Know Any Literary Animal Lovers?

Hi there PureJeevan readers! We wanted to let you know that Jim's new novel CHROO is available on Amazon. It's a crazy adventure involving a billionaire heiress, her Chihuahua BFF ("Chroo") and a host of human and animal characters. Find out more on Amazon! Here are some links:




Well, I hope we're finally approaching the true end-game of our whole move. We now have our home listed with a new realtor (no longer going it alone as a "for sale by owner" scenario), so we're hoping that a renewed effort (and a lower price) will attract a buyer. The market seems to be perking back up a little as well, which certainly can't hurt anything.

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions for places we should consider moving to. I assure you that we researched each and every one to an almost ridiculous degree. There are more amazing places to live than we ever knew, and we were delighted to learn about some areas with which we weren't very familiar -- funky little enclaves in Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico, etc. I think we've hinted as to our inclinations before, but I can tell you that, after so many months of intense deliberation, we believe the best domestic home for Pure Jeevan is probably in Oregon.

This is Part II of a two-parter on raw food restaurants. Yesterday, we listed a half-dozen challenges that one might face when opening a raw restaurant. Today, we're focusing in on the more enjoyable side -- the potential advantages that opening raw restaurants offer over their cooked-food counterparts.

Let's dive into it... Here are six things we believe are advantages!

To keep all of you inspired while we are away, we've asked some

remarkable individuals to share their raw food stories with you. Enjoy!

Even though it's not time to share everything with you about the life-changing events going on with us here at Pure Jeevan, I'm going to try harder to squeeze in a few minutes once in a while to update this blog with other information. I miss coming here and connecting with all of you. Thank you for so many lovely emails that you've been sending to me. I will be responding to all of you very soon. Please forgive me for taking so long to respond, but once we fill you in on everything that's been going on, I think you'll understand that it's difficult to find time to keep up with email and blog writing, among other things.

The latest news, as far as raw foods go, is that I'm having a love affair with a particular fruit. When I was transitioning to raw foods over two years ago, and also during the first few months of eating 100% raw foods, I was in love with young Thai coconuts. I couldn't get enough of them and they did some amazing things for my body---the most amazing was lowering my cholesterol to a healthy range within one month! After many months of consuming at least one coconut per day, however, my love affair ended. I still loved those Thai coconuts, but they just weren't as attractive to me anymore.

Jim here... Wow, it's Monday, April 27! Let's do something different today: Let's celebrate Monday instead of bemoaning this day that represents the taditional start of the dreaded work week. Why? Because it's our sincere hope that whatever you do in your work week is a labor of love. And, if you're not quite there yet, then celebrate the fact that you WILL be there sometime soon. For us, it means another week of working to inspire you to achieve optimal health -- and that's not "work" at all; it's actually FUN!

So, without further adieu, let's jump into this week's fun. Our good friends Melissa and Dave Sokulski have launched a site recently called FoodUnderFoot ("unleash the energy of wild edibles"). Even in it's young seedling state, I think it's already a fascinating site, and promises to become an encyclopedic web destination for anyone interested in foraging wild edibles. So, check them out for some informative info and valuable freebies, too!

This pie is amazing and exactly like a traditionally cooked pumpkin pie! I took a few different pie recipes and altered them until I came up with this recipe.

Pumpkin Pie

Filling:

Q. I recently read the following on Dr. Micahel Eades' (dr. protein power) blog & would appreciate your opinion:

Have you any comments on the RAW FOOD movement and particularly Dr. Cousens claim of a ?cure ?

Dr. Eades' response:

I don t know anything about Dr. Cousens. I do know that people in the raw food movement seem to believe the raw foods deliver ?natural? enzymes unaltered by cooking to the GI tract to help it do its work. Problem is these ?natural? enzymes are made of protein and are denatured (the same alteration process as cooking does with heat) as soon as they hit the stomach acid. The fact that proteins can t make it through the stomach without being completely altered is why diabetics can t take insulin pills and have to get their insulin via injection. Insulin is a protein, just as enzymes are, and it can t make it through the stomach without being denatured.

Jim here... Happy Sunday morning, everyone!? We don't normally post on weekends, but we're sharing this video as a special gift for my mom on Mother's Day.As Wendi likes to say, "Every day is mother's day!"? But, I do like to do something a little special for my own wonderful mom. So, check out this video of a recipe Wendi (mostly) and I created for her. If you remember my reaction to the soup we made recently, it may not surprise you to hear me say that this sauce is the "best #$%^&*^%! sauce I've ever tasted!"

We're typing up and formatting this recipe for Pure Jeevan family members (you know, those who subscribe to our mail list). So, once it's ready, we'll be adding it to the queue of mailings we sent out to keep everyone inspired. This recipe is a keeper!

Sad Update: Our friend Michelle Pierson, interviewed here, passed away in July 2016 after a kayak accident in Hawaii.


We've spent the past three days focusing on the core subject of critical importance in the raw food lifestyle -- the FOOD! However, as most people will agree, it's also about so more than "just the food." Here at Pure Jeevan, we've always made a point to stress the holistic nature of our philosophy (mind, body, spirit, emotions), and we'll certainly continue to do that.

The Raw Spirit Festivals also do a magnificent job of illustrating this point. While they do offer *spectacular* raw foods and presentations centered around raw foods, you'll also find music, dancing, yoga, and other uplifting recreational activities all day long!

Well, we've finally done it -- made the move westward to our new hometown, Portland, Oregon! It's been nothing but the kind of high adventure befitting such a move, not the least of which was a wheel literally flying off of our car while driving (don't worry, no one was hurt) just days before we were scheduled to leave. And, of course, everything during the past few weeks wound up costing about 10x what we'd planned. ?But, we're here! ?And, we're beginning to get settled.

As always, we've got some great things on deck for this blog in the coming near term, including many interesting articles and some fun video experiments we did involving live blood and electrical grounding. We also have some new exciting web site features to roll out, one completely new raw food site to unleash upon the raw foods community, and a whole new Pure Jeevan web site design to launch. For now, though, we'll probably remain off-line for a bit longer, as we organize and unpack things.

Our Pittsburgh home remains for sale. Naturally, we'd hoped to have sold it before making this move. But, we realized that we didn't necessarily have to wait for it to sell in order to move to Portland. So, we took the great leap of faith and moved here without that step completed. (It'll certainly be a happy day when that lovely home finds its new owners and caretakers!).

In Part 5 of this 5-Part series, Wendi talks with Leela Mata about meditation and diet. After discussing what meditation is and why people practice it, Mata Ji talks about diet and its effects on the mind. She then gives a brief explanation of how to meditate for those who are new to the practice, and demonstrates how to use a simple mantra (word or phrase) to aid in entering a meditative state.