-the-globalization-of-our-food-system and to read more like articles www.foodincmovie.com

Challenges: We have become such a complicated species. That is not subjective. It is fact. Complicated in the dictionary is : composed of elaborately interconnected parts; complex. A taco is complicated. A salad with lettuce, spinach, olive oil and avocado is complicated. An animal doesn't go up 5 different trees to make a salad or travel over 64,000 miles to collect everything it needs to make one meal. When we make the meal complicated, we also make it complicated for our bodies to digest. Do humans think we are so superior to have this luxury. I am willing to give up complicated meals and eat seasonal foods and one thing at a time for the sake of the earth and all human beings. Any other takers? Or should I say givers!?! ;)

Triumphs: Every human being is the author of his own health or disease. - Buddha4

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Hemp protein. Water with lemon squeezed in it. Beet, carrot, celery and ginger juice. 2 nectarines.

Lunch: Chocolate balls with walnuts. 6 Strawberries. 1 nectarine.

Dinner: Dinner with family. With what I just talked about yes this is a complicated meal, made complicated by human. Fiddleheads with garlic. Carrots cooked in orange juice and tarragon. Mushroom is balsamic vinegar. A sweet potato. Recipe below.

What is Vinegar?
The dictionary defines vinegar as “sour wine” or “a sour liquid obtained by acetic fermentation of dilute alcoholic liquids and used as a condiment or preservative.”



Mushroom (the steak of vegetables) drizzled in balsamic vinegar and cooked in the oven.


Dessert: 3 nectarines, chocolate balls with walnuts

Snacks: 2 nectarines

Recipe: Recipe for chocolate balls is in blog Day 115!

Irene's Orange Carrots
1. Squeeze fresh orange into a saucepan. Scrape out the pulp also.
2. Add the fresh spice tarragon
3. Add carrots
4. Boil the carrots until firm or soft however you like them.



FIDDLEHEADS WITH SESAME SEEDS
A quick and easy vegetable dish that’s good warm or cold.
3 cups fiddleheads
2 Tbsps sesame oil
1 thinly sliced hot or sweet pepper, to suit taste
1 clove minced garlic
2 tsps lemon juice
seasoned salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds (or slivered almonds)
lemon slices to garnish
Boil fiddleheads until fork tender. While cooking, heat oil in small skillet and sauté pepper and garlic until soft. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and seasonings. Drain fiddleheads and toss with the oil mixture. Sprinkle with seeds and garnish with lemon.

North American aboriginal people are credited with being first to cash in on the nutritional value of fiddleheads. After surviving long winters with scarce greenery, spring fiddleheads were a much needed treat for the body, mind and soul. They were a highly-prized medicinal plant, said to act as a natural cleansing agent ridding the body of accumulated impurities and toxins. It is also reported that fiddleheads were an olden day treatment for high blood pressure, and eaten to ward off scurvy.



Exercise: A walk around the neighbourhood here and a swing in the park in Florida.

211 days to go!!!

Day 155

Thoughts: THINNESS is the state of that individual, the muscular frame of whom is not filled up by strength, and who exhibits all angles of the long scaffolding.


French philosopher and gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) believed that "Whenever a pin is taken from a thin woman, beautiful as she may be, she loses some charm." Times certainly have changed. Eating disorders have become so common that they have become glamorized. The pressure to be thin is huge in this current world and people are starving to death to be thin. Bones protruding, and twenty pounds or more underweight, dancers, models and actresses are told they look great. Well the Earth Diet and Jean's philosophy are all for a wholesome and round lifestyle.



Thiness - VARIETIES
There are two kinds of thinness; the first is the result of the primitive disposition of the body, and is accompanied by health, and a full use of the organic functions of the body. The second is caused by the fact that some of the organs are more defective than others, and give the individual an unhappy and miserable appearance. I once knew young woman of moderate stature who only weighed sixty–five pounds.

EFFECTS OF THINNESS.
Thinness is a matter of no great trouble to men. They have no less strength, and are far more active. The father of the young woman I spoke of, though, very thin, could seize a chair by his teeth and throw it over his head.

It is, however, a terrible misfortune to women, to whom beauty is more important than life, and the beauty of whom consists in the roundness and graceful contour of their forms. The most careful toilette, the most, sublime needle–work, cannot hide certain deficiencies. It has been said that whenever a pin is taken from a thin woman, beautiful as she may be, she loses some charm.

The thin have, therefore, no remedy, except from the interference of the faculty. The regimen must be so long, that the cure must be slow.

Women, however, who are thin, and who have a good stomach, are found to be as susceptible of fat as chickens. A little time, only, is necessary, for the stomach of chickens is comparatively smaller, and they cannot be submitted to as regular a diet as chickens are.

This is the most gentle comparison which suggested itself to me. I needed one, and ladies will excuse me for the reason for which I wrote this chapter.

NATURAL PREDESTINATION.
Nature varies its works, and has remedies for thinness, as it has for obesity.

Persons intended to be thin are long drawn out. They have long hands and feet, legs thin, and the os coxigis retroceding. Their sides are strongly marked, their noses prominent, large mouths, sharp chins and brown hair.

This is the general type, the individual elements may sometimes vary; this however happens rarely.

Thin people sometimetimes eat a great deal. All I ever even talked with, confess that they digest badly. That is the reason they remain thin.

They are of every class and temperament. Some have nothing salient either in feature or in form. Their eyes are inexpressive, their lips pale, and every feature denotes a want of energy, weakness, and something like suffering. One might almost say they seemed to be incomplete, and that the torch of their lives had not been well lighted.

FATTENING REGIMEN.
All thin women wish to be fat; this is a wish we have heard expressed a thousand times. To render, then, this last homage to the powerful sex, we seek to replace by folds of silk and cotton, exposed in fashion shops, to the great scandal of the severe, who turn aside, and look away from them, as they would from chimeras, more carefully than if the reality presented themselves to their eyes.

The whole secret of embonpoint consists in a suitable diet. One need only eat and select suitable food.

With this regimen, our disposition to sleep is almost unimportant. If you do not take exercise, you will be exposed to fatness. If you do, you will yet grow fat.

If you sleep much, you will grow fat, if you sleep little, your digestion will increase, and you will eat more.

We have then only to speak of the manner they who wish to grow fat should live. This will not be difficult, according to the many directions we have laid down.

To resolve this problem, we must offer to the stomach food which occupies, but does not fatigue it, and displays to the assimilant power, things they can turn into fat.

Let us seek to trace out the daily diet of a sylph, or a sylph disposed to materialize itself.

GENERAL RULE. Much fresh bread will be eaten during the day, and particular care will be taken not to throw away the crumbs.

Before eight in the morning, soup au pain or aux pates will be taken, and afterwards a cup of good chocolate.

At eleven o’clock, breakfast on fresh broiled eggs, petit pates cotelettes, and what you please; have eggs, coffee will do no harm.

Dinner hour should be so arranged that one should have thoroughly digested before the time comes to sit down at the table. The eating of one meal before another is digested, is an abuse.

After dinner there should be some exercise; men as much as they can; women should go into the Tuilleries, or as they say in America, go shopping. We are satisfied that the little gossip and conversation they maintain is very healthful.

At times, all should take as much soup, potage, fish, etc., and also meat cooked with rice and macaronies, pastry, creams, etc.

At dessert such persons should eat Savoy biscuits, and other things made up of eggs, fecula, and sugar.

This regimen, though apparently circumscribed, is yet susceptible of great variety: it admits the whole animal kingdom, and great care is necessarily taken in the seasoning and preparation of the food presented. The object of this is to prevent disgust, which prevents any amelioration.

Beer should be preferred—if not beer, wines from Bourdeaux or from the south of France.

One should avoid all acids, except salads. As much sugar as possible should be put on fruits and all should avoid cold baths. One should seek as long as possible, to breathe the pure country air, eat many grapes when they are in season, and never go to the ball for the mere pleasure of dancing.

Ordinarily one should go to bed about eleven, P. M., and never, under any circumstances, sit up more than an hour later.

Following this regime resolutely, all the distractions of nature will soon be repaired. Health and beauty will both be advanced, and accents of gratitude will ring in the ears of the professor.

Sheep are fattened, as are oxen, lobsters and oysters. Hence, I deduce the general maxim; viz: “He that eats may be made fat, provided that the food be chosen correctly, and according to the physiology of the animal to be fattened.”

Beautiful full woman of today are Beyonce, Abbie Cornish, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry and Oprah.

‘I do think it’s important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don’t really look like that. In my films I might look glamorous, but I’ve been in hair and make-up for two hours.’- Kate Winslet.


http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/
Read more at Suite101: Media's Unrealistic Body Image: Pressure to Be Thin Can Lead to Anorexia http://anorexia-nervosa.suite101.com/article.cfm/medias_unrealistic_body_image#ixzz0kQNjGp7C

Challenges: I always find something wrong with this moment or I want to take myself out of it by saying "This moment would be better if...if I had some more nectarines...if I had a drink of water...if I were skinnier...if I felt more awake...if I wasn't so full...if I had some cocao powder...if I wasn't so bloated". Yes I experience feeling pressure from society to be thin.

Triumphs: No one can make me feel a certain way, I take full responsibility for my own feelings, thoughts and actions. If I am feeling pressured from society to look a certain way I know it's because I have chosen to let it. So I can remind myself who I am and who I am not and fully enjoy this moment, fully as a full woman eating full foods with full health. Full has now become a sexy word! Hehe :)

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Warm water with a lemon squeezed in it. Beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice. Organic free range eggs cooked in olive oil. Strawberries.

Lunch: Chocolate balls with walnuts. Strawberries

Dinner: Edamame beans and steamed cauliflower

Dessert: 2 mangoes

Snacks: Ginger tea (boiled water with chunks of ginger) and walnuts.

Recipe:
SPRING VEGETABLE STEW
Serves 4 as a side dish, 2 as a main course

Ingredients
-6-8 baby carrots
-6-8 baby parsnips
-6-8 baby turnips
-6-8 baby onions
-6 baby artichokes
-himalayan salt and grind your own peppercorns
-if you want it sweeter add a teaspoon of Agave Syrup
-1 tablespoon chopped tarragon or basil
-1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Directions
1.Prepare veggies, leaving a few green tops on roots for colour. Cut each vegetable in 2 or 3 pieces so all the pieces are the same size.
2. Put them in a deep pan with water to amost cover.
3. Season with salt and pepper and agave syrup. Do not add lid.
4. Put artichokes cut side down in a smaller pan, add water to cover with a little salt and cover pan.
5. Simmer roots over medium heat uncovered tossing often 8-10 minutes. Then turn up to high and boil until they are tender and the water has evaporated. 5-8 minutes longer.
6. Simmer artichokes, covered, also until tender 15-20 minutes.
7. Drain artichokes and add roots.
8. To finish add fresh spices and whirl it all around in the pan.
9. Now taste! mmm mmm!



Exercise: A run around the neighbourhood in sunny Florida :)

210 days to go!!!

Day 156

Thoughts: You are what you eat.

You are what you eat, how could you not be? If I ate nothing but processed foods, meats, sugars, I would be a walking processed human being vibrating at that frequency. People who think otherwise are ignorant. If I met an obese person I could easily assume the kind of foods and lifestyle they live.I feel like human beings have become so selfish and indulgent, yes including myself, and we have forgotten the purpose of eating. Food used to be for survival, for nutrition and for pleasure and it's such a beautiful and divine experience, where as nowadays it's a means to an end, we eat to get full, to have it fulfil something in us that we are craving, we have expectations from the food and have forgotten where it has come from. Food has become something to make us sick, to feel crap or when people say "I gotta die of something" ,"Or I only live once" yeah like you may as well enjoy the processed fattening donut that provides no nutritional benefits at all and the artery blockages it causes as well...like what kind of thinking is this? whaaat?! Do we have a death wish? Is being on this planet that bad? I can understand if you say yes. And then immediately I am challenged with my own belief of I just don't understand why people re-choose this over and over again because it can change in one moment, a person just has to say 'right that's it, I'm done choosing being obese, I now choose health' and then make choices aligned with that declaration. I met a beautiful young man today in Wholefoods that is overweight and now has diabetes, and he is so inspiring because he has said enough is enough I choose to live and I choose health. And it is a shame for many people it takes them to have cancer, or a death threat, or diabetes, some life threatening illness and it’s the body SCREAMING out saying ‘Ok I’ve had enough, now what are we going to do, I can’t go on like this!’. It’s the body’s way of shutting down. It’s dyeing. And you’re killing it. For most people it takes this to happen before they make any changes. And for others, this happens and it seems easier to just give up and die. Sickness is totally preventable. AND you don’t have to deny yourself anything! You can enjoy the natural pleasures the earth provides! Yes which includes chocolate, coffee, sweet sweet sweet fruits, beautiful vegetables, you can make your own breads, cookies, there are a huge variety of nuts, sprouts, even organic meats if you like meat. You can make your own hamburger and fries, just cut some potatoes and fry it in olive oil topped with some Himalayan salt!

And I know it's easier said than done, because then our emotions come into play and we honour them and give in. I guess I have less compassion for this subject because I have done it, and it hasn't been easy, but I don't have some sort of special gift, I'm the same underneath as an obese person. I just choose health again and again and again and again. I guess I think if I can do it ANYONE one can. I’m not special. Underneath my frustration towards obesity and overweight people is a love for all people, I do wish good health for everyone, and it is available to everyone. I want everyone to experience the joy of health, feeling alive and having an abundance of self respect. And I am learning to respect everyone’s choice in that they just may not want to experience health. And then I am challenged (hehe right now you are witnessing an internal battle for the truth in my head) because I think that underneath, if people really looked inside for the truth, every single human being on this planet craves contribution, craves an abundance of health, wants to feel good and love and respect for one’s self. If I gave you a pill and said this pill will make you experience an abundance of health for the rest of your life and you will never experience cancer, aches and pains, disease, sickness....would you take it? I find it hard to believe that someone wouldn't want this. I’m not saying there is a pill...but really would you take the road to health? Do you want it? And why would you want to experience otherwise? Am I right or wrong, I honestly want to know...? Or maybe there are people out there who want to experience cancer? And feel your life is threatened. I know I did, when I found a tumour in my throat 2 years ago I looked back through my journals and I had written “what do I have to do to appreciate my body and health? I just don’t appreciate it.” I was so frustrated with the bingeing at the time and thought that a life threatening experience would rid me of my selfishness towards my healthy and body. And it didn’t. I still kept bingeing while I was detoxing my tumour out. And it was 156 days ago that I had experienced enough pain and suffering that I said “This is it. I choose health. I am going to create The Earth Diet to only eat foods naturally provided by the earth and restore love and nurture back into my body”. And it took one thought, one declaration and a commitment to myself. And here I am.



Challenges: My challenge is accepting that people do not choose health.

Triumphs: Since starting the Earth Diet my body naturally resonates towards some foods and away from others. Before starting the Earth Diet I could have eaten a hamburger. Now when I think of a hamburger I scrunch my face and think ewww the cheese and eewww the meat and bread YUK! That food is death to me now. This came naturally. I didn't force it.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A avocado with walnuts. A beautiful mango from Florida!

Lunch: A beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice. Organic free range eggs cooked in olive oil. A nectarine.

Dinner: Tilapia fish with Green beans with slivered almonds in garlic, a baked potato and carrots cooked in orange juice. RECIPE BELOW!



Dessert: Chocolate balls! Mmm mmm and this time I put peanut butter in them, actual crushed peanuts from Wholefoods.

Snacks: A nectarine.

Recipe:

1. Bake potatoes in the oven.
2. Wrap the fish in tin foil with lemon squeezed on it and white onion slices if desired. Bake in th oven for 20 minutes until cooked. Grill at the end to brown if you like.
3. Carrots cooked in orange juice with tarragon. Squeeze fresh orange into a pot. Add carrots and fresh spice tarragon. Boil until carrots are firm to your liking.
4. Green beans with slivered almonds in garlic. Steam/Boil (Remember steaming is always better as you don't loose as many nutrients.) Dice garlic and cook with olive oil. After a few minutes add the almonds flipping them and making sure they don't burn. Add the steamed beans and mix together and wahlaaaaa!

Chocolate ball recipe blog day 115.




Exercise: A walk and run around the Cypress neighbourhood in Florida USA :) And did some jumps in the park, stretching mmm mmm, cartwheels, and climbed the pole 3 times! Lovin mixin it up ;)

209 days to go!!!

Day 157

Fruits and Vegetables Are No Miracles In Cancer Prevention.

Thoughts: Do you believe this? You might if it was coming from a reliable source right? A reliable trustworthy source like CNN?

I read this article today. Disgusting. I cannot believe that people would read this and believe it to be true. The indigenous people that lived on this earth thousands of years before us survived on only fruits and vegetables and meats and cancer was not in their vocabulary. Now CNN are saying that the basic necessity that the Earth humbly provides does not prevent cancer. No they do not, so here instead take this man made pill...this ought to prevent you from cancer. Or eat some more hormone infested meat for protein that ought to give ya good health for 80 years. Yes I am being sarcastic. These people are sick and corrupted and robbing the lives of millions. And yours too. If you let them.

So let’s look at the article. First of all, the photo they used for the article, is the most unappealing vegetable photo of dirty potatoes and bland colours. And underneath the caption reads "A new study published this month implies that eating fruits and vegetables doesn't help prevent cancer as much as it's touted". The 'new study'. THE NEW STUDY. Need I say more?

This is the article is in bold font below and the regular font is me talking.

CNN) -- The benefits of fruits and vegetables in staving off cancer exist, but they're not as strong as previously believed, a new study reports. Eating an additional 200 grams a day of fruits and vegetables (about two servings) resulted in only a 3 percent reduction of cancer risk, which was described as "very weak," according to the study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Did you know that the National Cancer Institute actually exist because cancer exists in the world. Without cancer this organization would not be here and would not make its yearly billions. Did you know that the pharmaceutical company is the largest money making business in the world...billions...and if you are not sick they don't make money. They need us to be sick. So don't eat vegetables folks just in case you never get sick and never get cancer, because they need to make their billions, and have their deluxe homes, fancy gadgets, and extravagant lifestyles, private jets. It's becoming so obvious and so easy for us to see these days, how our sickness is linked to billions of dollars.

Some background information on the National Cancer Institute...The NCI budget this year is 2.5 billion dollars. 99 percent of it will go into researching man-made drugs, the same thing they have been doing for 60 odd years with abysmal results. Most cancer patients in this country die of Chemotherapy. NCI is an absolutely corrupt, inept, incompetent organization and it conveniently reverses the overall rise in the mortality form cancer.

"This doesn't mean fruits and vegetables aren't important," said lead author Dr. Paolo Boffetta, the deputy director at the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "They aren't the only factor. There is no one factor."

The World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society all encourage people to maintain a healthy lifestyle and eat five servings of produce a day for cancer protecting benefits. Don’t you want to know who are the people running these organizations? See how easily we trust them as we quickly assume that people in these positions are doing the best they can for the people. And we assume that they are looking out for our best interests and want us to be healthy and well. I know I want to believe that us human beings are being looked after too. Wrong. And don’t worry I’m with you. I just want to live a happy and healthy life. I feel violated and angry and grateful too that I know this stuff. And everyone deserves to know.

The U.S. government's food pyramid recommends 1.5 to 2 cups of fruits a day and 2.5 to 3 cups of vegetables for adults. See guidelines here http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/grains.html Funny how when you look at their “suggested” pyramid (when actually they say you “need”) that the highest serving of foods they say we “need” is 6 servings of grains a day! Yes I will repeat it again the largest food group they want us to eat in the pyramid is GRAINS. And when you check out the list they encourage us to eat which are on the grain list are...
-white flour
-degermed cornmeal
-white bread
-white rice
-cornbread
-corn tortillas
-couscous
-crackers
-flour tortillas
-grits
-noodles
-Pasta
-spaghetti
-macaroni
-pitas
-pretzels
-Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals
-corn flakes
-white sandwich buns and rolls

AND GUESS WHAT??? All of these (except white rice) contain corn. Now corn is manmade, if human were to die so would the corn. Corn is in virtually everything we consume. It has become part of every meal, every day, in mass quantities, from children to senior citizens to cows. What makes up a corn kernel is starch, which causes inflammation in our bodies, makes us fat, just as it beefs up a cow and causes us bloating. If they can feed chickens corn and they grow chunky in half the time, imagine what it is doing to us!?! If you watch Food Inc you can see chickens so beefed up on corn that they take just a few steps and their legs snap un-able to hold their weight. So yeah let’s take the most unnatural, man made things we can get and eat it 6 TIMES A DAY!!!

And then they go on to say "Most refined grains are enriched. This means certain B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid) and iron are added back after processing. Fiber is not added back to enriched grains". Yes they strip it away and then add man made vitamins BACK into it. Not a natural process at all. See my blog from Day 149 for more on corn and the dangers of it.

Vegetables are a suggested intake of that is 2-3 servings and fruit 1-2 servings. And I know that before The Earth Diet I was sucked into thinking "Oh I can't have too much fruit it one day, it's too much sugar". Yet I would happily go have a slice of bread which contained twice as much sugar, but artificial sugar! Now the MILK section suggests 3 cups a day which includes milk, cheese and a lot of types of cheeses, icec ream, desserts and yoghurt. And of course the dairy industry is also a multibillion dollar company. The milk industry is losing money in the western world due to more and more people becoming aware of the detrimental effects on our long term health. The countries that consume the most dairy products have the highest incidences of breast cancer, colon cancer (and other cancers), osteoporosis, diabetes etc etc so now the industry is looking to the East to spread its wares. China who are almost 100% lactose intolerant are being told milk is good for them and are being sold cattle which are not suitable for their climates. It is a dirty, dirty business.

Most cow's milk has measurable quantities of herbicides, pesticides, dioxins (up to 200 times the safe levels), up to 52 powerful antibiotics (perhaps 53, with LS-50), blood, pus, faeces, bacteria and viruses. (Cow's milk can have traces of anything the cow ate... including such things as radioactive fallout from nuke testing ... (the 50's strontium-90 problem). (more on milk in my blog day 135) (6-7 teaspoons of oils)

Then for meat and beans it's suggested that we need 5-6 servings a day and oils is 6 teaspoons per day.

So, so far they have said we “need” to consume ALOT OF FOOD all in one day....

-6 servings of grain
-3 servings of milk
-Fruit 1-2
-Vegetable 2-3
-5-6 servings of meat and beans
-Oils 6 teaspoons

So tell me government, why do we take some ‘things’, twirl them around in a machine, make them into “food” and say we “need” them above fruits and vegetables. And most people don’t excrete this amount of calories in a day so guess what...they pile up as fat...on your body. This seems TOTALLY backwards to me. And if they really care about people’s health and wellbeing enough to create a pyramid, why don't they stop making junk foods, artificial sugars and fast food all together. The government does have this power you know. And again, it's money. They make billions off the meat industry, billions off the corn industry, billions off the pharmaceutical industry. You are paying them to kill you.

They don’t make billions off fruits and vegetables. That is a fact.

Scientists think fruits and vegetables have anti-cancer compounds, affecting enzymes, immune system and hormone levels.

From 1992 to 2000, Boffetta and the 51 co-authors obtained self-reported dietary and lifestyle habits of 478,478 people from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. The participants answered questions about their medical histories, physical activities, tobacco and alcohol use, and habitual diet.

They lived in 10 Western European countries and ate varying diets. About eight years later, a follow-up revealed that more than 30,000 participants had cancer -- the incidence rate was about 7 per 1,000. Can you trust these studies?

Researchers raised the prospect that people who ate more fruits and vegetables could have lower cancer risks because they had generally healthier lifestyles, "such as lower intake of alcohol, never smoking, short duration of tobacco, and higher level of physical activity." These could've been factors rather than just fruit and vegetable intake.

Previous studies have touted the benefits of produce, with findings of 20 to 30 percent reduced cancer rates. The latest finding from the European study was low in comparison.

"Diet is a complex pattern and lifestyle," Boffetta said. "Cancer is complex disease. It's unlikely that one thing will explain the other." Diet is NOT a complex pattern. It is if you make it. No it's simple, eat actual real foods provided naturally by the earth. Stay away from the complex human machine.

The study does not contradict existing American Cancer Society guidelines about eating five servings a day to reduce cancer risk, said Dr. Michael Thun, the organization's vice president emeritus of epidemiology. It reaffirmed existing notions that higher intake lowered cancer risk, he said.

"In my view, there is a good body of evidence that fruit and vegetables do matter for cancer -- it certainly matters for heart disease," Thun said. "It's not as strong as initial studies suggested."

Decades of research have shown that eating processed red meat increases risk of cancers in the digestive tract and that obesity is associated with colorectal and breast cancer. But "the story on vegetables and fruits has been harder to nail down," Thun said.

Dr. Christine Gerbstadt, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, warned against slacking off on daily fruit and vegetable intake because of this study.

She pointed out eating fruits and vegetables has benefits beyond the cancer realm.

"It does help with lowering weight and blood pressure, lowering diabetes risk or lowering blood sugar. Those are all health benefits that increase lifespan significantly."

They also provide soluble and insoluble fiber, minerals, high nutrients and low calories, she added.

It's time people knew the truth. Now you get to choose for yourself.

TO READ THE ARTICLE GO TO
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/08/fruit.vegetable.cancer/index.html

YOU WANT TO READ TRUTH
http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lnci.htm
http://www.ktradionetwork.com/tag/national-cancer-institute/

Challenges: The reason I even blog about this stuff is because I do care about the human race, I love human beings and believe everyone deserves a chance to remember who they are, experience abundance, joy, love and health. These people are robbing the lives of millions, and people don’t even know its happening. You might not even know. I didn’t know for many years.

Triumphs: Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of freedom, peace and joy :)

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice. Hemp protein. Warm water with squeezed lemon juice. Strawberries.

Lunch: Chocolate balls with peanut butter. 4 nectarines.

Dinner: Prawns cooked in red bean paste with brown rice.

Dessert: 4 chocolate balls with peanut butter and 2 nectarines.

Snacks: A mango mmm mmm!

Recipe: Recipe for chocolate balls in blog Day 115.

Exercise: A walk around the neighbour hood here in Florida :)

208 days to go!!!

Day 158

Thoughts: Ashleigh Bevin took on The Earth Diet challenge on March 1st so I touched base with her to see how she's travelling on the new health train ;)

Ashleigh works as a conveyancer which she says "is the legal mumbo jumbo name of the person who does the legal work for buying & selling houses".

"The challenges I have had is clearly without a doubt… alcohol! A lot of my friends are massive party people and so when I hang out with them it’s always in a social situation or there is always someone’s birthday on or some excuse to drink. But I have made exceptions to myself now that I am only going to drink on special occasions or once a month or something instead of drinking every wkend just for the sake of it or during the week to ‘relieve stress’- now I just go to the gym and relieve my stress and feel a thousand times better!!! I have been on a mission to hunt down some organic alcohol which I found this week – organic vodka!!!"

"And another challenge from after drinking alcohol is eating bad hangover food! So yeah I have slipped up a couple of times but when I do I have a little bit of something and stop and think… hmm this is sooooo not worth it haha!"

"Before The Earth Diet I have always tried to be healthy... or sometimes I just gave in and ate bad stuff all week and thought next week I am starting again!!!! I used to eat really good all week and then as soon as the weekend came I was like wahoooo party time... time to eat crap! Now the only time I really want junk food is when I am hungover. But its way to sweet or greezy or gross so I dont even enjoy it which makes me want to eat it less!!!!" Now Ashleigh is "feeling so so fresh and light!" and is eating foods naturally provided from the earth and even created her own recipes for pizza, pesto, salsa dip, cookies, banana smoothies and hummus!!!

"Its amazing how good I feel – it’s pretty strange how it took 23 years for me to stumble across Liana and hear about her earth diet and think…. Gee she is on to something. Haha its so so simple! Just do not eat crap and your body will love you for it!!!! Some days I still feel sluggish or bloated but I realise that they are usually the days when I haven’t drunk enough water or I have overdosed on nuts or had to much oat milk! I get a bit obsessed with my oat milk sometimes and have lots of oat milk banana smoothies & hot chocolates Hehe! I have lost around 5kgs and noticed flabby bits getting tighter YEAH! Ha! I really really really want to get a colonic I just have to get the ‘guts’ to go hehehe".

A colonic is also known as colon cleansing (colon therapy), enema, and encompasses a alternative medical therapy intended to remove fecal waste and unidentified toxins from the colon and intestinal tract. I say there is no point in eating healthy foods if we have a dirty bowel, because all of our nutrients and vitamins are absorbed in the intestine, and if our intestine wall is covered with muck (years and years of accumulated toxins build up) then nothing is being absorbed.

Ashleigh is now even inspiring and assisting others in living a healthy lifestyle, "This guy was in the health food shop asking about cacao and the assistant wasn’t helping much so I walked up to him and started chatting to him what he wanted to use it for and what I used it for and blah blah blah told him about chocolate balls! Showed him all the ingredients so he bought them all! I sure get the health food shop assistants thinking aswell – I go in there every day and see what new creations I can make!!!"

Ashleigh is so alive with energy!!!..."Oh by the way…I went to my parents house on the weekend and they have a woodfire pizza oven… I new I couldn’t resist so I bought some organic wholemeal spelt flour and used that with water oil and salt and made pizza dough. I used this organic cheese from nimbin with no rennet in it aswell."

"I haven’t had meat for 3 weeks now!!!I am just having organic chicken."

Ashleigh has been creating her own recipes and she is sharing them with us! Woooo!


PESTO:
Use a mortal pestle and crush up macadamia nuts, sea salt, olive oil and basil leaves!!!! PESTO!


HUMMUS:
Cook chickpeas, Tahini, lemon or lime juice, sea salt, olive oil, garlic and water - blend together in blender :)


HOT RED KIDNEY DIP SALSA
"Oh I made this awesome hot red kidney dip salsa the other day!!! With onion, tomatoes, basil, garlic, capsicum, kidney beans, cumin & turmeric. I just put it all in the frying pan with some water and simmered it all for a while I have them with organic corn chips!!!! – they only have corn, sea salt & olive oil in them yummmmmyyyy."


Ashleighs CHOC COCONUT COOKIES!!!

Ingredients:
Flaked Coconut
Sultanas &/or Cranberries
Cocao powder
Almond &/or Hazlenut meal
Honey or agave syrup
Cinnamon
Coconut Oil
Water

Directions:
1.Boil flaked coconut, sultanas, Cranberries, honey, cinnamon & water in a sauce pan - simmer until u get a syrupy consistency!
2.Add to cocao & meal, add oil.
3.Put mixture on tray & cook at 200 for to 10 mins - YUMMMMMYYYYY



BANNANA SMOOTHIE!!!!
oat milk, honey or agave, cinamon, bananna's! Blend together :-)


Challenges: It's my birthday today and usually on my birthday it is an excuse to eat chocolate cake, lollies and icecream. So none of that today while I am on the Earth Diet. I will be eating peanut butter (crushed peanuts) chocolate balls though! wooo wooo thank you Earthy :)

Triumphs: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” Buddha. Ashleigh has become a creator of her own foods and health and therefore has become abundant with health, energy, joy and aliveness :))) A true inspiration.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: 2 nectarines. 2 chocolate balls with peanut butter. A beet, carrot, celery, ginger juice.

Lunch: Avocado with walnuts. A nectarine.

Dinner: A salad with cabbage lettuce, raddish, edamame and carrot. And green beans with garlic and slivered almonds (recipe in blog Day 156). And a baked potato with olive oil drissled on it and himalayan salt.



Dessert: Chocolate balls with peanut butter. Recipe for choc balls blog Day 115.

Snacks: A asian pear.

Exercise: A play in the park for one hour, swinging on the swing! How fun are swings?! Balancing on the poles, squats, stretching my body :) Jumping up on the park bench, awesome for abs, some yoga breathing. The left side of my nose was clogged up so I worked on opening that up to meet my clear right nasal passage.

207 days to go!!!