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:
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As we'll show over the course of this week, the Raw Spirit Festival is about much more than just delicious, nutritious raw food. In fact, there's usually so many fun things taking place simultaneously while you're there that it's easy to forget about the foods completely!
I'd been there an entire day before realizing that there was a raw food court on site. (Mostly, I'd been dining on fruit I'd brought along and had stored in a cooler in my tent!). Thankfully, I did eventually discover the food court, and it was really something special. To call it a "food court" is almost demeaning, as that phrase brings to mind bland "mall food" restaurants that serve up mostly fast food fare. At the RSF, you're treated with many delicious options, which can make choosing a place to dine rather difficult!
This weekend is all about having fun! We'll be working on the menu for the upcoming 3-Day Raw Food Spiritual Ashram Retreat that I've organized for the end of May. What does it mean to work on the menu? Well, it means I'll be making and sampling all kinds of gourmet raw food dishes this weekend!
As many of you know, Kevin and Annmarie Gianni (of Renegade Health) have now started their RV tour, for which they selected Pittsburgh as their official kick-off location. While here, we at Pure Jeevan took a special ride in "The Kale Whale," their veggie-oil-powered RV. Inside, we enjoyed a comfortable ride (which included hanging out with Johnny 5 -- their cat -- and drinking some hot tea prepared right there in the Kale Whale). Outside, we endured the freezing cold temperatures of Pittsburgh while pumping filtered used veggie oil into special holding tanks in the RV. Here is some video footage from our Kale Whale encounter!
Since Pure Jeevan specializes in raw food weight loss, we receive a lot of questions about what is required in order to lose excess weight. Many individuals want to know if they need to go on a 100% raw food diet in order to release excess weight.
The answer is, "No, you do not need to switch to a 100% raw food diet in order to lose weight." If you're asking if a 100% raw food diet works better for losing weight than slowly transitioning and increasing your raw food intake, the answer is still, "No."
As we promised yesterday, we're featuring a wonderful (and LONG!) video interview today with the incredible John Kohler of Santa Rosa, CA. You may be familiar with John from some of his popular web sites, most notably his "Living and Raw Foods" community site at www.RawFoods.com. Below are parts one, two, and three of Wendi's interview. They're roughly 10 minutes each. (That's a lot of time, I realize, but at least check out Part 1 if you're short on time, as it offers an amazing look at John's front yard.)
Wendi said she was at a loss for words when interviewing John at his home (and you'll soon see why!), because what he has done on his 1/10th of an acre lot is *phenomenal*. He told Wendi off the video that it's all a matter of trial and error--finding what grows easily and well, and working with those plants the most. If something takes a lot of effort, or is difficult to easily grown, he skips it and focuses on what can give the most yield for the least work. Almost everything grown on John's land is edible!
PART TWO:
PART THREE:
The video of John's garden and the pictures (see yesterday's post) are enough to inspire ANYONE to plant even a small garden for themselves! WOW!
John has a lot going on, including a monthly potluck. Wendi and KDcat happened to be in town on the night of the March potluck, so Wendi was invited to speak at the event. It was a nice, laid-back group of people, Wendi said, and they sat at a long table talking about the raw lifestyle, health issues / concerns, what children are fed in school, and so much more -- a really nice group of people, Wendi said, noting she'd love to visit them all again. To connect with John Kohler is pretty easy. He's on the internet at:
- RawFoods.com -- John's main community site
- GrowingYourGreens.com -- John's YouTube channel
- BeRaw.com -- Santa Rosa Meetup Group
- RawHealthExpo.com -- Annual Raw Foods Conference
Once again, we d love to thank our generous trip snack sponsor, Natural Zing, for helping us to make this possible on our budget!
Original Comments
Below, we have included the original comments from this blog post. Additional comments may be made via Facebook, below.
On March 19, 2010, wrote:
fantastic, thank you so much Wendi, very informative, what a guy and energy bomb he is, hope you are well again, you seem so
love to you
Jim here... I'm back from Raw Spirit Festival East with roughly 4 Gigs of pictures and videos to sort through, as well as 17 pages of handwritten notes about my rawsome experiences. So, tomorrow, I'll begin the task of sorting through it all and posting all sorts of fun stuff (photos, videos, and tales of adventures).
For now, all I'll say is that Rawbin Anderson, RSF East Manager, did a spectacular job in orchestrating the whole event. Here's Rawbin:
Jim here... Today marks the half-way point of the month of May. Let me tell you, time really does fly when you're as busy as we are here at Pure Jeevan. We're still working hard on selling our home, arranging for the acquisition of an RV for our national tour, reducing our worldly possessions to a minimum, packing up the ones we're going to? keep, writing for Pure Jeevan, keeping in touch with online Pure Jeevan friends and family, and even a new project or two that will, I promise, totally blow you away! In addition, it's beautiful outside once again, and we've been trying to get out more often for exercise, fun, and soaking in some Vitamin D!
As you can imagine, we need high energy to do all of these things, so you may be wondering:? On that low fat raw vegan regimen, how's it going ?
Aren't these videos wonderful? Today we have yet another special Raw Spirit interview for you -- the mega-talented Markus Rothkranz. What can I say about Markus? He's a true inspiration, a man who truly lives by his heart and inspires thousands of others on a daily basis. He's actually very tough to interview because he's so interesting and self-actualized, you really just want to hang and chat with him (but then you remember that you're on film and you should probably get back to asking questions that people will appreciate).
Here's some coconutty video footage from our Florida Keys excursion. First up is some footage of Randesh, from www.TheGuana.com, who obtains fresh coconuts for Charlie Wilson's Key West restaurant, Help Yourself (see yesterday's blog post).Notice that Randesh uses a proper piece of equipment -- a large machete (or cutlass) -- which makes short, easy work of opening these precious gifts of nature! In the video footage following that, you'll see how comically difficult it is to open a young coconut when you lack the proper equipment. We actually went out looking for a machete, but could only find a large chef's knife at a local K-Mart. Yep, they were sold out of machetes! (Ironically, the chef's knife -- the heaviest one the store had -- cost about $17, while plain old machetes run just $10 or so at most hardware stores. Next time we'll keep looking...)
We've spent some time on this blog talking about how much fun you can have via the meetup.com web site. If you search that site, you can probably find raw food meetups near you!? But, a few readers have asked us some follow-ups, such as What should I bring and What should I do if I'd like to host a raw foods meetup
*Attending* Raw Foods Meetups
Okay, so you signed up for a raw foods meetup group, waited patiently for the next event to come round, and now it's time!? But, wait... this is your first such outing. What should you bring
Read more: Raw Meetups: What to Bring, How to Host Them (Part 1)
Hi there, lovely Pure Jeevan family members!
It's so sweet that many of you are concerned about us, wondering where we are and what we are doing since the blog has been quiet for quite some time. We feel very loved! *blows kisses to everyone*
Well, our trip to Portland, Oregon, went well. We bought the fixer-upper home that will eventually house Pure Jeevan, and did some preliminary work on it (it's a *true* fixer-upper and is going to require *a lot* of work and investment). A few times during our stay in the new home, Jim and I both looked at each other, wild-eyed, wondering what we had done. Following one's intuition can be a bit scary at times, but we've learned over the years that things always work out for the best and that these sometimes scary, unknown times are what help us grow and learn in ways we had never imagined.