You thought our “Know Your Food” series was dead??!!  (Or, if you’re a new reader, maybe you don’t know what “Know Your Food” is yet!) Well, we’ve been poking around in the archives this week and discovered THREE lost episodes. This is HUGE… It’s like one of those stories you hear every few years about some rare Hollywood film being discovered in a vault somewhere (laughing so hard)!

Over the next week or two, we’ll be posting these three episodes. Today’s episode is PUMPKIN, starring Wendi and her guest Ella (daughter of Melissa and Dave, who run the FoodUnderFoot blog we linked to recently). Once these missing episodes have been aired, this will usher in the dawn of a never-before seen level of production values for the Know Your Food series. The new stuff will totally win every major award available to YouTubers (continues laughing…).

Sure, we know pumpkins aren’t in season right now. However, this video is sweet because of our special guest. So, enjoy the Pumpkin episode:

 
Some additional information about pumpkins:

• Pumpkins are jam-packed with beta carotene, which helps protect against cancer, heart problems, and respiratory troubles. It’s got decent amounts of Vitamin C, E, B2, Iron, and Potassium as well!
   
• Pumpkin seeds are of course edible. However, we’re going to cover them in a separate “Know Your Food” episode.
   
• According to the Wikipedia, pumpkin extract may be good for diabetics. If you’re diabetic, it may be worth researching this further.
   
• Pure Jeevan’s free eBook, “Raw Food Recipes,” has an outstanding raw pumpkin pie recipe — tastes even better than traditional baked pumpkin pie, and is actually GOOD for you! (If you haven’t received our eBooks, sign up here and you’ll get them via email.)
   
• The All Raw Directory has around 10 different pumpkin recipes listed at the time of this blog entry. See www.AllRawDirectory.com and search for “Pumpkin” in the Recipes section.
   
• Where Jim grew up in the midwest, years before he became an English major, he once walked into a Wal Mart and informed the manager that the word “Punkin” on their sign was misspelled. They promptly asked him to leave.

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Wow, what a strange episode we have for you tonight! As you’ll see, it was a really bizarre day here at Pure Jeevan. Wendi’s out of town with her friends Rawbin and Jeff (owner of NaturalZing) helping NaturalZing with their booth at the Green Festival in Washington, DC. Too bad she’s away; she missed opening the mail today and seeing a highly unusual letter from the Department of Homeland Security! The topic? Well, it turns out Pure Jeevan is under governmental surveillance — and our chief surveillor, one “Larry Ferguson,” actually decided to introduce himself and make some comments about our Bananas episode (which we hadn’t even released yet!). Sounds highly unusual, I know. But, he was actually doing us a favor. Take a look (vid shows me reading part of his letter, then the banana episode proper):

As you heard, Larry writes: “I believe your viewers deserve to know, for example, that bananas have roughly 100 calories each, are high in Vitamin C, and fiber. You might also want to mention that they contain considerable levels of B6, which is good for metabolic functions as well as nervous and immune systems. B6 also helps you produce antibodies to fight diseases and plays a strong role in brain function and even maintaining hormonal balance. Your body can’t store B6, btw, so you need to get it every day. Of course, most people will know already about the great potassium levels in bananas. Potassium is great for controlling blood pressure and certainly reduces risks of heart problems. Bananas also contain manganese, which your viewers probably already know about after your persimmons video.”

While it’s always a bit discomforting knowing you’re being monitored by the government, I have to admit that Larry’s remarks are welcome here. (I scanned his entire letter, in case anyone’s interested, btw.) It saved me mucho time in having to research the nutritional aspects of the banana.

In any case, I wanted to again thank Shelley from the Pittsburgh Raw Food Meetup group for her highly enthusiastic guest appearance on this episode of Know Your Food! Shelley’s a talented raw food prep artiste; her collard wraps w/ tahini-lemon dipping sauce that day were spectacular.

Recipes!  Oh yes, almost forgot… Let me just pop over to the world-famous All Raw Directory (a free community-run resource brought to you by Pure Jeevan) and see if I can find some great raw application for the banana…  Hmmm, how about Chocolate Banana Almond Butter Pie by Raw Goddess?  Sounds pretty delicious to me! (And, wow, there’s a TON of raw food porn on her site!)

Finally, I find it fitting to dedicate this episode to Mr. Pete Vincent, a British raw foodist whose universal avatar features the banana. Hopefully any humor herein might give him a chuckle.

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Persimmons are a tad unusual, aren’t they? Perhaps they’re simply uncommon. After all, few major grocers carry them regularly (at least, not in our area). But, occasionally, they crop up as a specialty, limited-quantity offering. That’s more or less how we obtained some recently. Wendi *loves* them, so we quickly snatched up a few at our local co-op last week. Here’s the vid (below). Note the strange lack of a video still image. I’m not sure if it’s a YouTube glitch, or if I made some sort of error in rendering. But, the video works just fine, so you’ll just have to take a small leap of faith here and click that play btton! [UPDATE: Nevermind, YouTube fixed it.]

Thanks again to Bethany Hagensen and Janet McKee for being our special guests for this episode. Once again, the link to their documentary, “Bethany’s Story,” is www.BethanysStory.com.

The Internet has many interesting things to teach us about these delightful little bundles of joy (the persimmons – not Bethany and Janet, though they’re certainly bundles of joy as well). For example, persimmons are great sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and dietary fiber. They also contain decent amounts of Vitamin B6, Vitamin E, and Vitamin K. On the mineral side, they’re decent sources of potassium, and outstanding sources (30% of your RDA in just one!) of manganese, a mineral whose name is said to derive from the Greek word for magic. Indeed, manganese is clearly linked to heart health, bone health, and anti-oxidant production. It’s also suspected to aid in numerous other vital bodily processes.

Today’s feature recipe is Coconut Persimmon Flan by Vanessa Sherwood. There are a few other persimmon recipes available among the 650+ listed on the All Raw Directory, too!

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After so looooong, the much-awaited Episode 6 is here of “Know Your Food”! Aren’t you thrilled? Well, WE are. We’re fantastically excited to announce that we have SIX thrilling new eipsodes “in the can” (as we film buffs like to say). So, here’s the first of those six, in which your humble nutrition researchers reveal the hidden secrets of cacao, that delicious tropical ambrosia that opens your heart like nothing else. So, grab a raw chocolate snack of your choice and curl up in front of your favorite flat screen. Here’s the vid:

Whoa, what’d you think of the “Monkey Brains” scene?! Have we finally used EVERY SINGLE hoaky feature of the Windows Movie Maker software? (Don’t answer… Those were rhetorical questions.) In case you couldn’t read some of the nutritional information, here’s a summary of the key components of this delicious bounty from the Earth’s equatorial regions. Raw chocolate contains:

• Magnesium — and TONS of it. Great for your heart and body chemistry.
• Theobromine — and, depending on who you ask, some caffeine.
• Phenylethylamine (PEA) — aka the “love” chemical.
• Arginine — the “aphrodisiac” cmemical.
• Anandamide — the “euphoria” chemical.
• Tryptophan — the “relaxation” chemical.
• Dopamine — a neurotransmitter.
• Serotonin — the “chill-out” chemical.
• MAO Inhibitors — rejuvenation chemicals.
• Plus numerous antioxidants. Cacao’s overall percentage of antioxidants is unbelievably high!

Thanks so much to our friend Joe from the Pittsburgh Raw Foods Meetup group for bringing the fascinating cacao pods and for agreeing to participate in our video!

As you might expect, there are quite a few great cacao recipe links listed on the All Raw Directory. Here’s a link to a recipe for delicious-looking Cacao Madelines from Raw Epicurean!

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Welcome to Episode FIVE! Today we’re focusing on our old friend the WALNUT. Since it’s officially fall, walnuts are in season right now. What better time to enjoy one of nature’s tasty, heart-healthy treats?

Some health/nutrition summary info: Walnuts provide a great source of protein, fiber, B vitamins, Vitamin E, anti-oxidants to help prevent cancer, and Omega 3s to help your heart and vascular system. They also help lowering your cholesterol and blood pressure, and contain numerous beneficial amino acids and polyphenols (compounds linked with reduced risk of heart disease and cancer).

Some notes on FAT: As we point out in the video, raw walnuts are NOT unhealthy fats! Many people are confused about the role of nuts in their diets. A big part of this relates to whether or not they’re eating roasted nuts or raw nuts. Roasted nuts are denatured. Their protein structure is changed by the heating process, which also destroys most of the nut’s nutrients. Adding to this, most nuts are roasted in oil, adding unnecessary, unhealthy fat. So, stick with raw, unheated nuts and fats in your diet. Moderate quantities are best, however if you’re feeling like you really want/need to eat a lot of them, then perhaps your body is telling you something. Only you will know this for sure.

As always, we’ll provide a link to a raw foods recipe using the day’s focus food. So, here’s an ultra-gourmet recipe from Russell James — Purple Pasta with Walnut Pesto & Tenderstem Broccoli. Wow! You may also want to search the All Raw Directory for Walnut recipes. To date, we have 650+ delicious raw recipes listed!

Stay tuned for more thrilling “Know Your Food” episodes! (It’ll likely take us a few days to get to the next round of them, as “Walnuts” marked the end of our initial five episodes. But, we’re planning to start shooting more very soon.)

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Welcome to Episode 4 of Know Your Food. Wow, the PEAR episode is here at last! Aren’t you thrilled to know that? Of ALL of the fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, herbs, etc. in the knon world, we finally got to the wonderful pear. Well, it’s no surprise, when you think about it. After all, sweet, mild pears are usually among the first fruits fed to babies. So, chances are, you were fed them, too, as a toddler. So, let’s dig in, shall we?

Pears contain water-soluable fiber (pectin), Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Copper, Potassium, Posphorous, Folic Acid, Niacin, Iron, Magnesium, Sodium, Sulphur, Calcium, and more! They lower your blood pressure, releive inflammation, lower cholesterol via pectin, calm the stomach, cool the body, prevent cancer via anti-oxidants, boost your energy via the fructose/glucose, reduce inflammation, help your bones/calcium levels, aid in pregnancies via the folate, and much more. Pears are GREAT for you, so eat them regularly!

Now go eat some! Today’s recommended recipe is Tuscan Raw Pear and Zucchini Soup from Gone Raw. And, as always, be sure to search for “pear” in the Recipe section of the All Raw Directory, which as of this writing contains 658 delicious raw food recipes.

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Wow, is it really Episode 3 already? How time flies! Remember way back when we started this informative, informational, nutrition-oriented “Know Your Food” series? Seems like ages ago, doesn’t it? (Oh, wait… It WAS ages ago. It’s just taken us a while to get up to speed with this video stuff!) Anyway, here’s the video, followed by some camera/video editing news — oh, and of course some highly urgent celery information. (Okay, it isn’t really urgent at all; we just needed to add a dash of drama.) So, see what you think. You might even learn a thing or two about our stalky green friend.

Not TOO bad, right? We’re getting to our goal of roughly 3-minute episodes. Of course, this is still one of our first attempts, shot last Sunday. We thought it was decent enough to not entitle it “salvaged” as we did the previous installment.

Yesterday, we priced some video cameras and new editing software. Want to learn something crazy? If you want a camcorder with a mic input, you pretty much have to go with an HD format one (starting at roughly $800-$1,000 for the basic models). So, we’re going to wait until our move (hopefully soon!) to upgrade the camera. And, since we’ll be getting new laptops for our move as well, we decided to wait until then to update the editing software as well.

Okay, so let’s recap the celery info, shall we? CELERY is a famous low-cal veggie, quite commonly known for it’s odd property of requiring more calories to process than you get from it. However, we recently heard that it’s a draw; you don’t lose or gain calories from celery. Still, almost all dieters eat good amounts of it. This fiber-rich vegetable has Vitamins A, B6, C, and K, contains riboflavin, pantothenic acid, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, folate, and potassium. (Note: In the future, we’ll pick out some of the more prevalent nutrients in our focus food and discuss their health qualities.)

BTW, the pheremone we mentioned (in the part about Cassanova) is Andristenone (here’s a link to the wonderful wikipedia page on that one, for those interested in learning more).

Recipe time! Here’s a great, simple Celery Slaw and Dressing recipe by Dr. Doug Graham.

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Hi all-  Jim here from Pure Jeevan with our next eipsode of “Know Your Food.”  This is “Episode 2 (salvaged): Turnips.”  As far as that “salvaged” parenthetical… This relates to the story I told in our first episode — about how we’re planning to upgrade our video equipment, audio equipment, video editing software, and more.  I hope you like it, though. Still working on getting them down to 3-4 minutes. This one’s just over 5 minutes. If you’re wondering how Wendi became strong as Xena Warrior Princess, you’ll have to watch this vid!

So, to summarize:  Turnips are great for the root portion (the turnips, proper) or the greens.  (Here at Pure Jeevan, we like to use turnips as shells for rawvioli, or simply sliced and served with a little salt. The greens are great juiced!)  Turnips are starchy, but not as heavy as potatoes, and are a great Vitamin C source. They contain fiber, manganese, pantothenic acid, thiamine, potassium, folic acid, copper, niacin, B6, E, riboflavin, and more.  The greens of course have calcium, and are a particularly great source of folate (esp. important for pregnant women) and many of the vitamins and minerals listed previously, along with Vitamin A.

We hope you enjoyed Episode 2 (salvaged).  Want to know how to make that Rawvioli?  No problem — the recipe is right here on our blog!  ALSO… Don’t forget that it’s always a great idea to check our the All Raw Directory for recipe ideas. As of right now, there are 658 raw recipe ideas listed!!!

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Okay, we promise that, once the “Know Your Food” series normalizes (hopefully by next week), we’ll be posting daily 3- to 4-minute segments, not these gargantuan bandwidth- and free-time-hogs! But, it’s a decent 8 minutes of solid entertainment (kind of/sort of). So, hope you enjoy. We call this “Episode 1 (sort of).” You’ll see why. Includes a few bonus minutes of discussion on goals & synchronicity.

As you saw, we didn’t air the entire APPLE show. So, a few notes are in order:

First, Wendi and I both feel strongly that ORGANIC apples are best. We know they’re expensive, and don’t want you to feel bad if you can’t find or afford them. But, it’s simply true that apples practically dominate the list of produce items carrying the most chemical pesticides. Assuming that, like us, you’d rather eliminate or at least minimize your ingestion of such chemicals, you may want to think about eating conventional apples. (The **worst** 10 “pesticide load” items are: 1. peaches, 2. APPLES, 3. sweet bell peppers, 4. celery, 5. nectarines, 6. strawberries, 7. cherries, 8. lettuce, 9. grapes, and 10. pears. Here’s a list of the top 43!).

On a related note… Though the pesticide is systemic to the entire apple, the most concentrated area for pesticides would naturally be the skin. So, if you’re eating conventional apples, definitely peel it (or at least wash it well). However, keep in mind that, when you peel it, you’re also missing out on significant fiber and antioxidants! So, again, it’s best to stick with organic so you don’t miss out. And besides, organic apples taste better! 

To sum:  Apples have around 50 calories each. They’re a great cancer prevention fruit. They’re high in fiber, good for regularity, great for your bones, lower your cholesterol, are suspected to help prevent Alzheimers, help manage diabetes, are heart-healthy, and even accelerate weight loss. And they’re delicious. But, don’t eat the seeds! (They contain cyanogenic glycosides – aka cyanide, nasty stuff.)

Some trivia:  Did you know that there are around 7,500 varieties growing all around the earth? Did you know the science of apples is called pomology?  Do you know why New York is called The Big APPLE?  (Well, no one knows for sure, but the most widely accepted story has to do with horse racing. Back in the day, it was a phrase commonly used by southern stable boys when they were heading off to New York, where all of the “big money” was in horse racing. To a horse, the “big apple” would’ve represented the ultimate prize. So, it’s easy to project back and hear those barn hands stoking themselves and their horses with unbridled enthusiasm: “Hear that, Firebolt?  We’re heading off to the Big Apple soon!”)

Now, go eat some!  Finally, we want this series to be useful in addition to the nutrition information provided. Daily (hopefully), we’d like to link to a raw food recipe involving the food du jour.  So, for apples, here’s a link to a raw apple pie recipe from livingmom.net!

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Jim here again… So, instead of Episode 1 of “Know Your Food,” we present Episode 0.5, which documents the high drama of launching a video blog. Quite intense, my friends… Recall yesterday’s installement — when we captured the initial moment of inspiration in our library? Well, today’s installment is a “confession cam” one, just like you see on every reality TV show ever produced.

The question is: Will we EVER actually launch our nutritional web show? Stay tuned…

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Jim here… Thought we’d share some hidden camera footage from the Pure Jeevan household. Didn’t you know?  … the Pure Jeevan household is under continual video surveillance!  We have an enormous bank of these cameras, all feeding live streams to our costly, off-site high-tek storage facilities, monitoring every room in the house — all to capture moments of inspiration such as this one.  Why carry pen and paper all the time when you can simply install hundreds of “inspiration-cams” and pay techies to maintain a gargantuan bank of petabyte hard drives?  So, in this clip, the actual origin of an idea is captured. (We totally weren’t just acting, ok?) So, having scoured said bank of petabyte hard drives, we isolated the following clip –thought you’d enjoy it as a preview of what’s ahead tomorrow. 

Episode 1 to be posted sometime in the next 24 hours!

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