Pure Jeevan Blog - Pure Jeevan Raw Foods

One reason I keep going on and on lately about raw desserts and raw ice creams is best conveyed with an example. ?Here are the ingredients in Cool Whip, a commonly available whipped topping:

water

hydrogenated vegetable oil (coconut and palm kernel oils)

high fructose corn syrup

corn syrup

skim milk

light cream

less than 2% of:

sodium caseinate

natural and artificial flavors

xanthan and guar gums

polysorbate 60

sorbitan monostearate

beta carotene (color)

Wow, I had a chemistry set in 5th grade that had a lot of things that sounded like some of those items. It's actually mind-boggling to envision the industrial processes necessary to produce everything on that list -- not that it's entirely possible to do so. After all, among the list of ingredients are "natural and artificial flavors." Ever wonder what, exactly, those are?

I hear the question all the time: "Don't you miss eating out at restaurants " My answer is always, "No. I prefer the fresher organic foods I can create for myself in my own home. I can pay the same amount for better food if I stay at home to eat." It's true, too. I don't miss eating out at restaurants. Sometimes I miss the convenience of someone else doing my food prep and cleaning up afterward, but as far as the actual food that I consume, I prefer the foods we eat at home. Besides, when you eat out as a raw foodist, your choices are limited to only a salad if you live in an area with no raw food restaurants.

Sometime last year, as a treat for Jim, we went to a restaurant. I got a huge salad that I used to love when I ate cooked foods at that particular restaurant. I remembered the greens were always dark, the onions were nice and flavorful, and the dressing was a simple oil and vinegar with salt. Well, after consuming only fresh foods in our home for quite some time, the salad that I used to think tasted so great now seemed to be lifeless and limp. It wasn't enjoyable to eat, and I sure didn't like paying so much for a nonorganic salad that didn't even taste good to me. So, we didn't eat out again after that.

Recently, we were asked how to balance meals when one individual is an under-weight-open-to-raw-semi-carnivore and the other is overweight and feels the need to be on a raw food diet to lose weight and regain health.

Many of you reading this will agree: It's wonderful that the partner is open to the raw food diet! That's going to make life so much easier. Many on the raw food path lack a supportive partner, and that's an issue we've discussed in the past here on the blog and will continue to address in the future.

Jim here... Thought we'd share some hidden camera footage from the Pure Jeevan household. Didn't you know ? ... the Pure Jeevan household is under continual video surveillance!? We have an enormous bank of these cameras, all feeding live streams to our costly, off-site high-tek storage facilities, monitoring every room in the house -- all to capture moments of inspiration such as this one. Why carry pen and paper all the time when you can simply install hundreds of "inspiration-cams" and pay techies to maintain a gargantuan bank of petabyte hard drives ? So, in this clip, the actual origin of an idea is captured. (We totally weren't just acting, ok ) So, having scoured said bank of petabyte hard drives, we isolated the following clip --thought you'd enjoy it as a preview of what's ahead tomorrow.

Read more: Makin' It Monday: Mono Meals

Part 1: The Garden

Below are two variations of the same issue: I'm too tired and don't have enough time to be healthy. The irony, of course, is that the more raw foods you eat, the more energy (and therefore time) you have!

By the end of the day I am so exhausted I'd rather not eat than go in the kitchen & try making something raw.
How do I stay raw with all the food prep and my lack of time and life's pressures

Read more: Exhausted and Don't Have Enough Time For Health

Greetings, everyone! ?We've been away from regular blogging for what seems an *eternity*. When we left the airwaves, the raw food world was at total peace with itself -- bliss, harmony, sister- and brotherhood. Aside from rare, gentle disagreements among raw vegans on issues such as whether raw chocolate was mineral-rich or potentially taxing to your body's store of minerals, things were pretty much business as usual.

And then we moved away and took a little time off to regroup .. ?and NOW look at the state of the raw food zeitgeist: (1) long-term raw foodists just about everyhwere are now "eating a little bit of cooked food," (2) an enormous schism has emerged after the seemingly improbable development of many long-term vegans returning to meat eating, (3) informational summits and online meetings have been replaced by debates, and (4) let's face it, the supplements being discussed and sold are getting, well, much *weirder* than ever!