Know Any Literary Animal Lovers?

Hi there PureJeevan readers! We wanted to let you know that Jim's new novel CHROO is available on Amazon. It's a crazy adventure involving a billionaire heiress, her Chihuahua BFF ("Chroo") and a host of human and animal characters. Find out more on Amazon! Here are some links:




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Over the weekend, we attended a fairy festival in Eugene, OR, called Faerieworlds . ?It was great fun -- loads and loads of interesting shops, festival-goers in costumes ranging in complexity from simple fairy ears to full-on ensembles, and some spectacular tribal bands on the main stage all day long.

What was unexpected, though, was seeing not just one (which, alone, would have been impressive), but *two* food carts dedicated to raw foods. ?The first was called Luminescent Foods:

The next one was Raw Love:

We sampled foods at both booths, of course (and loved each one!), and also had an opportunity to speak with the owner of Raw Love for 10 or 15 minutes. ?She has a regular raw food cart location in Eugene, Oregon. ?(BTW, the bikes shown above are rigged to blenders, so people could "bike-blend" their own smoothies, if they wished! ?Yes, Oregon is *highly* eco-conscious. It's wonderful here!)

There were actually an impressive number of other food vendors there advertising vegetarian, vegan, and organic options. Even the meat-centric carts seemed to have at least one veggie option. Of course, we noted with a smile (now that we're becoming "experienced" Northwesterners) that by far the most popular food cart was the organic coffee vendor -- lines 20-deep all day long! (Of course, it was fairly chilly for a June afternoon.)

In any case, we're very excited to see dedicated raw food carts cropping up at festivals around the country -- surely a testament to not only the popularity of raw foods, but to (hopefully) rising health consciousness in the country, even if healthy eaters are still a minority these days.

Have any of you come across vegan-friendly and/or raw foods booths at various shows?

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Speaking of raw foods restaurants, we made some useful tweaks to the All Raw Directory's Raw Food Restaurants section this weekend. While the ARD is meant as a worldwide directory, it's also true that, at the moment, the majority of the listings (especially in the raw restaurants section) are for US-based restaurants. As such, we decided to make it a bit easier to use.

To find a raw restaurant, just go to the link above and click on a state. You'll then be shown a city-by-city listing of raw restaurants in that state. ?(It's fairly easy to scan through them this way. Some states have no listings. Others, like CA, have a few dozen.) As always, if you know of a raw restaurant that should be listed, please take a moment to list it in there. The listings are free, and benefit everyone in the raw community! :-)

Original Comments

Below, we have included the original comments from this blog post. Additional comments may be made via Facebook, below.

On June 20, 2011, Kelly wrote:

Greetings--what a lovely surprise for you to delve deeper into the spirit of Oregon and find loving raw foods. I am from the Pacific Northwest but currently live in the Washington, DC area. But I remember a great joke I heard at a comedy show out there. This guy moved up from California and he said I've completely revered my appearance. When I lived in California I had tan skin and white teeth--now I have white skin and yellow teeth! Coffee is definitely de rigueur in the PNW. Glad you are enjoying your new home--I imagine there are plenty more adventures waiting for you. If you want to experiment with the local flavor I recommend stevia with coffee flavoring--it hits the spot in coconut smoothies for me.

On June 20, 2011, Jim wrote:

Kelly, I'm also a recent fan of stevia. For the past few months, I've been adding about 10 drops to my smoothies -- which sounds like a lot, but really doesn't do much in the larger smoothies I routinely blend up. Haven't tried the coffee-flavored, although I have the vanilla kind now -- and I usually still throw in some additional vanilla extract. I tried stevia in coffee, too, btw, but didn't like the effect much. (I prefer coffee black, made with organic, fair-traded, shade-grown, bird-friendly, locally-roasted beans, and brewed to perfection with a French press.) :-) -Jim

On June 24, 2011, Wendi wrote:

Hi Kelly!

Our comment system hasn't been working right. Jim replied to your comment, but I'm not sure if you received his reply. Here it is, pasted below, just in case you didn't get to see it:

Kelly, I m also a recent fan of stevia. For the past few months, I ve been adding about 10 drops to my smoothies ? which sounds like a lot, but really doesn t do much in the larger smoothies I routinely blend up. Haven t tried the coffee-flavored, although I have the vanilla kind now ? and I usually still throw in some additional vanilla extract. I tried stevia in coffee, too, btw, but didn t like the effect much. (I prefer coffee black, made with organic, fair-traded, shade-grown, bird-friendly, locally-roasted beans, and brewed to perfection with a French press.) -Jim