Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The Right Amount of Tension Produces Music!

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 have someone talking to us about crystal mining tomorrow....it's not definite.  Either way, it will be a wonderful time of sharing.

After I decided on my recipes, Travis had to go to Food Wise and buy a few more grocery items.  He got cut flowers, lemons, parsley, and green onions.  Add to the grocery haul total - $14.38.

We finally got to try out our new coconut tool.  I cracked a coconut we bought last week at Food Wise, and then Travis used the tool to remove the coconut meat.  Travis said it worked better than anything he had ever tried before.  Here is the link to the one I bought:
Coconut Tool


Enjoying the early morning air.
Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living:
According to Keki Sidhwa, while the amount of stress to which we are exposed is increasing, our ability to handle stress is decreasing. Our modern lifestyle is causing our physical vitality and our mental and emotional strength to go down.  When we eat right and have better nutrition, we can withstand stress with more tranquility and poise.

Modern foods that are high in sugar rob us of B Vitamins which increases the likelihood of a nervous breakdown.  Overcooked foods that are deficient in minerals are another factor.  Sedentary habits and lack of exercise in the fresh air and sunshine rob our strength to face stress.  Drugs, including tobacco, alcohol. medicines, tea, coffee, and chocolate contribute to the problem.  Another culprit is getting caught up in the rat race and placing importance on false values.

The number one way to cope with the pressures of life is to relax and learn from our mistakes. Recreation is an essential part of a balanced life. It's important to have a change in activity.  If you work outside using physical labor, then you need poetry, music, and art to balance your life. If you work inside at a desk or doing creative work, then you need exercise and activity to find the balance.

The way to combat stress involves changing your mind and reorganizing your priorities.  Stress will always be part of life, because it is necessary in order to bring out your best.  Just like with the strings on the violin, though, there has to be the right degree of tension in order for the music to be produced.  You need enough stress to make your life interesting, but not enough to break you down.

Coming home.
Food prep for the day:
Lemongrass tea
Veggie cocktails for 2 ( 1 small package of carrots, 1 beet, 1 bunch of celery hearts, 1 apple)
Blended Salad ( 1 bunch of celery hearts, 1 tomato, 3 mini tricolor bell peppers, 1 small head of romaine lettuce, juice of 1 lemon, 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast, 3 Tbsp of sauerkraut)

MORNING: Lemongrass tea

LUNCH: green smoothie leftover from day before; watermelon; 1/2 avocado; walnuts

DINNER: veggie cocktail, blended salad; leftover fennel bean burger patty served on romaine leaves with sliced tomato, onion, and Bubbies dill pickles and a little mustard; leftover steamed potato, Kombucha, and a Lara Bar.

To health and happiness.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Avoid All Negative Stress


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 explore.  John Rose said the only law we need in order to have a better life and a better world is to require everyone to have a minimum biophoton level.  The way we raise our biophoton level is to eat fresh, ripe, raw fruits and vegetable.  Eat the light.

No negative stress on this rainy day.

Lesson from The Quintessence of Living:
Stress is part of life.  It is the degree of stress that determines whether it affects your wellbeing. Too much stress can make you sick with high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, migraines, and a host of other ailments. It can also cause emotional sickness  such as depression, insomnia, and tiredness.

Stress can keep us from being able to cope with our problems, and it can lead to drug and alcohol abuse.  It can lead to health problems and family problems.

We need to know how to deal with stress rather than just suppressing our anger, or worrying about how to make ends meet, or running crazily on the hamster wheel of success.

Stress does not have to be a negative thing.  We can control how we react to stressful situations by controlling our minds and emotions. We will have stress as long as we are alive.  Positive stress is stress that pushes us to perform at our very best, or that protects us in dangerous situations.  But it becomes debilitating is we feel this pressure so frequently that the body becomes enervated.

One of the principles of healing is to avoid stress.  What can you do to avoid unnecessary stress?

Getting low on produce.  Time to go grocery shopping.

Food prep for the day:
Made juices:
celery juice; apple juice; veggie cocktails (broccoli stems, pear, beet, carrots, celery); orange juice.

Made green smoothies: herbs from garden, 3 bananas, 1/4 papaya, can of coconut water, frozen tropical fruit, blueberries

We drove to Magazine for church with the family.  I had lemongrass tea and celery juice before we left and an orange juice on the way.

LUNCH:  I didn't eat at church.  On the way home I had apple juice, a green smoothie, and some tropical trail mix.

DINNER:  Veggie cocktail, blended salad left from the day before, chia seed crackers, and some garbanzo beans I cooked the day before.

To health and happiness.


Sunday, April 16, 2017

Natural Hygiene For Success


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 patio set we bought at the estate sale.

Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living:
Whenever we notice that we are in a bad mood, worried, low in self-confidence, or worried about the future, we can think about where we may have gone wrong in our way of living and make sure if we may be the cause of our problem.  If we discover that we are the cause...either in our thoughts or our actions...we can let our intuition guide us to the solution. First though, we have to be ready and willing to look for the cause of emotional issues within ourselves...in our thoughts and actions just as we look for the cause of our physical diseases in the mistakes we have made with our diet, lack of fresh air, enervation, etc.

Once we are ready to accept the blame ourselves, the solution to our problem will inevitably reveal itself. When we think about our mistakes and resolve to accept the blame without blaming others or circumstances, we will be putting ourselves into true relation with natural law.

The body is capable of recovering its health once you can see the true causes and have removed the obstructions, and it will work the same way with mental and emotional problems, too.  The same law works through all, and the way of success is to cooperate with that law.  Nature always works in the same way, and the same principles operate on every plane of life.  We must resolve to work in cooperation with Nature in whatever we are doing.  That is the only way to succeed.

The problem with alternative medicine or holistic medicine is that too much emphasis is placed on therapeutics and very little on education. Natural Hygiene, on the other hand, is all about education of the patient.  It tells us to stop harming ourselves and others and our environment and learn to do good.  The alternative medicine approach confuses people who are looking for a way out of the medical modality.  They get sidetracked into trying homeopathic remedies, reflexology, acupuncture, vitamins, minerals, hypnosis, macrobiotics, transcendental meditation, Silva mind control, and on and on so that the patient runs from one technique to another.

Most modern naturopaths have no knowledge of Natural Hygiene principles and practices.  They often do not know of Dr. H. M. Shelton, James C. Thomason, Stanley Lief, and the other knowledgeable pioneers of true Nature Cure.  My own teacher is Dr. John Fielder.

Travis' avocado tree he is growing in a pot.

Another view of the avocado tree...grown from a seed.

Food prep for the day:

Made Teechino - an herbal coffee substitute.

We had a family dinner at Ken and Molly's house yesterday.  We were celebrating Easter and Ken and Braeden's birthday.  They were grilling hamburgers and hotdogs and veggie burgers.  I made some veggie burger patties and carried them to the party.



FENNEL BEAN BURGERS
1 can salt free black beans, rinsed
1 can salt free garbanzo beans, rinsed
1 cup oats
1/4 cup water
2 cloves garlic
1/2 Tbsp fennel
1/2 Tbsp paprika
1 bell pepper, chopped
1/2 white onion, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine all ingredients in your food processor and blend until well combined. If mixture is too wet, add more oats.

Form into patties. This makes 8 large burgers. Place on non stick sheet and put in the oven for 20 minutes. Flip and cook another 15 minutes. 

LUNCH: green smoothie; apple with almond butter; grapefruit

DINNER: fennel bean burger pattie served on romaine lettuce leaves with mustard, tomato, onion, and bubbies dill pickles; organic tortilla chips

Note:  This meal had too much salt due to the chips.  Don't like the results I got from eating them.

To health and happiness.

Braeden's nectarine tree is loaded with nectarines.


Saturday, April 15, 2017

Knowledge is Power

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, add some pomegranate juice, maybe even some super green powder that you can carry with you, and pour in the chia seeds.  After it sets up for a few minutes, you can either eat it with a spoon or drink it down.

John Rose explained that we all have a base of knowledge, but we don't have all knowledge.  Think about what you know as being represented by a circle that is within all the knowledge there is.  Outside your circle is everything you don't know that you don't know.  The line that defines your circle represents everything you know you don't know.  The bigger your circle of knowledge, the line also gets bigger and there will be more that you know you don't know.  That is what motivates us to apply the knowledge we have and to learn and grow.  We need to know more and more about how to live, and how to satisfy our needs, and how to learn the consequences of right and wrong actions.  We know we don't have all knowledge, because we still have problems.  When we have the knowledge and we are willing to apply it, we will have fewer problems.

A view from our deck.
Lesson from the Quintessence of Natural Living:
Natural Hygiene is not a system of cures to replace the medical modality.  It is an alternative to medicine, not alternative medicine. Natural Hygiene teaches fasting, diet, rest, sunshine, fresh air, etc., but these are not for the cure of disease.  It is deeper than that, because it is a complete way of living.  The more we learn to cooperate with natural law the better life we will have. It is not just a way to cure whatever sickness your are experiencing.

It is true that cooperating with Nature can "cure" your disease, but it will also be beneficial in every facet of your being. Natural Hygiene is in fact a philosophy of life that is to be followed every day whether you are sick or not.

Disease does not just happen by accident; there is always a cause.  When the cause is eradicated, the disease can be removed.  Fasting, rest, good diet, fresh air, exercise all help the body to repair, regenerate and heal, and it also helps the illness of mind and spirit.

It is empowering to finally be able to admit that our sufferings are due to our mistakes in living, because then we can accept the responsibility to try and correct them.
We bought this beautiful arrangement at our local Walmart.
Food prep for the day:
Green smoothies for 2 - herbs from the garden, 2 bananas, some spring mix, 3/8 papaya, 3/8 pineapple, 1 can coconut water, 2 scoops chia seeds.

Salad for Travis - spring mix, onion, cucumber, tomato.  He added a can of tuna.

Blended salad for me - tomato, cucumber, lemon juice, 3 mini tricolor peppers, 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast, 1 bunch celery hearts, 1 small head of romaine, 2 Tbsp sauerkraut

Heated up a can of no salt added black beans.

LUNCH: green smoothie; 2 mangos; 1 pink lady apple with almond butter; 1/2 avocado with grated coconut; 1/2 grapefruit

DINNER; blended salad; kombucha; chia seed crackers; steamed potatoes left over from yesterday; black beans; onion

To health and happiness.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Rewiring the Brain

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 cooked food from birth.  But the good news is that the more you use your intelligence and will power to eat a proper diet, the more the old program will become irrelevant until it no longer exists.

A view of our backyard garden.

Another view of our backyard garden.
Lessons from The Quintessence of Living.
Simple Raw and Natural refers to your way of living as a philosophy.  We are not trying to sound intellectual, because we are not talking about philosophical theories that are taught at university.  We are talking about a philosophy of living that is needed to help you get along in the world and to make your life have value.

A philosophy of living is not mysterious or something remote from your everyday life.  Everyone must have a reason for living...a philosophy of living...if they want to live the best possible life.  Your philosophy helps you set your boundaries and plan how you are to navigate through life.  Without it, you will tossed to and fro with every competing idea that presents itself. 

A philosophy of living is a set of principles which will help you journey through life.  The results you get will be determined by what those principles are and how you apply them.  Natural Hygiene has established and proven principles of living that are worthy of your consideration. They can help you make your life more worthwhile while addressing the question of the cause of your diseases and the recovery from those diseases.

Lively Kombucha from The Superior Bath House Brewery in Hot Springs.

Food Prep for the Day:
I made chia crackers for the dehydrator.

Chia Crackers
2 cups chia seeds
9 cups water
Rosemary to taste
1 lemon, juiced
Chopped chives
Put all together into a mixing bowl.  Stir or whisk together and then let sit for ten minutes or more until the chia seeds absorb much of the water. 
Pour onto Teflex sheets and dehydrate at 110 degrees for at least two hours.  
Flip the crackers onto a tray without a Teflex sheet and dehydrate a few more hours until crispy.
I dehydrated mine overnight.

Green Smoothie for 1: Herbs from the garden including purslaine and dandelion, 1 banana, 1/8 papaya, 1/8 pineapple, 1/2 cup frozen wild blueberries, 1/2 cup frozen mixed fruit, water)

Salad for dinner: spring mix, cucumber, tomato, onion, olives, Bubbies pickle

Steamed some Irish potatoes and heated up a can of organic garbanzo beans.

Lunch: Green smoothie; 1 grapefruit; 1 Pink Lady apple with raw almond butter; almonds

Dinner: Salad; raw vegan sauce I made the day before; sauerkraut; kombucha; dehydrated crackers left from raw foods last month; potatoes; garbanzo beans


My new coconut tool.  As soon as I get to the store to get fresh coconut, I will be trying this out.


To health and happiness.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Happy in the Garden

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 a buttery taste.  He says you can also eat the seeds.  The plant is considered to be medicinal and can be used to stop bleeding.
Plaintain
Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living.
If we are to survive and thrive, we must get back to nature. We live in stressful times, and it has been found that people who eat a high raw diet can better deal with stress.  People who eat raw foods recover faster from jet lag, so it is a good idea to only eat fresh fruit before traveling and on the day of travel.  Raw food balances your body chemistry which helps keep you calm and healthy.

If you are always tired, with not enough pep and vigor, then switch to a natural hygiene diet of 75-80% raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouts and see how much better you feel in a few weeks. Raw foods have a high potassium and magnesium content.

I would like to inspire you to stick to a hygienic lifestyle and diet.  Let your main meal be fresh fruit or a vegetable salad.  Keep the cooked food to only 20% of your total diet.  Eat most of your food raw, and you will need less food.  One third of what you eat keeps you alive, the other two thirds keep the doctors alive.  Grow as much food as you can and shop at the local farmer's markets in your town.  Ask the growers if they spray with chemicals.

Cook your food as quickly as possible and in as little water as possible.  Steaming is a good way to cook.  Don't eat more than one cooked meal per day.  Say no to the things that are killing you.
Juices for the day.  Celery, apple, orange, veggie cocktail.

Food prep for the day:
Lemongrass tea.

Made juices:
Celery Juice for 2 - Used 2 bunches of organic celery hearts
Veggie Cocktails for 2 - (1 bunch celery, 1 beet, 4 carrots, 1 apple)
Apple Juice for 2 - Used 6 apples
Orange Juice for 2 - Used 6 oranges

I made a sauce for dinner.  I am creating a collection of recipes that will be suitable for the Simple Raw and Natural philosophy of healthy eating and living.  Here is a recipe for you that you can use as a salad dressing, or as a dip for raw veggie dippers, or as a sauce over zoodles (noodles made from raw zucchini).

RAW VEGAN SAUCE
Blend in high speed blender until smooth:
1/2 cup soaked and drained sun-dried tomatoes
Juice of 1 lemon
1-1/2 Tbsp raw almond butter
1 medium red bell pepper
2 or more stalks of celery
1 cup of diced up zucchini or other squash
1/2-3/4 cup water to desired thickness

Green Smoothies for 2 - (herbs from the garden, 1/4 papaya, 1/4 pineapple, 2 bananas, 2 scoops chia seeds, 1 can coconut water, 1 cup frozen wild blueberries.

Green Salad for 1 - (spring mix, zoodles from 1 zucchini, 1 salad cucumber, 1 tomato, 1/4 onion, 1/2 of a Bubbies dill pickle)

The meals:
Morning: lemongrass tea, celery juice

Lunch: green smoothie, 1/2 avocado with shredded coconut, 1/4 mini watermelon, orange juice

Dinner: veggie cocktail, green salad, raw vegan sauce, dehydrated crackers left from last month's raw foods potluck, sauerkraut, 2 goodie balls left from a couple of months ago

To health and happiness.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Gardening as Exercise

I had an idea yesterday on how to maximize my time.  I am wanting to spend more time in my yard and garden, but there has not been enough time to get everything done. So why not use the yard and garden time as my exercise time.  Instead of walking the dog, I will try taking her out in the garden with me and let her exercise herself.  Instead of walking 3 miles around the block, I can weed and work in the yard.

If you want to learn about growing things in your yard, check out Growing Your Greens on YouTube. It is John Kohler's channel.  He also has a channel called OKRaw where he talks more about the food you eat.  I have decided his channels are the best ones for me to follow right now since I want to start working in the yard instead of walking.

I bought some Mallow 'Mystic Merlin' Malva Sylvestris seeds from eBay.  25 seeds.  It will be a perennial shrub with edible leaves and flowers.

I have started modifying all my recipes to make them fall within the boundaries I have adopted for living simply and naturally.  Even if a recipe comes from a famous raw food guru, it does not mean it is healthy and is in harmony with the laws of life.
Spring is officially here. Travis has filled the planters with flowers he bought at the Magnet Cove FFA greenhouse.
Lesson from the Quintessence of Natural Living.
It does not take a long time for a raw or nearly all raw diet to eliminate accumulated wastes and toxins. It restores your sodium and potassium balance and your acid-alkaline balance. It give the cells the nutrients they need for optimal function. The cells can better take up the oxygen they need to release energy.

Since raw foods are alkaline they work for us in cases of degenerative diseases. They help the pancreas produce cancer fighting enzymes.   Hans Neiper was an alternative medical practitioner who helped people with incurable diseases. He believed if we could break down the protective mucus around the cancer cells with the pancreatic enzymes, then the cancer cells would become vulnerable to the body's immune system. The enzymes chymotrypsin, trypsin, and the bromelains, and the vitamin betacarotene in raw fruits and vegetables also have this power.

Living fresh foods contain enzymes that seem to boost our body's depleted enzymes. Crystallography shows that the raw foods have an energy of their own, and that may be one reason fresh raw foods are good for you.

The human body functions best on an 80-90% raw diet. We will be stronger and faster and more supple on  lower protein.

A high raw food diet combats aging. People who eat this way can look ten years younger than their age. This rejuvenation is not superficial...it is not just skin deep.  It happens at the physiological and biochemical level. Tests related to aging such as cholesterol, lipids, and blood pressure reveal changes for the better. Raw diets may even help reduce the severity of dementia.
I made this salad and veggie cocktail for Travis' dinner.

Food prep for the day:
Celery juice for 1 using 1 bunch of celery hearts.
Veggie cocktail for 1 using  3 carrots, 1 beet, 3 celery stalks, a bunch of parsley, and 1/2 apple
Orange juice for 1 using 6 oranges.
Salad for Travis (spring mix, salad cucumber, tomato, radish, and 1/4 of an onion)

Food for the day:
I water fasted through breakfast and lunch.
Travis' Breakfast: celery juice

Travis' Lunch : apple juice and avocado

Dinner:  Travis had the salad, avocado, and a veggie cocktail
My dinner was an orange juice and 1/4 of a mini watermelon.

After flute rehearsal I had four of the small yellow honey mangoes.

To health and happiness.
Beauty in the yard.





Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Setting Boundaries.

It is good to be getting back into my routine.

I don't want to be trapped into a box of programmed thinking where I am afraid to even consider ideas that are strange to me.  There is always the chance that I might learn something that will free me to live closer to reality.  But when it comes to living in harmony with Universal Law and the Laws of Nature, we are wise to make a plan and then live within the boundaries we set up for ourselves.  The only way out of the  matrix of the programming is by using our intelligence and our will power.  So we need a plan and the discipline to stick to it until we can develop a new set of references.

There is always an event...a holiday...a celebration...to tempt us to conform to someone else's idea of what is best for us.  Our choice is to either make an excuse or to empower ourselves to be different and follow our plan for optimal health.

My two steps forward one step back progression on my health journey has to a great extent been caused by listening to too many voices.  I know what the plan is that allows for every single thing I need while eliminating everything unnecessary.  It is the ideal.  There is nothing to sell and nothing to buy on this plan.  It is universally available anywhere on the planet at any economic level.  It has the markings of universal truth.

The problem is that so many charismatic teachers have videos and postings and books on raw foods or vegan foods or healthy whole foods with recipes using exotic and expensive ingredients and they compound this teaching with cures for symptoms using herbs and foods and other alternative products. Many times they are selling such cures.  It is always a distraction from the simple, natural lifestyle.

I had an experience last night where I made a smoothie from one such recipe that has left me sick and nauseous this morning.  So on this blog and in my practice, going forward, I will be focusing more on straight nature cure and natural hygiene.  It's not glamorous, but is is beautiful and true.

I am super excited about this. I hope I can inspire you to consider going this way, too.  The way out of our problems is not so much an adding something new as it is a letting go of what is not serving us.  This is where setting up boundaries will be exciting and creative.  When we know what is real and what is good for us, we can put everything else outside the boundary, and then our quest will be to see just how much awesomeness we can create out of what remains.

Freshly squeezed orange juice. Liquid sunshine on a rainy day.
Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living:

Natural Hygiene maintains that cooked food is dead food. The body considers processed and cooked food to be a hostile invader and tries to wipe it out. White blood cells (leucocytes) rush to the intestines as soon as cooked food enters the mouth.  This is called digestive leucocytosis. Until the research of Paul Kouchakoff back in the 1930's, this process was thought to be a normal reaction to the eating of food.  But Kouchakoff's research showed that when food is eaten raw, digestive leucocytosis does not occur. The number of white blood cells does not increase when raw food is eaten; however, processed or cooked foods trigger the white blood cells to mobilize.  Leucocytosis also does not occur if you eat something raw before you eat something cooked, so when any cooked food is to be eaten, always eat a salad first.

The problem with leucocytosis it that when the white blood cells rush to the intestines to deal with the cooked food the rest of the body is left undefended.  If this happens three times a day, everyday without end, it strains the immune system.  Raw foods leave the white blood cells free for other tasks.

A high raw diet is beneficial to health because the raw foods affect the body on a cellular level. They raise microelectric potential throughout the body. The cells have increased electrical potential because of their "aliveness". Metabolic functions are heightened. Congestion and swelling in tissues decreases. Cell respiration increases. Resistance to illness improves. Healing processes are speeded up. What more could we ask?

Amazon Subscribe and Save delivery. These are items that I cannot get easily locally....some of these I will be eliminating from future orders.  Total order: $162.42.  5 Lbs garbanzo beans as they are supposed to be easier to digest than other beans. Organic spirulina powder - I don't think I will need this. 3 bags of organic coffee - for the house...not for me. Mother Earth Dried Tomato Flakes. Simpliherbs Klamath Blue Green Algae - per Dr. Michael Gregor's recommendation. Don't think I will need this going forward. Lacuma Powder. Hemp Oil. Lemongrass Tea. Pure Coconut Water - will probably cancel this and just use water.



This weeks grocery haul from Walmart and Village Nutrition. Total  $96.16


Food prep for the day:
Apple juice for 2 - Used 6 apples
Orange Juice for 1 - Used 4 oranges
Veggie Cocktail for 2 - Used 6 stalks celery,  6 carrots, 1/2 orange bell pepper, 1 beet.
Salad for Travis - spring mix, tomato, cucumber, onion
Blended salad for me - spring mix, tomato, cucumber, 6 stalks celery, 4 mini tricolor peppers, juice of a lime, 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

Lunch: Apple juice; 1/2 avocado

Afternoon:  Orange juice; 1/4 mini watermelon

Dinner: Blended salad; veggie cocktail

After dinner I made the smoothie that made me sick and ate some sunflower seeds. I am not going to share the recipe. Suffice it to say it had raw chocolate in it.

I walked over 10,000 steps today!  And jumped on the rebounder for just a couple of minutes.

To health and happiness.



Monday, April 10, 2017

Detoxify the Body and Heal the Heart

I am enjoying still being on mostly liquids here at my mountaintop home.  It's been amazing, with a few ups and downs, but nevertheless, still juicy and sweet.  It's beautiful, and I am happy.   The best part is the beautiful people in my life. I took my grandson, Connor, on a birthday shopping trip last Saturday, and he said, "You know the best present is friends and family".  That sums it up, doesn't it?


Juice fasting can serve more than one purpose, You can start out juice fasting because you want to lose weight or detoxify, but fasting also brings emotional issues to the surface to be dealt with. There are lessons to learn and forgiveness to experience.  Healing must take place on different levels. It truly is amazing.  You may start out to heal your body and end up healing your heart.

I love to be around people that are working on themselves and trying to heal.  You want to hug them and take care of them and let them know they are safe with you and vice versa.  You can share with them and there is no judgement.

I am sharing on this blog as a way of connecting with you...with everybody.  That is what this life is all about.  We don't live in a vacuum, and as Connor says...friends and family are what is important.  I include all of you are are working on healing and living the simple natural life as friends and family, too.  It is a heart connection.

Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living:
Cooking deforms proteins. When proteins are heated some of the amino acids experience change in their molecular structure so that the digestive system  cannot process them. They are useless, and some are completely destroyed. If you grill a steak, you lose the amino acids cystine, lysine, and glutamine. Not only is it wasteful, but we have to eat more to get the amino acids we need.  That is risky because a high protein diet is linked to early aging and degenerative diseases.

Nearly 10% of proteins are changed when milk is pasteurized. 75% is lost in bottle sterilization.  There is also evidence that cooked proteins of milk, meat, and eggs bind with other minerals, thus making them unavailable for the body to use, also. Pasteurization of milk destroys the phosphatases enzymes which makes the calcium insoluble.  Hot milk causes constipation.

There is another danger in cooking fats because the fatty acids are changed.  They cannot be assimilated, become poisonous and carcinogenic. Frying is the most dangerous method of cooking. There are essential fatty acids in cold pressed oils, nuts, butter, avocados and milk, but when these foods are cooked the fatty acids are converted to trans fatty acids, and they are no longer usable by the body.  So if you are eating cooked fats you can still be deficient in fatty acid.

Natural oils, when used for frying, are changed into poisonous compounds that cause damaging structural changes to cell membranes, cell nuclei, and proteins. Some of these oxidizers are cancer inducing. Animals fed on heated oils in the laboratory developed diseases and died earlier than those fed only cold pressed oil with their diet.  See the research of Dr. Rakel Kurkela from the University of Helsinki.
Oops. Always be sure the pulp catcher is lined up correctly before juicing.

Saturday I was out shopping with Connor almost all day...so my food for the day was an orange juice I made before I left home, lemon grass tea I made at home, an Acai Berry Boost at Tropical Smoothie at lunch time and a Blimey Limey smoothie at Tropical Smoothie in the afternoon. When I got home I made a blended soup with greens and veggies.  The Blimey Limey smoothie did not sit well.  I woke up the next morning with a sick sweet taste in my mouth.  I don't think the smoothies at Tropical Smoothie are good to eat very often.  I noticed they were using syrups instead of fruit for many of their flavors.

Connor and me at Tropical Smoothie.
I had a chat with Dr. Fielder yesterday.  He affirmed that I can stay on juices or mostly liquids as long as I feel like it, so I am going to continue on for a few more days.  He also re-iterated that we need less food than we usually eat, and we need very little concentrated food.

Food prep for the day:
Green smoothie (spinach, 2 Tbsp chia seeds, 1/4 papaya, 1/8 pineapple, 2 bananas, 1 cup frozen cherries, 4 large strawberries, water)
Fruit Salad to take to church (1/4 papaya, 1/8 pineapple, 2 bananas, 4 strawberries, juice of an orange, 1/2 cup walnuts)

Lunch: Green smoothie
After church I ate a handful of almonds and a little raw sprouted granola.  I did not like the way I felt after eating the concentrated foods.

I got a 30 minute sunbath after church.

Dinner:  Blended soup (kale, tomato, four small tri-color bell peppers, 1 cucumber, 2 Tbsp sauerkraut, 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast, 6 stalks celery hearts, 2 tsp flax seed oil)
and a banana.

When you drink herbal drinks, try not to drink them too hot or too strong.

Making a green smoothie.

Blended green soup.
To health and happiness.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Peace

The word of the day is peace. It keeps showing up before me in the most beautiful ways.  Karl brought me a poster made by his daughter....the message was on my tea bag as I prepared my tea, and again a Facebook friend had put the symbol of peace, a dove with an olive branch, on her facebook profile page. No matter what is going on "out there", I want to keep my personal space peaceful.
That is the purpose of the food and the healthy lifestyle. It is my way of creating harmony with all around me.  There is no war against animals, or viruses, or bacteria, or so-called enemies.  It's all about working on myself in order to be able to love others.
This poster was created by Jessica Christy Jones from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Today is the 5th day of mostly liquids. Juices and smoothies, and warm herbal teas. Traditional Medicinal makes a tea called Everyday Detox that I like.

There were a few rough days, but not it is getting easier and easier.  Last night I nurtured myself with a bowl of soup that was amazing.  It was very easy, raw, and vegan. It's not cooked. The recipe is below.  For now I am still mostly liquids.

I am starting to exercise a little bit again.  Younger people can do more exercise than me, but I am 69 years old and I only found out about raw foods about ten years ago. Older bodies are not as efficient as younger bodies, but we can all do what we can. It is my way of making the world better.  I took a short walk and jumped on the rebounder for a few minutes.  I feel nurtured and nourished.  I am having uplifting thoughts.  What you eat definitely has an effect on how you think.

I am also dry brushing before my shower and sitting quietly for a few minutes. One of the principles for healing is to pray or meditate every day and expect to be healed.

I feel really good. I am hoping I can inspire you to try it, even it is only for a day or two.

I took this picture of K.C. (short for Kitty Cat) on my walk yesterday.  She is a ferrel cat that we adopted a couple of years ago.  
Lesson from The Quintessence of Natural Living:
Sir Robert McCarrison was a physician and nutritionist from Northern Ireland. He was a pioneer in nutrition research. In one of his experiments he fed monkey on their usual diet, but in cooked form. All the monkeys developed colitis and ulcers.

Dr. O. Stiner, investigator for the Swiss Board of Health in Berne, did the same experiment on guinea pigs. The animals developed anemia, scurvy, goiter, dental cavities, and degeneration of the salivary glands.  When pasteurized milk was added to the diet, they also developed arthritis.

Vitamins that we need are destroyed by cooking.  We can manufacture vitamin D, but mostly our vitamins come from our food.  Vitamins B and C are water soluble, and they are most vulnerable.  They are sensitive to heat, and they leach out of the food. When you boil cabbage, you destroy 75% of the vitamin C content.  Cook fresh peas for just 5 minutes, and you destroy up to 40% of the Vitamin B and up to 40% of the vitamin C.

Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble and remain relatively stable up to 212 degrees, but frying and baking can destroy up to 50% of their vitamins, too.

Vitamins are destroyed when we can and preserve food. Henry A. Schroeder, the American expert on trace elements and minerals, found that commercially frozen vegetables were lacking by as much as 47% in some of the important B vitamins. Canning destroys up to 77%.

Juicing citrus is fast and easy. 
Juicing veggie cocktails,
Food prep for the day:
Smoothies for 2: spinach, 2 Tbsp chia seeds, 4 big strawberries, 2 bananas, 1/4 pineapple, 1/4 papaya, 2 cups frozen wild blueberries, water

Blended Soup for dinner:
Blended Soup
1 yellow bell pepper
1 tomato
1 cucumber
1 lemon, juiced
2 Tbsp sauerkraut
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
6 stalks celery hearts
Some lettuce leaves to fill the blender
Pinch of salt (optional)
2 tsp flax oil
Blend all in the blender until smooth.  Add in the flax oil last and give a slow, gentle blend to mix the oil in with the soup.

In the morning I had Traditional Medicinal Ginger Aid tea.

Lunch: Smoothie
Travis' lunch: smoothie, strawberries, avocado, apple, peanut butter

Dinner: Blended Salad. I had almost the whole blender full

To health and happiness.


Friday, April 7, 2017

Raw Food vs Cooked Food

My plan for the next few days is to have mostly liquids.  John Rose says at the end of every video that when you take a solid food vacation, you are in for a treat!  The time of water fasting was a little rough, with some headaches and feeling sick, but it was worth it.  I lost about five pounds, and I am feeling stronger.

Being on all liquids is not really fasting, it is a juice feast.  I did a juice fast probably ten years ago for about three weeks...maybe a little longer...which healed a severe toothache, so I know the body can heal on juices.

I think when I am feasting on mostly liquids, I will be getting more nutrients than most people do.  I will be having greens and proteins and fibers.  I will be using my Vitamix to blend the food.

I will be using my dry brush on my body every day before I bathe, and jumping for a few minutes on my rebounder to get the circulation going.

It's been amazing, and this part should be really easy.  I plan to have fun with it, and try to see how good I can feel.  I don't feel like I am missing anything.

I hope you are inspired to try a solid food vacation.  If you do, you may find that it is not that hard and it feels good.  It is a good spring cleaning.
Beauty in the neighborhood.
Lessons from The Quintessence of Natural Living:
The raw food diet has been catching on in our present time.  Everyone knows that cooked foods will sustain life, but there is a question if they can regenerate and sustain health. Unless you are lucky enough to be born with exceptional genes, cooked food can bring about the progressive degeneration of cells and tissues. Cooking at high temperature changes the nature of the proteins, fat and fiber which may make them harmful.

Dr. Masanore Kuratsune was the head of the medical department of the University of Kynshu, Japan. He performed an experiment on himself and his wife. He used the diet fed to Japanese prisoners of war in World War II to compare the effects of raw and cooked foods.  During the war the prisoners were fed less than 900 calories a day of brown rice, vegetables and a little fruit.  This diet by no means is a sufficient diet, and we have all seen pictures of how prisoners look on a starvation diet like this.

Dr. Kuratsune and his wife followed a raw version of this diet broken up into three periods of the year.  They did 120 days in winter, 32 days in summer, and 81 days in spring.  During this time Mrs. Kuratsune was breast feeding a baby, and both she and her husband continued to do their usual work. Both remained in good health.

Then they both switched to eating the same diet in cooked form and all the symptoms of hunger and disease that devastated the prisoners of war showed up.  They had to abandon their experiment.  The inadequate diet that maintained their health as raw food did damage when it was eaten cooked.

A lovely papaya.

Food prep for the day:
Orange Juice, celery juice, apple juice, veggie cocktail.

I went to Walmart for a few items and spent $22.64.  Bought celery hearts, parsley, Traditional Medicinal tea called Everyday Detox, and some bottled water.

I had orange juice through the day.
Late in the day I had a papaya...a whole papaya...and about 10 almonds.

Don't worry about Travis. He is having some juices and finding what he needs. He and his friend, Karl,  went to lunch together yesterday.

To health and happiness.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Raw Food Diet and Health

It is still a resting day so read, watched raw food YouTube videos, and slept.  I did a little work that could not wait. I prepared some food and prepared six packages to ship. We have an eBay Store that we enjoy. called The Village Gypsy. I got the boxes ready and Travis took them to FedX and the Post Office.  Travis also went to Food Wise for carrots, beets, and 3 bags of oranges. Total cost $17.59.  I will be breaking my fast with orange juice.
A beautiful day in Hot Springs Village.
Most people want to fit it with the group, and I do, too, but have you noticed that the things about you that are different are the things that interest people.  That unique thing about you is what attracts attention. Sometimes it makes us want to repress the uniqueness because it does make us feel different.

Many times we try to hide our gifts because we are afraid of rejection and loss if we are perceived as being too different, but hiding does not make us happy. Almost without fail, when we first begin to express ourselves in an authentic way, it will upset somebody. This can hurt our feelings and make us want to go back into hiding.

If we can learn to stand out in our uniqueness with courage, and be honest about how we feel when we have our feelings hurt or feel left out, we can learn to express love from that place.  With these feelings we will know how to empathize with the sadness and tragedy we see in the world.  By respecting our own feelings, we can respect others.

The things that hurt our feelings are not an excuse to lash out, but rather an incentive to treat others the way we would prefer to be treated. The intention is to learn to feel hurt and be at peace with it.
Lucy and I took a little walk on this path at the POA office.

There have been doctors over the years that have become advocates for the raw food diet. Dr. Max Gerson was a famous medical doctor that developed a protocol for a diet based cancer therapy.  This program has had a great deal of success.  His daughter, Charlotte Gerson, carries on the work at a clinic in Mexico as they are no longer allowed to practice in the United States. He became interested in diet  because he had severe migraine headaches which the doctors could not help.  He experimented with an all fruit diet for many days, and his headaches went away. He concluded that his eating habits were the cause of his suffering. Dr. Gerson worked with many terminal cancer patients, and the raw food regime enabled many of them to survive. Raw foods destroys cancer cells by improving respiration at the cellular level.

In the Quintessence of Natural Living by Keki Sidhwa we learn of Dr. Kristine Nolfi who went on a raw food diet to cure her breast cancer.   Dr. Norman Walker went on a raw food diet to get rid of pains of neuritis.  He lived to be 116 years old.  Here is a link: Dr. Norman W. Walker

Dr. Weston Price concluded that a high level of health is almost impossible on any diet that is not rich in raw foods.  Francis Pottenger experimented on cats fed with raw milk, meat and bones vs cats fed on condensed milk and cooked meat. The cats on the raw diet were healthy, the cats on the cooked foods were not healthy and passed the damage on from generation to generation.  It shows us that we inherit damage from eating cooked food, and it takes four generations to completely turn it around.

Food prep for the day:
Celery juice for 1
Apple juice for 1
Veggie cocktail for 1
These juices were for Travis, and he went out for dinner with his buddies.

I broke my fast about 8:00 p.m. with orange juice.

Health and happiness to all.








Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Taking it Easy

I am just taking it easy right now, doing the work that I have to do and resting and reading quite a bit. I have been watching my favorite raw food YouTubers...Tannyraw, JonnyJuicer, Dan the Life Regenerator, John Rose, FullyRawKristina, and Dara Dubinet.  I also watched a full length feature called One Man One Cow One Planet.  This film is about the rebuilding of the soil after it has been destroyed by chemicals, and thus restoring the family farms in India so that they can support a family. I recommend it to everyone to watch.  My favorite take away quote from the film - "Instead of fighting the problem, live the solution."

When our immune systems breakdown, we are on track to develop degenerative diseases. The body produces lymphocytes that help us deal with viruses and bacteria that are present to help the body clean itself up.  Eating raw foods help build up lymphocytes that give us resistance to sickness. A raw food diet keeps us in tune and also gives us more awareness. The raw food diet has successfully "cured" many different serious conditions for thousands of years.  There are numerous references that we may talk about at another time.

I have been interested in studying about the peasantry.  At Dr. Fielders farm I read a book called The Restoration of the Peasantries by G. T. Wrench. Now I am reading Into Their Labours by John Berger.  My friend, Karl, has enjoyed reading both of these books, and he called...excited...yesterday to tell me I must read The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea. He says it is about the peasantry...so I bought it on my Kindle and will be reading it soon.

I am toying with the idea of trying to grow microgreens.  I have a windowseat in my dining room that could become an indoor garden.

Food Prep for the day:
Celery Juice for 1 (1 bunch of celery)
Apple Juice for 1 (3 apples)

Travis had the celery juice and the apple juice. After that he was on his own. While he was out golfing and finding food he took these pictures of the lovely place where we live.  Blessed.

Taken on Magellan Golf Course

Sunset on Lake Balboa


Health and happiness to all.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Improving our Health Naturally

I am still going through a healing crisis.  I talked to Dr. Fielder yesterday, and he reminded me that I need to fast. I am taking his advice and fasting for a few days.  I am not going to talk about the fast much on here as it is not wise to do so.  When I was staying at the Clohesy River Health Farm back in 2011,  I did a fast and blogged about it every day. A friend then began to send me messages that I was doing the wrong thing....it was quite dangerous...I was going to die.  It ended up that Dr. Fielder decided that I should end the fast since those thought were prevalent in my mind.  Then he reminded me that the Bible says that when you fast you tell no one.  He said you can talk about it when it is over, but not when you are in it. Fasting is as much mental and spiritual as it is physical.

We get our water from the hot springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  We have about 20 gallon bottles that we take into town and fill up with the hot water as we need to.  This water is high in mineral content so may not be ideal, but we feel like it our best option for pure water.

According to Dr. Mercola the best bottled water to buy is Nestle Pure Life or Gerber Pure Purified Water.  I believe part of this rating is based on the plastic being bpa free.  Here is an statement from the Nestle website:

It should be consumed before the "best by" date printed on the packaging. Bisphenol-A (BPA) is not present in our bottled water packaging smaller than three gallons. Our single-serve bottles (typically 1.5 liters and smaller) are made from PET plastic (marked with the "1" symbol), which is flexible and lightweight.

Travis moved my rebounder to the upper deck because it is many times more beneficial to exercise outside than inside. Rebounding is good for energizing the lymph, and the lymph in turn detoxes the body.  


What a beautiful view!


Imagine how much less it would cost to run the world if everyone was healthy.  It's mind-boggling.  In 2015, people in the United States alone spent $3.2 trillion on health care that did very little to actually make them healthy.  That's not even counting the suffering that accompanied that care.  We are all for emergency care to save lives, but there is a better way to heal from acute and chronic sicknesses that cost a tiny fraction of what is now being spent.  

We can improve our health in a short period of time simply by cutting out processed foods, sugar, alcohol, and fat.  Some of us have experienced those changes for ourselves, and these changes are measurable.  My own blood tests every year show normal ranges and no deficiencies.  I take no medications.

It seems like most people and even most doctors don't really understand what a healthy diet is....although, happily, more and more people are becoming aware. But there is still work to be done because people are still experiencing deficiencies and malnutrition.

According to Keki Sidwha, whose book The Quintessence of Natural Living inspires me daily, the human body has 50,000 to 100,000 different chemicals that go into its making and running. They interact with one another in complex ways that make our high technology look rudimentary. Nature has constructed the human body in such a way that the body is able to function efficiently only by synergistic cooperation of the nutrients derived from natural sources. A diet that deviates from what the body was genetically programmed to expect leads to progressive malnutrition. First there is deprivation at the cellular level, then gradual failure of the immune system, then sickness.

Food Prep for the Day:
Made celery juice for 2 - (2 bunches celery)
Made apple juice for 2 - (6 apples)
Made green smoothies for 2  - (herbs from the garden, 2 bananas, 1/4 papaya, 1/4 pineapple, 2 cups frozen wild blueberries, 2 scoops chia seeds, 2 strawberries, water)
Made Lemon Ginger Blast - (1/2 lemon, 5 apples, 1 head celery, 4 carrots, 1/2 bunch parsley, 1/2 bunch cilantro)
Made green salad for dinner - (1/2 head green leaf lettuce, 1 radish, 1/4 orange bell pepper, 1/2 small sweet onion, 1 small salad cucumber)

8:00 - celery juice

10:00 - apple juice

Lunch:  1/2 avocado; green smoothie

Dinner:  fasting

I will not make the lemon ginger blast again.  Neither Travis nor I really wanted it, so we will go back to our regular veggie cocktail which is usually carrots, beets, celery and apple.  Sometimes with cilantro or parsley added.

Much love to everyone and hope you have a lovely day.

To health and happiness.