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 special Mondays, you sometimes see a regular feature here on Pure Jeevan's blog called Makin' It Monday. We always have so much fun doing this series, and it's been a huge hit both here on our blog and on YouTube.
We thought of a way to make the special Mondays even more special! Guess how? By seeing YOU in our Makin' It Monday raw food recipe videos! So, here's an open casting call for anyone in the Pure Jeevan family (that's you!) adventurous enough to prepare a raw food recipe on video to be featured in our Makin' It Monday series!
Today, for Makin' It Monday, Jim has taken you through the steps of making a vegetable wrap. He came home for lunch, pulled the veggies out of the fridge, and the filming began. He quickly shows how just about anyone can prepare fresh, raw, delicious food in less than fifteen minutes. His goal was to get it done in under ten minutes, but it actually took about fourteen. Still, fourteen minutes to prepare amazingly tasty, delicious, and nutritious food is AWESOME!
While I was growing up in the Midwest, I had a rich uncle who lived out East in Philadelphia. I didn't know him very well at the time, but would often glean stories via the family grape vines of his business successes. After high school, I attended college in Northeastern Pennsylvania -- Wilkes University -- where, incidentally, I first met Wendi! :-)
Being out there, I got to visit my uncle from time to time, and dine with him and his family. ?Among other things, he was quite the gourmand. I'm not so sure what he'd have thought of raw foods, although I suspect he'd have appreciated the many gourmet efforts.
Last year when I organized a raw food spiritual retreat at an ashram, I met some very lovely people. Two of those individuals were Patty and Denny (you can visit their blog to say hello to them). They were new to gourmet raw foods, so they were enthusiastic learners at the retreat. When they returned home after the blissful weekend, they began using their new raw food knowledge. Here are some excerpts of emails I have received from them since the retreat last year:
Well, you said you're motive in putting on this retreat was simply to pass on this valuable information and to help others; you were very successful where we're concerned - it is no exaggeration to say that you have changed our lives forever.
We've been almost 100% raw since the retreat. ... We're so excited about this new way of eating that we bought a new Vita-Mix. ...We can actually say that this has been our most notable and enjoyable dining experience - ever, in our entire lives! No one would ever put that much work into something if it were just for money; it is obvious that you did it from your heart. We feel blessed to have received such a gift.
Hi all-? Jim here from Pure Jeevan with our next eipsode of "Know Your Food."? This is "Episode 2 (salvaged): Turnips."? As far as that "salvaged" parenthetical... This relates to the story I told in our first episode -- about how we're planning to upgrade our video equipment, audio equipment, video editing software, and more. I hope you like it, though. Still working on getting them down to 3-4 minutes. This one's just over 5 minutes. If you're wondering how Wendi became strong as Xena Warrior Princess, you'll have to watch this vid!
So, to summarize:? Turnips are great for the root portion (the turnips, proper) or the greens. (Here at Pure Jeevan, we like to use turnips as shells for rawvioli, or simply sliced and served with a little salt. The greens are great juiced!)? Turnips are starchy, but not as heavy as potatoes, and are a great Vitamin C source. They contain fiber, manganese, pantothenic acid, thiamine, potassium, folic acid, copper, niacin, B6, E, riboflavin, and more. The greens of course have calcium, and are a particularly great source of folate (esp. important for pregnant women) and many of the vitamins and minerals listed previously, along with Vitamin A.
So it's time to continue that discussion on the aforementioned fringe one percent -- those people who will not accept your conscious intention to pursue your own health via this path. Please keep in mind during this discussion that we're only discussing just that one percent, not people in general. So, this is, I hope, relatively rare.
To begin, I'd like to stress a few points:
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...)
Here's a letter from Wendi to the Pure Jeevan family. I prettied it up a little with some color and graphics. -Jim
Hi there, lovely Pure Jeevan family! I'll be away from the computer for a month, working on some deep healing. It's time to go within and really hear what my body and spirit are saying.
Read more: Wendi's Taking a Break... A Peek Into How She's Been
I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day and plopped a package of chicken wings up onto the conveyor belt. The cashier made some sort of smalltalk -- I think she asked whether I liked wings -- which prompted me to say, "Oh, the chicken is for my dog, Julia."
She looked at me, eyebrows raised. "For your dog "
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!
Here's another brief video from our travels. Since time for editing is limited, I think I'll just run some more of the shorter vids this week and then get into the longer, more in-depth interviews next week. So, this is a short, fun conversation I had with Steve, who tends the raw juice and smoothie bar at Cousin's Incredible Vitality raw restaurant in Chicago. Here's the vid:
Read more: Pure Jeevan Interviews Steve from Cousins Raw Restaurant in Chicago