Last night I went to a wonderful performance called “Fighting for the Title” by Delores Burgess. Delores is the solo writer and performer of this one-woman musical journey. She brought me to tears numerous times with the beauty of her voice and the strength of her performance. She received numerous standing ovations as well she should have as, from my understanding, this whole journey began only six months ago. Her acting, singing and timing were magnificent.

What was the theme? Breast cancer. “Fighting for the Title” is based on Delores’ life, touring the “chitlin’ circuit”, leaving that to become a gospel singer and then finding out she has breast cancer and how she survives it.

After the performance there was a short question and answer session. I KNOW all who were there who knew me were hoping I’d keep my mouth shut, as I did.

According to Delores, she had stage 0 cancer. According to my research and interviews with people who have had up to stage 4 cancer ~ and lived w/out mutilation (surgery), chemotherapy (drugs) and radiation (burning), just a change in lifestyle can stop this from manifesting. Instead, from what I understand, Delores’ doctor pressured her into having immediate surgery.

Now, how does one stand up in a theatre and say, “So, since cancer is a lifestyle-based disease, what are you doing to prevent a recurrence?” There was talk about mammograms (yes, they’re often free because doctors make so much money on mutilation, drugs and burning, they well-cover the cost of the mammogram) and men going for check ups but not ONE word about what to do to prevent cancer in the first place. Not ONE!

People talk about having mammograms as prevention. They are NOT! They are, often, but not always (remember 50% of doctors’ diagnosis is wrong!) detection! They not only do not prevent cancer, they CAUSE cancer!

After the performance I was, well, can’t say shocked, yet kind of surprised that what was there to eat after was cookies, cupcakes, potato chips and a red, sugary drink ~ i.e. punch. In other words, sugar, fat, and artificial food coloring. All the things known to undermine the immune system.

During the program they also spoke about “soul food”. Now, the problem with many cultures is ~ the food. That’s why cancer often “runs in the family”. It’s actually not the cancer, it’s the lifestyle.

Here are a couple resources you might like to check out sometime to PREVENT cancer and, if you’ve already got it, there are some resources here in the way of interviews of people who have had cancer and have lived beyond the 5-year “survival” time. Oh, by the say, do you know how many people with would survive those 5 years without ANY “treatment” whatsoever? AND, if they took responsibility and stopped doing what was causing the problem in the first place? I can’t answer that but, in the resources listed here, you’ll get an idea there are probably a lot more than those who do.

Finally, a study was shown that chemo kills as many people as it “saves”. In reality, chemo doesn’t really save anyone. It’s a carcinogen. For those people who’ve survived it’s use, it’s because the chemo kicked the immune system into action and they lived in spite of the chemo.

Problem is, those who think the chemo was the answer, keep doing what they were doing to create the cancer in the first place and “hope” it doesn’t come back and when it does, they “hope” the chemo/radiation kills it again. Scary.

Interviews with long term cancer survivors:

Dr. Ruth Heidrich

Brenda Cobb

One of the longest and best studies ever done on cancer:

The best 2-hour video I’ve ever seen on cancer w/ interviews of doctors who healed themselves of cancer w/out drugs, mutilation or burning AND it states that oncologists will not go for chemo/radiation or suggest it for their own families:

Healing Cancer From Inside Out

Feel free to leave comments here.

Thank you,

Revvell

This morning I received this understanding from my friend Sandy Brewer in her Inspirational thought for the Week: “It took me a long time to understand that I could be what I choose to be, that I am, indeed, that which has the capacity to look fear in the eye and dissolve it. No problem can be resolved from the point of view of the problem. I learned to ask myself, “What’s another way of looking at this?”

I’m going to extract one sentence from this that struck me: “No problem can be resolved from the point of view of the problem.” As a health practitioner and educator, I see people all the time coming from the “point of view of the problem”… in health, it’s the symptoms. How can I stop the symptoms? The symptoms are the “.. point of view of the problem”… they aren’t the cause, they aren’t the root, they are the warning signals that something is wrong.

So, what do we do? Let’s take the case of cancer since people are focused on that this month. Symptoms ~ lumps, tumors, skin lesions, etc. What do doctors do? They poison, burn and mutilate to eliminate the symptoms. What they DON’T do, is find the cause! Helllooooo! Anybody home? They then send the patient home to do what they’ve been doing to cause the problem in the first place! Do you know that IF the patient lives 5 years, that means they’ve cured cancer? Even if they die in the 6th (or, during the 5th)? That’s ridiculous!

Heart disease ~ same thing! We can stick some valves and some stents in to open up the arteries.. Hey! let’s take a vein out of the leg and use that! well, how cool is that? Now, go home and continue eating, drinking, smoking and living as you were, we’ll see you again in a few years.

Diabetes! Here, have some insulin and shoot up every day. You’ll be fine. Oh, and carry some candy around in case you mess up.

Am I the only one who sees how ridiculous this is?

Do you know that the majority of Americans in this country experience detectable cancer approximately 6 times in their lives? Cancer cells, from my understanding, live in our bodies. For them to get to a detectable stage takes YEARS of eating and doing the wrong things.

Do you know that the majority of people who have Type 2 diabetes can be diabetes free in as little as 3 days and sometimes up to 2 weeks? AND, many with Type 1 have eliminated insulin shots altogether or at least dropped the dosage significantly?

Do you know that heart disease can almost always be reversed w/in a few months?

So, why don’t doctors tell people this? There’s no money in it! At least not enough to keep them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed to.

How can you find out more? Check out these two videos as a first step.. There’s over 3 hours of interviews with accredited doctors, excerpts taken from many prestigious medical journals and interviews with people who’ve healed themselves without poisons, burning and mutilation. I’ve got these on sale until the end of the month of Oct. ‘08. $20 (and taking action on what you see) may save your life or that of someone you love. “Healing Cancer From the Inside” and “Eating“. Get them while I’ve got them in stock at that price!

If you know someone who has diabetes, there’s a new dvd out which addresses that specifically. It shows the journeys of 6 people diagnosed with diabetes ~ 5 with diabetes 2 and 1 with diabetes 1. All but one were insulin-injection free w/in 2 weeks… most w/in 3 days. It’s called: “Simply Raw ~ Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days“.

Yes, the holidays are coming up yet, what a great way to start the new year… taking better care of oneself. What do you think?

By the way, I’ve currently got openings for two clients for consultation. If you’re interested in working with me, please contact me at: Revvell@Revvellations.com and put “Potential Client” in the subject line.

Yours in health,

Revvell

As some of you know, I picked up Dr. Doug Graham’s book, The 80/10/10 Diet at the Raw Spirit Festival. What he said when speaking made a lot of sense to me so, had to learn more.

Of course, when someone agrees with me, I like them even more and in this case, I love it that I have FINALLY read what I’ve known, and stated, for years! Germs do NOT cause disease. Here’s what HE said which got me so excited!!!

“… Pasteur (stated) that a toxic “milieu interieur” ~ the inner environment of the body in which the microbes live ~ provides a breeding ground for disease. In other words, regardless of the germ’s origin or type, it presents no threat UNLESS the body is in a run-down state resulting from disturbed and deteriorated interior environment.

Maintaining our inner terrain in a healthy (undisturbed and undeteriorated) state of homeostasis is one of the key benefits we derive from eating a low-fat diet of whole, raw plant foods in their freshest, least processed form. Just as mosquitoes do not cause stagnant ponds, and flies do not cause piles of manure, the “germs” (bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms) around and inside of us do not cause the toxins in our bodies. Yet like mosquitoes and flies, microbes are more than happy to set up shop in toxic locations that provide them with plenty to eat.

If we drain the stagnant pond or clean up the manure pile, the mosquitoes and flies migrate elsewhere. Likewise, the viruses and bacteria that feed upon the toxic wastes inside of us simply move on and cease to be a problem when we clean up our diets and other sources of inner pollution. At this point, our bodies are no longer capable of acting as hosts for such pathogens.”

Build your immune system; stop treating your body as a toxic waste dump and disease will have to find another home.

Revvell
RawkinRadio

I’d heard about Douglas Graham and his 80/10/10 food program but not paid much attention to it until I heard him speak at the Raw Spirit Festival this past weekend. What he said made sense to me so I went and purchased two of his books, “The 80/10/10 Diet, Balancing Your Health, Your Weight, and Your Life, One Luscious Bite at a Time” and “The New High Energy Diet Recipe Guide”.

The following quote was taken from the former book, pg. 242:

“People who are emotionally attached to cooked foods aren’t actually addicted to them since it is physiologically impossible to be addicted to something that is harmful to us. The body simply is not put together that way. It is designed to thrive and cannot become addicted to a harmful substance. The human psyche, however, can become very much addicted to the shift in perception that occurs after we ingest certain substances. A yearning for that shift in perception is the ever-present illusion that lures us to eat cooked foods.”

If this is in fact true, then how is it people who we “say” are addicted to harmful substances including codeine, caffeine, nicotine, heroin, etc. have physcial detox symptoms?

Your thoughts? (add them below please)

… as will not see.

Recently a thread was started on a forum about the movie Simply Raw, Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days and the poster was celebrating that people CAN cure themselves of diabetes.

One person came on and said there was no cure and that ” I am confident that there is no cure because if there was, we would ALL know about it.”

As I was out walking, I was considering this statement… ALL would know about it! How? Even SHE, on a raw food board, refuses to look at the movie. She is steadfast that there IS no cure. Being certain that there are many like her out there, if there was a cure, how would they know? If they refuse to look outside their little world of doctors and drugs, how will they know? Even one of the participants in the movie heard from doctors since he was a child (juvenile diabetes) that he would ALWAYS have to take insulin and that diabetes can never be cured and he, being diagnosed with diabetes 1, dropped his insulin from 30 daily units to 5.

My question is, how is it a lifestyle-caused disease (diabetes 2, not 1 which, I am informed, is an immune-system disease ~ see comment #1 below) cannot be cured? Answer seems fairly simple ~ stop doing what’s causing the problem. Overweight? Change your food program, get out and move, find out what the need is which is being replaced by food and fill it. High Cholesterol? Animal products are the only “foods” that contain cholesterol ~ stop eating them! Heart disease? Again, animal products, plus caffeine and/or nicotene, and/or alcohol and, lack of movement.

Yes, I hear the excuses. My suggestion ~ stop looking for excuses for why you can’t and start finding reasons and ways for how you can. Life and health are simpler than we make it. Live and living food, water, rest, movement, appreciations and making conscious choices will get you where you want to be and yes, it is that simple… just not always that easy … yet like many things it just takes making the first step.. then following that with the next step and the next…

Injoy,

Revvell

Go to my site and check out the new look! Click on a few things and see what’s available. Thank you!

If you, or someone you know has diabetes 1 or 2, they MUST see this film. It’s a very heart-warming and touching piece of work relating the journeys of 6 people who went to Gabriel Cousens Tree of Life facility. It really relates how self-talk can sabotage us and how love and support can keep us hanging on.

I don’t want to give away the whole story here as there are some surprises and yes, it’s all about real life.

The film begins by introducing us to the participants and many of their families. They talk about what they love the most about food and shows us how they live.

They explain that 5 out of the 6 have type 2 diabetes and one has type 1. Dr. Cousens tells the participants that the best food program for them will be raw, high fiber, high carbohydrate (complex), low protein and low fat. There will be no meat, dairy, alcohol, sugar or caffeine. They will be served all they can eat, 3 meals a day.

They show where everyone is on day one and where a few people are at day 3, 5, 7, 12, 15, 17, 24, 27 and 30. They talk about their glucose level, cholesterol, blood pressure and weight in many instances. All, eliminated some excess weight.

What I loved about the film was the support the participants gave each other. I felt there should have been someone there to assist more with the mind-set though as it’s never just about the food. (Maybe there was but it wasn’t really brought out).

They showed some quick classes that were held including a chocolate class, a nori roll class and a healthy cooked food class on the final day to assist them in making better decisions during their transitions.

At the end we got to see how some people were faring ~ Day 3 with Pam and 60 days out with Kirt as well as a run-down of how everyone was doing at the very end.

I’d love to see all these people one year from now.

Other participants in the film were Morgan Spurlock, Fred Bisci, Ph.D, David Wolfe, the Reverend Michael Beckwith, Woody Harrelson and Anthony Robbins.

Get this film and share it! Simply Raw

Another raw food book I picked up recently. At first look, not impressed. If you are raw vegan, you may be disappointed, reason being she uses goat cheese and egg yolk although, most of the time it’s optional. Instead of salt she uses Krystal salt. In the Soaking, Sprouting and Storing section she does say one can use 1/4 the amount of sea salt as the brine. She also uses honey and maple syrup as sweetener. I substitute agave easy enough.

The only thing I’ve made so far is the Mango Lassi. It is VERY good. Here ya go:

Soak Almonds 6+ hours if using.

2 C. cashew or almond milk

2 mangos, peeled and cut off pit

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 T. honey or to taste (or agave)

Blend well. Serves 2.

As I make more recipes, I’ll not necessarily post them but will let you know what works for me and what doesn’t. 

Enough for now. Remember, revel and life and always, play with your food.

Revvell

Revvellations

Great shirts, bags, mugs and more!

I had a chance to make and serve two of the recipes in “Everyday Raw” that I was most interested in, the Blueberry Pancakes and the Eggplant Bacon.

What a delightful surprise!!!

Let’s start with the Pancakes:

First of all, remember to look at the timing and preparation. The pecans are to be soaked 8-12 hours. So, overnight is good. Also, he says to set aside the blueberries but doesn’t say to set aside the 2 C. maple syrup. Save the last 2 cups of maple syrup/agave for pouring OVER the pancakes not INTO the recipe! Vitally important.

I dehydrated for 24 hours or so. What’s good about the dehydrating time is, you can vary it to how you want your pancakes. I was surprised that they take so long to dehydrate but, there it is! Btw ~ they were scrumptious! I served them to a class my husband was having. He said they were better than “real” pancakes which he’d never liked. All the participants liked them as well. We’ve got a winner here!

The Bacon:

My bad. I started this off wrong by using 2 T. of salt instead of one to do whatever it is one needs to do to bacon at the beginning. For me, it ended up saltier than I like.
The other thing is, there’s prep here, as well. 1-2 hours for salting and tossing the eggplant; 2 hours for soaking the chipotle chile and marinating eggplant for 30-45 minutes. Dehydration time is 24-36 hours.

I would also use one dried chipotle chile instead of 1/2 and be sure to use enough water so you’ll have 1/2 C. for the recipe.

All-in-all, I thought this was very good and very bacon-like.

Would I make these again? Absolutely… just not very often because of prep time.

Stars:
5 for taste
3 for directions on pancakes

Until next time ~ remember, revel in life and always, play with your food.

Revvell
Revvellations

I was looking online for some lemon cookies because I’ve been offered space to sell at a fruit stand and have been publicizing my raw food classes and smoothie book to a yahoo group.

Here’s what I found. Made them last night and they are soooo good and EASY!

 Lemon Cookies contributed by Kandace:

Tart, chewy lemon macaroons. Double the recipe. (They’ll be gone in a day if you like lemon cookies):

Ingredients:

1 C. cashews, soaked 4 hours

Zest of 1 lemon

1/2 C. fresh lemon juice

1 C. dry, shredded coconut

1/4 C. agave

Preparation:

1) Process cashews in food processor until they are pasty (mine never got that way ~ still good!)

2) Mix in all other ingredients and blend

3) Place 1 T. cookie dollops on a dehydrator sheet (can remove the sheet after a couple of hours and just place on the screen)

4) dehydrate approximately 12 hours

5) Enjoy!

I put them in the “d” last night and having them for breakfast. Made about 14 of them. Crusty outside, chewy inside. 

Revvell

Revvellations

I just received Matthew Kenney’s book “Everyday Raw” in the mail today and, at first glance, I’m disappointed. First thing I open to are recipes containing tofu! Tofu? What’s up with that? Tofu? Icky yuch!!! Matt!!!! What’s up with dat????

O.k, second looky through… beautiful, beautiful, “I-want-to-make/eat-it-all” pictures. Being an author myself and knowing how much it costs to print books with 4-color photos, this book is a steal at $19.95 ($13.95 on Amazon). How can they do that?

The Contents section is divided into Intro; Everyday Handbook (which contains a paragraph on “tools of the trade”, “key products” and “skill set” all using half the page or very large letters. Then we have “Blended & Squeezed ~ 17 recipes for the wet stuff. Matt is big on coconut water/meat, goji berries, lecithin and umm, tocotrienols (????) in the Vanilla-e drink. (shrugs) Oh, o.k., it’s “a powder supplement in the vitamin E family and available in most health food (I use that term loosely as I don’t think most “health food” stores are really about health but then, I digress here) stores.”

He also uses mesquite meal and hemp protein in various smoothie/drink recipes.

Next we have Snacks! I LOVE snacks! They’re my favorite meal! Most of what I see perusing this section, are ingredients that can easily be found. Matthew tends to use maple syrup which, of course, can be exchanged for agave or whatever sweetener you prefer. I’m up for some vanilla-almond macaroons (although I’ve got cashews soaking for lemon cookies as I type ~ and no, not from this book.)

One thing fun here is, he shows how to make chocolate chips to put in the chocolate chip cookies which look yummmy! 12 recipes here.

After the snacks we have Crackers, Breads and Chips. There are only 5 recipes in this section and the breads are flatbreads. 

Next we have “Starters”. Not sure what that means. Looks like breakfast and appetizers. One thing I am looking at are the blueberry pancakes. They look REALLY good! Question I have is, does the 2 C of maple syrup/agave go IN the pancakes or ON them? The directions say: put blueberries aside, then blend remaining ingredients. Then serve with maple syrup (after mixing in blueberries). 2 C of sweetener? 

I’m not a fan of eggplant in any form but I’m curious about the eggplant bacon. This is made with chipotle chili.

He’s also got portobello sausage which makes me shudder. I’m not a fan of fungus but I mention the sausage for those of you who are.

Following that we’ve got “Tofu Scrambler”. O.k., my bad! He makes the “tofu” using cashews, coconut, carrageenan (is that a good thing?), water and salt.

We’ve got breakfast! Pancakes, bacon and/or sausage and tofu scrambler. Add some almond mylk and we’re good-to-go!!! 10 recipes.

Quite a few things in this book are edgy for hard-core raw food advocates such as the maple syrup, miso, nutritional yeast and such yet, as an occasional “treat” it sure beats the “treats” we grew up with and it may surprise your neighbors and friends who wonder “What DO you eat anyway?”

Continuing on to Spreads, Dips and Sauces ~ Just the names make me salivate ~ Mango Guacamole, Lemon-Thyme Yogurt Sauce (dairy-free) and Sweet Chile-Lime Sauce to name a few. 14 recipes.

We’ve got 6 salads and 7 dressings in the next section. Salads and their dressings include: Potato Salad, Thai Salad, Tabbouleh and Blood Orange-Crispy Fennel Salad.

Larger dishes contains 10 recipes for such things as Tomato, Basil and Ricotta pizza. I can’t wait to try the crust because I’ve not found one I like yet. I usually use onion bread and top that! We’ve also got “Portobello Fajitas, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Portobello Steaks and Tomato Torta with Pesto and Macadamia Ricotta. 

17 Desserts include lots of cremes, glazes, sauces but also… Agave Caramel! I LOVE caramel! How do these sound? Coconut Creme Anglaise; Pumpkin Pie with Thyme; Lemon Macaroon Cheesecake Tartlet and Warm Fudge Brownie?

Finally we have ICE CREAM!!! Mint Cacao Chip, Banana Almond Butter Cup; Strawberry Sorbet and more! Again, I’m confused. He’s got a picture in the book of a cone with ice cream. He has a recipe for a cone but it says: Chill in freezer until firm; break into small pieces and store in containers in freezer.  Store extra chocolate oil in containers in refrigerator. Well, there’s no chocolate oil in the recipe. O.k.! The directions are for the chocolate pieces in the recipe above!!! Someone did NOT read these recipes.

I’ll be contacting Matt tomorrow to get an update on this. 

I’ll check out some of these recipes in the near future and tell you what I like and what I don’t..

Until then, always, revel in life and remember, play with your food!

Revvell

Revvellations