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:




On March 1st we started a Juice-a-Day Jamboree, to challenge ourselves (and our readers) to include more fresh juice into our diets. We knew we weren't ready for an all-out juice feast, but a juice a day seemed like something we could commit to in our daily lives. So, the Juice-a-Day Jamboree was born. We've been posting periodic updates on our original post about the Jamboree, but figured we'd post periodic juice updates in the main part of our blog, as well, to encourage others to add some more fresh juice to your diets, as well.

We've missed one day of juice since we started the Jamboree. Our original goal was to have our juice first thing in the morning, but we weren't always successful with that. So, we told ourselves that any time of the day is fine, but if we can start the day with a juice we'd prefer it that way. The changes we've been feeling are more pronounced when we begin the day with fresh juice, rather than when we have our juice later in the day.

As this is a holistic web site, it's important that we take time every so often to feature pieces on other aspects of human health besides diet. So, today's subject is unrelated to raw foods, but is directly related to your health. (Don't worry: We'll get back to raw foods on Monday!)

Today I want to share a super-valuable lesson I learned when I was just 21 years old. Back then, Wendi worked within the advertising department of a large newspaper. She helped me meet the paper's photography editor who, in turn, approved an internship for me during my senior year of college. So, several days per week for one semester, I hung out with professional newspaper photographers. It was a lot of fun -- and with real darkrooms, too (as this was way before the age of digital cameras).

Wow, could this really mark 800 raw food blog posts ! ?We must be obsessive orthorexic raw foodies to have achieved that level of focused health editorial journalism! Post #800 deserves to be something really useful (not that the others aren't or do not deserve this), so we'd like to pass along a fun idea. I guess all of that talk of Donald Trump yesterday got me thinking about making deals. We make deals with others, of course, but I think we also sometimes can make them with ourselves.

I'm so glad to be out of the corporate business world these days, but I did pay attention while there, and perhaps even learned a thing or two. Today's post is related to that in a way. You see, I was once at a sales training seminar when the speaker advised following a "this job / next job" strategy with clients. What that means in business is that, when you're in the middle of one job working for someone -- say, for example, you're a printer working on a brochure for a company -- you would make a point of saying something like, "Hey, this brochure is going great. I was wondering what else is coming in the near term so that we can make sure to be ready for it."

I started jumping up and down last night with excitement when I received a call saying that the bellydancing class I've been wanting to take at Khafif Studios has an opening! Yay!!!



(This will be my teacher, Berna!)

***** DISCLAIMER: As with all of our posts here at Pure Jeevan, and particularly those tagged with a new term, "Nadi Balance," please refer to the disclaimer that runs at the bottom of all Pure Jeevan pages. Wendi and Jim are health researchers, educators, and extreme self-experimenters, not doctors. ******

Nadi Balance: Part VI

Jim here...As vegans and vegetarians, we're familiar with what we believe is quite a lot of misinformation regarding our lifestyle. However, we've done the research and, for example, know how we get our protein (always a concern received from others), know the stats on B12 deficiency (another concern often cited by mainstreamers), and know our answers to other issues such as where we get our minerals from and whether we consume processed foods and sugars. Bucking the mainstream conventional wisdom emergent from within a world dominated by the Standard American Diet, we live defiantly as healthy examples of our chosen path. But, is there any wiggle room as far as what is and isn't healthy (for us, and for everyone)? What about some of the things that everyone "knows" is bad for you? With questions like those in mind, here's something unusual -- a full post developed from a simple Facebook update. (You are friends with Wendi and me on Facebook, right ) Yesterday, I posted the following:

Think of something that you think is bad for you, and then go to Google & type in "benefits of [that thing]" and see if there is a web site that is promoting that thing. I just did this for "caffeine" and read some thought-provoking ideas (that might all be utter BS, but are interesting nonetheless).

We have something special for today s Makin? It Monday! Remember Terilynn, the brilliant chef behind The Daily Raw Caf , whom we introduced you to not long ago? Well, this weekend she posted a recipe challenge open to anyone willing to participate. We here at Pure Jeevan are always up for an adventure, so thanks for the challenge, Terilynn!

The rules were simple: Use the list of possible ingredients, create a raw vegan food dish, and send pictures and information about your dish to The Daily Raw Caf . Here s the list for the challenge, with the items we didn t have available crossed out:

Some of you have noticed that we've seemed a bit silent, or asleep, here at Pure Jeevan. We haven't abandoned our blog or our readers, though! For the next two weeks, it may continue to look like we are sleeping, but in reality we are doing anything but that! :-)

Here are some pictures of some recent meals we've been testing in our kitchen...

Today we revive our occasional "Thankful Thursday" feature to give thanks for a special Internet destination: Twitter.com. We're sure a number of you who may be unfamiliar with Twitter may be asking, "What in the world does this have to do with raw foods "

In fact, there's quite a bit of raw foods "activity" on that site! But first, let's take a look at what Twitter is. Basically, it's a web site where you sign up with a username, and then you answer the question, "What are you doing " in 140 characters or less.

Welcome to Day One of "Dressings Week" here on Pure Jeevan. After finding out that KDcat took it upon herself to film a segment of "Makin' It Monday, Guest Raw Chef Edition," I decided that we should probably spend an entire *week* focusing on salad dressings.

Well, here's my latest update on my nine days of mono meal eating. I have a headache this evening and I'm headed to bed early. I'm hoping the headache is a detox symptom and that it will be gone when I wake up.

April 9, 2008