Untouchable Girls

Linda and Jools Topp, Cathedral Square, Christchurch

Today, I found myself taking in the atmosphere in Cathedral Square where the World Buskers Festival brought cheer to the earthquake-ravaged city. Of course I had to come in to witness The Topp Twins doing what they do best - entertaining. These girls are part of my personal (and political) history, growing up in Aotearoa NZ.
And I have something in common with Jools.
It seems that their documentary Untouchable Girls has become NZ's top documentary film, grossing $2million at the box office.
Though they didn't sing many songs, Linda and Jools managed to demonstrate the essence of great busking (and great performance), spontaneity and interaction with the audience.

Ten Things to Be Aware of in the Raw Food Arena

Just been reading Nomi Shannon's post about the things to be aware of in the raw food movement. Though initially written in 2004, it is still relevant.
Her comments and advice make sense in relation to any aspect of life, not just how we eat. For example, Be Aware of People Who Tell You What To Do. And she adds, "Do not ask your neighbor or me what they eat hoping to emulate and be just like them. What works for your neighbor or me may not work for you."
The one that resonates most strongly for me right now is . . . "Be Aware that there is more to life than the food you eat." It has been too easy to become absorbed in thinking about food, eating it, buying it, foraging for it, learning about it, growing it, talking about it with other raw-fooders. But, when food takes up so much of my time, what room is there in life for doing other things?

Implementing a Raw Diet

I like Susan Schenk's book Live Food Factor, but like Avril i prefer the first edition. In this online article there's a link to an interview with Susan where she discusses the specifics for going raw. There are so many ways of doing it, and so much of what the so-called "experts" say is quite similar. Here are the common themes (which are also backed up by my own experience):

• cooked foods are addictive and can be darn hard to manage when transitioning to a raw lifestyle;
• eating raw is not only good for your health, it is more economical and it is healthier for the planet;
• eating organic is definitely more important no matter whether it's raw or cooked. the nutritional profile is so much higher;
• eating less food is as important as eating more raw, vegan foods. the body uses enzymes to digest food and these enzymes are also important as building blocks for other organs in the body;
• a living foods diet is gives you more energy, puts a spring in your step and a glow to your skin;
  
• everyone is different, so depending on your type you may need to balance with either more nuts (oils) or more greens. this is individual, and it can change over time.

However, don't take my (or any expert's) word for it. Go find out for yourself. We are each individual and what may work for me, might not work for you.

green smoothies

in honour of the anniversary of my mother's passing, i dedicate this post to her. three years ago today, the first blooms of the lilac bush in her front garden were showing themselves. and at the same time that buds where opening to spring, my mother was closing a chapter on this life.
i know mum would never have gone within 50 feet of a green smoothie. or maybe she would. whatever, i'm linking to John Palmer's fabulous green smoothie recipe from last month's potluck meal at Donna's place. this one is legend. we all loved it.
then the month before that, Kristen wowed us with one of her concoctions using fresh young coconut. she has devised an entire repertoire of green smoothies on squidoo. and not content with just providing the recipes, this is the green smoothie encyclopaedia. Green smoothie facts and figures, why green smoothies, and the principles of green smoothie making. in summary though, i'm not entirely convinced that mixing fruits with vegetables is necessarily the best thing for the body. having said that i do enjoy the occasional green smoothie, but remain a juice girl. i wish to keep my fruits and my vegetables firmly segregated. they even go in different bowls in the kitchen.

Dr Tam Mateo and Miracle Green Tea

In my last post i mentioned (in the comments) that Polly had been to a seminar in Manila earlier this year where she first came across the idea of eating food in it's natural whole state. The seminar was one held by Dr Tom Mateo, who is considered a "miracle doctor" in the Philippines. He is apparently the first Filipino naturopathic doctor. Dr Mateo's promotes the use of a miracle tea which is aimed at cleansing the digestive system. From what I can make out this tea is the equivalent of doing colon hydrotherapy, though less invasive. Polly tells me there were a lot of people with cancer attending his seminar. From what i've learnt on my healing journey there are definitely two areas - on the physical level - that need attention. One, cleaning out the accumulated toxic gunk in the digestive system. And secondly, to make sure that what goes into the body is as clean and natural as possible. this means organic and raw and mostly plant-based. From what Polly tells me, this is the basis of Dr Tom Mateo's protocol. Similar in fact to the Gerson Therapy, and to what Ian Gawler suggests as an optimal diet for those with cancer. In his book The China Study, Colin Campbell goes further and believes that any chronic illness (such as diabetes, heart disease, etc.) can be reversed through a change of diet towards eating more plant-based foods. Gawler, Gerson and Dr Norm Walker all believe that colon cleansing is an important and integral part to any change in diet. Thanks to my earlier experiences this year, i can vouch for this. Eating nutritionally rich and clean raw foods leads the body into detoxing and when the detox moves faster than the body can reasonably eliminate toxins, that's when a colonic can be helpful. Matt Monarch talks some more about this subject in one of his articles.

simply raw :: reversing diabetes

Yes, it can be done. Last night i sat down with dad and Polly and we watched Simply Raw. And this isn't the first time i have come across the concept. Caroline duPont has also worked with people to help reverse diabetes through diet.

I borrowed the DVD from my friend Donna. This documentary tells the story of six diabetics who switch to a diet consisting entirely of organic, vegan, uncooked food to reverse diabetes without the use of prescription drugs. Most of the participants had been told by their doctors "you will be on insulin for the rest of your life". They came from a range of cultural backgrounds aged from 26 to 68, and were challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, processed and packaged food, and even cooked food for 30 days.
The film follows their journey through this process and captures the medical, physical, and emotional transformations.

It includes additional wisdom from Morgan Spurlock, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Robbins, Rev. Michael Beckwith, and Doctors Fred Bisci, Joel Fuhrman, David Wolfe, and Gabriel Cousens.

Even though i have been eating 100% raw for six months now, i was impressed by the moments captured in this film. The statistical results alone are astounding. These people were able to go off all medication within 3 days of eating in this way. But even more incredible were the emotional transformations. With one of the guys you could see the sparkle in his eyes, the spring in his step. He said he hadn't felt so good in years and he looked good too.

In my own journey I have come to take this for granted now. But it is no small thing to be feeling constantly cheerful and in a positive mood, feeling good every day and having energy in reserve. Until recently, i had grappled with depression for many years. But no longer!

i don't have diabetes but i have no doubt that eating in this way has helped me on all levels to live a much higher quality of life than the way i was before. my mind is clearer and my body is healthier. but as one of the people in the film says, why wait - as so many people do - until you have a life-threatening disease before doing something about it.

And yes, there is a Facebook page Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes
If you want to watch the YouTube film trailer or share it with friends, go to this link.
Dr Gabriel Cousens has written the book, There Is A Cure for Diabetes.
He is also filmed at Hippocrates Health Institute, talking about reversing diabetes.
See a later post on Cousens and (not )microwaving for health.

anand and runi :: their raw blog

some entralling reading here from anand (and runi). their blog contains some really interesting posts about the 80/10/10 diet, the green smoothie challenge and photos too of what a raw body looks like (thanks anand).

Anand runs classes on raw food preparation. Though i have not personally attended any of his classes yet i hear that they are good.

today i am still trying to recover from eating too much raw cacao (theobroma cacao - food of the gods). it's powerful stuff and my head feels as though it is still in outer space. i do hope i'll be able to sleep tonight. i have a real weakness for chocolate coconut butter.

BigTree and CultureLab :: Beginner's Guide To Going Raw

Had a wonderful day at Springwood, catching up with Taffy and Glenys, then a leisurely late lunch with Paul. My mountains friends are a diverse bunch, but one thing that we all have in common is a certain passion and delight in food - not to mention our desire to see fresh organic food made available to as many people a as possible, and with a commitment to sustainable principles.


I had seen Taffy's video of the solstice circle, but today i got to experience it and what a magnificent ly crafted structure it is. i shot some footage of Taffy talking about CultureLab, and then we got to talking about raw food. CultureLab, by the way, is the food co-operative in the lower Blue Mountains which runs a food box scheme for it's members and customers. i love the model they have chosen, which is similar to a Japanese model i had read about. It involves staying small - a group of no larger than 50 - and "expanding" by helping other groups form along a similar basis. I like working in groups of 50-80, because at that size it is possible to know everyone in the group. Cohesiveness is possible.



both taffy, glenys and paul were curious about raw food and there are always questions. what do you eat? where does the protein come from? what difference do you notice when eating raw?


there is much already written (on the web and in many great books) but whilst riding on the train back to katoomba, i gave some thought as to what my key thoughts were on eating raw. mainly in answer to the question of what eating raw foods looks like. \



What Does Eating Raw Look Like?
i like to keep it simple. think of food in three main food groups. 1. fruit 2. vegetables 3. nuts, seeds and oils. eat mostly fruit and vegetables, with small amounts of nuts. fruit has a cleansing action on the system, so it is best eaten in the morning and ideally, not eaten at the same time as vegetables. i personally don't mix my fruit and vegetables, though some raw foodists do. i soak nuts before eating them. put in a bowl and cover with water, then leave overnight (or soak in the morning and rinse in the evening). rinse them the next morning (do not use the soaking water) and then eat. raw vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals and are enzyme-rich. these foods have a nourishing and enriching effect and are the building blocks of the body. two things that i do in the vegetable realm are 1. juicing and 2. sprouting. Vegetable juices, especially green juices are a way of getting large quantities of trace minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, etc. directly into the bloodstream. Sprouting - lentils, mung beans, and buckwheat are my current favourites - is a great way of eating living food.

that's it really. i soak dried fruits, make my own nut milk (usually almond) and use the blender for smoothies, soups and sauces. everything i eat is a variation (an experiment, actually) on these principles.

Benefits of Eating Raw
Ahhh, well this is the bit i love. Not only are you doing your body a favour, but the planet benefits as well. Eating raw is even more sustainable than being vegan. Not only are you consuming plants and therefore not contributing to the energy that goes into producing animals and animal products for food, but you are not eating processed (vegan) foods which use energy in the making. And to top it all off, by preparing raw food you are saving on the energy that is used to cook a meal. And if you grow your own food organically, there's a further saving on transportation (food miles), and on artificial inputs - petro-chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
As for the health benefits, some raw theorists say that for every month a person is eating 100% raw they are healing one year of eating cooked food. As a result the body becomes regenerated at a cellular level and you experience the effect of becoming younger. i personally have seen this both in myself and others. Symptoms are, an increased level of energy, clearer and more focussed mind, more tone in my skin and clearer skin, loss of those tree-trunk thighs (storehouses of waste that the body is unable to process and eliminate immediately).

a new spin on free-cycle

received an email today from dear friends taffy and glenys in the blue mountains. they have come up with their own marvellous response to the planet's environmental predicament.

many of us are already using Freecycle to re-distribute the plethora of stuff that we accumulate in this consumptive society.

taffy and glenys have gone beyond this and taken freecycle literally . . . into the realms of sustainable transport. Click here to watch Taffy's video of free-cycling.

matt and angela in Thailand

i have been following Matt and Angela's adventures in Thailand. seems like they're having a great time. funny how durian can be so cheap and plentiful when the media is so full of woe about dwindling rice supplies and rising food prices.

can you imagine, walmart is rationing rice. this is happening in the US. could be that the world's population may start to get healthier when large quantities of cooked food no longer become an affordable option. however it is not nice to think of people starving because they cannot afford to buy food.

but on the positive side, in cuba the health of the population improved to match and almost exceed that of the US population after 10 or so years of oil embargoes. this forced the country to change it's agricultural practices and now, more than 90% of cuba's food supplies are produced by organic farming methods. the percentage of fresh fruit and vegetables consumed has increased, and much of the urban food supply is grown within the city centres.

raw foodies talk :: matt and angela in melbourne

When I first heard that Matt and Angela were coming to Melbourne I did what most people do and googled them. After watching Matt’s vids on YouTube, and reading about Angela on her blog. I was doubtful about spending an entire afternoon listening to a young guy from California, sporting dreadlocks and a tanned body, talk about his great adventures eating raw. Angela; well, her story sounded good, but I didn’t have a weight problem and have always been wary of D*** word.

How glad I was then to have decided to go after all. OK, so I am already eating 100% raw, but have only been doing it for a short time. Matt is into his eighth year of eating only raw foods, and Angela has been eating raw for six. I wanted to find out what to expect whilst going through those first few years of transition. I knew, from having given up alcohol in my late twenties, that it doesn’t just stop the day you have your last drink. I suffered immediate detox, but for up to 12-18 months later my body continued to release toxins.

in his search for more information, Matt turned to the work of Dr Fred Bisci, who has been 50 years on a raw food diet. Dr Bisci, now in his 80’s spends most of his time supporting people healing from degenerative diseases (cancer and the like). The transition diet that Matt recommends in his first book is based on Dr Bisci’s work.

Matt and angela are examples of two completely different approaches to going raw. Matt, a self-admitted extremist ( I would count myself in that category), went 100% raw overnight. He said it happened after he read Dr Norman Walker’s book, Becoming Younger. I’m a fan of Norman Walker as well, and his juicing book is my juice bible.

Angela on the other hand, started eating raw when her weight reached 120kgs. For her the detox effect was so great that she slowed her transition by eating about 70% raw. Even whilst eating 30% cooked food, she lost 50kg in her first year of this diet. Mind-boggling. That is equivalent to my current bodyweight! Angela now eats 100% raw, having transitioned gradually on a combination of raw and cooked foods.

Matt Monarch
Matt’s key message was “you don’t have to eat 100% raw to achieve the benefits of a healthier body”. And angela underscored this with “you don’t get a halo for eating 100% raw”. Yes, it is easy at the beginning to think that anything less than 100% is failure. Being a perfectionist, that was my initial thought. At the beginning I really did think that a completely raw diet was too big a mountain to climb. But taking one step at a time has given me an opportunity to enjoy the journey along the way.

The Food Groups
These are the groups that Matt explains in his most recent book, Raw Success.

• Refined sugar (as found in sweets, bakery items, cakes, biscuits . . . you know)
• Animal protein
• Processed starches (the most common are bread, pasta, cereal)
• Dairy
• Raw vegan foods (fruit, vegetables, nuts, sprouts, seeds)

Interesting to me (a vegan who understands the dangers of animal protein; read Colin Campbell, The China Study), Matt’s view (and Dr Fred Bisci’s) is that the TWO most damaging food groups are refined sugar and processed starches.

Matt gave us three core principles for raw food eating. These come from his own experience and from studying Dr Fred Bisci’s methods.

What you leave out of your diet completely and without exception is the way to ultimate health
In other words, even if you ONLY cut out (completely) refined sugar and processed starches from your diet, and didn’t eat entirely raw foods, Matt believes you will still see significant health benefits. This is important. I realise now I learnt this in one of my dietary adventures 3 years ago, but didn’t recognise it at the time.

Colonic irrigation
Essential when on 100% raw diet to assist with removing the build-up of waste. This has to be the most useful message I got from the afternoon’s talk. People on 100% raw food diet are detoxing quickly and waste is being eliminated at a cellular level from the entire body. Years and years of waste and toxins. The body’s normal elimination channels – the skin, bowel, lungs – are not capable of clearing the toxins out of the body fast enough. So we need a little help in the form of colonics. This prevents us from becoming ill and experiencing the side effects of de-toxing, or autotoxic (forcing the body to re-absorb its own waste) reaction. Read matt's article on "the missing link".

Green vegetable juices
Being an avid juicer for several years, this was not news. Fresh organic vegetable juice (in particular the green juices) is the way to ensure that the body receives enough minerals to remain completely nourished and keep the system alkaline. On a raw food diet, it is simply not possible to get that level of nourishment from eating the vegetables. Juice goes straight to the bloodstream, bypassing the digestive process. Smoothies vs juicing is an interesting conversation that raw foodies have, and matt’s views of this are in his article "juicing vs blending". Norm Walker followed this principle and I tend to agree. I experience the vitality and health that comes from drinking juice daily.

This is just the summary of matt’s talk. Woven into these core principles matt also discussed enzymes, the cleansing properties of fruit, use of supplements, some good juice combinations, the gas diffusion principle (explained fully in raw success), bowel bacteria, water and much, much more.

There are many reasons for eating raw, and for most, it is focussed around better physical health, which of course is a good place to start. One of the beautiful outcomes of eating more raw food is that it raises the body’s vibrational levels and increases awareness of and receptivity to nature and our spiritual being. Personally I was glad to hear Matt talk about the spiritual changes in his life, including the opening of his third eye and solar plexus chakras. Joe Alexander (a blatant raw foodist) also makes reference to this in relation to his creativity. As a visual artist, he discovered that eating raw food sharpened his sense of colour and enabled him to draw more vibrant and lively compositions.

Angela Stokes
Angela’s story of morbid obesity began with an underactive thyroid at age 11. After transitioning to raw food, she is now half the size she was, and certainly twice the person. Angela’s skin literally glowed with health. She talked about how so many people try eating raw, often jumping in to 100%, then hit some kind of detox wall . . . only to go back to cooked food. Her philosophy is to start with where you are, but more importantly: start NOW! By start, she means at least 50% raw. Eating at least 50% raw is all you need to do to see some benefits.

What does 50% raw mean?
Percentages are rife in the raw food community. Angela explained thus. If you have a dinner plate, and half of the plate has spaghetti and meatballs on it with the other half containing a few leaves of lettuce, some tomato, and cucumber, let’s say. That is 50% raw by VOLUME. But the spaghetti and meatballs weight more than the lettuce leaves. So when we talk about 50% raw, it means by WEIGHT.

Top ten tips for going raw
Angela gave us her top ten tips for going on to a raw food lifestyle.

• Start now
• It is a lifestyle, not a diet
• Eat whole foods
• Do it for yourself. There is no need to convert other people
• Have a supportive social network
  (raw food communities are popping up everywhere – even Melbourne!)
• Dry skin brushing helps remove dead skin and stimulates the lymph system, aiding elimination
• Chew your food well (matt talks about Fletcherising in his book raw success)
• Have your greens (1 green juice every day)
• Structure – recognise it is always changing (what Angela eats now is different from what she ate 18 months ago, 6 months ago)
• Seaweed is important for minerals; sprouts are the best form of live food; and, water, drink plenty of it and as pure as possible (matt discussed the benefits of distilled water)

Angela talked about her recent Juice Feasting experience, eating (drinking) nothing but raw juices for 92 days. There’s a global movement (excuse the pun) of juice feasters. This is something I’d like to try. One day. According to the geneticist on ted.com, it is possible to change your genetic structure within 90 days.

Thanks Matt and Angela. I’ve come away from this talk inspired to make some micro-adjustments to my current raw lifestyle. 1. Start the colonics next week. My body is wanting it. 2. Today I started straining my juices – and wow, I can really taste the difference. 3. Attempt to avoid snacking between meals and no eating late. This has always been hardest for me, but I know the benefits. 4. Go back to doing a green juice in the afternoons. I gave that up over a year ago when I returned to full-time work. It’s a chore to clean out the juicer twice a day, but now I have so much more energy . . .

And wow, it was so great to meet other rawfoodies, plus one or two familiar faces from our rawfood meetup group. Check out Joanne's postings on the rawmom website.

Cody: an advertisement for healthy eating

In today's paper, Pierce Cody, founder of Cody Outdoor - you know, that company that owns billboard real estate across the country - tells us where he ate last week.
In 2004, Cody became part-owner of Macro Wholefoods, which up until then had been a small organic wholefoods grocery store and cafe located at Bondi Junction for 20 years, and regarded as "an institution" by the locals.
I guess owning an organic wholefoods store is a business proposition for Pierce, not something that is reflected in the way he lives (and eats).