Sandy, how is your walking?

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I-AM
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Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by I-AM »

Sandy,

How is your walking? Any progress to share?

After four long months I finally forced myself to start the new running season today. Interestingly, I did quite well. Although I am back at 82.2 kg (about 5 kg overweight) after the winter, still I managed to complete the usual 10.3 km track with just four stops in 69 minutes. Last time I ran was November 10, 2013.

I kept the diary last year so I can tell that in total I ran 318 km in 2013. My weight bottomed at 77,2 kg on August 22, 2013. First time I ran last year, I was only able to do 7.2 km on March 3, 2013. So, quite a progress.

Anyway, looking forward breaking a few more barriers this year.

I would hope you are making progress too.

Robert

(The above post has been edited as requested from the poster.)
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

Hey Robert,
Well, to be honest, I've not been walking very regular the past couple months... actually not since coming back from the States. I came home with some sort of flu bug and was feeling poorly for several weeks which sort of broke my good record. But anyway, while there I pushed, walked and ran my grandson every day to this lovely park where he and I had the time of our life together. The little bit of running while pushing the stroller finally got my sluggish metabolism moving, something the previous walking at home had not been able to do mostly because I did not walk fast enough to get the heart pumping. :roll:
But now, with your inspiration, I shall get my walking shoes back out there, with or without my George. I would rather it be a with :) ).Besides, there is a lovely new section of walkway opened up along the lake that would be wonderful for the inner peace which we both could use.

It sounds like you are off to a wonderful start! If I know you it will be no time at all before you get your weight back to where you feel best and have the most strength. 8)
hugs,
Sandy

Oh I forgot to tell you about my progress or lack. Despite the irregularity of my walking over here of late, I have made some real progress. My weight is down (still have more to go but feeling great) G and I have been eating healthy for about three months now and are more determined then ever to fuel our body with what will keep us humming along smoothly and help prevent disease. (fresh green and veggie juice straight from our own juicer and raw fruits and vegetables.) We are still working on the process of weeding out dairy and meat (last one mostly G) But all of the processed foods are history and we are already feeling better.
I am using the old adage, "If your great grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food and know what to do with it then don't buy it use it or eat it." LOL Eventually we will be all raw fruits and vegetables only. This is to help reset G's pancreas and DNA thus curing his Diabetes. It's a long story but we are following the thirty years of experience in this area by a Doctor Cousins. And so, if there is a chance G can cure his diabetes I am all for it. He presents a very strong case for his program and from others who have followed such a raw food regiment long term and look and feel great...We are confident and ready to give it a go. :bana:
“We measure and evaluate your Spiritual Progress on the Wall of Eternity." – Guardian of Destiny, Alverana.
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by I-AM »

Sandy, Sandy! Keep walking! The heaven is just around the corner! :hithere

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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

You've got it! ... :D If walking will turn back time and make me look like that then I'm putting on my walking shoes. LOL ;) just kidding. Thanks for the encouragement and the initial push in the right direction, Robert. :sunflower:
love,
Sandy
“We measure and evaluate your Spiritual Progress on the Wall of Eternity." – Guardian of Destiny, Alverana.
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by AthenaGrey »

Sandy,

I just wanted to to say I'm really happy to see you and George making those changes to your diet. I started doing that a year ago in order to heal my auto-immune issues. I do still eat meat on occasion, and the only other difference between our changes is that I consume kefir - cultured dairy, because it has a huge pro-biotic effect. (there are non-dairy probiotic alternatives btw, for those who do not tolerate dairy) It has made a tremendous difference in the way I feel but the results of my blood tests are the ultimate proof, and those came back last week as almost completely normal! This is a huge milestone for me, so I hope you both with continue with your dietary changes - I count my own journey as living proof that you CAN heal disease in the body through food. As we are often reminded - we have been given all the tools we need to heal ourselves, it is simply up to us to employ them :)
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

Hello here ((((((Athena Gray)))))))!
It is always good to see you and read your posts. I am thrilled to hear how you have kicked the backside of your auto immune disease! :cheers: Well done, lady! And I have just spent an enjoyable hour reading around the internet about Kefir, something I had never heard of before reading your post. I was amazed and thrilled by what I was reading and am thinking this is truly something G and I should add to our daily diet. There are even non dairy options that we could pursue if necessary. (But not yet ;) ) So I will have some fun in the next few weeks experimenting with making my own Kefir. That is, if I can find some Kefir grains around here. :finger:
You are very inspiring and so I thank you for sharing what you have learned from your own experience.
As we are often reminded - we have been given all the tools we need to heal ourselves, it is simply up to us to employ them :)
So true! I am now a believer! :sunflower:
Please, when you have the time, could you share a little about how you make and use Kefir at your home.
Love,
Sandy

P.S. Here are a couple URLs I found on the internet to get all us newbies started perhaps. :mrgreen:

http://www.culturedfoodlife.com/how-to-make-kefir/

http://www.culturedfoodlife.com/coconut ... ice-cream/

http://trinaholden.com/make-kefir-simpl ... red-dairy/
“We measure and evaluate your Spiritual Progress on the Wall of Eternity." – Guardian of Destiny, Alverana.
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by AthenaGrey »

Hi Sandy! Ok, well, this isn't "a little" but hopefully you will forgive my long-windedness :sunflower:

Kefir really did change my life, quite literally. I had already experienced quite a healing reaction from going completely raw for 3 months before trying the kefir, and I had lots more energy, but I was still getting sick and I just kept feeling like I hadn't found the perfect balance for me yet in terms of nutrition. I had "detoxed" which was very helpful but hadn't rebuilt my system at a cellular level so that it could stand on its own.

From my auto-immune journey, I found three important keys to health: 1) clean the gut of rubbish/toxins (which contribute to inflammation and reduced immune function, which leads to disease) 2) Eat only nourishing foods (for me, that meant whole, living foods, occasional protein, and absolutely no grains) 3) Rebuild the immune system by rebuilding the gut flora.

Now, a year ago I was considered lactose intolerant. I could tolerate small amounts of cheese but anything with milk in it, especially whole milk, ---eeek, watch out! I'm not sure what led me to the crazy idea to try something made with one of my ultimate NO foods, knowing that it is made with whole milk AND that it is "soured", except that you will understand when I say that I just kept hearing and reading about it everywhere, sort of like a sign with neon lights always flashing in the back of my mind to "try this." So I decided that maybe I was being "encouraged" and followed the lead :) Today I can drink GLASSES of whole milk without any side effects (digestive or otherwise) whatsoever.

Warnings/Side Effects:
When I started the kefir, the healing reaction happened almost immediately. I ignored the common advice to "start slow" and jumped full into drinking 1-2 cups of kefir a day, and I definitely had a detox for about two weeks, during which time I had headaches, bodyaches, irritability and intestinal distress. I would highly recommend going slow! Start with a 1/2 cup a day for a week, if no problems, then increase to 1, etc etc. I was also really sick and my body was really depleted overall, so it's likely other people will have a milder reaction than me. One thing that seems common between all of my friends who've tried it is that they, as my one friend puts it - "move under their own gas power" for a couple of weeks. :lol: That's my only disclaimer about the stuff!

Taste:
I was also concerned about taste, but I found kefir to be very pleasant. It smells yeasty and tastes like plain greek yogurt, and depending on the time of year (cooler) it can be as thick as greek yogurt too! It will be milder or tarter (sourer) depending on how long you ferment. For me, fermenting longer than 48 hours is too sour to drink straight, but it's very nutritious at that stage so I'll still throw it into a smoothie with some fruit to balance the taste. You could use some vanilla, cinnamon or herbal tea too if you can't do the fruit because of the sugar content. You can also do a "secondary fermentation" with fruit (or other additives, like lavendar or vanilla) to flavor it, which also adds vital nutrients (the bacteria in kefir react with the fruit to boost vitamin and mineral content, similar to how they produce those same nutrients in your digestive system but without using your body's energy to do it) and further reduces the lactose content. I've also made cream cheese from it and it was delicious.

Types of Milk:
I started out making Kefir with regular, pastuerized whole milk. I've tried it with 1% but frankly, didn't care for the taste - it was much thinner and more mild. Here in AZ raw milk is legal, so for the last couple months I've been making it with whole raw milk and I absolutely love this best. It is thicker, creamier and just tastes better! If you can't get raw milk or prefer not to drink that, then I would highly recommend low temp pasteurized, organic or grass fed milk as an alternative. (The key with pasteurized milk is to try to minimize the amount of chemicals that get into the milk, so pay attention to your sources and whether they use antibiotics, hormones on their cows etc. Grass is the most nutritional diet for a cow, which produces healthier milk overall, even if it's pasteurized.)

How I make it:
As for how I make it, it's really very easy. It takes me about 5 min a day. I have two mason jars set up - one is my brewing jar and the other is my storage jar for the fridge. I change my jars out after about a week, but you can change them as often as you like. After 24 hours of fermenting or when I see the milk separating into curds and whey, I use a stainless steel mesh strainer to strain the kefired milk into an 8 cup glass pyrex measuring cup, but any kind of glass bowl would work. Usually I have to take a spoon and stir the mixture so that the kefir processes through the mesh - otherwise it's thick and takes awhile to drain through. Then I scoop the grains out of the strainer and dump them back into the brewing jar and add fresh milk. Then I cover that jar with a papertowel and a rubber band and put it back on my counter. For the strained kefired milk in my bowl, I like to put that in my second jar and add some fruit, then cover with a papertowel and rubber band and let that ferment another 12 hours. After that I leave the fruit in the mix and either drink it immediately or put it in the fridge to chill.

All in all, I try to brew two days worth of kefir, so that I always have a batch ready to drink while the other batch is fermenting. Generally, I've found a tablespoon of grains will culture about 2 cups of milk, so if you're drinking 1 cup a day and you're fermenting for 24 hours + secondary for 36, brewing 2 cups at a time will be fine. In other words, you drink a cup on day 1, then a second cup on day 2. By then, your next two cups are ready to change out into the secondary fermentation and a new primary is started. On day 3, the secondary is done so you can drink a cup of that, change your milk to start the next secondary...etc etc. It works out so you will always have at least one cup a day available, maybe even a little more if you are diligent about your schedule :) If all that seems confusing, don't worry. You'll figure it out once you start brewing!

Oh, and one other thing - if you are diligent about changing the milk every 24 hours for your grains, your grains will grow fast, and that will allow you either make more kefir (useful if you want to drink more than one cup a day or if you have multiple people drinking it), or experiment and make kefir by-products (like bread or cheese) or you can eat the extra grains - I find it easiest to blend into smoothie, although they are virtually tasteless themselves.

Conclusions:
So after all is said and done, I drink 1-2 cups of kefir a day. There have even been some days where I substituted kefir for a meal because it can be very filling. I like it best straight, but it works well in smoothies too. Since drinking it, I have not been sick (a year now) and this is coming from someone who regularly caught every sniffle, flu, cold, virus etc that came my way, and who feared even going to the grocery store for fear of getting sick germs. I have more energy, my pain is completely gone, I'm off all my medications, my doctor said she'd never seen someone with a glucose test as good as mine and, obviously the best part - my inflammation levels are almost completely normal (a year ago they were so high the test couldn't measure them.) Now, I don't attribute ALL of that to the kefir (very likely I was malnourished in many ways and changing my diet to whole, nourishing foods helped a lot too), but I have experienced significant health changes since I started incorporating it, so I am positive it has had a big part.


Where to buy?
If I could figure out a way to get some grains to you in Australia without them dying before they got there I'd be happy to send you some of mine. :) Cultures for health has a lot of good info, but I would not recommend getting "dehydrated grains" if you can help it as I've heard they have a different taste than live grains. Here's a website for a gentleman in Australia who has a ton of kefir info as well as grains!

http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

I can't thank you enough for all the information you have provided Athena. I am so excited about this and feel that you, just as Robert was last year (getting me off my backside and walking) are a Godsend. I've taken a good look at the Auzzie website you provided. It is very comprehensive and will be most helpful as George and I start this raw food and Kifer trek to better health. :sunflower: I'm going to share your information with Geoff too as he has a son who might truly benefit from this information.

It doesn't sound hard at all and just think... once you begin and as long as you take care of your kifer, you will have a lifetime supply! awesome! 8)

Did you have many difficulties adjusting to raw food? And do you combine/create combinations of raw foods together to create your meals and if so do you have a favourite "Raw cookbook" you could recommend? I am thinking of joining a raw food program on a site I have been following for a few years. The man and his wife together have 60 years experience as raw vegan foodists. Every two months they offer a 28 day raw vegan introduction giving you the program recipes for each week and a shopping list for the items needed. I seem to be having trouble in this area. :roll: Seems there is always something I need for the recipes I have at my disposals or they are hard to find and terribly expensive over here. I think the trouble might lie, though, with our oh so gradual slide towards raw food rather then clearing out the fridge and immersing ourselves in it. We're getting there but it messes with my head some days. :lol:

Okay I am off to make some fresh juice. Thanks again! :D
love,
Sandy
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by AthenaGrey »

Sandy,

Ha! Starting on the raw food journey means a lot of grocery store trips and a lot of shopping online, LOL! I had a really hard time estimating how much food I would need, the types of food, and finding all the "special" ingredients that go into some of these gourmet recipes. Sometimes my husband would eat my creations and sometimes I had more than I needed - raw meals don't last very long for "leftovers" due to their nature. Also, many times I would start with a recipe and have forgotten a crucial ingredient in a 20 ingredient list, so I would have to run to the store to get that. And of course, there were all the gadgets that make raw food easier. My poor husband was incredibly patient with me and our checkbook and his dinner plans :)

Body wise, I didn't have any issues adjusting to a raw diet. In fact, it was like my body breathed a sigh of relief and said "FINALLY!" I used to worry about eating too much fat and too many carbs because of weight gain, but I found that on the raw diet, my body assimilated all nutrients so much more efficiently and not only did I not gain any weight, I actually lost 40 pounds.

Raw eating can be very simple or very complex. The 28 day program will probably give you a pretty intense intro to raw eating, but it may help give you some perspective. Ultimately, it's about eating "living" foods, so anything that contributes to that - be it fermented foods, sprouts, salads, juices, dehydrated chips or gourmet chef-style meals is part of it. It can be overwhelming at first to think that you -have- learn to do all that stuff. You don't have to. If you can just manage to make juice every day, you are already doing great things for your body :) Only take it to the next level when you're comfortable.

I think the hardest thing about a raw diet is the food prep. Especially if you are just transitioning, start at maybe 50% raw and work up from there. Start with salads and juices to replace a meal here and there, then try a raw dinner recipe if you're feeling bold. Try to cook more "vegetable based" meals for the times you're not eating raw. It helps ease the transition until you get some practice with the timing of everything and allows you to find some favorite meals that can become "staples" when you are feeling lazy. The more "gourmet" you try to go, the longer the food prep generally takes. For example, some meals require soaking nuts over night, marinating vegetables overnight, etc etc. If you sprout, that can take several days. Once I transitioned I tried to aim for 85% raw with every meal - 100% is admirable, but I just felt like I could manage it all better (and felt better) if I allowed myself leeway with some things (like whey protein). The key is really to focus on nourishing your body, not acquire 500 rare ingredients that even most gourmet chefs have never heard of :)

Some things that became essential for me over time - a blender, a spirooli (spiral vegetable slicer for making veggie noodles, you can also use a julienne peeler), a dehydrator, an "Easy Sprouter" and a juicer. If you don't have a high-powered blender, you'll want to spend a little more time chopping things up finely (or use a food processor to do this) so your blender can handle them, but otherwise you should still be able to make smoothies, sauces and soups.

The blender and juicer are probably my most treasured appliances. Eating raw means eating A LOT of veggies and fruits, and sometimes that can be overwhelming and literally, you will not want to chew another bite. Being able to just make up some fresh juice or blend 10 servings of veggies and fruits into a fiber rich, tasty smoothie is a Godsend.

The spirooli or julienne peeler makes it so you can make veggie pasta - need I say more?!?!?!?! You can make ALL kinds of noodles - I have used parsnips, turnips, carrots, zucchini, beets, sweet potatoes and even butternut squash! (I very lightly steam turnip noodles because it makes them sweeter, and the sweet potatoes and butternut squash soften a little bit if lightly steamed which frankly, makes them more palatable.) There are tons of "raw" sauces you can make. I have two favorite raw sauces - a simple peanut sauce and a rich, DECADENT, alfredo. You will feel like you should be dieting after you eat that alfredo...but it is loaded with tons of healthy nutrients and there is nothing in it for your body to fear!

A sprouter can be a whole separate sub-adventure of raw foods. Eating raw is about eating as many "living" foods as possible so that you are nourishing your body with enzymes and vitamins in their peak form - which allows your body to focus less energy on digesting and more on on funneling nutrients directly to your cells to nourish and rebuild. Sprouts are essentially little nutrient-dense machines generating their own energy to create vibrant plants. I would highly encourage you to try sprouting if you haven't - it's easy (especially if you use the Easy Sprouter!), safe, inexpensive and extremely nutritious for you. You can make sprouts with just about any seed that is viable - I prefer alfalfa and clover because they are very mild tasting, and right now I'm growing a tray of lovely chia :) They give you a boost of energy (literally) and really deliver a powerhouse of nutrients to your cells. I try to eat about a cup of sprouts a day and you can either put them on salads or in meals or blend it up in a smoothie. A place with a lot of sprout info is: https://sproutpeople.org/

The dehydrator isn't necessary but expands some of the things you can do. Everyone's favorite - fruit rollups - are easy. I like to make apple chips, banana chips, raw almond & flax crackers, raw tortilla chips (guess what's raw and goes well with tortilla chips...GUACAMOLE!!!) and sun-dried tomatoes. You can also use the dehydrator to "cook" some meals if you are craving something warm. If you don't have one of these, using a home made sun oven or setting the regular oven on the lowest setting with the door slightly ajar can work too.

My biggest complaint about raw cookbooks was that there were a lot of books that had tons of recipes, but no pictures. I am such a visual person and I my culinary skills already lack somewhat, so I really wanted pictures to help me visualize what I was doing :) But it seems that raw food books don't have a lot of pictures, haha. Then I had the opportunity to go to The Blossoming Lotus restaurant in Portland, OR and absolutely fell in love with them. So I ended up getting one of their cookbooks, The Complete Idiot's guide to Eating Raw." It gives a great overview of raw foods and has a lot of recipes that range from easy to complex. I also use the website "http://www.rawfoodrecipes.com" as a main source for raw meals.

Also, some purists may have other opinions, but I consider kefir made with non-raw milk to still be "raw" because it's cultured with living bacteria, which essentially transforms it into a living food. :) You can also learn to ferment vegetables with nothing more than sea salt at home, on your counter. Fermented carrots are raw and delicious!

Some things you'll probably want to try to have on hand at any given time (aside from whatever fruits and vegetables you like to eat) are below. If you absolutely can't find some of this stuff without making a trek or paying exorbitant amounts of money, don't stress. Just substitute the regular version if the recipe calls for it - like rice wine vinegar for ACV, or regular soy sauce for nama shoyu. This is where the 85% rule comes in handy :)

Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother)
Nama Shoyu (raw soy sauce)
Nutritional Yeast (Excellent cheese flavor)
Raw Cashews
Raw Walnuts
Raw Almonds
Ground flax seed
Coconut butter and oil
Kelp noodles
Raw garlic
Raw Honey


And now, just to give you a taste of all the joyous raw meals that are out there,here is a fairly simple recipe that is hands down one of my favorites:

Noodles:
6 Zucchinis, julienned (1 medium zucchini makes about 1.5 cups of noodles or a large 1 person serving. Adjust as preferred.)

Sauce:
2 cups Raw Cashews (soak for 4 hours or so to soften)
Juice of one Lemon
2-3 Cloves raw Garlic
1 tsp Fresh Thyme
1 tsp Sea Salt
1-3 tablespoons Nutritional Yeast (to taste)
1/2 to 1 cup of water, almond milk or kefir*** as needed for consistency

Garnish:
Fresh chopped Basil, to taste
Mini cherry or grape Tomatoes, halved
Black Pepper
Parmesan cheese***(optional)

Directions:
Blend all sauce ingredients together until a creamy and thick. Add water/almond milk to thin sauce to desired consistency.

Toss zucchini noodles with 1-2 Tablespoons of sauce per serving. Sauce is very rich and will coat noodles evenly, so if in doubt, start with 2 tablespoons and add more only if desired (nutrition info is based on 2 tblspns.) Garnish with chopped fresh basil, mini tomatoes, black pepper and/or parmesan cheese for a rich, absolutely delicious and filling meal.

To heat: For a warm, raw meal, toss all ingredients together and warm for 10 min at 105 degrees in dehydrator or on the "warm" setting in your oven. For a non-raw meal, you can lightly steam zucchini noodles but be careful about overcooking as you want them relatively firm, and once heated zucchini releases water very rapidly, which will thin your sauce. A trick is to heat the sauce and spread it over the raw noodles, which will soften them slightly. Or you can lightly steam the noodles until warm and then blot with a paper towel to absorb water. To just warm the sauce, gently warm on the stove or on low power in the microwave. If you have a high-powered blender, you can blend on high for 5 minutes continously to create a very warm sauce using the same method as when making blended soups.

Approx. nutritional info per serving:
260 calories
20 g Fat
2 g fiber
16 g Carbs
9.5 g Protein
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

What a wonderful post Athena! :sunflower: Thankyou! As I was reading it I kept thinking to myself that you put it all into such a simple and easy to understand perspective. Have you ever considered starting your own nutritional web site? If not think about it. :) Because I am so encouraged today.
We are trying to have fresh veggie juice every day and the same with salad and sprouts so despite my earlier worries of yesterday it seems maybe indeed we are well on our way, and perhaps the best way for George, to making a mostly raw diet a reality. I would dearly love to have a high speed blender but for now I will just have to make do with "ole limp along" LOL Your suggestion to process the ingredients so they are fine before putting them in the house hold blender should help me get past the troubles I have been having in making some of the raw soups and sauces. I always adored Alfredo Sauce so I would love(when you have time) to borrow those recipes from you. But no worries for now as I have kept you very busy pumping you with information already. So no worries...I will check out the site you mentioned and look into that cookbook you suggested.

Oh, I was thinking too about the veggie noodles... have you ever tried spaghetti squash? That was one I used to grow and when cooked whole it makes lovely veggie noodles that you can scrape out using a fork. So I am wondering if it would still work in the same manner if the squash were raw. hmmm not sure... Sadly, that is a squash I have not been able to find here. But am looking into a local vegetable delivery service that will deliver a box of organic veggies every week or two. You can even pick out the ones you prefer, which I would have to do most likely or I would wind up with five pounds of potatoes every week which we cannot eat.

Well I am printing out this post as I did with your post yesterday to keep close as a reference and away I go! :bana:

(today I am incorporating the 85 percent raw adage and am cooking homemade stock to freeze in small batches to add extra flavour for raw soups. (I thought this might be one way to quicken that process if I do not have fresh juice on hand.

Thanks so much for all this great information and the delicious sounding recipe. I will make it next week (after we do our shopping since I don't have any raw cashews and just used the last of the garlic in my stock) and let you know how it turned out. I just know I will love it and am thinking it will appeal to George too which is the real trick as I am much more tolerant then he is LOL. (In other words I will eat just about anything and I do! :mrgreen: )
In a years time I hope we can be living proof of the benefits to a mostly raw diet as you are and be completely comfortable and happy with this.
Love,
Sandy
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot, I found an easy recipe for raw biscotti and made that overnight in my dehydrator. Life is good! :bana: :bana: :bana:
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by KurtSchluter »

My wife almost died because of over prescriptions of antibiotics a few years ago after a mild heart attack. She went down to 82 pounds while the doctors had no clue about nutrition. We taught ourselves to radically change diet to organic, non processed foods. She used many types of probiotics such as homemade yogurt to restore the balance of micro flora in her gut like Athena did. We found that her decades of eating strictly vegetarian had caused imbalances in her system and when she started to eat some meat her strength increased. Local organic grass fed beef, pork and bison are now part of our diets. We feel that meat is a natural part of human diet since our teeth evolved to masticate it. Just my 2 cents! It's not safe to consume most foods today that are in grocery stores. The industrial food industry is geared to make people sick and dependent on the pharmaceutical industry. Everyone can grow some veggies even if it's only sprouts at first. Buy from local farmers who practice organic agriculture and live GMO free. Don't support the cancer industry! My entire family has cancer of some type going back 3 generations and I am the only one that has never had it. I attribute it to my nutrition.
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Re: Sandy, how is your walking?

Post by Sandy »

Hi Kurt,
I'm glad to hear your wife has overcome her severe health problems and you both have found a way of eating that provides you with optimum health. :sunflower:

I guess we must keep in mind the form of vegetables, fruits seeds and nuts that vegetarians eat. I have been a vegetarian for 10 years and my sister for thirty. She like your wife had a wee bit of trouble last year, with her it was with low iron which could possibly have been attributed to her diet... and I do mean "her" diet because all vegetarians do not eat alike. I ate mostly cooked vegetables and dairy (not a vegan) and they also were not organic... rather store bought, picked too early and grown in a medium with more than likely less nutrition to pass on. But I have always been lucky and have been in good health my entire life. :finger:

I believe with all my heart that diet is a very personal matter... I'm not one to champion all vegetarians and look down my "know it all nose at meat eaters. LOL Nor will I doubt the veracity of a vegetarian lifestyle. But just so everybody understands... there is a huge difference in eating a vegetarian diet and a raw vegan diet. Many, many people are living proof these days that whole organic fresh fruits and vegetables (including seeds and nuts) can not only provide you with proper nutrition to grow and prosper but also prevent disease. Our bodies are meant to be marvellous self healing "machines. But the last hundred years and the junk we are being encouraged to eat is destroying all that.

On this website you will meet a man who has been a raw foodist for 40 years. http://rawveganwarrior.com/ http://thegardendiet.com/ and his wife for 20 years. He is now in his sixties and looks to be in his forties, is athletic and practices martial arts to stay limber and strong and his diet supports his high energy life style. A dear friend of mine knows them personally and so I also know they are the real deal.

So will a raw vegan diet help everybody?...yes, probably to a certain extent...but I feel it is not something everyone is going to want to do.
But by adding as much fresh raw organic vegetables to your diet and eliminating processed foods it will go a long way to helping us feel fantastic. It is important, though, to know your food and what it can and cannot do for you. This is critical. (Although, I do believe super foods these days are making it easier, to keep balance in a vegan lifestyle.) One of the reasons George and I are proceeding very slowly towards our better eating goals.

The book I have just finished called, There is a Cure For Diabetes by Gabriel Cousins MD explains in great detail what happens, the processes that digest and make the food we eat usable by our bodies. He provides study after study of the way the processed and junk food we have been eating are affecting our bodies from the tiniest cells upward. He also emphasizes his work of nearly thirty years in Diabetes and that of others who have surprisingly in days restored a normal blood sugar and in some cases even helped jump start the pancreas to make insulin simply by providing only fresh organic vegetables, low glycaemic fruits nuts and seeds. These are just the "tip of the iceberg" as to what whole organic nutritious eating can do. We are just cracking the surface as to what nature's organic bounty can do for us.

Anyway LOL that was my 2 cents... ;) ((((((HUGS)))))))
Hope everybody is having a fabulous week end!
:sunny:
Sandy
“We measure and evaluate your Spiritual Progress on the Wall of Eternity." – Guardian of Destiny, Alverana.
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