… or does anyone else see how the raw food movement has become like so many others? Product! Products! Products!

I got to thinking yesterday how the Raw Spirit Festival is going more the way of other “health” conferences, festivals, expos and stuff. Just people selling expensive packaged products… purportedly raw.

Now, my question is, when something is put in a package, bottle or jar and stated that it is raw, is it? I know we can take foods, dehydrate the heck out of them, grind them up and they’ll last a long time yet, are they still raw? Can we believe the people who are packaging/bottling things that they can turn out large quantities of product, dehydrated under 118 degrees and still make money? (For what many are charging, it’s not inconceivable yet, I’m wondering where they’re getting the needed dehydrators/facilities to do this?)

The other question is, what happened to the life force that was in the food? Yes, when we do a lot of processing/dehyrdrating we do kill off much of the life force yet, I’m wondering if people who get used to bottled/packaged/jarred foods will ever get to the real thing? Those of us who’ve started raw doing our own processing/dehydrating tend to keep MORE of the life force and tend to, eventually do little or no processing/dehydrating?

Will people become junk-food raw fooders by continuing to purchase bottled/canned packaged products?

Will the raw movement divide more between the “purists” who say that food should be taken from the market/farm, etc. to the kitchen and processed at home or, grown by one’s own hand and shared/exchanged co-opted?

For me, all this packaged stuff is not whole food. The water has been removed which also means, much of the nutritional value. Is it still raw? My understanding is that it is (when dehydrated under 118 degrees) but, it’s not whole. In order for food to be whole it has to have it’s water remaining and rehydrating is not the same thing.

What do you think?

Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there as I was speaking with a woman today who was figuring out what she needs to do to feed her family of 4 by growing it all herself (as well as trading/bartering, etc.).

That’s my ultimate outcome with our yard. Grow it all; share what we can’t use; trade with others who have what we can’t/wont grow. Even living in an apartment you can create a garden.

Just remember, always, play with your food and, keep it real!

Revvell

As I was preparing food today, I was considering why we’re so
reluctant to eliminate food that we know “intellectually” is bad for
us. For me, it’s because I don’t relate the food with the bad other
than sometimes, how I feel the next day or even on some occasions, in the next hour, but mostly I relate to how good it tastes and the good times I’ve enjoyed.

Consider this ~ IF you have a bad experience with something, do you
tend to return to it? For instance, if no matter how many times you
go to a restaurant and enjoy the food, if you have ONE bad
experience, say, food poisoning or seeing a cockroach running across the table, wouldn’t you be reluctant to go back there? I know I would and, in actuality have. I went to a restaurant in Santa Monica one evening and within 3 hours, I was in the restroom doing something very unladylike. That is one restaurant I will never go to again.

The problem I see here is, it takes excess fat a bit of time for it
to cling to our hips, bellies, thighs, etc. It takes YEARS very often for us
to develop a lifestyle-related disease. By the time these things have
manifested, we’ve enjoyed YEARS of cheese-laden pizza; YEARS of meat, fish and poultry; YEARS of sugary sweets, YEARS for alcohol to destroy our liver, YEARS for cigarettes to destroy our lungs and now they’re bad for us? Since it took so long, it’s really tough for our minds to make the connections that what we did is causing the problem(s).

Then again, what about all the fun? The family get-togethers? The holidays? The bar-b-ques, picnics, etc.? AND, we LOVE this stuff! (Well, some of us love some of these things, some of us love all these things and some of us… well, don’t).

True that! Question is, how much do you enjoy life and living it?
People will tell me that if they can’t have a juicy steak, a glass of
scotch, a pizza whenever they want, then life isn’t worth living. My
question is, is this true?

As humans, we are VERY capable of change. For me, if I couldn’t ever
eat a ripe, juicy peach, or have watermelon juice dripping down my
chin, as much as I love them, I could live without them (hoping I
will never have to). The difference is, one is life-giving and the
other (pizza, steak, alcohol, etc.) is not.

One is full of life force, nutrients and health and the other is not.

So, the challenge as I see it is, what can we do to heal ourselves
and still enjoy life? Being someone who really enjoys fruit and many
veggies, it’s not as hard for me. But what about people who don’t?
Who’ve never gotten the taste for a sweet juicy melon? Those who feel
a meal isn’t a meal without a dead animal carcass on their plate?

I personally know hard core meat eaters who, previously, thought vegetables meant a piece of lettuce and slice of tomato on a burger, French fries, and ketchup and have become vegetarians.

Do we have to reach bottom before we can go back up?

I’ll be discussing this more thoroughly in my next post.

In the meantime, I’d suggest you pick up this GREAT dvd for anyone you know who could use some help in healing, eliminating excess weight, or just wish to be educated on how to upgrade their level of wellness.

Ease, not Dis-Ease,

Revvell