Wake up calls

From eating only the purest of foods at the Tree for 3 months. My body was bound to react if I was not to continue paying it with the deepest of respect. SO that's what it did.
We took the dog on the train to an English speaking vet (a few cities from our place) so we could get her tests underway for her journey to NZ. This took up most of the afternoon and by the time we were heading home my stomach started to growl and curse me. Craig was also hungry, he is a typical pitta and needs to eat before hunger sets in. He also has trouble keeping weight on (hhmmpf nice for some) which is an issue for someone wanting to maintain bulk for playing Rugby. So when we arrived at the station we picked up some snacks. 10 minutes after eating these less than excellent foods my neck started to itch, 30 minutes later my entire face turned red and lumpy. It could be hives I'm not sure. All I know is that I have been getting more and more blase with food choices and my body decided it had had enough.
Enough talk about food. Yes the tests are under way, the poor dog is in for some prodding, poking and no doubt an abundant of horrid unnecessary chemicals in order for her to be accepted into the country.

Japan has not had any reported cases of Rabies yet she must be vaccinated (and who knows whats in that crap) against it. I can understand that we don't want rabies in NZ but coming from a country which doesn't have it why not just take blood and test to make sure shes not infected (actually shes having that test also). I called MAF in NZ and they understand my concern but they must take these precautionary measures.
There's not much we can do about all the vaccinations and testing,but we can get excited about the fact that we're heading home soon. I'm sure Yuki is going to love frolicking in the meadows and playing with all the other animals. I wonder if dog language is the same around the world or whether she'll have to learn a new doggy language??
My family is arriving in a few days so need to get the apartment spick and span. Its small enough (70 sqm) with 3 of us living here let alone 6! Its a good time to declutter.
As with out, So within-Emerald Tablet
X Love, Peace & Happiness X

Juice Fast is OVER!!

A brief overview as it wasn't all that exciting.

Juice Fasted for 7 days. Day 1 was OK. I wasn't 'hungry' (how many of us have really experienced true hunger) but my mind kept butting in and trying to run the show, thinking up yummy food creations I could make...and then eat...But I stayed strong!

Day 2 was much easier. Craig & I took the train to Tokyo to check out the 'Tokyo Vegetarian Festival'. There was quite a number of food stalls there. The smells were awesome but I had to keep convincing myself that the smell (flavours & essential oils) was exiting the food til all that is left is dead doughy mush that wouldn't taste that great anyway.

I sent Craig to try some out and he confirmed it was not as good as it smelt. BUT at least it didn't die or suffer for him. I love to tell things like they are :)

FREE TIBET!

Peace march in Shibuya

Day 3-My energy was spent on day 2 so was pretty tired. Took it fairly easy.

Day 4 was a breeze. High energy, food cravings had pretty much dissipated. I felt like I could juice for a much longer period. Thoughts & visions were much clearer.

In the Kitchen:Made Craig 'Rawsagna'. Was tricky as wasn't able to taste to make sure flavours were balanced but he said it was the best damn lasagna he's had. He's a keeper!

Ended the day with very sad news. Quondo, my beloved horse/friend passed away. Mum had been caring for him whilst I've been in Japan and had to make a very difficult decision to have him put to sleep as his heart was no longer strong enough to get him around. He lived to a good age of 30, and has been in our lives for 18 beautiful years. He brought the greatest joy to me and also to many others that had the opportunity to be in his presence.

Rest in Peace my sweet angel. Be free. You will be forever in my heart.

I love you Quondo X

Day 5-7 Energy was high; added the gym to our morning sessions. Although I'm not so keen on gyms it felt great to be working out and doing more strenuous exercises.

In the kitchen: Made fruit & nut Muesli for Craigs brekkie with a fruit yogurt (made from sunflower seeds-would fool most people!)

Side note:A bazillion reasons to soak your nuts

Soaking removes the enzyme inhibitors to enable body to digest them.

I also always soak nuts in H2o2 3%. H2o2 kills bacteria, when used on areas of high bacteria it will froth (as you can see from the picture below) ewww.

I also made a batch of Kombucha and Sauerkraut. Both super high in friendly bacteria.

Its so important to get a good balance of flora in the gut, especially after a fast.

Below is one of my Kombucha mothers, she flew all the way back from Arizona with me. If you don't know much about Kombucha, check it out on the web. I love the stuff! Right now my batch is fermenting in the cupboard and she has grown a healthy baby for my future batches. Day 8............dum dum duuuummmb.

I broke my fast.....................In the worst possible way imaginable.

Was stuck indoors alone for most of the day, so ate pretty much everything in sight. Felt terrible. Want to do fast all over again :(

This is my food addiction I have trouble with. Binging. I know the best way to break a fast, I had it all planned out, but somehow it all went out the window.
This is something I need to work on and correct because I have had issues with dieting then binging/yo-yoing for the longest time. I think so many woman do and it's just not healthy.
I was reading Courtneys (Radical Radiance) blog the other day. She was referring back to her 92 day juice Feast and how it has helped release and reset all her emotional hang ups with food.
I've been drawn to partaking in a long term juice feast for months now, so I had a good look at how other people out there have dealt was long Juice Feasts. Everyone who had done them and documented their experienced looked and felt amazing (what am I saying...I didnt feel them...They claimed that the juicing assisted in making them feel amazong) and most healed long term unhealthy eating habits. You are able to cleanse and detox your body on such a deep level. Who doesn't want to cleanse their body and put the effort into looking after our most important asset?? We only have the one.

Check out the Juice Feasting website. You should also take a look at Angela Stokes transformation to a raw diet and check out her experiences whilst on her juice feast.

Apart from correcting old habits a deeper reason I have for wanting to do a long term juice feast is we are hoping to start a family in the not too distant future. I'd like our babies house to be a clean and healthy environment for it to grow strong & healthy. NB to parents friends, we aren't trying at the moment so no questions please! Just want to start preparing ;P

This pretty much brings you up to date.
I have my family coming to visit us this weekend. So spent some time in the kitchen with Craig perfecting my choccie recipe (for the kids of course ;) ). I gotta say we nailed a recipe for a raw vegan 'Bounty Bar'. It was soooooo good. For those outside of Kiwiland and Australia if you don't have bounty bars they are a delish coconut bar dipped in chocolate. Yummo!

Right time to clean.
'til next time. Peace out!
X MWAH X

Memories from the Tree

For those not quite up with the play. The pictures you are about to drool over are 100% raw, vegan, organic food. Made by myself and other apprentices & chefs at the Tree of life Rejuvenation centre, Patagonia, Arizona.

Here are just a few of our beautiful creations

Everyday our meals consisted of bright, fresh, organic, raw produce

Full of Enzymes and life force

To assist in achieving health, mental & spiritual clarity

The cafe to the left is where I spent most of my time and where we created all the beautiful meals.

Some basic utensils.

Gisela ( one of the head chefs) teahing us how to use the vegetable sheeter.

Blissin out after Shabbat

The Apprentices & chefs

Sunset from the cafe...aaaahhh

The beginning of the apprenticeship

a wedding ceremony at the tree

Drumming circle with Baba Kosan

Day 1 Juice feast!

The Sun is shining, the weather is sweet, yeah. Make me wanna move my dancing feet.



Told you I'd be back!



Had a great sleep, this is good news as I was battling with a 16 hour time difference and waking bright & perky at 1am the first few days back. A great way to deal with Jet stress & change of time zones is to ground yourself on our Mother Earth and sun gaze during sunrise & sunset. Hmm a little tricky here, does standing on concrete, viewing the reflection of the sunrise shining off a tall apartment window count? I shant complain, my time will come when I can sun gaze as it rises from the Ocean. YAY!



Started the day with my morning ritual of Oil pulling for 30 mins, yoga & our out & about adventures with the dog. Plan to start adding gym sessions back into my morning ritual. Maybe from Monday. Monday always seems like a good day to start something.

Juice for today:
breakfast & lunch-cucmber, parsley & lettuce.
Dinner-cucumber, parsley & apple.

Fluids:Plenty of water
Water with fresh lemon juice

Enemas: Hmm not yet. I'm not super excited about giving myself an enema, I bought the kit (hot water bottle with a tube attached) but I am resisiting. I've only ever had 1 colonic before and it wasn't the most fun thing to do. Ah well will have to psych myslef up to it.

Overall feeling: Not bad. Had a few headaches, didn't feel hungry but had to battle with the mind to stop it dreaming of food.

Finished the day with a relaxing bath with Epsom salts then started watching the Matrix.

Roll on day 2! I can do this!

Peace & hunger...I mean happiness!

I'm ready!

Dear bloggy thing.
I'm sorry....I've neglected you. It's not that I don't love you, I've just been busy. Now I know I've said this before but I'm back and ready to share stuff with you. I'm planning on starting a 10-14 day juice feast, so I'm using you (in the nicest possible way) to keep me on track.
I got back from the tree a few days ago. I had the most amazing time and I hope that its not the last I will see of the place/people. However its time to move forward and put into practice all I have learned to enhance our lives.
As I said I'm starting a juice feast...tomorrow...There I said it! I've committed!! No turning back now! I've eaten all our chocolate creations from this morning, so no excuses!
I was so inspired by those juice fasting at the tree and saw people heal on many, many levels I really wanted to embark on a fast myself. The tree would have been the most ideal place to do a fast but I had agreed on acceptance to avoid fasting of any kind whilst in service to the community...Besides how could one fast with all the amazing food we were preparing. Oh yeah, sorry blog I haven't shared all the food porn pics with you. Noted. I'll get on to it.
Tonight I'm preparing for tomorrows fast, not so much preparing for self but for Craig, it's best that I don't have to deal with food so getting a head start will be a grand idea.
First I made KOMBUCHA! Woohoo! I managed to bring 2 Kombucha mushrooms/mothers (compliments of my lovely friends of the tree, Joshua & Savrah) into Japan. I'm not sure if they're on the 'to declare list' but it didn't specify them so I didn't bother. I am truly a responsible citizen, I just really don't think it would've been a problem. However with the language barriers declaring them may have just made dramas for everyone. I just hope the travel didn't stress them and they are still alive.
They are now tucked away brewing/fermenting in a warm cupboard for the next 10-14 days.
Next I made Yogurt using sunflower seeds, water, evoo, lemon juice, salt, cinnamon, raisin soak water & a few grapes. I decided not to bother with the probiotics (for fermenting) 'cause I don't want to have to worry about getting the flavouring right tomorrow.
I then soaked raw rolled oats and some nuts & seeds for his breakfast. Make sure before you eat your nuts, soak them for 20 mins in water with H2o2 to kill any bacteria (trust me, if you see walnuts soaked in water and H202, you will never eat them straight out of the packet/shell again). Then soak them in water overnight to make them more digestible.
Lastly I marinated sliced Aubergine (eggplant for those who don't speak the Queens English), tommorow I'll make a pesto to fill the Aubergine.
Now to clean up my little mess.
I'll check in with you tomorrow to keep you up to date with my fast.
Peace & Love X

Hangin at the TREE

Alrighty!! I have so much to share.

I'm at the Tree of Life in beautiful Patagonia. This place is truly amazing.
What I'm doing here is partaking in a 10 week Spiritual Living Foods Chef Instructor course. How cool is that!

I get to eat 100% Organic, super fresh, unprocessed, unradiated, unmicrowaved, non GMO, totally raw cuisine! My body is just loving this.

The Tree Cafe

There are 10 girls on the course and we all stay in dorms (which is so much fun..It's like I have 3 new sisters), as well as the course we can participate in all the happenings around the Tree.

There's Yoga, different dance courses, African drumming, Veganic gardening, sprouting, heaps of different spiritual ceremonies from different cultures and many many other fun activities.

Temple


The people here are wonderful, so loving, friendly and POSITIVE! As well as the staff and helpers the guests are all really cool, they're all here for different courses and reasons. When I arrived 3 guests were leaving with this amazing glow..Why? They had just CURED their diabetes!!! Isn't diabetes incurable? Hmm?


At the moment there are a number of juice fasters here. It's really cool seeing them go through all the changes as their bodies are detoxing. The first few days they look like they've been hit by a bus. They have green juices for each meal, their days are full of treatments to help the detoxification process, they're constantly being monitored my doctors. Then all of a sudden they just start gleaming!

Gabrielle Cousens, the founder of the tree of life is an amazing person and has been a holistic doctor for many many years. He is constantly reviewing and scientifically studying different foods and their effects on people & their blood.

The available foods are limited as we try to stick to a phase 1 diet (low glycemic raw vegan-so basically lots of greens, seeds and some nuts) which is Gabrielle's recommendation for people in need of healing. Although the foods are limited we play around in the kitchen all day whipping up a huge variety of super tasty dishes.

Here is what myself, Joshua & Carla prepared today for lunch...

SPROUTS!!
Top row-Dill cucumber salad, butternut squash & beets soup

Pressed salad

Bottom row-3 different Pate, Dulse, Spicy & Spirulina

Joshua (Instructor) & I with our creations

The lovely Esther going for the Cheeze & Pickles

Last night we had the Inipi.

The I-ni-pi ceremony, a type of sweat lodge, is a Lakota purification ceremony, and one of the Seven Sacred Rites of the Lakota people. It is an ancient and sacred ceremony of the Lakota people and has been passed down through the generations of Lakota.
The full ceremony is not taught to non-Lakotas, it involves an I-ni-pi lodge (a small frame of saplings covered with hides or blankets). Stones are heated in a fire, then placed into a central pit in the lodge. Water is then poured on the stones to create hot steam. Traditional prayers and songs are offered in the Lakota language. Held at the time of the new moon.

We're able to participate in an I-ni-pi because Gabriel has been adopted into the Lakota Sioux Tribe and initiated as a sweat leader.

Ready for Inipi

The ceremony lasted about 2 hours, there was approx 20 people in the lodge which is about the size of a 2 man tent. We sang traditional songs and sweated it out for 2 hours. I was really worried about lasting that length of time inside but with the drums and singing time flew by. I felt super cleansed afterwards.

Some more piccies.....

The super cute Megan (Garden apprentice) & Ben (Chef Apprentice)

Playing music to the sprouts!!

Our neverending abundant supply of WHEATGRASS

The overflowing Veganic Garden

May Peace Prevail on Earth

MUCH LOVE X

What's the guts with Nuts?

Nuts are seeds that are covered with a hard shell, and most are the seeds of trees. Nuts in general are fairly nutritious, providing protein and vitamins, such as A and E, minerals, such as phosphorous and potassium, and fibre. So what's the problem with eating nuts?

Nuts are extremely high in fat content. When it comes to fat, the source doesn't matter so much; fat is fat. Fat travels from the lymph system directly into the blood. Too much fat and the blood with thicken causing the red cells to clump together so that they cannot deliver oxygen to the cells.

Excess fat also blocks the action of insulin in bringing sugar to the cells, which leads to diabetes and other blood-sugar problems. So it's best to eat only small amounts of nuts (1 ounce or 30 gms in a day) and not to eat them daily. Fruits, veges and leafy greens provide all the fatty acids to meet all of our needs.

Remember when buying nuts, raw/organic is always best, as toxins are stored in fats. We should always soak our nuts. Soaking nuts, seeds, grains and beans releases enzyme inhibitors, allowing the sprouting process to occur, which makes their full nutritional potential availible. The purpose of these enzyme inhibitors is to protect the nut or seed until it has what it needs for growing (ex. sunlight, water, soil, etc.). Since the soak water will contain the enzyme inhibitors, and is very acidic to the body, please be sure to rinse your nuts and seeds well after soaking. (the pic above is of almonds and walnuts I was drying in the sun, after soaking overnight). The sprouting process is said to activate the life force in the food. This is then passed on to us when we eat it. Yum.

One of the best things to do for time saving is to soak plenty of nuts and/or seeds and then dehydrate them at 105 degrees for about 18-24 hours (until dry). Then, they’re typically ready to use right away, when a recipe calls for nuts or seeds. This is especially great for crusts, cookies, pates, etc.

Here is a pic of my nut mix or almonds, walnuts and black sesame seeds. I use this in my smoothies after the gym or as a garnish for a raw pasta or salad like the one below which I had for lunch today. Raw Zucchini salad.

When storing our nuts make sure they are in cool, dry conditions in airtight containers away from the light. Because of their high fat content, many of them benefit from storage in the fridge or freezer to deter rancidity. If left in plastic bags, cracked nuts are susceptible to mold growth.

Considerable evidence shows thats peanuts often are contaminated with a fungus-produced toxin called alflatoxin. It is a big problem as alflatoxin was being shown to cause liver cancer in rats. It was said to be the most potent chemical carcinogen ever discovered. (The China Study)

The sad thing is that this carcinogen is in all peanut butters that are mostly consumed by our kids. All 29 jars of peanut butter they had purchased to do the study on were contaminated with 300 times the amount of alflatoxin judged to be acceptable in U.S. food. The best peanuts at the factory end up in "cocktail" jars, leaving the worst, moldiest nuts to be delivered to the end of the belt for peanut butter.

Take care out there because you deserve better.