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:




Jim here... Allow me to think out loud, philosophically, for a few moments, will you? I have a gut suspicion about something, but need to think it through a bit here. I'll start with a quote:

"There have also been a number of traditions around the world that describe a divine confusion of the one original language into several, albeit without any tower [referring to the well known story of the Tower of Babylon from the Christian Bible]. Aside from the Ancient Greek myth that Hermes confused the languages, causing Zeus to give his throne to Phoroneus, Frazer specifically mentions such accounts among the Wasania of Kenya, the Kacha Naga people of Assam, the inhabitants of Encounter Bay in Australia, the Maidu of California, the Tlingit of Alaska, and the K'iche' of Guatemala. ... The Estonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages" has also been compared."

In one daily newsletter that Wendi and I subscribe to, there was a discourse recently about being right -- but being right for the wrong reason. I've long been interested in that concept; it's fascinating, when you really think about it -- like getting credit on a test for an answer you guessed at, or knowing how to say something in another language but not knowing what it means. Along those lines, I'd like to share some personal opinion with you.

One of the common pro-raw arguments is that it's a calorie-restrictive diet and thus healthy because it limits our caloric intake (a regimen widely associated with extended lifespans in scientific literature).If you consider that a pound of greens or veggies has about 100 calories (generally speaking) and a pound of fruit has 300-400, imagine the incredible amounts of food you could ingest daily and still be considered calorie-restricted (as compared with the recommended number of calories for your build and lifestyle)!

So, we've been building up to something exciting all week long -- and here it is! As it turns out, Kevin Gianni is not only a "renegade health" expert, motivational speaker, and all-around great guy; he's also a singer/songwriter!? And he even has his own CD called "God Loves Guinea Pigs" (original songs and artwork by Kevin).

During the past few days, we shared some great interviews with Kevin. In addition to all of the material covered so far, both Jim and Wendi had asked Kevin some musical questions. So, we saved those parts of the interviews for today. Here are the bonus sections from those interviews, including the funny story about Kevin dropping his pants in public!

Jim here... Yesterday, we talked about exceptions -- those non-raw food items that raw foodists sometimes allow themselves to eat. I listed mine, and a number of people here and on Facebook noted some of their own. (Seems a lot of us enjoy olives, by the way!) It struck me today that a natural follow-up to a list of exceptions would be a list of non-exceptions -- basically a list of things I personally never ever ever ever consume.

This makes sense, right? I suppose all people generally have three basic lists: (1) those things we eat regularly, (2) those things we eat sometimes, and (3) those things we never eat. Hopefully, none of us keep these lists etched in stone, as diets are dynamic things that tend to evolve over time. A few of the items I'll list below may only apply to my current practices, while others (like refined sugar) I hope to permanently exclude. So, let's see:

I ordered a case of organic, fresh-picked, perfectly ripe oranges!! Yay! They were shipped in less than 24 hours of my order and they should arrive soon! I asked for some grapefruits in there, too, even though I haven't really liked the taste of them in the past. I'm thinking that fresh ones will taste a lot better--not to mention that I never tried an organic one before. If I still don't like them, Jim and KDcat will eat them. ;-)

If you want to check out the grove from where I ordered them, here's a link: http://www.flnaturalcitrus.com/. I emailed with Dave, who was very nice. It's fun to get to know the people you are getting your food from, isn't it? This past spring, summer, and fall we were members of a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. The produce was amazing and it was so fun to actually see pictures of the farm workers and hear about the daily ins and outs of life on the farm. If you've never heard about a CSA, maybe you'll want to see if you have one in your local area this coming spring.

A worker at our local Food Co Op was talking about making his own dehydrator. I mentioned that I saw a link to a site that told about how to create one and I'd share it with him. When I found the link, just now, I thought maybe some of you might be interested in checking it out, as well.

?The page isn't vegan-friendly (there is ground meat in the one picture), but if you've been wanting a dehydrator and don't want to spend the money on the more expensive ones...this might be a great option.

Many people have asked us about the Raw Spirit Festival (RSF): What is it? When is it? Where is it? Will we be going ? So, we wanted to take a moment to answer those questions.

Jim here... "Do I Need to Eat a Certain Percentage of Raw Foods to Call Myself a Raw Foodist " This seems to be a common question among some people interested in pursuing a raw and living foods lifestyle. I fielded such a question recently online, and thought I'd recap my own answer here, somewhat edited for enhanced clarity:

I know what raw foodism means. And, if you're here, you probably do to, or at least you're interested in it and know the basics. But, to the mainstream population, raw is absolutely unheard of, totally out of the box -- relatively speaking. So, let's begin by taking a look at who in the world has potentially heard of RAW. Let's start more broadly and then hone in.

Today we wanted to do something fun and a bit unusual. We raw foodies are a creative bunch, so we? thought, "Why not profile a handful of raw musicians !" Sounded like an interesting project, as we've all heard of at least a few raw foodist musicians out there. So, here are a dozen raw musicians to get you started -- that's right, FOURTEEN wonderful raw musicians!? (Since when does a dozen equal fourteen? Well, we figure that cooked foodies have their "baker's dozen," which everyone knows is thirteen.We figure: Why be outdone by the cooked food world, eh? So, we're redefining things a bit!)

Anyway, some of these bands/musicians are internationally famous; others are names you may not have heard before. We asked some of our friends to suggest raw musicians for today's post and we were surprised with the number of musicians mentioned! All those listed below are reportedly raw (or, in the case of whole bands, at least one or more of the members are raw foodists).Please note that this is by no means a complete list.

Here's an update from Wendi. I think this can be considered, with 99% confidence, the big announcement:

Of course, there's that 1% chance that something unexpected will happen. But, Portland feels right. It always has for us; we nearly moved there in the late 1990s. We had books on Portland back then, and I was buying their newspaper each week to hunt for jobs. It just never panned out, though. I suppose we were meant to live in Pittsburgh for a spell. It would be easy for me to list many reasons why Pittsburgh served a purpose for us. But, yeah, I think we're Portlanders at heart. So much about that city resonates with us. It'll be a homecoming, for sure! I want to reiterate a few things that I'd written in comments recently, slightly clarified in places.

We're loosley going to be picking up some of the ongoing themes we used to cover here on the blog. For the Take the Time Tuesday theme, we asked our readers to take the time to meet or learn about an individual, product, company, etc., that we think may be of interest to you. For today's entry, I'd like you to:

Take the time to meet...