Hey everyone!? I hope you're doing well. We started out the week with a great video from Joe, Tracey, and Heather. I thought I'd stay with the video blog format for a while, as I've been capturing some outstanding stuff here in Chicago. (We're here until Thursday.)? Well, a few of the vids are "okay," but the bulk of them are absolutely amazing, so be sure to check in every day for these great Chicago vids. (BTW, I'll dub this series, "The Chicago Raw Food Scene," although partially misleadingly so, as the videos are not always *about* Chicago, per se. Rather, we shot all of the videos *in* Chicago. So, pardon the slightly misleading banner graphic.)
Read more: Veritable "Wal Mart of Produce" Discovered in Chicago, Pineapples for $1.49!
Yesterday we talked about attending raw food meetups / potlucks. Today we'll focus on...
There are two main ways to host a raw foods meetup. The first would be through the meetup.com web site. If there is no raw foods meetup in your area, you're going to need to launch one. (See the Meetup web site for details.) If there is a group, you'll need to sign up and get to know the moderator, as you'll need to announce your meetup through that person.
Read more: Raw Meetups: What to Bring, How to Host Them (Part 2)
We're taking a very short break from our Nadi Balance series to announce that once again it's a special time of the year for diabetes awareness. As you may recall, we spent Wendi's 25th birthday last year doing public outreach on this very topic, as it's an issue close to our hearts. Pure Jeevan even maintains a special page, here, for diabetes information. So, if you know of anyone suffering from diabetes, and feel that they may be receptive to some really eye-opening information on the topic, please direct them to:
***** DISCLAIMER: As with all of our posts here at Pure Jeevan, and particularly those coming up over the next week and a half (which will all be tagged with a new term, "Nadi Balance"), please refer to the disclaimer that runs at the bottom of all Pure Jeevan Pages. Wendi and Jim are health researchers, educators, and extreme self-experimenters; not doctors. ******
Nadi Balance: Part III
To summarize yesterday's post, even though this sounds dramatic, the truth is: Wendi was dying. The first doctor essentially sent her home saying there was nothing wrong. The second doctor confirmed she had Lyme disease, but was too late for his method of healing, since the Lyme had already become chronic at that point. He could only offer understanding of her situation and a trial and error method of conventional medications, which rarely (if ever) heal Lyme patients. A supplement that many raw nutrition gurus recommend as essential to health for all people was actually putting Wendi's body, already struggling with Lyme bacteria, into an extreme state of distress. And finally, our own knowledge of health, diet, and healing (even though extensive and accumulated over 30 years) wasn't adequate for healing Wendi's body of Lyme, either.

Jim here... I was listening to a radio commercial the other day that promised to reveal the "secrets that credit card companies DON'T want you to know." You hear that kind of rather manipulative marketing all the time, right? It's a psychological thing, I suppose -- filling your mind with intrigue almost instantly. My credit is pretty decent, but I was thinking, "Wow, I wonder what those secrets are?!" We humans are curious creatures, aren't we?
But then I started to laugh to myself, imagining a raw foods radio spot adopting that technique. "Buy our special report and learn all of the Secrets that Raw Foodists do NOT Want YOU to Know!!!" And then I laughed some more. Know why? Because, when you think about it, there are absolutely, positively NO secrets raw foodists don't want you to know! Isn't that stunningly cool? In fact, the entire message of the movement is conveniently included right there in the words "raw foods." It couldn't be simpler -- the cure for what ails so much of the planet, neatly summed up in two words.
We all know what "greens" are in general. For example, no one questions whether lettuce, kale, spinach, or chard are greens. But on the other hand, all of those items *are* also clearly green in color. With that in mind, what would you make of the following two questions I (Jim) recently pondered -- tagged as "reader questions" so they're easily found in the future by other equally inquisitive people ;-) -- that seem bizarre, but are really quite interesting?
1. Are non-green greens (e.g., purple kale) still considered greens2. Are vegetables with green skins (e.g., cukes, zucchini) considered greens? (After all, they're green!)
This is my version of a beanless hummus. One of my close friends adores the taste of Israeli Hummus and she thinks this tastes just like it. So, try it for yourself and let me know! Jim will eat this if he doesn't see me using the zucchini (he doesn't like the idea of eating zucchini for some reason). :-P
Hummus
3 cups of zucchini (peeled and chopped)
As promised, here's our interview with Leigh Crizoe, Rhio's partner and co-host of the Hooked on Raw Internet radio program. We think you'll love this interview, as it shows another perspective on raw foods and also gets into an interesting detox program that you may not have heard about. After 9/11, the New York City residents and workers close to ground zero breathed in highly toxic particulate matter for a long span of time. Rhio and Leigh live just blocks from the site, and both experienced respiratory troubles as a result -- especially Leigh, whose sweat began to stain his white t-shirts black! (Yep, you read that right: You'd actually sweat black! This happened to many ground zero workers, in fact.)
Who had the detox answer for them ?... Would you believe L. Ron Hubbard and Tom Cruise ? Apparently, detoxification was an area of high interest to Hubbard, the founder of scientology, who developed an intense regimen of saunas, vitamin supplements, and oils, all specifically for the purpose of ridding the body of toxins. According to Leigh, Tom Cruise personally funded and co-founded the New York program (which has proven highly successful!) after 9/11. (The official site for that detox program is here.)? Super-interesting stuff -- be sure to watch the video.
Many of you know some of my story of healing. I suffered with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) since I was a young teenager. Over the years, I began putting on more and more weight until I was nearly morbidly obese. I learned a lot about PCOS and how there is always an accompanying issue with Insulin Resistance.
Countless overweight women search the Internet looking for help in dealing with PCOS, hoping to find a natural cure to the harsh medications often prescribed that tend to cause other health concerns in our bodies. One of the most often asked questions is from women who have a pretty good understanding of PCOS. They want to know if they need to be careful with fruit consumption if they have PCOS and are trying to lose weight.
Read more: Fruit Consumption with PCOS and Insulin Resistance
Wow, are you in for a treat! I came up with the most delicious soup recipe today! I wanted to make something that didn't require use of the food processor, blender, or dehydrator because I've gotten quite a few emails saying that it's too hard to be raw if you don't have the money for the appliances.
I disagree that it's too hard to be raw without the appliances. It's definitely easier to do it *with* the appliances, but it's not overly hard to do it without. So, from time-to-time I'll try to create recipes that don't use anything more than a knife and a chopping board to show you that it's not too difficult to eat raw. :-)
Jim's mother, JoAnn, LOVES pasta. I'm sure many of you can relate to that---pasta is a big part of the cooked diet and just about everyone loves it. When going raw, many individuals say they just can't do it because they miss pasta too much. Well, that's no longer a problem. There is a raw way to make pasta and you are going to love it if you haven't experienced it, yet!
As a gift for Mother's Day, we sent a pasta-making tool to JoAnn along with a pasta sauce recipe we created for her (see the Paradisio Pasta Pomodoro entry). To make it easier for her to learn how to create pasta, and to answer some of the emails we've been receiving about the device we used to make the pasta, we have put together a two-part video showing how to make delicious, beautiful raw pastas! You'll learn how to use two different pasta-making devices, as well as how to use a simple vegetable peeler to create delicious noodles!