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100 tidbits    

inspired by holly who was inspired by someone named “kimmers” I’m writing down 100 factoids about myself.

1.) I am a NJ princess - just ask my family. They don’t know what the hell I’m doing in VT, stoking fires and hauling wood!
2.) I am not big on bugs - I yell at them in the garden “What the hell are you doing!?” “Leave me alone!”
3.) I think I was a cat in a former life (I’m quite skittish at times)
4.) I can do a wonderful NJ accent, just ask me.
5.) I can also speak with a funny NY/NJ jewish-american accent. It’s how I was raised, what can I say.
6.) I learned my emotions from my Sicilian neighbors (lived across the st from them for like 20 years or something like that.)
7.) I am addicted to raw chocolate.
8.) As with Holly, I rarely wear nail polish on my fingernails but love getting my toe nails polished (Holly paints them herself, I’d rather get the full on pedicure).
9.) I used to have VERY big hair and very long manicured nails.
10.) I used to be a big time partier.
11.) I enjoy buying things in bulk (bulk herbs, bulk food, bulk bulk bulk)
12.) I love color and I love to play with color with everything I do.
13.) I need to sleep in a very dark room.
14.) I am now a light sleeper. Not like them old days.
15.) I find myself sitting like the letter C a lot. Have to work on the posture.
16.) The only pants that really seem to fit me well come from JJill (tall sizes)
17.) I am a night owl.
18.) I love love love being spontaneous
19.) I love to laugh. If you can make me laugh, I love hanging out with you.
20.) I love to sing and miss it very much.
21.) I love to paint and do all things that are “artsy fartsy” (major was fine art/art history and it was english too)
22.) I love to sit in quiet and meditate.
23.) I love to sleep and dream wonderful vivid dreams
24.) I love to write. I would love to get paid to write.
25.) I haven’t had a professional hair cut in over 20 years (and it probably shows)
26.) I want to get a tattoo of the sun on my back so no matter where I love or what time of year it is, I’ll always have the sunshine on my back.
27.) I have about 9 earrings in one ear and I want the other ear to match it. (only have 3 in the other ear.)
28.) I am deeply interested in most all things spiritual (mystical)
29.) I am interested in women’s issues as well as black issues.
30.) I think I saw the movie grease about 15 times in the movie theater as a kid.
31.) I miss the Long Branch board walk (that’s in NJ). I miss the haunted mansion and the club and the piers and the games and the pizza joints and the psychic. Remember her? You could get your palms read for $5.
32.) I miss riding my bike on flat land (I’m a flat lander living in hilly VT)
33.) I miss sidewalks
34.) The ocean speaks to me and is my friend. I miss living near the ocean.
35.) I love to make people laugh. My humor is rather sarcastic at times.
36.) I do not love to fly and I’m not big into mass transportation or schedules.
37.) I can find typos everywhere I go. At restaurants, in magazines, on websites. It’s the nature of my work. I’ll be sure to find even more after I publish this!
38.) I love jewelry. I would love to dress like Queen Nefertiti if I could.
39.) I love diamonds. Even though they are mined so evilly and people have been treated so inhumanely. I love how they sparkle. I once tried on a canary yellow diamond that cost over 20 grand. At the time I thought, “I could go to college or I could buy this ring.” Hmmm…
40.) Since having a daughter, I’m even more into sweet sparkly things.
41.) I am just like Holly with regards to mosquito bites. bee stings as well. I get the worst local allergic reactions to them. Not fun or funny.
42.) I once had a bee fly into my lap while driving. I nearly crashed off the side of the road with my infant and toddler in the car as I was trying to shoo the thing from my groin. It stung me and half my leg swelled up. I couldn’t walk for several days.
43.) I was born on the 4th of July. NO, it’s not great being a kid with that holiday. Yes, it is cool to have fireworks on my birthday but no I was never really dumb enough to think they were just for me. Most people go away on the 4th so I always had family birthday parties.
44.) I can’t stand clutter. Drives me ever lovin’ crazy. Although I love baubles and things that Matt calls “dust collectors” - pottery and statues and things. I like a place for everything and everything in its place. I did retail displays and so I LOVE to make things look pretty. It’s hard to do that in a house with young kids that move everything…
45.) I enjoy eating majority raw/living foods. Yes, I do have tea. Yes I will have hot soup. No, I’m not a purist. No, I don’t care if you eat raw foods or not. I don’t care if you use nama shoyu or regular soy sauce or NO soy sauce. No, I don’t like to eat cold foods. No, I don’t care for most of the raw food “gurus” that are out there. Most all of them make me roll my eyes. No, it’s not all about eating salads or munching on carrot sticks or even eating alfalfa sprouts. Truth be told, I don’t like alfalfa sprouts. I do like barley sprouts! and lentil sprouts. and sunflower sprouts.
46.) I know how you can gain weight eating only raw foods.
47.) I am SOOOO not into guilt and shame, particularly how it relates to food but any conditioning that we’ve had which is just useless. It just doesn’t serve us. So I don’t want to hear about “how do you get protein?” or “what the hell are you drinking” just as much as I don’t want to hear about “you’re a raw fooder and you don’t get regular colonics?” or “nobody’s body is as pure as mine is on a cellular level.” It all makes me giggle and roll my eyes at the same time. I don’t need to hear it and neither do you.
48.) I took Buddhist refuge twice: once with a Ch’an Buddhist monk and another time with a Tibetan monk.
49.) Learning about Buddhism helped me to understand what the hell Jesus was talking about.
50.) Learning about Wicca helped me to understand what Buddhism is about.
51.) I start and end the day in gratitude (even if it kills me.) - that’s a joke!
52.) I grow very impatient in traffic jams. I jump right back into the days of driving to work in NJ on the parkway or the parking lot that is Rt 287.
53.) I go through long periods where I bite my fingernails.
54.) I go through short periods when I don’t bite my fingernails and I see how long they can get.
55.) I had my first cigarette when I was 9 years old.
56.) I had my first espresso when I was about 11 or 12 (those Sicilians!)
57.) I had my first drink when I was in the 6th or 7th grade. I used to sneak it at my house but we used to get some Sambuca with a couple coffee beans in it at the Sciurba’s house. Or daiquiris or sometimes they made us Pina Coladas. Oh how I loved that Mr Sciurba was European!
58.) I smoked hash when I was 16 on the beach. Boy was that heavenly.
59.) I smoked pot for the first time at Gina’s house with her sister Dolores at their New Year’s party. I was 16. Dolores pulled out a 4 foot bong that she won at the boardwalk (those were the good old days - can you believe you could win drug paraphernalia at a boardwalk?) At least I think that was the first time I smoked pot. I’ll have to think on that one.
60.) I used to be able to drink any man under the table.
61.) When I was in college, I had a roommate named Regina who was the absolute party cheerleader. Her nostrils would flare and she’d get us all to have just one more shot or just one more bong hit. She was a close 2nd to my drinking ability and that was saying something because she was like 5′2″ and skinny as a rail.
62.) Regina gave my first hit of acid when I was 19 or 20 years old. She didn’t know but I took 2 hits the first time. I ended up confessing to her. Boy, this is turning into quite the confessional factoid blog!
63.) In my life so far, I’ve gained and lost over 140 lbs. Lost 50+ lbs during the summer between freshman and sophomore year. Came back to sit in my seat in homeroom and everyone told me I had to leave because that chair belonged to Linda. “But I’m Linda.” I said.  The 2nd time I lost probably around 50 lbs between the ages of 19-20 years. I partied way too much the first time ’round in college, gained a bunch of weight (late night trips to get these extremely large and extremely cheap calzones at a local pizza joint.) I failed out of college, went home and continued to binge eat late at night. Got my act together and lost 50+. The rest has been due to pregnancies. I still could lose a good 20 lbs.
64.) I did a medically supervised fast for over 40 days. I wanted to give my body a big time break from everything.
65.) I drove across country twice. Took a train across country once. Drove down the west coast once.
66.) I once lived in a hotel for 40 days. (sounds so bibical to me, all these 40 days things. 40 days and 40 nights! We moved from CA to MD. Matt’s company put us up in a hotel until we could find a house to buy. Found out I was pregnant with baby #2 in that hotel. That changed our plans a bit.)
67.) I dated a Brooklyn artist who liked to steal junk and then paint with or over it. He was a junk artist. He was also an artist for the club scene. Or was it a door man? Or both? I can’t remember. He stole a rug from a club because he liked it so much. We had to go outside and wait for him to roll it up and chuck it out the window. Then we had to drag it home on the subway.
68.) The last time I took acid, I was with that Brooklyn artist and we roamed the streets all night - wandering from park to park in NYC. We were hanging around with the bums and I saw a shooting star. I thought, “I need to stop hanging out with bums in central park. Same for this Brooklyn guy.”  I went back to college that next day and stopped partying. My first day in college, I sat in my physics class and saw 2 midgits in front of me. I thought I must have still been trippin’ but nope, they were there the rest of the semester.
69.) As a teenager, I used to steal from my place of employment. In fact, everyone did there. Even the manager. When I realized what really bad karma that was, I totally stopped. Can’t say that for the rest of the crew there.
70.) My favorite sayings were (and still kind of are): “F— that noise!” and “Are you sweatin me?” and “F— him/her, I did.”
71.) I no longer drink coffee but I used to absolutely adore it. Still love the smell of it.
72.) I don’t drink mixed drinks except just recently my dad made me a drink that had some ginger ale and bourbon in it. That tasted good to me.
73.) I don’t have much of a NJ accent anymore
74.) About 7 people have tried to teach me how to drive stick shift. OK really about 5. Gina thought she’d be good and tried to teach me in the middle of RT 35 in Eatontown at a circle during rush hour. Heather tried to teach me by putting me on a hill and said, “shift to 1st gear now.” Hmm… maybe this is why I don’t want to drive a stick shift.  The boys who tried to teach me at least tried in empty parking lots. I guess they were so nice because they were trying to get a date!
75.) My friend Holly got me into liking chickens - but I really just like pictures of them or crafty chicken items (I have a chicken clock and some chicken salt & pepper shakers). My friend Pat tried to get me to gather their eggs once here in VT but THAT didn’t go over well for this NJ princess!
76.) Although I’m better at it now, I used to SUCK at parallel parking. Thank goodness the guy who tested me was flirting with me and said “that’s good enough” when I was like 15 inches away from the curb.
77.) My HS guidance counselor tried to kiss me. My photography teacher once tried to see up my shirt (not much to see though, I must say). The industrial arts teacher liked my long nails and always asked for back scratches. And the gym teacher was notorious for checking out all the girls.  NJ had a bunch of DAWGS in the school system.
78.) My family owned a bike store for 82 years. It was the largest on the east coast and our trademark was a 5 seater that was hanging in the window. We also had a BUNCH of antique bikes upstairs and the store was on the route for the 4th grade class trips.
79.) My first job (aside from babysitting which I hated) was making smoothies for a place in the mall called California Smoothie.
80.) I lived across the street from the mall so I worked in about a dozen stores there. California Smoothie, California Sunshine, Chess King, Macy’s, Lord & Taylor, some other clothing store that I can’t remember the name of, Surray Luggage, an art supply store there and a few others I’m blanking out on.
81.) I am a graphic designer and never took a graphic design class. I actually refused to because I didn’t want to do a thing with computers.
82.) I can do the cabbage patch.
83.) The longest party that I went to was a 2 week party (at my cousin’s house.) I actually fainted. Kept forgetting to eat. Woke up with a welcome sign on my lap in the hallway leading to the bathroom at my aunt’s house.
84.) I am very sensitive to medications. I can take the child dosage of things and they work VERY quickly. I once had a quarter of a novacaine shot and 1/2 my face went numb.
85.) I love making incense.
86.) I love making herbal tinctures, oils and salves and lotions. I don’t like making soup. Too much chemistry.
87.) I can teach you how to finger knit a jump rope.
88.) I can teach you how to weave a coil basket (actually did take a class in basket weaving in college).
89.) I drink between 1 - 2 liters of water each day. Lately I’ve been throwing a little super greens in there.
90.) I can wiggle my chin. I can wiggle my ears.
91.) I’ve worn glasses since the 1st grade. And I was also a nerd in elementary school.
92.) My eyesight has improved since eating raw food. I’ve had to ease up on my prescriptions for the past 5 or so years.
93.) I teach my kids about all the “bad” words that are out there. I figure it’s better that they learn from me than get it wrong at school and then mistakenly say it to their teacher or grandparent or something.
94.) I know how to flag twirl (color guard stuff.)
95.) I still love to do the things like “miss mary mack” and now I get to do it with my kids.
96.) I can whistle very loudly through my teeth - no (slobbering on) fingers necessary.
97.) I can whack a softball out into the out field (at least I think I still can!)
98.) I enjoy stretching and doing yoga poses.
99.) I can do whatever I put my  mind to. And I mean whatever.
100.) The happy thought that I had in my head during labor with my daughter was my son’s sweet smiley face. That got me through labor pain. My kids faces pop in my head a lot as my happy thoughts. Can’t stay upset too long when you can see faces like theirs in your brain. I also have to say that I’m a much more confident artist since having kids. That shit makes you grow up. (I’m talking about the pain.)

here’s a little tidbit I just got in my inbox:

From Raw Food for Real Kids by Rod and Jeannette Rotondi, owners of Leaf Cuisine Restaurants. Here’s an excerpt …

- Some people ask with concern, - Aren’t you afraid your child won’t get enough nutrition without cooked foods? - While that is a reasonable question since virtually every child in America eats predominantly cooked foods, most of the empirical evidence even in the mainstream realm indicates that for the most part food loses nutritional value when it is cooked. Yes, there are apparent exceptions such as increased lycopene content from cooking tomatoes, but do we really understand all the implications of high heat processing food? -

What do you think about this?

Hi there!

Hoping you are managing through hot weather! Summer has hit us with a BANG! Unbelievable. It went from chilly to extremely hot and actually some humidity as well. Keep thinking rain is going to happen and then the sun peaks out again.

I wanted to tell you about this email that I received. My friend RAWlen sent this request from a student in Berkeley who is training to be a holistic nutritionist. She is currently “researching the habits of people who successfully incorporate a significant amount of raw foods into their diets, with the intention of offering suggestions for ‘beginners’.” I replied to her and said I’d be happy to fill out her survey. I decided it would be good to include the Q&As here because, well, I just spent time on it so what the hey.

Here goes and please tell me if you find it all useful for yourself:

Statement of Purpose
This survey was designed to determine existing nutritional practices of raw food enthusiasts, as well as to pinpoint the special nutritional needs of this group. All information disclosed by you is confidential.
   
Overall Diet
1. Please describe the role of raw foods in your overall diet.
Raw food is a way of life for me. It’s now just a part of my lifestyle as is taking showers, cutting my nails, etc.  I find it incredibly healing in mind, body & spirit. I also feel that the emphasis to remain at 100% is not necessary. For me personally, I find that cooked food is akin to eating a lot of yang and conversely, raw food is akin to eating a lot of yin (when referring to energy in foods). This shift to go to 100% raw is great for healing but as the pendulum swings and swangs, so must our diets in order to achieve balance. When I find that I need to heal, I go all raw – over to the goddess side of things and then I inevitably find myself in a place where I add a bit of cooked veggies to my meals. It goes back and forth although I eat predominantly raw foods. I think this is a very natural way of eating once the new habits have been created.

2. Roughly what percentage of your diet is raw (never been heated over 114°)?
 90-95%

3. For how long have you been a “raw foods enthusiast”?
since 2001

4. What initially inspired your interest in this way of eating?
I was complaining on a listserve about how I was feeling shortly after my daughter was born. I was experiencing hypoglycemia, candida, acid reflux, no energy, etc. The moderator took an interest in me. She happened to be a raw fooder and I didn’t know what that even was. I was a “guinea pig” for her raw food coaching business that she was starting and so I learned a lot about recipes, I started reading books, taking classes. This is how it started. I noticed a shift in symptoms and emotions VERY quickly eating raw. So quickly in fact that it scared me. I personally feel it’s important to do this gradually because a lot of times people can feel like I did – used to feeling bad and then lots comes up once illness goes away… When you feel good, there can be a shock to the system just as when you feel bad. It doesn’t happen all the time but I tell you I hear/see/read a LOT about people who notice their attachments and addictions to food once they get off them. ☺  Also there is/can be some getting used to the notion that one is well and therefore cannot be attached to the idea of unwell…

5. How did you educate yourself about raw foods when you first became interested?
Like I wrote above, I started reading books, checking out websites, asking people. I took classes and read more books. The more books I read, the more confused I became however. Each book states that their way is the best way. The lesson I came away with is, “I have to figure out what works for me since I’m not going to find it from any raw guru out there.”

6. Have you experienced any “detoxification” symptoms since you began? Please describe.
All kinds: physical detoxes, emotional detoxes. Many many layers come off and I am sure they will continue to. There are also different degrees to the intensity and duration of these releases or detoxes. I should also note that I also experienced a weight gain, which was interesting & surprising because mostly people write about how weight just falls right off. This wasn’t the case for me and I’m finding weight loss is happening slowly and overall, I’m feeling much more happy in my body despite the extra weight that’s on me currently.

Physical detoxing come in many forms as do the emotional ones. The physical ones can go from feeling something akin to flu-like symptoms. There can be pimples showing up, there can be rashes forming on the skin. Mostly these things can be avoided if we flush the system out. Physical detoxing/cleansing/releasing also come out in the menstrual blood, urine, fecal matter, sweat, tears. Women can tend to find that their periods aren’t as heavy the longer they do raw foods. People have also stated that the need for deoderant is less when eating raw foods for a while.

Emotional detoxing come in ways such as: needing to feel grounded, searching inwardly for shifts in awareness. We also can more readily see the attachments we have to people, things and emotions. We can also see quite clearly how addictive we are to the foods that we’ve come accustomed to eating. When you are stuffing yourself with food, you are making it so all your energy is being used to break down and process that food. So in a sense, you get a numbness to life because of this wasted time/energy put on eating these “comfort” foods and then having the wasted time/energy to digest them. When we take those things away, we are left with ourselves and our emotional states. Sometimes people might see how a whole lifetime has been spent wasted. We can see the blockages in mind and body more clearly and to me, raw food has helped me become quite gentle with myself, to really love and care for myself. The body is a temple. The mind is a tool. I’m learning to use the tool and not have it use me – (i.e. ACT in stead of REACT, for example.)

Often people will also say that once they make some dietary changes as profound and as simple as incorporating more raw foods, they find a deeper connection to the ONENESS around us: the sense that we are all connected. Suddenly there’s a shift and people become aware of and want to know more about the earth around  us. They get into herbs, planting, permaculture, nature-based living, etc. Suddenly the notion to sit around at a desk for 8 hours a day is rejected from every fiber of our being.

These are only some of the detoxing that I’ve experienced and witnessed in others.

 
Food Choices
1. Do you consume animal products? Please explain
I occasionally will have bee pollen, propolis and honey. I’m not a strict vegan in that sense. I also am open to the wisdom that is ancient and inherent in my body: if my body tells me it’s time to have fish oil, then I will serve it what it tells me it needs and I will not be stuck by the mind’s dogmatic ways.

2. Please list any other specific foods or food types that you do not eat (ie tree nuts due to a nut allergy, packaged foods for ethical reasons, etc.).
I’d rather tell you what I DO do instead of what I do not do. I eat fruits, vegetables, leaves, wild edibles, herbs, seaweeds, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, some sprouted legumes, super foods and super herbs. I do drink herbal teas. I make tinctures for myself. I do occasionally have a glass of wine if the mood strikes and this has become increasingly less and less over the past 7 years. I do occasionally have some cooked rice or yams if the mood strikes. I eat root veggies and LOTS of greens.  After you eat juicy, watery delicious food like this, what’s the point of writing about those other foods which really have less appeal both energetically, physically and really just taste terrible.

3. Do you consume alcohol? If so, what type?
Very occasionally I have red wine. This is only very occasionally like I wrote. I can feel the depressant qualities of it so it’s not so appealing anymore.

4. Do you have a favorite non-raw food that you have kept in your diet? Explain.
I hope I’m getting the point that this isn’t a religion for me. I’m not dogmatic in my approach to raw foods. If my body says “I want some soup” I will make some soup. This is a very different way of listening and feeling than the addictive cravings that come up and make you tune out and stuff your face with cheetos or something. It is a different vibration and a different voice that speaks. I can very definitely hear the difference and feel the difference. When it’s time to have a piece of raw fish, I’ll have it. I also think that there is very much a difference between eating food from a box vs. eating from made with love from scratch. If I am at my parent’s house and my step-mother has made something that she has made with love and I can see this love and desire to share it with me, I don’t turn it away. I might not take lots of it but I will have some and I do feel wonderful when I eat it. It’s not the same as going to a fast food joint or even a restaurant for that matter.

5. Do you take over-the-counter or prescription medications?
No. In fact I stopped taking sleeping pills and birth control pills. I took them for a short while due to intense hormonal fluctuations I was experiencing after I stopped nursing. Coincidentally, I was also eating a lot more cooked food in those days. I went back to raw food at 100% and all symptoms went away and so did the need to take any pills.

6. Please shade and label the circle below to show what percentage of calories you believe you get on the average day from 1) vegetables, 2) fruits, 3) nuts, seeds, and oils, and 4) sprouted beans or grains, 5) animal products, and 6) other (describe).

7. Please look at the following list of foods. Make a check mark in the box next to each to show how frequently you consume it in an ordinary week.

NOTE I added a column.

Lifestyle
1. Please list any nutritional supplements you take regularly (amounts not necessary).
Again, this occurs as my body dictates. I do take a b12 sublingual occasionally. I will take a liquid calcium/magnesium/zinc/D supplement when the feeling arises. Same for b-complex. Mostly these things are taken around my period. Fish oil will sometimes be added. I take bee pollen in my smoothies. I take medicinal mushrooms at times. I take vitamineral green and vitamineral earth on occasion. I will have spirulina very occasionally.

2. About how many hours do you sleep per night?
This depends as well. Everything changes from static routine to shifting to a pattern closer in alignment with the earth and its fluctuations. Sometimes it’s 7-8 hours and sometimes is 5-6. In the winter, I tend to go to sleep earlier and wake up later. In the spring and summer I’m up until about 1 am and get up around 8 or 9 am. It changes.

3. Do you own any special equipment for food preparation, such as a VitaMix or dehydrator?
I make food for stores, for individuals & for my family. I teach classes and workshops. I have 2 vitamix blenders, 2 spiral slicers, 4 dehydrators, 3 food processors. I have a mandolin slicer and lots of sharp knives.

4.  Please briefly describe your physical activity regimen(s) such as daily walks, yoga 4x per week, etc.
I’m coming out of an injury that kept me rather immobile the last 5 years. I’m finally able to go for walks, for hikes, I can do yoga again and stretching without pain. I do a kind of dance/aerobic thing about 2-3 times /week. This is glorious to me to be able to move again.

5. About how many meals do you prepare at home each day?
I usually start out my day with a smoothie. I will sometimes have another smoothie in the afternoon or a salad of some kind if I’m hungry. Dinner is a salad and something else usually. I’ve always been the person to make big batches of food on a Sunday to eat throughout the week so that hasn’t changed with raw foods. It’s then that I’ll make the crackers or pates to try and we’ll eat them during the week. I love to experiment, though, with new recipes so that will happen whenever the mood strikes. I love to sprout as well so the sprouts will dictate when the food is to be made. ☺

Additional Support for Raw Food Diets
1. In one sentence, describe what you believe are the three biggest benefits of a raw food diet.
The raw food lifestyle has helped me to bring about greater awareness & healing for my mind/body/heart/soul/spirit and it has GREATLY increased my level of gentleness towards my whole self.
 
2. What is your #1 struggle in relation to your raw food diet? (e.g. getting enough calories or protein, difficulty when away from home, feeling “different” from others, etc.)
At this point, I don’t feel any struggle towards raw food at all.

3. Additional comments (optional):
 I would encourage you to do research and more studies on people who have done this. I think that in order for people to really learn how to adjust to this and learn to eat this way, it needs to be documented particularly in the science/medical/nutrition community. I think that there are many threads of truth in all the books although I don’t subscribe to any one way of doing things. I think that if dieticians can be open to this and help people with any imbalances they might experience along the way, it can only be beneficial.

I get routine physicals with a naturopath along with blood tests so I can get a baseline of health. What was interesting to me was that the naturopath noted that my calcium tested on the low end of normal – same for protein and b12. She wondered if I wanted to take a b12 shot so I could have more energy. I explained to her that I have more energy than I know what to do with. To this, she noted, “maybe if more people ate this way, we’d change our criteria for what we considered ‘normal’”. This sparked in me the desire to work with dieticians in order to do some research and study groups with people so it can be documented. All these raw fooders are out there and we experience  a vitality that many cannot even know or understand and most people approach this with fear and trepidation. (this is how I was as well.) Wouldn’t it be awesome to have this documented and become “mainstream” so that eating fruits and vegetables is as normal as taking a shower?  (and not just eating but feeling real sustenance from them.)

The last thing I’d like to note, aside from thanking you and wishing you luck with your survey is to say that the thing that took me years to shift in this way of eating is to see that fruits and vegetables are the real sustenance for eating. These aren’t the sides or the garnishes. THESE are the things that are the meals of true sustenance. This took a big shift in consciousness it seems. It seems to happen quite naturally for every raw fooder who has done this a while. You go from dehydrated foods to fresh, whole, juicy foods. It’s quite gradual and lovely when you let that shift happen instead of forcing ideas and ideals. It’s a lovely surrender in a way.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this survey. I’d love to see the results. I’d love to offer anything to you that I can for help/research.  I wish you the very best of luck in your endeavors.

Take good care,
Linda Wooliever
http://www.vt-fiddle.com

Below are my opinions and experience. This is another wonderful email that I received plus my responses to it. I’m including them here because I think it might be helpful information. Please feel free to comment below.

++++++++++++++++
On May 31, 2008, at 1:36 PM, [happy person] wrote:

Happy Saturday!

It is actually a beautiful day here.  It seems we haven’t had many here this spring.  I am okay with the cooler temperatures…. I just need me some sun, and vitamin d!

I am sitting here with some fresh juice.  I thought I would try the blender nut bag routine for the juice.  it worked out well.  altho i don’t have an official nut milk bag.  i should probably order some from you.  At the coop they had some produce bags that were made by a local lady, and that is what i am using.  They seem pretty fine mesh,  but possibly a nut milk bag is even more so.  Don’t know.  I have never had one.   This is what I have…  http://coolhats.biz/byobags/BYObags.html

I think I have seen that nut bags are cone shaped,  does that make a big difference?

Cleanses:  well i am intrigued by them,  yet a little scared of them.  I think some people are opposed to them.  I don’t know,  I have gone thru periods of time when [I’ve felt I needed them].  Makes me think a cleanse would be good.
My husband is about to do the blessed herbs.  He has done it before, and liked it.  And i think you take these digestive enzyme pills?  to help you poop all the time.

I am very tempted to try the master cleanse.  you are suppose to do laxative tea at night and a salt water flush in the morning.  the salt water flush scares the crap out of me.  I have read some people saying that they didn’t do the swf and that the tea was enough.

So you talked with Mr. David Wolfe.  How was that.  When was that?  … Give me some dirt.

Okay, time for my question of the day,  must go enjoy the sun….

Pills or powder?

You know how some things like msm and maca come in pills or powder?  Is there more of a benefit to taking it in the powder form do you think?  because it seems like if not, it would just be easier to just take a pill.  I haven’t tried maca yet,  but i heard it is not too tasty.  what else… green food, and algae stuff… i think things like that are offered in both forms too???
Anywho…..  what are your thoughts on that? 

Have a sunny day!

[happy person]

++++++++++++++++ my responses ++++++++++++++++++++++++

Happy Saturday [happy person]!

Amen on the sun and Vitamin D! I take a D supplement (liquid calcium, magnesium, D). I live in VT and so it seems like a good thing to do to take Vitamin D.

Cool! You just did the juice feasting method of juicing! The bags look pretty good! Ours is a thicker material - we also have hemp - yea baby! If that bag you are using works then by all means continue to use it!

So what was in your juice? Do you remember?

The cone shaped bags are for people that only want to use it for making nut milks or juices (harder to sprout with less area of fabric). It’s like less material to get bunched up for squeezing. I much prefer the square or rectangular ones myself for making nut milks. It’s just a matter of preference.

I understand the apprehension of doing cleanses. I feel it depends in the time and circumstance. If I were really sick and felt the need to do a cleanse, I would do it. But mostly I think the body has all the ability to rid itself of what it needs to rid. I think there is almost a violence (that’s a bit of a harsh word but I can’t think of the right one) to the body when we think we aren’t clean and have to cleanse and cleanse and cleanse. I also think that having a break from eating is good but for people like me, it sometimes is not be the best thing to do. With most of these cleanses, they have you take fiber of some kind to help you poop stuff out. 

Do you take probiotics of any kind? Either in supplement form or thru foods like rejuvelac or sauerkrauts or kim chi? The vitamineral green has probiotics in it as well.

Why does the salt water flush scare you? This is where you drink water with a bit of salt in it, no? If so, it’s not a big deal and it does work. This also seems a bit counter-intuitive. I was raised with this idea that you don’t drink salt water. You can gargle it, but spit it out. And then there’s people that I know that will do a salt flush daily for some untold number of days. Healthforce Nutritionals has a nice herbal laxative that comes in pill form. I’ve tried it once. Funny but most of the things that are labeled as laxative turn out to be kinda binding to me these days. Don’t ask me why - maybe my mind is the mode to pretend it’s opposite day with all this stuff!

I went to a weekend thing in Portsmouth NH last year where David Wolfe was speaking. He was definitely approachable (I approached him at just about every break) hahaha and I just kept asking him more questions. It was interesting to make the decision to go because like you, I didn’t have any desire to hear what he had to say. I had read his book Nature’s First Law years ago and couldn’t get past the first 2 or 3 chapters. The last sentence in every chapter is “Cooked food is poison” and I frankly didn’t appreciate the sentiment of guilt/shame behind the words. The whole weekend was $100 so I thought it would be nice to go to be fed for two days for $100 so I went. It was fun and I’m glad I went. David’s schpeel now is/was a lot different from that book. He’s all about superfoods and adding them in gradually, NOT the big lifestyle changes like that first book was saying. I told him I was glad to give him another chance because I hated that first book, was turned off from it and wanted nothing to do with him or what he had to say. He looked me in the eyes and said he wanted to let me know that wasn’t his book, whatever that means. I guess he meant that wasn’t his message - it was that arlen dude’s? I don’t know. He’s quite a character - like a stoner chemist dude who has fun tinkering with chemistry and alchemy. He talked about having the best day ever and I think he’s quite successful in that. He’s not pompous - easier to approach that Alissa was. He’s my height and I’m actually a month older than him. I think he looks normal and like a man when so many raw dudes look more female than I do! and so SKINNY! David is just normal weight and when you hug him, he feels solid so that’s good, no? He’s definitely charming and interesting to listen to his way of thinking. I went home and tried my hand in superfoods which also was different for me. Before that weekend I wasn’t too into them, thinking that I don’t want to be reliant upon things that do not grow here in this region. But like anything else, they have their benefits when used occasionally. I don’t get the feeling that David uses them sparingly though - I think they make up the bulk of his diet. I could be very much mistaken though. He’s also definitely WAY into chocolate. That Sunday morning they gave us all a drink that they were feeding David all weekend. I drank it in the morning - it tasted like a latte, I swear. Very good tasting. Well, I was up until 3 am. I was so pimped out on whatever was in there. It was fun - felt like I was trippin’. Do you remember Vicki from the Alissa class? Well she was there too! It was great to see her again - she was the one who hooked me up to the drink. I missed the morning herb walk and that’s when they were dishing out their drinks, I think.  She was also buzzin’ big time. We all were I think! What a hoot. 

OK, back to the question of the day: Pills or powder. For the most part I use powders of everything and add them to my smoothies. I put maca in my fudge balls. It depends on where you get it from whether things like maca or mesquite tastes palatable or horrible. I tried MSM because I was talked into buying it at that David Wolfe workshop. It’s a powder and that stuff is HORRIBLE tasting. I’d take pills of that one because I couldn’t imagine adding that to any smoothie. I was told to have it with water and lemon and I did. It wasn’t good. MSM is supposed to be a by-product of the paper making industry - this is what I’ve heard so do some research. I stopped taking it because I was experiencing headaches while using it. After the headaches started happening, I went online and found somewhere that it can cause headaches in some, though rarely. How fun. I’m rare! If you’d like this, I’ll send it to you in the mail. Neither Matt nor I will be using this. Matt just because he never remembers - he didn’t experience any headaches. I’ve asked other people about that and nobody has experienced headaches - just me. You can even buy little capsules and make your own pills with this stuff.

All green stuff goes in my smoothies although I’m going thru a phase where I am not using green powders. I’m currently using that VitaMineral Earth stuff in my morning smoothie. That’s been nice. I think the idea is that with the powders that you eat, you are starting to digest them in your mouth where will pills, they aren’t chewed and so it’s just different. Super foods are considered super concentrations of food so people who use them tend to think of them as food and not supplementation. Me personally? I think of them as supplementation and I mix and match things, go in and out of using them just like I do and have done with regular vitamins.

Hoping you enjoyed the sunshine!

Let me know if you try that cleanse.
Have a good one!
Linda

On May 30, 2008, at 1:09 AM, [happy person] wrote:

Hi again, Linda!
 
Enjoyed reading the piece you wrote in the newsletter that goes
around.  I also hope to meet you, take a week day or evening class with
you next I’m in town.  Which brings me to my question…you mentioned
Sweet Clover Market as one of the places that carries your wonderful
food…where is that?  Have you been in Natural Provisions?  Big
store!   Needs your food!
 
You also mentioned Green Smoothies…I’ve just begun to include them in
my daily program…which are your 3 favorites?  I’ve been adding such
things as lucuma, mesquite, goji, yacon and maca powders occasionally
with some hemp protein powder and get amazing energy.  I try not to do
too much fruit and vary the greens…of course, as the summer fruit
becomes more abundant, I think it will be hard NOT to throw it in the
blender (and a few succulent pieces for the mouth feel!).   Do you
recommend a particular blender that is strong enough to truly pulverize
the fibrous greens?
 
Thanks for all the information you share!
 
Best,
 
[happy person]

+++++++++++++++++my response below these plus signs++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi there [happy person]!

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Glad you enjoyed the little article! I’m doing a class on June 20th if you’d like to sign up for it. We’ll be making food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert in a 3 hour time frame for $45.00. It will be fun. Come hungry at 5:30 pm!

Sweet Clover Market is in Essex Junction. I’ve been to Natural Provisions when they first opened. I’ll be looking to get in more stores after our kitchen is certified (I currently rent out a space to make food for stores)

WOW! you are doing some crazy good super foods! You could be dead and still get a burst of energy from that list of super foods! hahaha

It’s hard for me to limit to my favorite 3. I like to mix and match it up. I love kale with bananas and dill, I love celery with apple and sesame seeds, I love peaches with spinach. I love lambs quarters with bananas or berries. I love adding fresh herbs to the mix.  My favorite lately has been:
1 green apple
1 squeeze or 2 of lemon
1 inch of fresh ginger
1 shot of wheatgrass
Blend and drink drink drink. Or filter through a nut milk bag if you’d like. It’s good either way. You can add a bit of celery to this as well.

I’ll be doing a green smoothie workshop at Buffalo Mtn Coop this summer so you can learn some recipes there if that suits you. More info will be up on my calendar soon.

THE best blender is the vitamix in my humble opinion. Really masticates those greens. K-tec I’ve heard is not good at all (or rather I should say the only thing it’s good for is to grind seeds). I sell the 4500 for $345. You can check online for comparison of pricing. Perhaps, too, someone is selling theirs used someplace. Good luck! It’s worth it to save up and eventually get the vitamix. I use mine every single day. I love it. It grinds up seeds and nuts into flour, it can heat things up to boiling if you do it long enough. And you can make ice cream with it too. It’s the muscle cars of blenders.

Take good care and please email me again!
Linda

 

Hi ya!

I got an email in my inbox about mung beans. The person said they tried to soak and sprout and some of the beans were not sprouting and were so hard that it was best to just feed to the chickens. Here’s what I found about mung bean sprouting from the sprout people. The long and short is you have to get good seed!

http://www.sproutpeople.com/seed/mung.html
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Enjoy and HAPPY SPROUTING!!!

Linda

P.S. Peter Burke, the indoor gardener dude and I are doing two sprout workshops in August! Check it out here: http://rawfood.meetup.com/282/calendar/8082500/

this question came in my inbox: Do you have an opinion on cleanses?   i.e. …   blessed herbs,  master cleanse,  juicing,  etc.

this was my response:

My opinion on cleanses. I haven’t tried the blessed herbs or master cleanse although I have met people around that swear by them. I did a cleanse once that was very short and it was nice. Like a one-week cleanse. It was basically like this:
24 hour fast
then first day mono meal
then 2nd day 2 ingredients in meals
and so on until about the 4th or 5th day and then it’s just juicing/smoothies that are only fruit/veggies until the end of 7 days.

The thing was that maybe it wasn’t the best time for me to do a cleanse - I don’t know but I was very quickly constipated and bloated as I went on. I wasn’t only juicing, I was eating the fruits whole so I was eating the fiber. I was also drinking lots of water. I asked David Wolfe about it and he said sometimes fasting/cleansing can put you in a holding pattern whatever that means. He told me that if I do it again, I should also be doing enemas or colonics. So there you go.

What do you think about cleanses?  What’s worked for you with regards to cleanses? Have you ever experienced what I wrote above?

Looking forward to your thoughts,
Linda

For a year now, I’ve had these stair risers looking at me. I wanted to put some nice reminders on them for my travels to my office. I finally got to them this weekend and I’m quite happy each day to get to the office now! The other idea was that no matter who was going up the stairs, they would have these nice affirmations to look at and say to themselves.

I’ve got a few others I’m going to put on the wall. I’ll take pictures of them when I’m done. Things like “I am unconditional” and “I am Whole” - there’s lots. I could fill up the whole wall actually!

Here’s the pictures of my stairs. Enjoy.

Linda

Hi there!

I was asked to write an article for this publication called Mama Says. The theme of this article is JUICY! This is what I wrote. A lot of it was chopped down for space constraints (OK, I was a little WORDY!) So here it is in it’s entirety.

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Greetings Mama Says mommas! (and papas and little ones!)

Linda here! No, not Linda Pruitt, Linda Wooliever. Linda P. asked if I wouldn’t mind submitting something for this month’s JUICY themed Mama Says and I am so loving this theme. In what direction might I want to go? There are so many! I asked if I could submit a recipe and Linda P said, “I was hoping you would!” So I will, but first I wanted to share some juicy thoughts and feelings.

This is such a great topic. Juicy. Being a juicy momma. What does that mean? What does it mean to be live a juicy life? What does it mean to feel juicy? I love the word - it’s so fun to play with. I feel like my kids are juicy for sure - they are rich and full of life and love and wonder and promise and hope. I think that for quite a while after my kids were born I felt very less than juicy - maybe a little pulpy. Yes definitely pulpy and ready for the compost!   (I’m reading this to my hubby and he is reminding me that my boobs were quite literally succulent. OK, I’ll give him that.) I was the type that felt that it was all about the kids now - I felt like I was a mere vessel and it was my job to do for them and not care so much about me. After all, they were so tiny and helpless. They pumped out the pheromones and beckoned for me with their little coos. Maybe this was just the normal post-pardum stuff that goes on but I’m just relaying these emotions that came up in me for the first, um, 5 or ok maybe 7 years of their lives.

My son is now 9 and my daughter is now 7 and in the past 2 years, I’ve started to feel ok with the idea that I can once again feel juicy and alive and vibrant and sassy and all the things that might come up and show their face for a while. The catalyst for me to re-entering a juicy life was to feel good in my own skin. Figuring out how to do that was quite the challenge.

I put about 65 lbs on with the first pregnancy and afterwards, took off about 40. Then I put on 35 lbs with the second pregnancy and again took off about 40 (*woo-hoo* worked off some of the 1st pregnancy weight the 2nd time around!) I had an injury with the 2nd pregnancy that made it hard for me to do very basic things without a lot of pain. Excercising wasn’t top on my list and as I mentioned above, this wasn’t about me anyway so who cared that I was in pain. I figured this was just something to live with. My pregnancies were amazing, the births were incredible, the babies healthy and so what if I couldn’t sit or stand or walk or lay down without pain in my hips. Sciatica - schmiatica! It was a small sacrifice I was making for the baby gods.  (I’m rereading this now and thinking “GEEZ! What a martyr!” But really, I honestly didn’t spend too much time on me - that’s the point. Plus when you are half dead from lack of sleep, who really has the time, sense or awareness to check in and see how the mother ship is doing anyway?) 

Fast forward a few years to where my daughter was about 4 1/2 - 5. She playing with the camera and took a picture of me. She took several as she thought it was great fun to play with this contraption. We got the pictures back and how do I best write this? I’ll just say It was startling for me to see what she saw from her angle. Not my best angle indeed and yet she still managed to love me and hug me. You gotta hand it to the innocence of kids - they rock. Although they can also be quite honest: “Mommy, you have big legs.” Yes, there’s that angle I was referring to.   It was at this point that I did a bit of waking up to the idea that if I’m going to be around until I’m 120 like I’m planning then I’m going to have make some changes! It’s not TOTALLY all about the kids, now is it?!   I mean hell, even when you are on an airplane and the oxygen masks flops down, that little muzak-narrator guy instructs you to help yourself first to the mask before helping someone else. So there you go. It was time for me to get busy. Maybe it was time to think that I *don’t* have to live with pain and maybe I’m not entirely washed up yet (in brain or body).

This photography session was also around the same time when I was experiencing some health issues that my soon-to-be-fired MD wanted to put me on pills for: birth control pills, sleeping pills and antidepressants to help alleviate the symptoms of perimenopause. I was having hot flashes at age 35! I thanked her for her prescriptions and I went home and decided this was not the doctor for me. (YOU’RE FIRED!)  Who knows, maybe my body was just REALLY needing to yell at me a bit since I wasn’t listening to her more subtle cues for the previous 7 years! AND who’s to say that those perimenopausal symptoms aren’t juicy in their own right? You certainly feel full and alive when you are up all night with hot and cold flashes happening! Why did I feel that a change in the body meant something bad that needed fixing? Where does that nonsense come from anyway? (rhetorical question) I don’t want that noise, thank you very much.

I had a dream that told me to go back to raw foods and this time at 100%. I woke up that next morning and started eating 100% raw. When I first started experimenting with raw foods in 2001, I only ever did about 70% raw. As well, for about a year after moving to VT, I really got away from raw food very gradually… first tried a creemie, then tried the olive bread, then tried the cheese. Less and less fresh and more and more dairy and breads and heavily cooked foods which I believe didn’t do much to help out my whacked out hormones. So I went back to raw vegan and since the dream said to do it at 100%, that’s what I did. This was in May, 2 years ago. My hormones balanced out, I was sleeping quite soundly within about 2-3 weeks, I took off another 20-25 lbs and very slowly, I started to address many other things that have come up since. Things like the emotional eating that has been a big part of my life as well as food addictions that I believe everyone has in this modern world to some degree. Now I’m able to listen to cues when they are muttering and mumbling in my body - I don’t need to be shouted at anymore.

Honestly, this is a work in progress, ok? And yet I’m feeling quite nice even if some parts of my body are “juicier” than they used to be. I am much less attached to the guilt and shame that is with so many of us women with regards to food and the way we look/feel in our skin.  I also think I’m a much better momma since I woke up to the idea that it is OK to be a succulent momma (in more ways than just in mammory glands.) And I’m gonna get even juicier, I just know it! I’m excited about it actually!

I want to share a REALLY juicy recipe with you. This is great because it’s perfect for the summer and I’m still holding out that we’re going to have lots of SUNSHINE. This is a recipe with watermelon which is the most UBER JUICY fruit there is. It’s a summer soup recipe - which really translates to a thinner smoothie. Totally fresh and hella good tasting. OK, here goes (I’m so excited to even think about having watermelon and mint from my garden so I can make this this summer. It’s just that freaking good):

Watermelon Soup
• 5 cups watermelon, seeded and cubed
• 2 cups mango, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 cup lime or lemon juice
• 3 T fresh mint, chopped
• 1 T fresh ginger. minced (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1 T raw honey
• 1/8 tsp cardamom
Place 3 1/2 cups watermelon, 1 cup mango, lime juice, mint, ginger, honey and cardamom in a food processor and blend until smooth. Dice up remaining 1 1/2 cups watermelon and 1 cup mango into tiny pieces and stir in to the puree. Chill and serve.

By the way, I don’t think I’m going to refer to my lifestyle as the raw food lifestyle anymore. I think I’m going to refer to it as the JUICY FOOD LIFESTYLE!  Or maybe just the Juicy Lifestyle since it’s been better for me than meditation (and meditation is pretty damn helpful!) It *is* a meditation, an awareness, an action, a blessing. This is the reawakening of juicy. I wish all of you the ability/awakening/moment(s) it takes to find your own succulent lifestyles in whatever ways it manifests itself in you.

Sending you big hugs and lots of love,
Linda Wooliever
www.vt-fiddle.com

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P.S. So what does one eat when they eat succulent juicy food? (See? I’m not saying RAW anymore.) This is the question I’m asked a lot and I have to be honest and tell you that it has taken 6 1/2 - 7 years for me to really feel (with my WHOLE self) that I’m the most fed from fruits and veggies. Fruits/veggies used to seem like diet food or rabbit food or deprivation food until now. I used to eat these things just so I could get to the main dish of whatever. Now, I can make a meal of pears. I can make a meal of greens. I absolutely love all kinds of smoothies: green smoothies, purple smoothies, chocolate smoothies, pink smoothies, tan smoothies. I make some killer ones. So the answer is that I eat and drink a lot of fruit and veggies. I have some seeds - lately sesame seeds have been the winning seed but this changes. Sometimes it’s hemp, sometimes is sunflower, sometimes it’s nuts, sometimes is sprouted grains or (some) legumes. I love seaweeds which 15  years ago would have seemed revolting.  I am a juicy, succulent eater. How RAWsome is that? What juicy foods do you love?

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Well so many wonderful questions were asked today at the workshop I did for some members of the Vermont Dietetic Association. I’d like to address them as best as I can on my blog since there’s never enough time to answer questions during 1-hour workshops…

One person asked if I ever “cheat” on my diet. My answer was “there is no guilt or shame!” I don’t cheat because I’m not on a diet. If I want to eat whatever, I just eat it. That is freedom for this used-to-be-emotional-eater.  The person went on to ask, “well do you have cravings for like a slice of pizza or a hot fudge sundae or something?” I had to stop and think about this because it has been a long time since I had cravings for dairy. But I answered honestly that the thought of pizza and ice cream really kinda grosses me out. What I didn’t have time to say was that I absolutely love raw ice cream sundaes and I don’t know how anyone can feel deprived when they eat the raw desserts. I did say that the hardest addiction I felt was for breads and pastas.

I read somewhere that breads and pastas help boost seratonin levels in the brain and it’s why people feel that little happy-dopey feeling after eating a bowl of pasta. I also read that there are opiates in dairy which, if true, makes sense that bread and cheeses are considered “comfort foods.” They make you comfortably numb.   If you can consider that the comfort foods are really the most addictive foods and also very highly-processed foods, then my hope is that will make you think differently about eating them to same degree. And I also understand that unless you experience something for yourself or “have to” make a change because of some health problem, reading some sentence doesn’t always change a person’s behavior…

Now I only read those things relatively recently. For me, it was my own experience that showed me just how addicting these foods are. I was a major starch eater and when I stopped eating them, I think I did go through something akin to what some people might experience who have suffered a level of chemical dependence. There were some rough spots but this was the beginning of me being gentle with myself so if I felt very needy towards bread or pasta, I just had some. You know that saying: “The hair of the dog that bit you.” It took the edge off and over time the intensity wore off but I have to be honest and say that if I make pasta for the kids and I try it even now, something does trigger in me to want to blindly eat more and more of it. I can’t say that I crave it although I can say that if I taste it, I could chow down if I wanted to. I do have a strong awareness of this…

The interesting thing that happened over a short period of time was that each time I tried the things that I used to LOVE I found that they tasted terrible when I compared them to the fresh, hydrating and totally flavorful raw foods. These cooked pastas and casseroles tasted sludgy and rubbery and very bland. The look of the food also paled in comparison to the bright colors of raw foods. So that was neat to see. Doing this helped me to see, experience and taste that I wasn’t depriving myself. Same for Matt. After our first 30 day challenge together was done, I gave him some cooked food for dinner. He looked at it and said, “why are you giving me this? It doesn’t appeal to me.” Neat, huh?

For the record, I still on occasion have some rice. I will eat cooked and raw sweet potatoes. I eat sprouted grains and some legumes like mung beans, lentils & chick peas. I eat flax, chia seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds and seaweeds. I eat super foods and super herbs. I LOVE fruit and greens. I love raw veggies. I do drink tea particularly when it’s cold out (I just love to hold that hot mug in my hands.) I eat raw root veggies and I love them. I do only occasionally have a piece of that lovely olive bread that some local places make. Some times I will eat some raw or smoked fish. And when I’m away and it’s an occasion where I’m not around a lot of raw food, well, I was taught not to be picky so I eat what is given me, particularly if it was made with love - that is very important to me. Although I do make the request for no dairy.   And I say this, not to make a confession but really because I’m asked this all the time: “do you ever eat anything cooked?” Yes I do, sometimes and I feel no guilt or shame about it.

One last thought: it took me a LONG time to consider fruits and vegetables as food. I mean real sustenance kind of food. We don’t typically think of these things as the staples or entrees, do we? But why is it so easy to consider serving up a bowl full of pasta and think that’s an entree? I can’t tell you how often I just ate starch with some condiment on top and called it dinner. Is it because it’s cheap? filling? Raw foods are satisfying and filling/fulfilling but you definitely don’t feel stuffed on them in the same way that you feel stuffed from pasta or rice or bread or cheese.

What do you think about this? If you are eating more raw food, do you find that you have cravings for things like pastas or dairy? Do you have other cravings as well? Do you feel abundant? I feel quite abundant.

I’ll cover more questions as I have time to answer them. Please keep asking me questions. I love them.

Take good care,
Linda

P.S. Did you see the update for the class on June 20th? It should be fun and I want at least 6 people to come.

Here’s another thing I need to get flyers done for and posted around.

A Day in the Life of Raw Class - June 20th from 5:30 - 8:30 pm

So I’m going to send a newsletter but have been super-dee-duper freakin busy this week! I’m now getting things prepared for my “RAW APPETEAZERS” demo tomorrow. The VT Dietetic Assoc is having their annual meeting and they asked if I could come and do a raw food presentation. So I’m having the following food there for samples:
RAWsome chilli with “sour cream”
Chick-UN Salad with my ginger crackers
NOT Tuna with these sprouted grain crackers I made
I’m going to have a date nut torte for something sweet to pick at

and the recipe I’m going to demonstrate is a chocolate cream pie that is made from Irish Moss. So I’m off to make that now so it will be done. This will be like a cooking show in that I’ll need the finished product made because the cream pie has to set and chill in the fridge for a couple hours.

After that I have to come up with a recipe hand out for people. I’ve got my brochures and cards but they have to be folded. I have to get all the ingredients and appliances ready for tomorrow. Maybe I’ll have some nut milk bags to take with me tomorrow. And I need ingredient cards for the food that I’ll have for sampling so that people know what they are eating (don’t want any allergic reactions!)

So I’m off! I’m psyched and I hope I can remain calm and happy throughout this whole process.

Love and hugs,
Linda

Calendar of events for May and beyond for me

SO this was posted on a listserve I’m on and it sparked a small conversation so I thought I’d post it here:

http://www.greendaily.com/2008/04/28/microfueler-brew-your-own-moonshine-biofuel/ - a way to create your own biofuel. Pretty neat and yet it sparked the topic of whether or not ethanol is a clean burning fuel.

My response was as follows…………………….
I’ve heard the same about ethanol being a polluter although it’s supposed to be less than gasoline. Also because it can come from a renewable sources rather than a fossil fuel, it had advantages. However, currently there are even shortages on some renewables so possibly this is not something for mass use.

A lot of people around here (in central VT) have cars that run off of veg oil and most will have some way of using both gasoline and veg oil. The only problem that they have is that on really cold days, it takes a while for their car to start.

While living in MD, we tried to convert an old Jeep Grand Wagoneer to run off of ethanol since there were stations around where we lived. The car didn’t make it though. Too many problems with it. We bought a Prius that we’ve been running ever since. It’s wonderful and yet it doesn’t get us off gas entirely. There’s a kit you can purchase to get it to plug in but plug into what? Most people get their electricity from coal which is NOT clean burning - please do not believe that hype that is spinning around as a “green” alternative.

We currently heat the house only from the wood stove. We have an oil furnace as a back up for times when we travel during the winter. We have only 1 south facing window in this old old house so passive solar isn’t an option. We think about solar panels generating electricity into a generator so we can be entirely off the grid. Will this also be enough to recharge our car when we live in a state that doesn’t receive a lot of sunshine??

I personally think anything we can do to get ourselves off of gas, oil and coal will be a good thing. There’s many ways to start: switching candles, cosmetics, hair care/skin care products, riding your bike more, telecommuting, carpooling, utilizing mass transit, hanging our laundry out to dry, using a wood stove, stop using plastic so much. These are things that we can take charge of and we don’t need to wait until someone else figures out what to do. 

That’s my $.02

What do you think on the subject?
Here are some other links on the subject:
http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/biofuel/sub_biofuel_ethanol.htm - about ethanol
http://climate.weather.com/articles/ethanol013008.html

What are they?

Think of nutella - have you had it? chocolate nut butters.

http://www.vt-fiddle.com/rawfood/my_raw_food_treats.php

The god butter is really raw cashew butter and white chocolate (cacao
butter) along with spices: orange, cinnamon and ginger. Sweetened with
agave so folks with glycemic issues have an easier time, usually, with
agave.

The goddess butter is really raw and unpasteurized almond butter in
dark chocolate with vanilla, macadamia nut oil and sweetened with
agave as well.

I’m making chocolate bars with these recipes as well. Putting the two
together so’s I can call it the Great Rite!

In raw food, there are a great number of people who say that eating
this way is akin to eating and realigning with goddess energy - a way
to bring balance from an overly male-dominated-energy world. There’s
been an imbalance in all aspects of life shifting in one direction for
a long time. Most of the diseases can be linked to an
overcalcification in the body - think of barnacles on piers. Raw food
is extremely yin and raw fooders are trying very hard to bring
female/goddess energy back, however many go way overboard. (As with
anything.) I’m big into it and yet I feel there’s greatest harmony in
both male/female and thus god/goddess energy. I eat both cooked and
raw food but I lean towards a higher % raw. This may sound odd to
people I realize. Raw food can sound so very foreign but it fits me
like a glove.

When I came up with the dark chocolate butter, I wanted to come up
with a name and “goddess butter” is what stuck. (My hubby and I were
so pimped out from the taste tests we were up until about 3:30 am
having lots of fun trying to come up with names.) So I naturally had
to come up with a god butter counterpart. I have a LOT of fun thinking
about the energy of food and what feels more male and female to me.
It’s a very fun vocation. A very nice dude at this one store I sell at
told me he loves the name god butter because it’s blasphemous. Oh the
rebellious catholics out there! hahaha

Here is a link to the god & goddess butters:
http://www.vt-fiddle.com/rawfood/my_raw_food_treats.php

Linda

P.S. I’ll be doing a god/goddess butter demo at Hunger Mountain Coop on
Saturday, May 24th from 11-3.

P.P.S. Do you know that all almonds in the US are pasteurized as of
9/1/07 and they can still call themselves raw? It’s best to buy
organic if you’re going to buy them from the stores because they steam
pasteurize them. For “conventional” almonds, they allow for iradiation
and chemical pasteurization methods as well as steaming. There’s only
a few places around where you can find really raw almonds (i.e.
not-pasteurized.)

Hi there!

It’s been ages since I wrote. It’s been busy but I’m eager to get back to the blog and write more specifically about the goings on in my raw world and keep the updates and upbeats to the newsletter. (I will keep this upbeat as well, but I’ve been wondering how to differentiate the blog with the newsletters and I think I want to use it as the experiential writings of my days.) So this will include the things that go on when you eat raw food and find that there aren’t any more ways to “seek comfort from food.” Whatever diet you are on, when you take the comfort foods out (i.e. the addictive foods like breads and dairy) you find that you are left with your emotions and YOURSELF! This can be hard at times but ultimately it’s a joy to get to know oneself and learn how to operate a bit out of our comfort zones - then we realize that we can learn to extend the zone out. Our edges become wider and wider and we can adapt more…

I’ve been having a really awesome email discussion with a friend about relationships and keeping the peace. It was a sentence that was written that my friend wrote, “I would do [such and such] just to keep the peace.” It’s an interesting sentence. It got me to thinking that not very many of us really knows what it means to keep the peace. First of all, whose peace are we trying to keep? I think very often we say that and it means we are trying to keep the peace of others (i.e. make them happy.) How on earth can we do that? I go to thinking that if we really know what it feels like to have peace within and amongst ourselves, then and only then will we understand the meaning “keeping the peace.” Then it will be much easier to let things slide off our backs or act in a way that really does keep the peace because that’s in fact what we’d be doing: keeping the peace within ourselves.

I’m personally finding it easier to do but I still have my stumbling blocks. And all these are are greater challenges to really practice keeping the peace within myself. For these greater challenges, I have to be gentle to myself and recognize my limitations. If it means that I can only be with this person for a certain amount of time, then so be it. Eventually, with success under my belt for having kept peace within myself with this person, then I’ll be able to extend the amount of time until I’ll be able to get to a place where everything with this relationship rolls off like water off a duck’s back.  But not doing so (not recognizing my limitations or being gentle to myself) would mean that I’m putting myself in a situation where I’ll fail and I don’t want to do that: I want to have successes in life and I want to feel and express love and peace as much as I can. So this is about honoring what is real, loving what is real and then working within it.

I know that each of us has the boss or the acquaintance or the family member that poses as the greatest teacher in this way. They show us exactly how much we need to learn how to keep the peace. Who was it that said “if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” - I can’t recall. It’s good advice. It’s easy to live in peace when we are meditating and picking and choosing our friends and jobs and circumstances - the challenge is to do so when we are in the “have to” mode in our lives. (example: I HAVE TO do this job or task right now so what can I do to learn from it and make the best of it?) How can I ALLOW this person to actually show me my limitations? Wow, that’s a hard pill to swallow, now isn’t it?

So first of all, the task is to define “What is the peace that I want to keep?” Once you feel it in your heart, then I think you want to find more ways to attract it and keep it. That feeling is defined as a lightness and opening in the center of your chest - joy comes out of it and love comes out of it. Conversely, if you say that I must do this to keep the peace in the family - check to see what the feeling is in the center of your chest. If it feels stuck or hurts or feels tight and closed, then peace is the very last thing that you are keeping. I’d recommend doing some meditation to see how what it takes to get back to the place of feeling opening and lightness and joy. Very often it’s a sentence that you can say to change the feeling. If you aren’t familiar with how to meditate, then a good place to start is check out Byron Katie. She doesn’t teach people how to meditate but she does offer great help in redirecting those inner statements. You can watch her videos to see how she helps people to redirect these feelings so that they can ultimately learn to “keep the peace.”

We are all students here and I thank you for letting me share my thoughts. Please feel free to leave your comments below.

I wish us all wellness, joy AND PEACE,
Linda

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Linda Wooliever
for graphics & website design
www.imaginecreativity.com

for raw food classes, products & info
www.vt-fiddle.com/

Hi there,

Wanted to say a little hello. Sara died two weeks ago and I spent 4 days traveling to and from VA to attend her celebration service. When I drive, it’s always such a journey - like a soul journey and this one I felt was a Sara journey. It was great to be by myself during the drive. I had a book on tape or silence to keep me company. I stayed with my dad and Gwynne, which was really peaceful. I got back home 2 mondays ago and then wednesday the kids were off from school. I just hung around with them. We had a really nice thanksgiving and then Matt was away. He just got back yesterday. Since it is near impossible to work with kids home on vacation for 5 days and being the single parent, I just took a mini-vacation myself. I did nothing in particular but I had a very nice time with the kids and by myself. Good medicine. Can’t believe the timing of these things.

As I look back on the month, I was really letting a lot of things weigh me down and having someone like Sara die really shook things up and put it in a very good perspective. I hope this stays with me although I must say it’s time to get back to doing something productive in the day!

Anyway, I wanted to write. I just saw that I had a comment awaiting approval which I just did. I so love the comments. Please keep them coming.

Love and hugs,
Linda

For those that want to learn about combining of food that includes meat, please check out the Weston Price Foundation. There is a book by Sally Fallon called Nourishing Traditions. It’s a big book packed with info. Too much info for me, to be honest, but I want to put it out there for those that find benefits from eating meat.

Meat never really worked for me well - always felt like it sat in my stomach for days. Smoked fish worked better for me but I do really well not eating it much at all. I get lots of minerals from seaweed. I didn’t get into veganism because of the politics or treatment of animals although there’s SO many reasons why eating vegan is a better choice than eating meat. Still I understand that some bodies do better than others with meat. I always felt that eating the organs had more healthful properties than the muscle although the condition and/but health of the animal would have to be considered to eat it, in my mind. (And after reading Fast Food Nation and hearing about how we ingest the hormones/energy of the slaughtered animal, I find less and less reason to be ok with eating meat.) Dairy works even less for me than any meat did. It’s funny that I live in the middle of “dairyland usa” and I think giving up dairy is much more important than giving up meat. Some find great success with raw dairy from cows or goats but harder to find for many who don’t live near farms where you can get it directly from the source. Know the source. That is key - then you can see how the animals are cared for. How is the animal fed, cared for and slaughtered? If you eat meat, know that it is healthy. Likewise when you eat plants, know that they come from healthy soil. Biodynamically and organically grown - no chemicals sprayed. I don’t want to eat chemicals. I don’t want anyone to lay on a chemically treated lawn, I don’t want anyone to eat fruit/veggies that have been sprayed. I don’t want almonds that have been pasteurized. I just don’t want it. No matter what you eat, know the source for anything that you eat. Grow it yourself and/or get it from a local source. This is important. It’s time to know our farmers again.

And just because I’m on the subject of meat eating, here’s something that I feel very strongly now towards meat and this would have felt insane to me not too long ago. I actually found it recently on a website and I’m just going to quote it word for word. It crystalized my own thoughts as I’ve taken Buddhist refuge and also follow earth-based pagan traditions as well:

“Is
vegetarianism integral to non-injury?” In [the] book, Dancing with Siva,
this question is addressed as follows: “Hindus teach vegetarianism as a
way to live with a minimum of hurt to other beings, for to consume
meat, fish, fowl or eggs is to participate indirectly in acts of
cruelty and violence against the animal kingdom. The abhorrence of
injury and killing of any kind leads quite naturally to a vegetarian
diet, shakahara. The meat-eater’s desire for meat drives another to
kill and provide that meat. The act of the butcher begins with the
desire of the consumer. Meat-eating contributes to a mentality of
violence, for with the chemically complex meat ingested, one absorbs
the slaughtered creature’s fear, pain and terror. These qualities are
nourished within the meat-eater, perpetuating the cycle of cruelty and
confusion. [emphasis added] When the individual’s consciousness lifts and expands, he
will abhor violence and not be able to even digest the meat, fish, fowl
and eggs he was formerly consuming. India’s greatest saints have
confirmed that one cannot eat meat and live a peaceful, harmonious
life. Man’s appetite for meat inflicts devastating harm on the earth
itself, stripping its precious forests to make way for pastures. The
Tirukural candidly states, ‘How can he practice true compassion who
eats the flesh of an animal to fatten his own flesh? …’ “

A funny note: this came from a web page entitled “How to win an Argument with a Meat-Eater.” This struck me as funny because isn’t this also a perpetual form of violence? Why does someone want to win an argument? I don’t really care about that and I don’t even want to use the words of fighting and battling and winning and losing. I don’t want to convince anyone of anything but I do appreciate being able to voice my thoughts.

What do you think?

thanks and love,
Linda

www.vt-fiddle.com/rawfood

I wanted to post a little about my friend Sara. Some of you have asked how she’s doing. I received an email today that she starts radiation today. Jeffrey said she’s heavily medicated due to the pain the tumor in her leg is causing. They start radiation to try to shrink the tumor and alleviate some of that pain. I’ll keep you posted. I’m sending lots of love to Sara and I’m working on a little care package for her.

love,
Linda

Hi again,

I want to add this. I think it somehow fits with the previous post. This idea about tuning in to the cues in our bodies and hopefully tuning in before they become shouts and screams and wails in the form of disease and/or chronic illness. And I also want to submit my promise at the end of this little thread.

I’ve been in this little email communication with a friend. She was telling me about how she feels as if she’s in an “experiment” mode with  her raw food. This is my response and I’ve expounded a bit for this blog:

Experimenting is good! That’s what it is all about - ultimately you are becoming aware of your body and it’s infinite wisdom to tell you what it wants and how it wants to be treated, etc. It’s all good stuff! [We were also talking about all the differing messages out in the raw food movement.] Yes, it is interesting to hear all the various sides of the raw food guru spectrum out there. One says, “This is bad for you” and another says, “No it isn’t, it’s actually good for you.” Because of this, sometimes the reaction is to say it’s “too new and therefore I’m not going to experiment with raw foods. I want science to tell me that it is safe”, etc. But the reality underneath is that we’re talking about incorporating more fresh fruits and veggies each day into our diets. How could eating more fresh fruits and veggies in our diets be a “bad experiment?” I don’t think anyone could say that eating more fruit & veggies would be harmful (although you might experience a bit of gas from the increase in fiber initially!) but I do understand that in our society, we hear something is good for us and then we take it to an extreme.
   Oh, lambquarters is good? Well, I’ll eat a bushel full a day!
   Goji berries are good? Well, I’m going to strip the bushes bare of them and eat them all.
These are exaggerations although I know people have done similarly and hopefully we all see that this is not so wise.

Luckily, the more we tune in to our bodies, we understand these “cut off” points that our bodies tell us which says, “OK, now it’s time to stop eating that.” The cut off points happen with each meal and they happen over a longer time as well. Each time I eat raw food, I have this little cut off valve that says, STOP. I didn’t have that with cooked food and I think it’s because cooked food is really addictive, at least it is for me. Some other mind in me takes over with cooked food and the tendency to over-eat can really happen easily for me.

This cut off point also happens with certain foods and it’s why experimenting with monomeals is so great in my opinion. Eating monomeals, by the way, is eating one thing for a certain amount of time until your body says, STOP. You could do monomeals by the meal, the day, the week - it doesn’t really matter, I don’t think. For example, I had a weekend where it was clear that my body wanted lemons so I gave it lemons. I went a whole weekend and I actually was getting sort of startled. I thought, “gee maybe this will last forever.” But by Monday or Tuesday I woke up and I didn’t want lemons. Typically, when you start a monomeal, you pick the item that appeals to you the most and you eat it until it doesn’t appeal to you. This is a way to get in touch with what your body says it wants. In the bigger picture, too, I don’t think there’s anything now that I was eating a year ago in the same way I’m eating it now. Does that make sense? Example: I’m way into kale right now. Can’t get enough of it. But a year ago, I was into something else. And two years ago, there was no way I could stomach raw kale. Three or four years ago, never - not ever! I tried it and thought it was disgusting and was sad to think that people in the raw food world ate this way. Isn’t that funny? Now I love raw kale. I LOVE RAW KALE. So I’ve got to trust my body to tell me that there is something that it wants from the kale right now. I’m like the servant feeding this wise master (my whole self) that says, “Ok, now do this, now eat that.” It’s not a guru telling me this, it’s me telling me this. It’s subtle (although sometimes it screams - that’s what an illness is to me. The body screams loudly for the person to LISTEN!) I don’t want screams and shouts for me to wake up and listen. I want the subtle cues. That’s what I’ve asked for. I’ve had a lot of shouts in my life so far, both internally and externally. Who’s to say what the future holds but I want to really key in now and do as much fine tuning in hopes that it can help serve me as I get older.

Here’s my promise. Since my daughter was born 6 years ago, I’ve had this on and off thing with my hips. She was a big baby and she was really low while in my belly. I’m not sure if I had some kind of injury that never healed right or what but I’ve had this trouble with my hip that sometimes and mostly more so in the past was experienced as intolerable pain. It’s more of an annoyance if it comes up again. I am putting my promise out to listen better to what my hip wants to tell me. What does it need. It’s been nagging me again recently and it makes me think that there’s more to it that I haven’t learned yet. So I’m promising to check in to this hip and ask it what it needs. I’m starting right now. I’m signing off for today.

So grateful for the rain that keeps me wanting to stay bundled up and inside so that I can do this work.

Love and hugs,
Linda

Hi again,

I wanted to include some bit of an email that I just wrote (pertaining to raw food) but ultimately my thoughts since yesterday early evening have been with Sara. I’ve since heard that she is in the hospital and is experiencing some pain after her surgery and was told that she will needs to strengthen up to be able to undergo chemo and radiation. Oh boy. I have to see if/when it will be ok to visit with her. Apparently she had an MRI done on her hip and that’s how a tumor was found. Further scans showed it in her lungs and spine and ribs. I’m apologizing now if this is too detailed. I know that some people don’t like to hear these kinds of things. I feel rather used to it - not that I don’t feel any emotions about it, but I do feel fine to hear the details. I’m always amazed at what the body can do. Even while dying, I saw my mom’s body doing whatever it could to keep the heart beating - even if that meant shutting down other organs to do it. It was beautiful and awe-some - I mean I was filled with awe. Anyway, I wanted to know how the tumor was found and I am grateful to hear the answers from Jeffrey. I want to see her to really gauge her spirit as well as his. Plus just seeing them would be wonderful.

Thank you for letting me share this. It feels both good and odd to do so. I never really talked about this while it was happening with my mom. (And coincidentally, 2 months before my mom was diagnosed with cancer, my neighbor and oldest friend Paola’s dad’s health went south due to diabetes. Our 2 families experienced quite a lot in a short time. There would be times when my mom was in the hospital and then we’d turn around to know that Paola’s dad would be or had just been to the hospital too because of some complication. Lots of things