Simple Raw and Natural

It's a beautiful summer day here in Arkansas. This morning I made some tomato soup in my Vitamix which I plan to have for dinner tonight. I will probably eat it cold, but if you prefer it warm you can warm it in the high speed blender. Tomato Soup Recipe: 4 vine-ripened tomatoes 1/4 cup water Juice of 1 lemon 4 stalks of celery 1 small sweet onion 4 little mini cucumbers 1 tsp chili powder Blend in high speed blender until smooth. Serve with chopped avocado mixed in. Tomato Soup in the Vitamix ready to blend. Tomato Soup after blending. Tomato Soup ready to store in the refrigerator until dinner. Food for the day. I started eating at 10:30. During the morning and at lunch I had watermelon and mango. Dinner was fresh orange juice and a salad made with iceberg lettuce, mango, cucumber, grape tomatoes, avocado, and paprika. Thanks to Louie Auslander for the salad inspiration. Also had dehydrated onion crackers. After dinner I had a fruit smoothie made with c...

There is a debate about eating fats on a healthy diet. I have been on both sides of this discussion, but here's the thing.  I have done my best healing and weight control when I was eating controlled amounts of healthy fats with no refined fats. 2008-2009 was a time of tremendous healing for me. My diet included nuts and avocado; however, most of the diet was juice, smoothies, fruit, salad, homemade salsa, and a vegetable juice. Not all avocados have the same fat content.  Avocados that are barely ripe have much less fat than avocados that are extremely ripe and soft.  Try to eat your avocados when they are just ripe enough to eat. In 2011, I reached my lowest weight in decades while interning at the Clohesy River Health Farm. Our diet there included fats in the form of avocado, coconut, pecans, and sometimes a little nut butter. At the farm our lunch was 4 or 5 servings of fresh fruit, 1/2 avocado, and 1/4 of a fresh coconut.  Our dinner was a salad made wit...

Travis bought these pretty Vinca's yesterday for our deck.    Hygienic principles are not such lofty principles that we must wait until some future time when the majority come to accept them and agree with them.  These principles are for us to use here and now.  You can't wait to change your own lifestyle until "everyone else" agrees.  It is not important what the masses of people believe and want to hear.  When you step up and began to embody the simple, natural lifestyle, it may well encourage someone else. Even though your circumstances are not perfect, and misinformation abounds, you don't need to feel like you are a prisoner to culture.  I have used that as an excuse before, but no more excuses!! Take responsibility for your own health and lifestyle no matter what most people are doing. Raise the bar for everyone by showing a better way.  We already have access to enough knowledge, if we seek it out, to help us live happier and hea...

Let's talk about healing autoimmune disorders.  Low fat vegan is the best way to heal any disease. If your experience is like mine, you grew up eating hot dogs, boxed cereal, grilled cheese sandwiches, and such. In my family, we got Shipley's donuts every Sunday and had Fizzies to drink with our meals.  I loved them, but I don't think they loved me back.    Fizzies Drink I have detested milk since I was 8 months old, so I dodged that bullet. My mother loved to cook, so we had the pleasure of her wonderful cooking...always with white Wonder Bread as an accompaniment. Even as a child, my body was reacting to this diet. When I was nine years old, I was in the hospital with something that some called pneumonia and some called consumption.  I was sick for a whole summer and was given massive doses of antibiotics.  My body would erupt with boils which we called risons, and once with a carbuncle on my lip. During my teen years, I had other dietary issu...

Based on my experience, our best shot for optimum health in the climate and culture in which we are living is the high carb low fat raw vegan diet in conjunction with a simple, natural, biogenic lifestyle that harmonizes with natural law. It is my desire to help people by sharing the diet and lifestyle that helped me lose 40 lbs. and to heal from an undiagnosed debilitating condition that left me making multiple trips to the emergency room and doctor's office. I was at the point of not being able to function and had almost given up hope of every being able to recover.  I was almost bed-ridden. I have been eleven years on this quest for health via natural living, diet, and raw foods. My plan is to share even more lifestyle tips, exercise tips, and recipes.  I was 58 years old when I began this journey, and I am 69 years old now. It has not been a straight path, because I have stumbled many times, but, nevertheless, I am still here, still standing, and determined to carry on...

Stress is a big factor in health and healing.  While communicating with a friend the other day and giving her a list of the principles to practice in order to regain her health, she said, "You said eliminate all stress".  Out of all the things on the list, this one stood out as being the most difficult to achieve. It is possible to eliminate a great deal of the negative stress you experience.  When I was given this principle, I was addicted to the news and was worrying every day on how my "party" could take over and make the world better.  How was I to eliminate stress?  I looked around at my then five-year-old granddaughter and asked myself, "What is she worrying about?"   I decided to be like her, so I turned off the news, exited my attachment to either major political party, and put my focus on things within my control.  I honestly believe, that the other things will take care of themselves if we do the work on ourselves.  Change yourself...c...

Herbs for the Green Smoothies! I met my sister, Sheila, and my friend, Rebecca, at Barnes and Noble in Little Rock to have a little trip planning meeting.  Whenever I anticipate the trip, it makes me feel happy.  Our plan is to do three days in Paris seeing the sights, and then take the train to our beloved Chateauroux where we will join in with our friends and other local people to celebrate a week-long festival called American Week.  It will be a special time for all of us.  When we leave Chateauroux, our plan is to go to Eindhoven, Netherlands, for a week, and use that location for a base point to visit some battlefields and meet with the historians that are familiar with the history of the Lucky Seventh and the Battle of Overloon, where our uncle, George A. Meece, was killed.  We also plan to make some day trips to some surrounding cities. The meeting went well.  We had originally decided to use Nijmegen as our base, but then switched to Eindhove...

I have been having a mental debate over the benefits of eating local vs eating raw.  Since I live in Arkansas, in a temperate climate, rather than in a tropical region, I began toying with the idea that there may be more virtue in eating what grows locally.  It sort of made sense, as past generations of my family have survived on such foods as dried beans and canned goods that were stored up for the winter during the growing season. They also depended on killing animals in order to eat.  Now there is nothing wrong with survival, in fact, I recommend it, but we are looking for more than survival. We are looking for optimum health, vitality, and mental clarity, are we not?  I experimented a bit.  I made a pot of dried beans and a pan of cornbread using almond milk.  Honestly, I had less energy, and it set of a host of cravings for cooked, energy draining foods. It has taken me several days to get my bearings, again.  My conclusion is that it is better to...

I bought groceries at Walmart and spent $128.59.  There are a few items that I personally will not eat, but this is for the household.  This total also included two packages of chicken strips to dehydrate for Lucy.  So far she is liking the dehydrated chicken...since she would not eat the vegetarian dog food I made we are trying the raw chicken approach.  She is eating it pretty good.  I marinated it in Yacon syrup, lemon juice, and Italian seasoning and then dehydrated it overnight. Tomorrow the Hot Springs Village Raw Food Group meets for our monthly potluck at our house.  I watched some Fully Raw Kristina videos to get some recipe ideas and decided to make Raw Vegan Tabbouleh, Vegan Ranch Dressing, Carrot Bacon, Raspberry Coconut Lemonade, and Creamy Lemon Garlic Pasta Alfredo.  Everyone is welcome to our potlucks.  Message me if you want to come.  Each person attending must bring a raw food dish to share or pay $5.00.  We may hav...

I made juices on Sunday morning.  Looks like Easter. I watched a John Kohler video yesterday about how he saves $1000 a month on his fresh produce.  Every month he drives four hours to the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Terminal where he fills up his vehicle with boxes of fresh produce.  While that is not an option for me, there were some good ideas that make sense for getting the most out of my food dollar. My best option will be to shop at my Walmart and Food Wise, maybe start checking out Sam's club, and shopping the farmer's market.  My favorite takeaway points from the video were:  - Go through the berries or other produce when you get home and remove any that are bad or starting to go bad - Check the fruit and veggies every day - Whatever is about to go bad is what you eat that day - If more of the produce is about to go bad than you can eat today then either freeze it, juice it, or dehydrate it. The subject of biophotons is one that I want to...

This coming week is going to be busy.  We have our raw foods group at our house on Wednesday, and Wednesday afternoon I will be driving towards Houston, Texas to see my grandson, Caleb,  compete at the world robotics championship.  My son, Harris, is one of the mentor's for the team.  They will be competing for three days, but I can only be there for Thursday. It takes planning to travel and stay on point with your healthy lifestyle, but it can be done.  The point is to arrive at your destination with enough energy to enjoy yourself.  I plant to take some snacks with me, stop when I need to stretch, and to enjoy the journey as well as the destination. I will probably take some leftovers from the raw foods potluck, maybe some juices and a smoothie.  I may take some blueberries, a package of some romaine, a grapefruit, and some sunflower seeds.  My plan is to listen to an audio book, have my snacks, and think some good thoughts. This is the...

One of the principles of living your best life is to make your surroundings as beautiful as you can. We made an offer on a nice wrought iron patio set yesterday at an estate sale  We have had some cheap green plastic Adirondack chairs and a green plastic table on our lower deck for a couple of years, and they were nice and looked pretty, but every time the wind would blow they would end up out in the woods.  The last storm demolished them to the point we have one chair left.  The umbrella ended up in a tree!  The estate sale people called yesterday evening and informed us that we won the bid, so we will be going to pick up our new patio set this morning.  Our lower deck will once again be a nice place to sit and enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. A tip for a snack while traveling.  You can buy chia seeds at Walmart or your grocery store in small packs or in larger packages.  You can also buy pomegranate juice.  Put your water in a large cup, ...

Here's to a good Friday on this lovely Good Friday.  I believe we can stay on our healthy life plan and celebrate the holiday with our friends and family.  Holidays can be one of the triggers to keep us stuck in our old way of thinking and being. It takes time...and willpower and intelligence...to undo programmed thinking.  I heard Joe Dispenza speak at a conference last year where he taught on neuroscience and about how you can rewire your brain. You literally have to rewire your brain to create different results in your life.  I read his book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which tells you how to eliminate bad habits by reprogramming your thinking.  Once the brain is rewired, you develop a whole new set of references and the triggers that jerk your chain come undone.  Some habits take a long time to undo, but cooked foods may be the hardest.  There are triggers of smell and culture that have a very strong pull.  Most of us were fed co...

Yesterday I worked in the garden instead of walking around the neighborhood.  It is a different feeling. It's true that I only got in about 6500 steps by the end of the day instead of over 10,000, but it was a different feeling.  Travis planted some tomatoes and peppers, I cleaned the lower deck and pulled some weeds.  Lucy dug in the dirt and felt so happy.  I felt the same way. Working in the garden makes you feel happy and productive. I was puzzled by a plant growing in the herb garden as a weed.  I started pulling them out but decided to check if they are edible.  Edible weeds, such as dandelion,  can be used in our smoothies.  I put a picture on Facebook to ask for help identifying the weed, and the consensus is that it is plantain.  Some say edible and some say not, but I am inclined to think that it is edible.  My brother, Max, lives up in the mountains, and his neighbor says it is edible and the smallest leaves are best with...