Welcome to the very first Take the Time Tuesday entry! What's Take the Time Tuesday, you may ask? Well, it's a time to meet someone special. Each Tuesday we'll introduce you to an individual or business we think might be of interest to you. So, who's in the spotlight for this very first Take the Time Tuesday entry? Pure Jeevan, of course!
Take the Time to Meet...
Pure Jeevan!
Who better to introduce to you than ourselves, when we are just being born at this very moment on the Web? ;-)? As you have probably figured out, we're here to share information about eating a raw, life-filled vegan diet. But, who are we? Well, my name is Wendi Dee and I live with my husband, Jim, and daughter who likes to be called KDcat.I have been learning about alternative health and living a vegetarian lifestyle for over thirty years (I'm currently 41). My diet progressed from vegetarian to vegan (I was vegan off and on for many years). A few years ago, when a cooked vegan diet wasn't giving me the health I knew I should have been having, I continued searching for something better. I cut out wheat and sugar, wondering if my vegan diet would be better without those two ingredients. But, that didn't work, either. In the past I tried raw foods, but it was too much stress on my family so I stopped after only a few months.
I always knew I'd go back to a?raw diet, however, because it made so much sense. Then, about two years ago, I felt a major shift coming in my life. I had been going through a lot of changes and detoxing on a very deep level (seeing a therapist to finally deal with childhood issues) and it just felt like the right time to work on my body, as well. I felt, intuitively, that it was the right time to "go raw" again.
At first, I slowly started adding more and more raw foods to my diet. I didn't want to upset Jim and KDcat, who were relieved in the past when I stopped eating only raw foods. However, after some time it became obvious that I was, indeed, "going raw" again. This time was different, however. I was doing this only for myself. I felt it was a healthy choice for Jim and KDcat, as well, but I wasn't going to be making those decisions for them. I confessed that my plan was to go raw and that they were welcome to eat what I prepared each day, or they could cook something if they chose. ?I admit that I made a lot of dishes that I was sure they'd want to eat in the beginning. It helped bring them along a bit with me, without forcing them.
I think one of the biggest things that brought Jim on board with the raw food eating was the book "Raw Food, Real World" by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. On the cover of the book is a picture of Sarma and her now ex-husband, Matthew. Inside are images of the two of them along with the most beautiful gourmet raw food meals around. I read through the book (then borrowed from the library, later purchased), and made comments about the husband and wife working together. I then left it out on the table and guess what happened? Yep! Jim picked it up and started flipping through the pages. He even started reading some of those pages. Then one day, out of his mouth came, "This looks good. I'd eat this if you made it." :-D
That's the end of that story; it was easy going after that. We were all transitioning to the raw food lifestyle.Our daughter, who likes to be called KDcat, was easy to please. She was always drawn to fresher ingredients and eagerly ate whatever I made and then sometimes followed it up with cooked foods. She's a fantastic eater (always has been), so she just consumed whatever she wanted. Eventually, we became more and more raw in the home and only ate cooked foods when we'd go out. Then eating out became less and less frequent. I've been raw for almost two years, now (100% since December 2006), and Jim and KDcat are probably close to 90% for the past year. They will sometimes eat cooked foods when they are away from home, and sometimes KDcat will cook something up for herself is she's desiring cooked foods. She enjoys creating different dishes, both raw and cooked.
Well, with all that raw food eating, guess what happened? We all started to look better. The excess weight I'd been slowly gaining every year started to fade away. I was getting smaller and smaller every month. The same thing was happening with Jim and he eventually was able to stop taking his blood pressure medicine that he'd been on for a few years. With all of the positive changes so evident to everyone, we were starting to become the local spokespeople for the raw foods movement going on all around the world right now. People started asking for advice, eagerly trying to learn from us so that they could regain their health, as well. After some time, however, it became obvious that it would be easier to help others if we created our own presence on the Web. So, that's what we've done. We're here to share information about our journey to better health with anyone who wants to spend some time reading all that we're sharing. We've promised this site to many of you over the past year, and now here it is! We hope you like it.
What makes us different from everyone else out there talking about raw foods, though? Well, probably not a whole lot. ;-) However, each individual is unique in his/her style and approach to teaching and learning. So, maybe our style of teaching will feel right for your style of learning. Or, maybe we won't be a good match. The beauty of the raw foods movement is that almost everyone is generous and sharing information for free. So, if you don't like the way we've formatted things, our style of presenting information, or anything else, don't give up searching the Web for a fit that feels better for you. Look for future Take the Time Tuesday posts, as well, since we'll be introducing you to all kinds of people and businesses you may enjoy meeting.
One thing that's important to me in the information that we share is that I work with individuals in a complete way--taking into account that we are more than just our bodies. We are body, mind, spirit, and emotions and I plan on keeping that in mind when I'm sharing my own path to health and vitality with you. Our newsletter will specifically focus on those areas (mind, body, spirit, emotions) and we'll try to work them into other aspects of our Web site and blog, as well. I'm pretty much an open book, so if you have questions just ask.
Jim is our Web guru and master fact checker. He's amazing with how well he can take my ideas and then bring them to life. Not only that, he creates fantastic images that tie everything together. Right now, as I'm writing up our first Take the Time Tuesday entry, he's creating some cool graphic to go along with it (since it will be a regular feature on the blog). I can't wait to see what it looks like!
Anyway, that's who Pure Jeevan is. We're here to help you in any way we can, so don't hesitate to speak up and ask for what it is that you need. If we can't help you, maybe we'll know someone else who can. Or, at least we will try to point you in a direction to find help for yourself. We hope you'll Take the Time to get to know us, and we'd love to get to know you, as well!
Lots of love to all of you,
Wendi
XOXOXO