Vitamin D to the rescue!

This kinda news just keeps popping up, again and again.

Amplify’d from articles.mercola.com

Why this Vitamin is Better than ANY Vaccine and Improves Your Immune System by 3-5 Times

Dr. Joe Prendergast explains why vitamin D is more powerful than any vaccine you could take.  German researchers have found that Vitamin D increases your immune system a factor of 3 to 5. Vitamin D dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides.  Ultraviolet radiation exposure, which stimulates the production of vitamin D in your body, has been shown to reduce the incidence of viral respiratory infections. Read more at articles.mercola.com

 

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Good Ideas

They should know ... they've already lived it.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

Top 10 Lessons for Living from the Wisest Americans

In contemporary society, we don't often ask our elders for advice. We're much more likely to talk to professionals, read books by pop psychologists or motivational speakers, or troll the internet for solutions to our problems. In general (and for the first time in human history), we no longer look to our society's oldest members as a key source of wisdom for how to live happier, healthier, and more fulfilling lives.

Choose a career for the intrinsic rewards, not the financial ones

Act now like you will need your body for a hundred years:

Say "Yes" to opportunities:

Choose a mate with extreme care:

Travel more:

Say it now:

Time is of the essence:

Happiness is a choice, not a condition:

Time spent worrying is time wasted:

Think small: Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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Some good reasons to go VEG!

Here are just a few arguments in the HUNGER category - more to come.

Amplify’d from www.vegsource.com

The Hunger Argument Number of people worldwide who will die as a result of malnutrition this year: 20 million Number of people who could be adequately fed using land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 100 million Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people: 20 Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80 Percentage of oats grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 95 Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90 How frequently a child dies as a result of malnutrition: every 2.3 seconds Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 40,000 Pounds of beef produced on an acre: 250 Percentage of U.S. farmland devoted to beef production: 56 Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce a pound of edible flesh from feedlot beef: 16 Read more at www.vegsource.com

 

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We CAN save the planet!

The stats keep piling up, and the deck is stacked against meat and cheese.

Amplify’d from www.miamiherald.com

Squash your carbon footprint: Go vegan

according to the EWG, if every American stopped eating meat and cheese for one day a week, it would be the same as if we collectively drove 91 billion fewer miles a year.

Imagine what a difference we could make for animals, our own health and the health of the planet if we stopped eating meat and cheese entirely - or at least for a couple of days a week.

The EWG found that in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, eating a pound of lamb is equivalent to driving about 39 miles. Every pound of beef represents a 27-mile trip, and eating just 1 pound of cheese is akin to driving more than 13 miles - a worrisome thought considering that the average American eats more than 31 pounds of cheese per year. Eating a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese means not only consuming 740 calories, 42 grams of fat and 155 milligrams of cholesterol, but also contributing to climate change and other serious environmental problems. Read more at www.miamiherald.com

 

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Go Veg - treat yourself good.

Worth a try.

Amplify’d from www.dailybulletin.com

Go vegan in 21 days

Consider it an experiment - one in which you are the researcher as well as the test subject.

And your body is the lab.

In a way, that's the premise of the online 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program presented by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Trade your standard diet for a vegan version - one that exchanges meat and dairy products for fruits, vegetables, beans and grains - then follow the committee's lead and see how you feel after three weeks.

The vegan introduction program - at www.21daykickstart.org - began New Year's Day but can be joined any time. Read more at www.dailybulletin.com

 

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Bin Laden

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

The Psychology of Revenge: Why We Should Stop Celebrating Osama Bin Laden's Death

Pamela Gerloff Writer, education futurist, specialist in transformational change

While the killing of Osama Bin Laden is being enthusiastically celebrated throughout America and some parts of the world, to say that such merriment is out of order will surely be considered heresy. Nonetheless, I'm saying it--because it needs to be said. For starters, let me say this: "Those of you who are celebrating--could you just pause for a moment and consider: What message are you sending the world?"

The death of Osama Bin Laden gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves: What kind of nation and what kind of species do we want to be? Do we want to become a species that honors life? Do we want to become a species that embodies peace? If that is what we want, then why not start now to examine our own hearts and actions, and begin to consciously evolve in that direction? We could start by not celebrating the killing of another. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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We like CHEAP

Heck, if it cost twice as much, it'd still be worth it.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

Kathy Freston

Eating Vegan on the Cheap

It doesn't seem right that meat should be so cheap and fresh vegetables, especially organic ones, relatively expensive. But once you look into it, the true cost of eating animal protein is higher than you can imagine. And being veganish in your approach to food is not only healthier by every measure, but it can actually be considerably cheaper as well. In fact, many staples of a vegan diet cost very little and can be found in any grocery store -- not just in specialty markets. Whole grains like quinoa or barley or brown rice, legumes like chickpeas or soybeans, and other beans like black-eyed peas and black beans are very inexpensive -- certainly cheaper than processed and packaged foods. Bought in bulk whole grains and beans can cost just pennies per meal.

On the health-care front, when you consider that meat and dairy foods clog our bodies with saturated fat, growth hormones, and antibiotics, things that have been conclusively linked to cancer, heart disease, and obesity,

it's certainly a lot less expensive -- and less painful -- to prevent debilitating diseases through our food choices than it is to treat them later Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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Not good!

We just need to be informed.

Amplify’d from pol.moveon.org

Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans' Immoral Budget

Destroy 700,000 jobs

Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio

deprive more than three million low-income people of health care

Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school

Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides

Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health

End the only federal family planning program

Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness Read more at pol.moveon.org

 

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Another reason for "no meat".

Such far reaching effects, just from what we eat.

Amplify’d from www.eacourier.com

Vegan lifestyle can fight world hunger

Since last December, skyrocketing demand for food and dwindling supplies have driven the global Food Price Index to new records. Supplies have suffered from catastrophic floods and droughts linked to global warming and from gradual depletion of groundwater aquifers. Demand has been fueled by unchecked population growth and by diversion of massive amounts of grains into biofuel and meat production.

Some of the causes of global hunger are beyond our personal control. But as the world’s highest meat consumers, we have a special obligation to free up some grains for the hungry by limiting our own consumption. With the broad availability of delicious and nutritious meat and dairy alternatives in every supermarket, there is no reason to delay. Entering “live vegan” in a search engine returns lots of good guidance. Read more at www.eacourier.com

 

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Voice your objection.

Apparently, we can show our dissatisfaction with the happenings in Wisconsin.

Amplify’d from www.alternet.org

How You Can Boycott the Kochs

Over the past few weeks, the billionaire Koch brothers and their front groups have steadily increased their involvement in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights. The Kochs' outsized wealth and influence are forces to be reckoned with; that's why we should all be grateful that a Koch backlash, including a boycott of Koch Industries' products, has started picking up steam.

Here's the colossal list of products being boycotted:

Angel Soft toilet paper

Brawny paper towels

Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups

Quilted Northern toilet paper

Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper

All Georgia-Pacific lumber and building products, including:

Mardi Gras napkins and towels Read more at www.alternet.org

 

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Gotta watch what we eat.

Maybe just eliminating meat might do it.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

Today's Food System: All Drugged Up Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

Just last week, the FDA confirmed that 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. go to animal agriculture. No joke, 80 percent! This is true insanity and scientists fear that this extreme overuse of antibiotics is putting our children, elderly and families at serious risk.

When antibiotics are used (as they have been since the 1940s), they kill off all targeted bacteria, except for those that by chance have a favorable mutation. These survivors go on to multiply, producing a drug resistant army of bacteria. It's evolution at its finest.

The bottom line? The more we use antibiotics, the more resistant strains develop. In many cases, these can infect humans, leading to prolonged illness or even death because the standard treatment no longer works. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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No Meat

Really, it's not that big of a change - easy to get used to.

Amplify’d from news.yahoo.com

Vegan Personal Chef, Timothy Moore Helps Reverse Diabetes

Dr. Timothy Moore, 320lb Naturopath Doctor and Certified Clinical Nutritionist, was at the end of his ropes and struggling not only with extreme obesity, but the early onset of diabetes taking insulin and continuing to eat whatever and however he chose. This all changed fifteen years ago in 1996, Dr. Moore had an epiphany that forever changed his life. Fast forward to 2011, Dr. Moore stands today a 5’11” and a trim 175lbs and is now diabetes free and educating others about how to reverse your diabetes, get heart disease under control, and adopt a healthy lifestyle through his vegan chef methods, and add years back to your life. Read more at news.yahoo.com

 

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Good Ideas.

It's one very important thing you can do for yourself.

Amplify’d from zenhabits.net

How To Take The First Steps To A Healthier Diet

1. Don’t over-commit. As with all habit change, the smaller you start out, the more likely you are to succeed. Just try Meatless Monday for a while and take it from there.

2. Do your research. When I went vegetarian for a month last year, I struggled with my energy levels. It was only after consulting a nutritionist friend that I realized I wasn’t getting enough iron or protein. After upping my intake of green leafy veg and chickpeas I was back on track. Healthy eating takes more effort than just cutting out animal products. I can’t stress how important it is to prepare for the change.

3. Seek out simple recipes. Wholesome, delicious food doesn’t need to have an arm-long list of ingredients or take forever to cook. Keep an eye out for simple healthy recipes. They will make your new way of eating even more pleasurable.

4. Use healthful convenience foods. While we’d all love to cook our own beans from scratch and buy our veggies fresh every day, it’s not possible for everyone. There is another way. Canned beans, tomatoes and lentils can be just as nutritious as beans cooked from scratch. Frozen veg like spinach, collard greens and broccoli are another great way to make sure you always have something healthy in the house.

5. Explore your local farmers markets. Getting in touch with where your food comes from is a brilliant way to not only save money, it can keep you inspired and excited about your new way of eating. It’s also a great way to learn about the seasons and how produce naturally varies during the year. Read more at zenhabits.net

 

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It ain't just hot air!

Some hold-outs still argue that there's no such thing, but it's getting hard to deny. If I think about it long enough, I might be able to come up with some link to the raw diet as being a salve.

Amplify’d from www.post-gazette.com

Letter to the hard-boiled: Scientists tell Congress that climate change is real

In the United States, this is the time when some uncomprehending wit will remark that he's going out into the driveway to shovel the big pile of global warming. That person has half a point -- no one can say that this or that storm is the result of global warming.

But global warming isn't about having little or no snow -- it's about weather convulsions as the planet as a whole warms up.

That the weather worldwide is screwed up can be seen from the evidence before our eyes. That the planet is heating up can be found in scientific data. The World Meteorological Organization, part of the United Nations, said 2010 tied 2005 and 1998 as the hottest year on record. Global temperatures in 2001 to 2010 were the highest recorded in a 10-year period. It was a year, the WMO noted, with a "high number of extreme weather events ..." Read more at www.post-gazette.com

 

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Ah, grasshopper

Amplify’d from www.google.com

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.   - Steven Wright Read more at www.google.com

 

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New experiment

Well, due to another round of "adjustments" that needed to be done on Denny's newly relined dentures, he was forced to stick to a non-chewy liquid diet for a few days and wanted a nice substitute to our usual romaine-spinach-avocado salad - we looked into the various raw recipe books we had on-hand to see if there was a soup recipe we had the ingredients for - no luck, but we took a few tips from here and there and created the following soup recipe that turned out to be pretty darn good, if we may toot our own horn a little.

Creamy Vegetable Soup

• ½ cup almonds
• 1 cup water
• 1 zucchini
• 1 large handful mini carrots
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes
• ½ cup fresh basil
• 1 red pepper
• 2 Tbsp. white miso
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce

Place ingredients into Vita-mix and blend until smooth and creamy; running the vita-mix for about 3 minutes will heat up the soup but keep it raw (below 105°F)

An added bonus is that if you can't eat all the soup at one sitting and are afraid that it might go bad from sitting in the fridge too long, you can just pour what's left onto some teflex sheets and dehydrate it to make some wonderful wraps that can be used for any number of creative goodies.

Invest in your future.

This is one of those "count your blessings" moments.

Most of the accounts we read online about what made people try the raw food lifestyle usually related stories of severe illnesses or obesity, followed by the often miraculous results that eating live foods brought to their lives.

In our case, something about eating raw foods sounded very interesting and appealed to us on many levels. We were fortunate to not have been suffering any health problems nor did we have any weight issues; we simply liked the idea of eating a raw vegan diet because it sounded so healthy.

We had a few raw food "cookbooks" that we'd looked over a bit but never felt comfortable enough with the concept to try any of the recipes - until we attended a weekend retreat conducted by Wendi Dee that opened our eyes to how beautiful, delicious and wonderful the whole experience could be. That was an important turning point in our lives.

Since we were pretty healthy before starting to eat this way, we haven't really noticed any huge change in our overall well being or energy levels (we already were mostly vegan and at least 50% raw); we did loose a little weight though - about 8-10 lbs. each - and Denny's cholesterol level went from 208 to 167 . However, since others have had such impressive "cures", we feel that we'll at least be able to avoid the fate that most people our age begin to experience: substantial weight gain and other health related problems.

In fact, in our view, living a raw lifestyle is probably a more important insurance investment in the future than most financial schemes; what good is a comfortable nest egg if you aren't healthy enough to easily get around and enjoy it.

Conundrum

Recently, something has come to my attention that simply does not compute: the consumption of alcohol by raw foodists; for example, famous raw food restaurants that brag about their wine selection. What’s up with that?

Aren’t these things contradictory? I assume that “health” is the primary motivation behind most raw foodists, right? There’s probably a lot more published research findings on alcohol’s adverse impact on health than there are on that of cooked food.

In addition, I imagine that the production of wine, or any alcoholic beverage, would involve heat at some point in the process – making it a cooked food.

Finally, there’s the spiritual aspect of this observation: consciousness altering substances of any kind would be contrary to anyone’s definition of spiritual advancement. Doesn’t the holistic essence of the raw food lifestyle encompass spirituality as well?

Geez - can we ever be safe?

This article points out a problem that I hadn't thought about before. Man, oh, man, guess we'll all just have to grow our own - but what about people like us with lousy soil ... we could compost till we're 120 years old and our soil still wouldn't get better. So, we better up our efforts at container gardening or get those raised beds going after putting it off for 20 years.

Raw Pizza

Here's one of our recent experiments: a great pizza crust recipe we got from Tamara on the VegPeople site ...

Raw Pizza Crust

3/4 cup golden flax seeds (ground fine)
2 cups almonds (ground fine)
2 cups sunflower seeds (ground fine)
2 tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. dried basil
2 cloves fresh garlic (chopped)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 tbs. honey
1/2 cup water or as needed

How to: Put the water, honey, salt, basil and olive oil in a food processor. Pulse everything till smooth. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl combine the flax, almonds, and sunflower seed powders. Pour the water mixture on top, using your hands form into a big mound. Add more water if necessary. Knead the dough to form a smooth round. Give it a taste to test for seasonings. If it needs more salt add some. Divide the mound into four equal sections. Form these into balls. Take the first ball and put it onto a teflex sheet. Shape it into a thin round. About 4 mm thick. Make the "lip" (crust) around the pizza a little thicker. Do the same thing for the other mounds. Place each tray of pizza into a dehydrator set to 105 F. for 10 hours. Then remove from teflex sheet and continue to dehydrate on the tray for 10 more hours. Leave pizzas in the dehydrator until ready to put the sauce and toppings on.

Then we added toppings:

- Wendi's super recipe for Marinara Sauce using raw and sundried tomatoes

- a "Nut Cheese" from a recipe in Allisa Cohens' book "Living on Live Food"

- some sliced sweet red peppers

- some alfalfa sprouts

Notice:

Humanity is at a critical crossroads as continued indulgence in old habits speeds up global warming. With a heart of love and compassion as well as a sense of urgency, Supreme Master Ching Hai shares Her great wisdom through a new leaflet that awakens people to the imperative need to adopt an alternative lifestyle that will help reverse the changing weather patterns. The “SOS – Be Veg! Go Green!” leaflet not only presents the hard facts, it more importantly lights the way to sustainable living in a balanced world. Master has sent a clear message: The vegetarian diet, sustainable energy and green technologies are choices that all must act upon now.

Flyers in various languages are available for download at:http://suprememasterchinghai.net/sos.htm

Spread the word ...

We just read an interesting article from the latest News magazine (News # 201) in which Master Ching Hai talks about the importance of spreading the word about the benefits of living a vegetarian lifestyle.

The Complete Protection of Virtue

Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai, Bangkok, Thailand July 24, 2008 (Originally in English)

Right now, many disasters are happening around the world, more frequently than ever before and even more deadly. This is because the force of the negative retribution of the killing karmic consequence is more ripe than before. So, people are suffering a lot around the world.

But all of our suffering is from the killing of eating meat. If we didn’t eat meat, no one would kill for us, to offer us meat. So the vegetarian diet will minimize all the disasters and even clear them all out. If people just turn their hearts around, they would be compassionate and loving like real human beings, because humans are inherently very compassionate and loving. It’s just they have been misled. They have not been informed since a long time and the bad habits or the negative information has already been ingrained into their way of life. They have been misled very, very badly.

So now we have to inform them and remind them again that it is not the way we should live our life. The way we should live our life is with love, compassion and peace with all beings, including animals. So we have to continue doing our job of informing people. Tell them to be vegetarian to minimize all these bad effects. Even if I sit here telling you that the cyclone will come or not come, what good does that do? If this cyclone doesn’t come, another cyclone will come, or some other disaster will come if we don’t change the way we live our life. If we don’t change to live according to the harmonious system of the Universe, then we are out of accord. And when we are out of this protective harmonious cycle of the Universe, we’re out of protection. And that’s why bad things happen.

If we are inside the Universal harmonious cycle, or the natural Law, we are protected 100%.So don’t be afraid; if you are virtuous, you are protected.

Raw Tomato Mango Salsa

Patty's Raw Tomato Mango Salsa - mentioned in the posting below - is as simple as can be ... which surprisingly turns out to be one of the most common characteristics of the raw food diet: a lot of the most delicious recipes are also some of the simplest with the fewest ingredients.

Since we're a little too sensitive to the taste of onion or garlic, we usually leave these ingredients out of most recipes we try from the un-cookbooks; likewise, Patty's Raw Tomato Mango Salsa recipe also avoids them (we sometimes use Kirklands "Organic No-salt Seasoning" which does contain some onion and garlic powder, along with 19 other spices - but not in the case of the salsa recipe).

This salsa recipe is simply:

- 1 cup chopped tomato
- 1 cup chopped mango
- sea salt to taste
- chopped basil to taste
- chopped cilantro to taste

That's it, and we use it with lots of different things, but it's a great compliment to the nut loaf we use in the sandwich.

Crazy "Sandwich"

One of the neatest aspects about the raw diet is creating new things while in the process of trying to duplicate old favorites. In this case, we were thinking of creating some type of raw sandwich and ended up with something that sorta resembles a sandwich but is really a unique concoction.

We started out adapting something different based on Matt Amsden's Rawvolution cookbook's recipe for Nut Loaf, but, instead of making a loaf, we thinly spread the mixture in the dehydrator to make 1/8" thick sheets. After these were almost completely dry, we cut them into 4x6" rectangles and stored them in the freezer for future use.

When building the "sandwich", we warm up one of these pieces in the dehydrator (105°F), and instead of using something heavy, like bread, we place it on a large piece of romaine; we then smear a layer of any number of spreads onto this loaf-sheet - either cashew cheeze or pesto or pierogi filling or whatever; we then layer some of Patty's Raw Tomato/Mango salsa on top; then we add a thick layer of alfalfa sprouts and finally top it off with another large romaine leaf.

Voila! A whachamacallit thingy that can be picked up and eaten like a sandwich - sans bread - and it's delicious and very filling.

Good Lab Results

Another nice side effect that has resulted from following a mostly (95% plus) raw-vegan diet for the past 4 months:

My annual physical examination came back with some encouraging blood work results:

Cholesterol - lowered by 18% (into a GOOD level)
LDL ("bad" cholesterol) - lowered by 23%
HDL ("good" cholesterol) - raised by 17%

None of this really called for any great sacrifice; the meals have been delicious and easy to prepare. (Thanks again to Wendi Dee for setting us on this path).

Surprising Source

We never really thought of Amazom.com when it came to food, but it turns out that they're a good source of various raw food items, for example:

- Nutiva Organic Hemp Powder, 3 pounds
- Madhava Pure Organic Raw Agave Nectar, 23 oz, 6-pack
- Vita Coconut Water, 11.2 oz, 12-pack
- Health Best Cashew Pieces, 14 oz, 4-pack
- Arrowhead Mills Organic Oat Groats, 28 oz, 5-pack

This isn't an ad for Amazon, just some tips on where to find stuff, cheap.

Save the Planet

Scientific data confirm that eating a plant-based diet is one of the greatest steps that can be taken to help alleviate the global climate change crisis. (not to mention the favor you'll be doing your body and soul)

Check out the SOS flyer for more information:

http://suprememastertelevision.com/sos/

Green Smoothie Idea

We keep hearing about folks not taking to "green smoothies" too readily. Being new to all of the raw food techniques, we are a little stumped on this one - our experience is that adding stuff to make the smoothie "green" hardly changes the taste at all.

Perhaps it's the other ingredients in the smoothie that make it more or less susceptable to having its taste altered. Here's one of our favorite smoothie concoctions:

- 2 oranges (peels removed)
- large handful of mini organic carrots
- 2 large kale leaves (or lots more)
- 5 or 6 large dates
- 1½ cups of frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, marionberries - costco)
- 2 cups icecubes
- 1 heaping tablespoon organic hemp powder

Blend this in the VitaMix until really smooth (sometimes a little added water helps things out)

Cacao Raw Chocolate Powder - savings

Raw chocolate from the co-op:
$33/ pound (David Wolfe's Sunfood Nutrition Raw Cacao Powder, Organic)*

Raw chocolate from VitaCost.com:
$12.23/pound (Navitas Naturals Cacao Power Raw Chocolate Powder, Organic)

* to be fair to the Co-op, this is the same price we found everywhere on the web for this brand

We've compared both and have found them to taste exactly the same.

Ouch!

Now this is what I call sharing!

Wendi's Idea

Well, a great new friend - Wendi Dee - suggested that we start posting information to our blog, to share with others; we never felt that we really had much worth sharing, but for what its worth, we'll give it a try.

We met Wendi when she conducted a Raw Food/Yoga retreat at Peaceful Valley Ashram in May, '08 ... what a wonderful, life changing experience. We had been somewhat interested in trying a raw food diet, but just felt too ignorant on the subject. Wendi's retreat made all the difference in the world: she introduced us, through many beautiful delicious presentations, to how easy it all could be. The result is that we've been eating a mostly raw diet ever since.

Aside from the health benefits, the meals have been extremely fun, exciting and surprising in how simple and tasty they have been.

We've been discovering new sources for supplies for the new recipes we've been trying out; the internet has turned out to be a great alternative to our local food co-op's offerings. We'll regularly post these sources so others can take advantage of the cost savings.

Now on Blogspot

Is there any difference in the posting now that I'm no longer hosting this blog on my ISP?

How about if a picture is added?

Birds of Prey

Thoughts ....

Vegetarianism seems to be seeing an upsurgence lately; possibly the result of recent research that indicates the multiple benefits of a plant-based diet (i.e, The China Study). Whether for religious, or health, or economic reasons, a vegetarian diet is beginning to establish itself as a superior approach to eating. Compassion toward the animal kingdom is also a valid impetus especially for the animal activists. The availability of vegetarian items in the common food store is making the switch to a plant-based diet easier than in the past.