This is one of my all time favorite raw cookie recipes. Many people don't like raw chocolate but for me it seems to work as long as I do it in moderation.
So here goes the raw cookie recipe, chocolate chip style:
1. 2 cups cashews
2. 2 cups almond flour
3. 1/2 cup agave nectar
4. 4 table spoons coconut oil (melted if possible)
5. 1 teaspoon vanilla to taste
6. pinch of sea salt
7. 1/2 cup cacao nibs
I like to split this raw cookie recipe in half and do it in two stages because it's easier on my food processor. In any event, put all the ingredients and blend. Then form into flat cookies and dehydrate on 105 degrees for about 12-18 hours.
Enjoy.
Raw Cookie Recipe
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Chia Seed Pudding Recipe
This was a fun chia seed recipe that I put together that is sweet but not too sweet. It tastes amazing.
1. 1/2 cup chia seeds soaked in 3 cups water overnight.
2. 2 packets stevia powder
3. 1/4 cup agave nectar
4. Huge tablespoon raw cacao powder or raw carob powder if you prefer *
* You can always replace the chocolate flavor with fresh fruits if that suits you better.
You can read this article for the benefits of chia seeds.
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Raw Soup
This raw soup recipe is rather quick and easy. It's also perfect for the winter months. I kind of made this up on my own but also got ideas from books like Ani's Raw Food Kitchen and raw food real world. Essentially I made it up and man is it good. So here she goes:
1. Heat 2 cups water on the stove to 160 degrees.
Add to the blender these ingredients.
2. 1/4 cup spinach
3. 1/4 cub cilantro
4. 2 celery stalks
5. 1 clove garlic
6. 1 tomato
7. 1/4 cup olive oil
8. 1/4 cup basil
9. big chunk of fresh onion
Poor water in and blend until smooth.
After it's done, add cut up avocado chunks, carrot chunks and use a spiral slicer to make noodles.
Enjoy. :)
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Aajonus Vonderplanitz - The Raw Meat Diet
Personally I don't eat a diet that includes raw meat but I find it so interesting how these doctors in this video get so rattled and defensive.
We worship doctors in our culture. They are gods and they know it and act like it. It's just interesting to me how doctors somehow are the end all be all. Don't get me wrong, for critical care they are great. But their pride is tied in with their knowledge so questioning the latter hurts the former. Interesting video to see the reactions...
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Getting Raw With Rawdawg Rory Ebook
I don't know if many of you have followed Raw Dawg Rory on youtube but his videos are just amazing. I've been following him for quite some time. He's been a raw foodist for a few years now and really perfected his craft in not only making great foods but awesome videos as well. He's lost a ton of weight (over 90 pounds!) doing raw and living foods. His story really is not only a testament to the raw food lifestyle but also to the great paths that living this way can take you.
So you can imagine that when he created his ebook called "Getting Raw With Rawdawg Rory" I was pretty excited. I loved his videos and this ebook was something I was really excited about. When I first got it I was really surprised. I didn't realize just how much information he has put into this ebook. This ebook is almost 180 pages of awesome content and great recipes.
I highly recommend buying his ebook. The great thing about ebooks is that you can access them from anywhere so you can always take your recipes with you. The other great thing is that you get access to it instantly, no waiting.
He takes the first 50 pages just to get into the psychology behind raw foods and how to approach this type of lifestyle. This is great because a lot of books gloss over that part of the raw food approach. You have to know why you're eating this way right?
Then for breakfast Rory covers coffee, cereal, granola, fruit and how to make all kinds of great breakfast items.
He has a whole section on snacks, lunches, dinners and desserts. If you want to make really fancy things like tacos and burgers he's got that covered, and if you want to make simple things like crackers, chips, cookies and smoothies bam, you're covered there also. This book has everything. Oh yea I forgot to mention pies, cakes and juices. I made his chocolate banana smoothie and banana ice cream the other day, incredible.
Rory is a rising star in the raw food movement in my opinion not only because of his story with weight loss, or how great his food is, but because he's such a down to earth guy. People just love the guy.
So if you want to get be able to make awesome foods that don't need fancy equipment (like dehydrators etc) or exotic ingredients like hard to get super foods, then pick up his ebook now. I'm telling you it is well worth it. For the price you pay you're getting more than enough content and recipes than you'll know what to do with.
So anyway I just wanted to support my good friend Raw Dawg Rory with a review of his awesome ebook.
Go ahead and check out his work here: http://rawdawgrory.com/gettin-raw-with-rawdawg-rory-e-book/
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Can't we all just get along?
This week I had a great conversation with a person I regularly follow in the raw food movement. After our conversation, it revived an itch I've had for quite some time regarding the raw food movement. I've been thinking about this for quite some time now and after our talk I finally decided that it's time I wrote some of this down.
I've been doing raw and living food for about 7 years now. I've been doing it intensely and learning as much as I can from as many different sources as I can. I'm a voracious reader and love to study, read and listen to audio and video lectures as well as attend lectures.
I love this lifestyle and at the same time I realize there are many different points of view as to what is healthy. If you've been into this way of eating for a long time you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are people who love David Wolfe, and there are people who cannot stand him. There are people who believe that eating high amounts of sugar is dangerous like many raw food "gurus" like Brian Clement and more, as well as people who lean more towards eating more fruit and low fat like Dr. Doug Graham.
Personally I have not read Doug Graham's book yet but it's on my list. I do not pretend to be an expert in the work that is put out from each of these people. My point here is just that these "gurus" have differing opinions as to what is healthy and what is not to some degree.
The problem in my opinion is twofold. The problem is the state of the person who comes into raw food as well as how they come in the door. The person, who is generally healthy and gets introduced to raw foods by somebody like Doug Graham, is going to have a radically different view of "health" than somebody who has stage 4 cancer and gets introduced to raw foods by somebody like Brian Clement or Dr. Cousins.
Think about it, there are so many factors to what is healthy. Where a person lives (Costa Rica vs. Alaska), their metabolism, age, previous eating habits and relationships with food, their current level of inner cleanliness and the list goes on. It's not as easy as saying, "Just follow 80/10/10
" or "You must get rid of all sugar from your diet immediately!" We need to take a lot of things into consideration before making these platitudes.
" or "You must get rid of all sugar from your diet immediately!" We need to take a lot of things into consideration before making these platitudes.
The real point is that with the advent of social media websites and networks, there is a lot of bashing and hate going on. To be honest it's just a bummer. People who come in from the outside don't care about whether or not David Wolfe is right or Doug Graham is right.
This whole process is a journey, why don't we just let each other figure it out ourselves without being so dogmatic? If I don't eat any sugar (I do) and I think that is the best way, what do I really care if you eat tons of hybridized fruit? Let's give people some grace here. We're all trying our best to just get healthier. It doesn't do me any good or my health any good if I have anger in my heart because X amount of people don't agree with me. All I care is that people put some intention back into their food program. If that means you cut out all sugar so be it. If that means you go from eating no sugar to eating tons of fruit, that's cool. At the end of the day we're only responsible for ourselves anyway. Let's approach this with love.
By putting intention into our eating program I just mean slowing down and asking some questions before you dive into that meal. For example asking simple questions like, "how does eating this food affect our environment?" or "what am I supporting by eating factory farmed meat" or "should I pay a little extra and support the organic farmer?" Simple questions that make us pause before we eat are huge.
To carry this whole idea a little further, I don't even like being called a "raw foodist" much. That's just a label anyway. Labels by nature are restrictive. Yes I eat raw and living foods but if you were to see me eating a veggie sandwich would you care? Why? I'm a person who tries to be healthy that's all. I don't care about percentages, labels or platitudes. We're all trying to do our best here.
Recently Dhru at Giveittomeraw.com had to kick people out of his website because of how they were interacting with people. Anthony at rawmodel.com really ruffled people's feathers because he was walking away from veganism. People freaked out about it. What if that's what he needs to do in order to be healthy? Personally I support him all the way because perhaps he's onto something that we should all be aware of. It's time to open our minds a little bit about what is "healthy" and not just say; "I eat 100% raw." 100% raw can mean so many things. Just because you eat 100% raw doesn't mean you're as healthy as you can be.
Let's just look at this from a whole new perspective and stop with the fanaticism and the labels and the percentages and take a holistic whole body approach to just being healthier and making more conscious decisions with our eating program. If that happens to include eating more fruit, cool, if it happens to be eating raw dairy products, that’s cool too.
Life is about way more than the food we eat.
Ahh...I feel better already...
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Raw Food Affiliate Program
We recently launched a raw food affiliate program for our new raw food store called ShopRawFoods.com. I've seen many blogs out there that have affiliate banners on their sites promoting various online raw food stores. This is a great thing because it benefits everybody.
If you really believe in a store or the vision of a company why not earn some extra money by putting one of their banners on your blog? The way an affiliate program works is that most of them are free to sign up.
If you would like to see what our affiliate program is all about, feel free to checkout our raw food affiliate program here >>
If you want to signup directly click here >>
Signing up is pretty easy, you just need to fill out a quick form. Then you can typically select from a number of text or graphic banners to put on your site. Don't worry you don't need to know any html or coding language. The affiliate program gives you this code and all you have to do is copy and paste it into your site or blog.
When somebody clicks on your new raw food affiliate banner that you just placed on your site and makes a purchase, then you receive a commission, just for the referral. How amazing is that?
What happens if the person who clicks on that new banner simply looks around and then doesn't buy? Well you wouldn't make any money off that. But most all affiliate programs have what's called a "cookie" length. That simply means that when the reader of your blog clicks on your banner and doesn't buy; they still have been "cookied." That means that even if that person goes directly to the merchants site X amount of days later (w/o going to your site and clicking on that banner first) and makes a purchase, you still get credit for that sale. Why you ask? Well the reason why is because you're being rewarded days later for "introducing" your blog reader to the merchant who sells products.
The trick is to look for raw food affiliate programs that have long cookie lengths. Typically most affiliate programs offer a 30 or 60 day cookie program. Ours has been set to 150 days. That's 5 months! You could refer somebody over to our site and they can wait almost 5 months to buy something and you still get credit for that order!
Another thing about raw food affiliate programs is that you have to accrue a certain amount of money in your affiliate account in order to get a check. Most of the time affiliate programs make you have to accrue at least $100 dollars before you can get a check. I've seen some as low as $75, we really want to reward our affiliates so we set ours currently to $50. All you have to do is earn $50 and you get paid!
Last but not least, you want to look for an affiliate program that has a high commission rate. Typically commission rates hover around 5%. I think even Amazon.com starts their affiliates off at around 4.5% Our commission rate right now is set to 8%. Our average order size is $120 so that means a commission check for each order just shy of $10.00! Imagine making an easy $10 for every order you refer and making some money for doing something you love like blogging about the raw food lifestyle?
I know that having an affiliate program on your raw food blog or website is not for everybody. If it is and you resonate with what we're doing, we'd love to have you on board.
If you'd like to see what we have to offer, find out more here! >>
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Raw Food Transition
Taking it slow...
There are many ideas of how to transition to a raw food diet. Many people like to transition in a fast way. They hear all the great results that you can get (and there are many) so they decide to jump right in and go 100% raw overnight or in a week. There really is no right or wrong way to transition. But in my opinion if you are 100% dedicated to doing this type of diet for any length of time, then there is no rush, and you should take it as slow as possible. If you're in a healing crisis like cancer you unfortunately, don't have this luxury.
Why is it better to transition slow rather than fast for most people?
Transitioning to a raw food diet is not easy for your mind or your body. The current diet that we had before going raw was probably in the least, about 20 years old. That means even if we got into raw foods at a young 20 years old, that's still fighting against 20 full years of our relationship with food. Assuming two people were in love, do you think a person who was in that relationship for 20 years could overnight start a brand new relationship without any emotional issues? It's just not possible. Many times the best thing for a person that is getting out of a long term relationship is to just be alone for a while. Why is that? Most likely because they need to see what life is like without that person. Food is no different. Everyday we have eaten all our lives, it has left its imprint on us whether we like it or not. Just ask anybody who has an eating disorder or a person who has food addictions. The longer a person has gone eating the traditional diet, the longer they should take to transition.
By taking it slow, you're also giving your body a chance to recalibrate itself when needed. We all need to find a new level of homeostasis every time we make changes. Don't get me wrong, it is possible to change overnight, people have done it. I'm just telling you what has worked for me. If you set a long term goal, years out for example, that you're one day going to be all the way raw then this is the best approach.
Because we've abused our bodies for many years we have low hydrochloric acid levels in our bodies. Because of this it's not easy to break down the roughage and fiber that comes in when we start introducing raw foods into our new diet. If we suddenly shock the body, we start feeling sudden symptoms of detox. The food is not being broken down and upsets our stomach etc. Also when people transition too fast they sometimes swing back and forth. They'll be 100% raw for a week and then eat no raw foods the next week and it becomes this pendulum swinging back and forth. We're moving towards the slow and steady approach.
As you are changing your current diet, your body will pull minerals out of your body to keep itself in balance and a sudden change can be too much of a shock for most people. Be kind to your body. You don't like waking up to an alarm clock do you? It's a shock to wakeup that way and not very natural. So give your body time to readjust itself over the long term. Thinking long term will help because you won't be focused on things like weight gain or weight loss or any of the other things that we think about for right now. You're in it to be healthy and you're in it for the long term and long term health.
It's all about small changes that you can get used to and being okay with whatever level or "rawness" that you achieve. I never thought to myself that I'd be 100% raw one day. I just new I wanted to start eating healthier and it just happened by accident really. I never tried to do it. That may sound strange. I never struggled. I never felt hungry all the time. I never felt detox and it was always fun. It took me 5 years to get to 100% raw. I was addicted to meat, sandwiches, pizza, burgers and my all time favorite, the chocolate chip cookie.
So how did I do it?
Well my first goal was to clean up my breakfast habits. I used to wake up starving. Now I wake up and can go till 4pm on just water and not even feel hungry. I'm telling you, your stomach changes and your need for food diminishes unbelievably. We eat because our body wants minerals. We can get them in half the amount of foods now that we eat raw. In any event, I read Fit for Life
At this point I thought I'd tackle lunch. I'd eat a salad with my turkey sandwich and chocolate chip muffin. But hey, my lunch meal was now 50% raw! Then I'd have a veggie sandwich with my muffin and salad for 6 months of more. Then for a good year I was raw at breakfast AND lunch, amazing. Then again at that point if that's all I ever did I was happy with that. No struggle, no addictions, no stress. It was easy as can be. Then I thought...."hmm if I can take care of dinner that's the whole show!" Then it took me a long long time to tackle the dinner issue and I'm telling you, it was the easiest way to transition ever.
What was my approach?
Fruit only for breakfast
Salads with lunch and dinner
A daily green juice and/or green smoothie if I had time.
Then all the cooked food I wanted, as long as I did the above things each day.
If that's all you did, you'd be eating healthier than just about any average American. Just imagine if all you did was have a green smoothie for breakfast for the next 20 years instead of bacon, eggs, hash browns and cereal. That one change alone saves your body 7,300 toxic meals. Isn't that amazing? If it takes you 5 years to transition to 100% raw", don't you think that is better than going on the seesaw diet constantly going back and forth struggling and fighting addictions? In the grand scheme of things taking 5 years to change 20 years of habits isn't so bad.
In order to do the whole show all the way you really have to have a mindset that this is what your eating program is going to be about. But it's really not important to be 100% raw or 90% and count percentages here and there. The point is just to keep adding and introducing healthier foods into your diet.
What do you do about addictions?
Having a sugar addiction is no fun, or any addiction for that matter. If you’re transitioning, just slowly lower the number and amounts of bad things you eat. For example, if you're craving 5 fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies, then tell yourself you can eat them only after you have a green juice before or perhaps a nice fresh salad, and try to eat only 4 instead of 5. The key is making yourself eat the salad first and then have the cookies. And be happy with that. No big deal. Pretty soon, and before you know it, you'll be eating a nice balanced healthy diet without even trying. Remember don't focus on avoiding foods, focus on adding the good stuff. More toward things, not away from things.
No struggling, no addiction and no effort. Make it easy and make it fun. Life is about way more than food anyway.
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The Triple Bypass Burger...Yum!
Recently I read about a hamburger resturaunt that is in Arizona offering the triple bypass burger and the quadrupal bypass burger amongst other interestingly named menu items. After reading a lot of cleansing and fasting books, this article got me thinking.
When I first read about this place I actually laughed because from a marketing perspective it's great and it looks like they do an amazing job and are actually really funny about it. The reason why I laughed is because they have girls in nurses outfits delivering the burgers. All of the customers get those aprins you get when you have a surgery in the hopsital. I think they even take you to your car when you're done in a wheel chair. Clever marketing and quite funny.
But on the flip side it's actually quite sad. I see in america today a love for food and a love for the taste of food above all else. Only when a person has a disease (and most of the time not even then!) or if they're trying lose weight does the idea of food as something other than a tasty addiction even become important.
I see on popular tv cooking shows the cooks making food and all they talk about is how their food will taste. It's almost quite amazing how our addictions are being supported and praised.
Does anybody think when they're making this "tasty food" (that they're completely addicted to) what kind of an impact this has on the earth? Do they care how many animals were slaughtered in the process? Do they care how many acres of land are ruined from the excrement of these animals? Do they think about how the prices of homes in entire middle class neighborhoods fall, when a slaughter house is nearby, and what affect that has on those people who lived there? Do they think about how much land is wasted growing food for these animals (they they end up killing) that could be used to help end starvation? Do they think about the people or immigrants that have been killed or maimed in the process of the making of these hamburgers or tasty meals? Do they think about what industries they're supporting by buying these foods? Read Fast Food Nation
It almost pains me to watch these cooking shows because of this. There is no thought whatsoever about anything other than how the food looks and how the food tastes.
The bible says "whatsoever a man sows that he also reaps." This is true in every area of life, not just health. But one cannot abuse and poisoin their body on a daily basis and then expect any level of health. It doesn't make any sense to assault your digestive tract continually and then complain every day that you have stomach aches and the pills your taking just don't work anymore.
We have removed ourselves from the personal responsibiblity of health and happiness and now expect to get it from watching endless hours of T.V. and taking pills. Health and happiness is something like a discipline that must be developed on a daily basis. T.V., pills and quick fixes aren't going to somehow get rid of the affects toxic living is having on us.
So the next time you're going to eat somewhere or eat something (or for that matter buy a product anywhere) ask yourself who is being harmed, who is benefiting, what industries are you supporting and how will this effect your health and life as well as how it will affect your family and the planet.
Hopefully we all can start making better decisions in every area of life...
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Rawfood Discount Store!
I'm going to keep this short as I don't want to be doing too much promotion. But for the past 6 months or so I've been working with a company and developing a brand new website called ShopRawFoods.com. As most of you know, I've been doing the raw food diet since 2003 and have learned so much and really felt like I wanted to move forward in the direction of my passion. As with many of us, we are passionate about raw food and what they can do for us, but just not sure how we want to (or if we want to) make a living with this lifestyle.
There are many ways to start getting into this as a career like teaching, lecturing, writing books, blogging, coaching and more. I thought for a long time how I wanted to move forward and I thought that I needed to start selling raw food and raw food products.
Why did I start this store?
With the economy the way it is and the raw food movement the way it is, I felt there was a niche I could carve out for this business. As we all know the economy isn't what it once was and even though the raw food movement has been around for many years, with the advent of the media it's still in its infant stages but growing fast. Many of the people who are into raw food seem to be older people (perhaps on a fixed income) looking to help aid their bodies in their older years, or younger people who haven't quite locked themselves into a high paying career type job yet. Many of us are strapped for cash. As I was beginning to notice this, I was also going to the local health food store and spending WAY too much money on a regular basis.
I thought how in the world can people afford to eat this way? There had to be a better way. That's where ShopRawFoods.com was born. If I could I would sell all my products for cost, because I want everybody to be able to have access to them. I'm serious. I really don't care as much about making money as trying to make sure that this food is more accessible and affordable to people. My mom for example is into raw food and is on a fixed income and she cannot afford many of the items she really wants to buy. She's a 3 time cancer survivor and it pains me to see her not able to afford certain items because they're just too expensive for her at this time.
Because this type of food is made with love and not run through machines it does cost a little more to make and sell. We've all got used to that. But I'm hoping that if we can get more and more people into this way of eating the demand will rise and the prices will continue to fall.
Like I said if I could I'd sell this food at cost. I just want people to try it for themselves and stick with it. So if you notice all the prices on my store they're low low low. I've been adding products on a daily basis and trying hard to make sure everything is functioning perfectly.
I do apologize for the lack of blog posts lately, I've been heavily in tune with this project and I will get back to my routine blog posts now that most of the hard work is behind me.
You can check out this site here: http://www.shoprawfoods.com. Please let me know your thoughts and what types of products you'd like to see us carry :)
Have you found your passion in the raw food movement yet? Do you see yourself doing it as a career? Where do you see this movement in 10 years?
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Moving Past The Green Smoothie
Recently I've been thinking about all of the sugar that I've been eating in my raw food diet. I think back to years ago when I would eat chocolate chip cookies by the dozens daily, muffins, ice cream, milk shakes and the list is endless. I'm sure you can relate. I think God that I'm not on that path anymore. I was headed for disaster in the name of diabetes
Every morning I would make a different green smoothie
Have you been doing any "experiments" on yourself lately?
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Putting Your Almond Milk Pulp To Work
I make nut and seed milks about once a week. I usually make almond milk but sometimes I use walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and recently I've been enjoying making Brazil nut milks. You can make milk really from any raw nut or seed. I used to use a soy milk maker machine I bought to do this but I found that the ground up nuts were not ground up as much as I'd like and they were not dry enough either. When I was done, I would have to take the pulp and strain it through a nut milk bag. I figured this was taking too long so I went back to making the milk with my trusty vita mix and nut milk bags. After I'm done with the milk I'll add it to the milk of about 5 or 6 coconuts. It's the perfect sweetness and consistency.
When I first stared and didn't have a dehydrator I would throw the pulp away. What a waste of time. Now after I'm done with the pulp I'll dry it out over night at about 115 degrees. When it's completely dry, I'll then take that pulp and put it back into the blender and blend it up to make a dry almond flour. Then I'll put that into some airtight container and put it into the freezer.
How do I use this almond or nut flour?
I'll usually add as spoonful to smoothies or flax crackers or hamburgers. The uses for your flour are endless. It's a great way to not throw away perfectly good raw food.
How do you use yours?
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Chocolate Covered Bananas
The other day I made some chocolate covered bananas just to have on hand as a snack. Usually I'm not the biggest fan of bananas. Most of them are high in sugar, very starchy and low in minerals. Even though it's a raw food, its profile matches the exact types of foods we should be moving away from, namely high sugar and low minerals. But be that as it may, they do contain potassium and really do a great job masking the flavor of greens in green smoothies.
In any event I went ahead and made these and they really are quite tasty. The recipe is simple:
For the chocolate sauce
Agave
Coconut oil
Cacao powder
Cacao butter (optional)
Dried coconut flakes (optional)
Simply cut the bananas in half and put some Popsicle sticks in them. Then mix together the above ingredients into a bowl until you get the right consistency and sweetness. Then use a knife and spread the bananas with your chocolate sauce. Put them into the freezer and you have your snack. Kids will love these and they're filling too. So even though they are hybridized they are still a fun tasty treat that you can snack on when you have sweet cravings.
Let me know how yours turn out!
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Raw Granola
I thought I would share this recipe for some raw granola. I just got back from Australia where some friends of mine gave me this recipe. She told me that it was great and she was addicted to it and it was the best ever. I figured it was good but it took me a while to make it. After I made it I was blown away. Then I understood what she was talking about. Not only did it taste incredible but it was super fast to throw together in a food processor. I mean how can you beat that? Some quick tasty snacks that are good for you. It doesn't get any better. So let's cut out all the talk. Here is the recipe from her but I modified it a bit and used different nuts. So here are the goods:
RAW GRANOLA
Handful of almonds (I used cashews).
Handful of walnuts (I used macadamia nuts).
1/2 handful of raisins.
Juice from half a lemon.
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or more.
Couple spoonfuls of raw honey.
Couple spoonfuls of raw oats.
Blend it all up in a food processor (coarsely).
Add water or almond milk and get your feed on.
I used almond milk I made mixed with coconut milk. My personal favorite. Also just as an aside You may want to eat this with a salad of some sort because nuts are acidic in the body and having some alkaline greens to balance this out would help alot. It's wise to always balance your acid/alkaline intake with each meal. For more information on the acid/alkaline balance checkout these books for starters. I really enjoyed both of them.
Secrets of an Alkaline Body: The New Science of Colloidal Biology
The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health
If you want you can add dates, coconut flakes, agave and even dehydrate them into cookies. If you make them, let me know what you think!
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Drinking Ultra Pure Water
Recently I've been reading The Hidden Messages In Water and have been thinking about water a little more lately. I've always been aware that we need to be drinking the highest quality water possible. But I also live in the real world. Coming soon I'm going to find a local spring and tap into getting fresh spring water myself. I'm also going to buy a Vitalizer Plus and perhaps a clay egg to store my water.
I doubt any of you are recklessly drinking your tap water. I wouldn't touch tap water with a 10 foot pole. I do know people that drink unfiltered tap water and I just cringe but I don't say anything unless they ask. I've even had them offer me tap water at their house and they hand it to me. I graciously accept and then don't even touch it. At that point I'd rather be dehydrated a little bit than drink that. I would buy a good drinking water filter system if you are dead set on drinking tap water. Personally I don't think even ionizing, distilling or any of that can be as good as drinking ultra pure water that comes directly from a spring in your area.
But there are many many things you can do to you water. I know people that put magnets on their water, they spin it ending on a right turn, put it under the moon light to charge it, they'll put it on a tachyon disc, vitalize it, put crystals in it, write messages on the side of the bottle, sing to it, put a blade of grass in it, put magets on the side of their water bottle, put patrick flannegans megahydrate drops in it, put Dr. Robert O. Young's PH drops into it, put Willard Water as the starter or Dr. Jubb's water as the starter and the list is goes on and on. I've even heard Patrick Timpone putting a 3 million year old piece of petrified bark into his water. It's really is amazing all the things you can do with water. Personally I will probably end up doing all that stuff. Some of it does sound a little strange I will admit. But once you read The Hidden Messages In Water you'll start to gain a little bit of an understanding as to what water is and what it can do for you.
It all starts with your water source. The most ideal situation is to find a spring and get fresh spring water yourself and then you can doctor it up and make your own "designer water". I like to take the slow and steady pace with all of these ideas. Personally I can't jump from drinking tap water to fresh spring water and doing all of that mentioned above. For me I like to tackle these things in stages and make slow, gradual and steady conscious changes over time. I like to stack the odds in my favor.
Right now I'm drinking sparklets water (I know it's less than the best choice) when I wake up in the morning first thing. I squeeze a big slice of lemon into it, put some celtic sea salt in, msm powder, and a sea mineral solution. I've been doing that steady for about 6 months and coming soon I'm going to buy a Vitalizer Plus and find a local spring and start using that technology.
If you feel comfortable jumping from A to Z overnight that is great. Just make sure it's sustainable and you're doing it for all the right reasons and have the correct motivation. I'm always looking for a new level of homeostasis. Once I get comfortable with what I'm doing, I rise to the next level. Do whatever works for you. But just start somewhere and do something with your water. In what ways are you currenly making your water better?
Some books to checkout for further reading:
The Hidden Messages in Water (Paperback)
Living Water: Viktor Schauberger and the Secrets of Natural Energy (Paperback)
The Water Wizard: The Extraordinary Properties of Natural Water (Paperback)
The Secret Life of Plants (Paperback)
Here is a link to an audio mp3 interview with Daniel Vitalis: Full Interview Here
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10 Reasons To NOT Watch The News
A while ago I read the book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
I'd like to share my top 10 list of reasons why to avoid watching the news on T.V. I do watch some T.V. I'm a big basketball fan but I really try to limit watching television in general. If I do watch T.V., I'd rather watch almost anything else, rather than the news. So, here is my top 10 list of reasons to avoid the network news at all costs.
10. Watching the news causes us to become less creative.
Watching the news takes us away from time we could spend actually tuning into our creative passions. The news is designed to be entertainment and as such, is designed to shock and polarize people. We end up wasting all our creative energy focusing unnecessary time on what they're feeding us as news.
9. Watching the news causes us to become more negative.
Try it sometime. Watch the local or national news every day or night for 30 days and see if it changes your ideas about human nature. In this experiment you should write down each news story and see how many are positive and how many are negative. Can you notice anything about the order in which the stories are told? Can you see any relation to the commercials, the order of the commercials or which news anchor tells which stories? After a full month of watching your local "programs" see if you're generally happier or more depressed about the state of the world. People who watch too much news end up doing just that, watching news instead of creating news.
8. By watching the news we get a distorted view of what really is the news.
Think about it. Is that which is on T.V. really the news? How many thousands of stories never get told? When was the last time you heard the real reason why oil prices went up? Or what is happening in South Africa? Why don't we hear about this? We won’t hear about that story because it either doesn't sell, or it would conflict politically with affiliated businesses and politics that are connected to that station's parent company.
7. Watching the news causes us to use more generalizations.
When we generalize it's easy to put everybody into one category. (Note: I do realize that in order to get this point across I need to generalize what happens to “all people” when “they” watch the news.) The way to grow is to make finer and finer distinctions. Something that is talked about in the Rich Dad Poor Dad series. For example the news might report a study on women, or homosexuals or any other group of people. Then it takes the results of that study and extrapolates them onto an entire group of people. And before we even have a chance to think or challenge those results what happens? Bam, just like that they're on to the local story of a lost dog. Then that story stays with us in our subconscious and we never get around to resolving it because we're too busy. Just like that, you’ve been programmed. We all have been programmed. By putting people into pre-programmed and stereotyped boxes, we can then label that box based on your prejudices and that's the easy way out. You don't have to think as much.
6. Watching the news causes you to become less conscious.
When watching T.V. our brain activity decreases and we go into a somewhat catatonic state. That's why we can watch the news for an entire segment and not even blink. It's actually scary. If you wanted to program the country how would you do it? You would program us through T.V. of course. And you wouldn’t even have to manipulate people to try to get them to be programmed. They'll willingly accept your medicine.
5. Watching the news causes us to identify "news", with personalities.
People watch the news because they like the delivery style, personality or even the looks of their favorite newscasters. We want to see what they're wearing and how they look. It's amazing how wrapped up we get with our newscasters and meteorologists. Think back to a prominent news story, maybe it was the newscast of when O.J. Simpson was acquitted or perhaps it was 911 we always remember the newscaster describing the story or the station where we watched it.
4. Watching the news effects us even when we're not watching it.
Whether we like it or not, the news can affect how we think of certain issues even when we're not in front of the television. Let's set an example. Let's say you watch a lot of news as an American. Somebody cuts you off on the freeway that fits a profile of a group of people that you do not like. What are the chances that the reasons you don't like that particular group of people is because of how they are portrayed on the news or television? Now you're acting in a programmed way. The news loves you.
3. Watching the news takes us away from our families.
Let's face it; there are only a finite amount of hours in the day. Why spend it watching the news or even some TV show rather than spending it with your family. At the end of your life will you remember time spent cultivating a strong family, or watching a story about how Joe shot Bob down at the corner market? We're better than that.
2. Watching the news takes away from becoming a better human being.
How much time have you spent building disciplines? Perhaps you want to read more, go to the gym or even go for a run. Maybe you want to learn some new skill or language. We can't become a better person by watching a story about why Paris Hilton got pulled over last night by the police. Time is more valuable than money. Money can be made, lost and made again. Once time is gone, it's gone forever. Let's not willingly give our most precious resource: time, to some company that just wants us to become less and less each day.
1. Watching the news is a waste of time and takes away from the impact we could be having in the world.
I alluded to time in #2. Perhaps you find this article interesting, or perhaps you don't agree with a word I am saying. But at least it got you thinking right? That’s more than I can say about watching the news. And not only that, but I couldn't have been able to get you to think about these things if I were watching the news right now could I? Imagine if you could add up all the hours spent over the course of your life watching just T.V. How many days, weeks or months do you think that adds up to? You'll never be able to get that back. It's gone forever. What could you have done with all that time? How could you have been a better person if you had used that time to spend with your family, reading a book or studying something interesting like raw food nutrition or anything else that interests you? There are so many things to accomplish in the world, let's spend our time more wisely and not give it away so freely to any news channel that asks.
Here is a another really good book on this subject:
How to Watch TV News
A fun video to end on a light note...
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Stacking The Odds In Your Favor
In this article I would like to talk about an approach to health that I have picked up over the years and it has really served me well. It is something that not many people know about and if they do, it is not discussed very much. As we know, the raw food path is a journey.
It's a journey because not only does it take time (for me it took about 5 years) to beat down your insatiable cravings for cooked and processed foods, but it's a journey that you take on intellectually as well. So in the journey of eating a raw food diet, we read all the books we can, we read all the websites, blogs we can. Basically we soak up as much information as we can.
As time goes on the transformation is immense. Our transformation is like waves crashing against a cliff. If you see the side of the cliff dropping into the ocean one day and come back the next day, the cliff looks no different. But if you come back in 5 years, the cliff is completely different. It is the same with us, the more information we take in each day and end up applying, over time we change immensely. We become somebody totally and radically different. The process is natural and it takes time. Not only all of that but it's fun too.
The information, ideas and practices that we end up learning and applying become like stepping stones stacked one on top of the other. I've heard it said that the best ideas are always up high.
You need to read the books to be able to stand on top of them to get at the best ideas. So as we apply these practices and lifestyle choices, what we are really doing is stacking the odds in our favor.
I've heard people say over the years that "oh this can of coke won't kill me" or "it's not a big deal it's just a slice of pizza." Notice the focus of words and intention here. It's "won't kill me" or "just a slice" it's never focused on the positive. For example, they are not saying "this can of coke is going to help you be the person you want to be" or "this slice of pizza is not going to help me reach my goals." I digress. Usually the focus is on the negative of the little amount of harm that cooked food will do to a person instead of asking how this food is going to benefit me to become the person I want to become.
What I'm talking about is small choices, and as they stack up, they become who we are. Stacking the odds in your favor is getting yourself and your health to a place where you can overcome any disease. Personally I like to focus more on where we're going verses what disease we need to overcome but if there is a disease that needs to be overcome, stacking the odds in your favor is critical.
Now what does stacking the odds in your favor mean and what does it not mean? It does not mean that any "one" thing will heal you of a disease. Let's say for example you have cancer. If you're interested in alternative cancer treatments you can checkout that post. I look at stacking the odds in your favor a bit like play the game tug-o-war. Imagine you're playing the game and each side has 10 people and there is a pool of water in the middle. Let's have this pool of water represent cancer. The one side is your health and immune system, the other side is toxicity, sugars and all the imbalances that play a role in cancer. So by changing your lifestyle, habits, your thinking, your diet, your exercise routines, your stress levels, your friends, your influences (what you allow in), your cravings and all the rest of it, you all of a sudden have added about 10 more players to your team. And not only that, but the push pull components of this game of tug-o-war is finite. So what you have added to the "health" side of your team has now been subtracted from the "toxicity" team.
If you make all of these changes and "add 10 more players to your team" then it gets really difficult to say one way or the other than any "one thing" caused you to overcome cancer. But more accurately, it allowed you to take a more holistic lifestyle approach and stacked all the odds in your favor.
Now what are some of the practices you can take to stack the odds in your favor on a daily basis? Perhaps you have cancer or perhaps some other disease or maybe you just don't want to end up with these diseases. What are some things you can do to stack the odds in your favor? I'll list a few of them below and then I'll ask you to share some things you have come up with that have helped in your journey.
Juicing
Making smoothies
Wearing a zapper
Adding lemon, sea salt, msm, sea minerals to a morning water
Getting lots of sleep
Doing yoga
Walking, running, biking, swimming or some form of cardio
Going to the gym
Eating more raw foods
Eating super foods
Meditating and praying
Taking 30 slow deep breaths per day
Drinking more water each day
That is just a list that I came up with that is in no way a complete list but these changes have sure worked in my life. How about you? What are some ways you have stacked the odds in your favor?
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Food Combining Diet
I originally got started on the raw food diet by reading books such as Fit for Life
Even though it was years ago that I read Fit For Life I still use some of the principles today. I believe that if people would only do what that book talks about, everybody would be much healthier and have less of a need for pharmaceutical medications.
There have been mountains of books and website articles, blog posts ad infinitum about how to properly food combine. Personally I don't remember or memorize all that info. All you need is a handful of basic principles about food combining. Mix in a little intention and intuitive thinking and you'll be able to fill in the gaps of what you don't remember. I'm going to make this short and sweet so that it's easier to remember.
Reasons to combine your food properly :
1. More energy
2. Weight Loss
3. Ability to absorb more nutrients
4. Better digestion
5. Less bloating and gas
General food combination principles :
1. Do not mix starches with proteins (turkey sandwiches, or salmon with potatoes. Have one at a time and the other one later)
2. Have a salad with every cooked meal
3. Don't eat starches and sugars in the same meal (bread, crackers with fruit)
4. Eat most fruits alone on an empty stomach. I like to eat fruit in the morning until about 12 noon
5. Skip desert after your meal
6. Drink water before or after your meal
7. Chew your food thoroughly and don't eat too fast
8. Eat only one kind of starch or protein during each meal
I know that there is a lot I left out, and that is by design. I wanted to make this simple and easy so that people could remember these ideas. People have written volumes of books about this subject. But what I'm trying to pass on is a couple of key ideas that you're actually able to remember. I could go more into the reasons for each principle but we're after the meat here. These principles have really helped me in the past as well as today.
Everybody's digestion is different depending on your ayurvedic body type of Vata, Pitta and Kapha. I have a pretty strong digestion and it's been getting better as time goes on so I am able to play around with different food combinations at different times of the day. If you have gas, get bloated or extremely tired right after a meal, there is a chance you at a combination of food that didn't agree with you. You may also want to look into increasing your HCL, (celery juice), good bacteria (probiotoc supplements), enzyme levels and eating hot spices to help with digestion. When I used to eat wild salmon, I would put cayenne pepper and lemon juice on top. I would eat it before 2pm and with a salad and enzymes and never had a problem.
If you're looking for good books about this subject checkout the ones mentioned above as well as these. They are really great reads.
The Complete Book of Food Combining: A New, Easy-to-Use Guide to the Most Successful Diet Ever
Food Combining and Digestion: Easy to Follow Techniques to Increase Stomach Power and Maximize Digestion
Food Combining: In a Nutshell
What types of food combinations have you found that have really affected your digestion?
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Australia Vacation
I just wanted to say that I'm going to be traveling to my home country of Australia with my wife to visit family, detach for a little while and recharge. I'm looking forward to figuring some things out with where I want to go and taking time to do some reading, relaxing and having some summertime fun, while it's winter here in the states.
I can't say that we have it bad here in California but still it's not summer. I love the sun, the warmth and the beach so this is going to be very relaxing.
We are going to be traveling up to Cairns and then back down to Sydney by car and perhaps fly to Melbourne too. It's a bit up in the air, which I like but I probably will be out of connection online as well. That will be nice actually as I do all my work online so it's going to be refreshing. I'll try to post a couple of posts up while I'm gone. :)
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I'll have a Burger, Fries & Coke please
"Can I take your order sir?"...."Sure I'd like a burger, fries and a coke please." Does this sound familiar to you? because it does to me. I can't tell you how many times I've rolled thru a drive thru at my local fast food restaurant and ordered this food, if you want to call it food. But it's really amazing to me how resilient the human body is to be honest. We can really wreck havoc on our entire internal organs for 50, 60 sometimes even 70 years before it starts breaking down. God really is amazing and our bodies truly are like machines. When you take good care of your body (temple) it makes perfect sense that it will serve you for much longer than the normal 60 to 70 years. But when you eat conventional denatured, cooked, chemicalized foods, diseases like cancer, and heart disease become normal. Thank God we are on an entirely different path.
There really is no way to 100% completely eliminate toxins from our entering our bodies. It's in the air, the plastics, mold in our houses the food etc. But what we're trying to do with raw foods is to lessen the toxic load to a more manageable burden.
The link to the study can be found here:
US Food and Drug Administration -
Total Diet StudyMarket Baskets 1991-3 through 2003-4
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~acrobat/TDS1byps.pdf
Here is what I've found in a conventional hamburger, fries and coke.
Hamburger: 38 pesticides
Fries: 23 pesticides
Coke: 8 pesticides
Total: 69 pesticides
Quarter-pound hamburger on bun, fast-food
1,1,1-trichloroethane 44
1,2,4-trimethylbenzene 44
benzene* 44
BHC, alpha 44
BHC, beta 44
bromodichloromethane 44
butylbenzene, n44
carbon tetrachloride 44
chlordane, cis44
chlorobenzene 44
chloroform 44
chlorpropham 44
chlorpyrifos 44
chlorpyrifos-methyl 44
cumene (isopropyl benzene) 44
DDE, p,p' 44
DDT, p,p' 44
diazinon 44
dichlorobenzene, p44
dieldrin 44
endosulfan I 44
endosulfan II 44
endosulfan sulfate 44
ethyl benzene 44
heptachlor epoxide 44
hexachlorobenzene 44
lindane 44
malathion 44
nonachlor, trans44
octachlor epoxide 44
pirimiphos-methyl 44
propylbenzene, n44
styrene 44
tetrachloroethylene 44
toluene 44
trichloroethylene 44
xylene, m- and/or p44
xylene, o44
Carbonated beverage, cola, low-calorie
benzene*
bromodichloromethane
chloroform
dichlorobenzene,
omethomyl propylbenzene,
n-styrene
toluene
trichloroethylene
French fries, frozen, commercial, heated
1,2,3,5-tetrachlorobenzene
2,3,5,6-tetrachloroaniline
2-chloroethyl linoleate
2-chloroethyl palmitate
benzene*
chlorpropham
chlorpyrifos-methyl
DDE, p,p'
DDT, p,p'
dicloran
dieldrin
diphenyl 2-ethylhexyl phosphate
endosulfan II
endosulfan sulfate
ethylenethiourea
heptachlor epoxide
iprodione
isopropyl(3-chloro-4-methoxyphenyl)carbamate
malathion
pentachloroaniline
pentachlorobenzene
pentachlorophenyl methyl sulfide
TDE, p,p'
For a great documentary on the production of food checkout The Future of Food.
Remember this is only pesticides it doesn't factor in herbicides, fungicides, and other chemicals. Eating this food is more like eating chemical soup! Thank you very much but I'll make better choices. So hopefully this list can serve as motivation the next time you may get tempted to eat fast food. It's just one more tool to keep in the back of your mind that will allow us to make better food choices. How often do you eat fast food?
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Eight Pitfalls When Starting A Raw Food Diet
Every wonder what are the common mistakes and pitfalls people make while transitioning to the raw food diet? So often we hear a lecture or read a book, get really excited and start a process of making radical changes to our diet. Many times we see people doing the yoyo effect. And they tend to do this in many areas of life. Here are some of the pitfalls I see people making when eating more raw and living foods.
Pitfall #1:People go 100% raw overnight:
This is not to say that all of the people who do go 100% raw overnight will not stick with it, it's just that such a radical change to your diet will create a mineral pull and imbalance as time goes on and you might get hit with unbelievable cravings out of the blue. There are many people who have successfully gone 100% raw overnight but for the average person, it's best to transition over a long period of time. The body is always looking for homeostasis or the ability to get comfortable with successive changes over time. It's like lifting weights in the gym. Perhaps you cannot bench press 200 pounds if you've never worked out before. But you could lift that much weight if you slowly build your strength over time and work up to it. In fact, given enough time, you'd be amazed with what you can accomplish. 
Pitfall #2: People confuse a raw cleansing diet with a raw sustainable diet:
There is a huge difference between these types of diets. A person who is in relatively good health can eat some honey, dates and so forth in moderation and have not problem with that. A person with cancer on the other hand has to take a more radical approach like cutting out all sugars, eating much more greens etc. You can read my article on alternative cancer treatment if you'd like. I've seen people go to huge extremes in this regard where they will cut out all sugars, dehydrated foods, fruits and such. But as time goes on, it's just not sustainable and they lack balance and then say that raw foods didn't work for them. Or I've seen this type of approach send somebody into a healing crisis that stirs up a lot of toxins in their body and they blame it on the food. The poisons and toxins were there before they ate the food. It wasn't the food, it was the stored toxins from food eating probably years ago that is now trying to exit the body. Because of the pain associated with all this, they lose desire to keep eating this way.
Pitfall #3: People confuse raw food with live food:
There are a few distinctions that should be made here.
Pitfall #4: People make transitional foods their staples:
Because we may have transitioned too quickly into a raw food diet, we didn't allow our bodies enough time to develop a new homeostasis. This means that with any shift in diet, there needs to be enough time for your body to do a mineral trade out and normalize at that current new state. So if we transition too quickly we're going to be looking for foods that are probably too heavy and fatty like nuts, avocados, olives, coconuts, almond butter, dates, bananas etc and we're going to be eating too much of these types of foods. So what do we do? Do we stop eating these foods? If we stop eating them won't we be too hungry? Well there really is no right answer. If you feel like you need these foods in order to balance yourself, just make sure to eat your green leafy salads. Greens are the great neutralizers. Even if you eat cooked food, have a salad with it.
Pitfall #5: People wait till their hungry before making food for the dayPart of the ancientness of food is lost in our culture today. Today we seem to only think about food when we actually get hungry. But the ancient cultures actually had to prepare days, weeks and even seasons in advance. If they killed an animal, they would freeze the meat in order to use during times of scarcity. Ancient cultures always seemed to "have something going" meaning they would constantly be drying, preparing, saving and foraging for food. They had to do this because they never knew when they'd eat again. In our culture as soon as we're hungry we can drive down to the local fast food restaurant and eat it in the car. We have become so far removed and disconnected from our food that we drive around in squares, open up and eat out of squares and live in squares. I always am working on making new food items in the kitchen. I never run out of food because I always have something dehydrating, freezing or cooling. When I do make the mistake of not making food in advance I pay for it. But then again, it's a good lesson to go without. :)
Pitfall #6: People use a raw food diet to stand out rather than to fit in
This can be a real problem for many people. We are always looking for ways to either fit in or not fit in. We like to think of ourselves as unique individuals. But it's important that we do our best to fit in with the crowd and not make a big deal about our new diet. This can be really difficult, especially when people might challenge us at the dinner table as to why we are only eating a salad for example. But I've always found the best approach is always the most humble and meek approach. If people really want to know more, they'll probably just see how it affects your life first, and if they see that it does, they'll ask you about it privately.
Pitfall #7: People don't educate themselves or join communities.
These are the two biggest factors that have helped me grow into this diet and lifestyle. The reason why you need to educate yourself is two fold. The first reason is for you. You need to know why you're choosing this lifestyle. You need motivation more than looking good or even feeling good. There needs to be a deep motivation if you want to do this for the long haul. The second reason you need to educate yourself is to be able to effectively communicate with people who are going to look to you for diet and nutritional help. The other pitfall that people don't realize is that this diet can be very lonely and difficult at times, especially if you don't know anybody else that believes the same as you do or who lives the same way. What helped me tremendously is joining www.thebestdayever.com and http://www.giveittomeraw.com. These websites changed the game for me.
Pitfall #8: People use the raw food diet for short term
Many times I've heard of people getting into the raw food diet in order to lose a few pounds or perhaps tone up or get fit. But the problem with doing this is that not only creates a yoyo effect which is never good for the body which is always trying to create homeostasis, but it also doesn't work for the long term. As mentioned previously, the motivation must be deeper than self. Why? Well because once you reach your goal of losing 10 pounds, then what? Perhaps your motivation could be, supporting ecologically sustainable companies, or improving the environment or perhaps it could be because you don't want to support the meat or dairy industry or slave labor. The point is that you should find something deeper than yourself and use that as the core motivation and everything else like losing weight is just a benefit.
What is your core motivation for eating raw food?
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