What are the benefits of elderberry? Where can you find it and how do you recognize the plant? Why should you know about this weed and what are great elderberry recipes?
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…Live To Eat Well So As To Live Well
Jun 14, Benefits of Elderberry
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Jun 5, Do You Need Milk?
Do you wonder, whether you need milk products? Do you think, that by drinking milk, you don’t harm animals and the planet? Watch this video by Gabriel Cousens.
Go here for more raw food videos.
Jun 1, Splendid Raw Tomato Soup Recipe
This simple and quick, yet delicious tomato soup is especially nice on a warm spring or summer night:
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 pounds tomatoes
2 medium carrots
1 medium onion
3 dried tomatoes
4 dates
1 cup spring water
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
Directions
1. Cut the tomatoes in quarts.
2. Put all ingredients in a high speed blender.
3. Blend for about 2 min.
4. For garnishing you may add some fresh black pepper, cayenne pepper, avocado, pesto, basil leafs, pine nuts, tiny cubes of cut tomato and/or scallions.
I absolutely love this soup, especially when it’s warm outside. And you make it in just a few minutes. Enjoy!
For more raw food recipes, click here.
May 30, Best Cold Medicine
What is the best cold medicine? Susun Weed, author of Herbal Medicine the Wise Women’s Way knows the answer. It’s one of these books that you keep reaching out for when you want to know something about herbs.
Susan is a very special women with increadible knowledge of (wild) herbs. This video is about cold colds and hot colds and what herbs are your best medicine.
You can find more info about wild edible plants or raw food videos here.
Community Beat: Shannon Leone talks about The Raw Mom Summit
27 minutes | Download the MP3 | Subscribe via iTunes
Our guest today is Shannon Leone, director of rawmom.com, producer of the Raising Children Raises Us DVD, and co-founder of the Raw Mom Summit.
Shannon is here as a part of our weekly community beat feature to talk about the upcoming Raw Mom Summit and some of the amazing guests they’ll have featured as a part of it.
To give you some context, over 7 years ago Shannon introduced her two young boys and her Italian construction-worker husband to the benefits of raw food and holistic living. After gaining a wealth of experience, Shannon set off on a mission to empower other moms by marrying her two passions- Conscious Parenting and a Raw Food Lifestyle.
The Raw Mom Summit is Shannon’s latest manifestation of her passion, and in this interview we get a chance to hear why it’s gaining so much attention.
Dr. Robert Young: You are What You Eat and What You Think
This guest article comes to us via Dr Robert Young, author of the pH Miracle, and our friends at Organic Ave, NYC’s number one spot for cleansing and natural living education.
Dr Robert Young and Organic Ave have teamed up together to bring NYC its first ever pH Miracle weekend retreat. On Saturday June 27th & Sunday June 28th, at Lighthouse International, Dr Young and Denise Mari from Organic Ave will take you on a journey that will empower you to revolutionize your health, gain unstoppable energy, lose weight, increase mental clarity, boost your immune system, prevent and reverse illness.
To give you a little taste of some of the topics Dr Young and Denise will be covering, they’ve graciously shared the following article. Hope you enjoy!
You are What You Eat and What You Think
By: Dr. Robert O. Young, Author of the pH Miracle
Ranges of emotions from love to anger to joy to sadness profoundly affect your body’s physical, mental and spiritual health. Skeptics take note: laughter is one powerful drug.
My theory of one sickness, one disease and one health, set forth in what I call “The New Biology,” not only considers how our diet affects our physiology, but also how our psychology affects our physiology and how our psychology affects our spirituality.
Imagine the fish in the tank are your cells and organ systems bathed in fluids, which transport food and remove wastes. Now imagine we back up a car and put the tailpipe up against the air intake filter that supplies the oxygen for the water in the tank. The water becomes filled with carbon monoxide, lowering the alkaline pH, creating and acidic pH environment, and threatening the health of the “fish,” your cells and organs.
What if we throw in too much food or the wrong kind of food (acid-producing food like dairy, sugar, and animal protein) and the fish are unable to consume or digest it all, and it starts to decompose and putrefy? Toxic acid waste and chemicals build up as the food breaks down, creating more acidic byproducts, altering the optimum alkaline pH.
Basically, this is a small example of what we may be doing to our internal fluids every day. We are fouling them with pollution, smoking, drugs, excessive intake of food, over-consumption of acid-forming foods, and any number of transgressions which compromise the delicate balance of our internal alkaline fluids.
Some of us have fish tanks (bodies) that are barely able to support life, yet we somehow manage to struggle from day to day, building more severe imbalances until there is the inevitable crash and debilitating chronic, disturbing and disorganizing symptoms to deal with.
The pH level (the acid-alkaline measurement) of our internal fluids affects every cell in our bodies. Extended acid imbalances of any kind are not well tolerated by the body. Indeed, the entire metabolic process depends on a balanced internal alkaline environment. A chronically over-acidic pH corrodes body tissue, slowly eating into the 60,000 miles of veins and arteries like acid eating into marble. If left unchecked, it will interrupt all cellular activities and functions, from the beating of your heart to the neural firing of your brain. In summary, over-acidification interferes with life itself leading to all sickness and disease!
For over 20 years, I have conducted scientific research pertaining to blood cells. I developed a specialty in cellular nutrition seeking to find out the root causes of why and how disease enters in the body. My findings were astounding, having discerned that a pH balanced Alkaline lifestyle create healthy cells. Through live and dry blood cell analysis, I could see diabetes, cancer, AIDS, hypertension changing the look and shapes of the cells.
My wife Shelley and I have written numerous books about how you can cleanse your body regardless of age, gender, or state of health. For example, my work with the epidemic of Type I and II diabetes has improved millions of lives. By balancing the body’s pH, controlling acidity, a diabetes diagnosis can be reversed or never appear, despite a family history of the disease.
Being obese or over weight is such a strain on the body. It’s really not about being fat, but more about being acidic. So many people have lost weight and gained self-esteem back by learning how to eat, drink think, and exercise in easy to follow steps.
CASE IN POINT
My collaboration with New York’s Organic Avenue
My protégé, Nutritional Microscopist and Founder of Organic Avenue, Denise Mari, advises some of the most affluent, famous, intelligent and powerful people in Manhattan and the tri-state area. When Mari executes live & dry blood cell via a Nutritional Microscopy Education session, she gets to the core of how their diet, emotions and lifestyle impact their health.
Given the current recession, some clients have been more stressed, fearful, and even in deep despair. Bottom line: a negative state of mind can create more metabolic acids than the acidic food that you’re eating.
After Mari and I analyze the live & dry blood, we devise complete diet and lifestyle detoxification recommendations. In New York City, Organic Avenue addresses the emotional and physical toxicity of its clients with Mari’s targeted LOVE (Live Organic Vegan Experience) cleanses. These cleanses run the gamut from gentle to potent, for as long we see fit. The most recent addition to Mari’s offerings is “YOUNG LOVE”, and this particular program is based on my theories and science of The New Biology and the principals of the pH Miracle Lifestyle & Diet. Usually, our clients feel so good that they continue on the program because of their newfound energy and mental clarity.
If a happy, robust life is the objective, than a delicate balance of the pH of the blood should be a constant 7.365 to remain healthy. This takes a keen awareness of your thoughts and words, in addition to your food & drinks. Negative thoughts and harsh words can upset the delicate pH and produce biological waste and acid. Gone unchecked overtime, this can lead to fatigue, numerous cancers, arthritis, heart attacks (really thought-attacks), dementia, autism, and other life threatening diseases.
On the other hand, positive emotions, such as love, peace, hope, faith, joy, forgiveness and charity can be alkalizing to the blood and tissues. These emotions require far less energy and can cause you to be in a relaxed state and cease re-playing the acidic mind-movie over and over in your head. Students of higher consciousness know that you can even enter into a state of bliss wherein you have no thoughts at all and wherein you are producing no metabolic acid.
Mari and I constantly see this shift in our clients and coach them through any setbacks with follow-up consults, strategies and newsletters. Hope, love, positive expectations, confidence in what you are doing, and trust in your own good intentions is the key, and that’s what the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet will do for you. It will give you results you’ve always desired.
For myself, I have decided to call this wonderful place “Young Love.” That’s because I exercise and meditate every day. It raises my level of consciousness and positive connection with the world. The connections between “Young” and “Love” are numerous. My name is Young, of course, but more importantly, being young is a term we normally associate with being youthful, energetic, open, optimistic, and filled with excitement. And the ultimate purpose of life is Love. And Love is the sweetest expression of life. So Young and Love go together.
I Love to have my friends and guests work out with me at the pH Miracle Center in Valley Center, California or around the world where I lead medically supervised healing retreats. I lead them through the steps of the New Biology and The pH Miracle Program. I teach them the Young version of Yoga. It’s been cleverly and affectionately titled “Younga Yoga”. It incorporates proper breathing, stretching, toning, meditation, relaxation, and of course some sweating to remove yesterday’s dietary and metabolic acid and to help bring all into an alkaline state of happiness and bliss.
When you start The pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet program, you are making a conscious decision to try to do a little better. And, when you get on this healing path that leads to Young Living, Young Energy, and Young Love this gradual alkalizing process, you start experiencing those little and then those big pH miracles.
These changes come about because you feel so good. You are rewriting your genetics with your positive emotions. You are taking your alkalizing eraser and erasing all your past life’s negative emotions. On the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet your emotions or energy in motion will finally be under your control. You will become the master of your mind, body and spirit. You will be living an alkaline lifestyle and diet full of energy, happiness, bliss and love.
To learn more about the affect of negative and positive (e)motions on the brain and body and to learn more about “Young Living” “Young Energy” and “Young Love” read, The pH Miracle, The pH Miracle for Diabetes and The pH Miracle for Weight Loss, visit phmiracleliving.com
To learn more about the LOVE cleanses & Organic Avenue or Dr. Young’s first NY Retreat held on June 27th and June 28th in NYC visit organicavenue.com or call 212.334.4593.
Dr. Young’s New York City Weekend Seminar: Saturday June 27th & Sunday 28th June, 9am-5:30pm.
Packages:
- $500 general: 2 day seminar, 3 inspirational alkaline meals-daily.
- $750 diamond: Center front seating, 2 day seminar, 3 inspirational alkaline meals, pre-seminar private dinner (Friday,June 26th).
- $1000 platinum: Priority seating, pre-seminar private dinner (Friday, June 26th), personal question & answer session, book & product gift pack, 15min private consultation one-on-on with Dr. Young, 3 inspirational alkaline meals daily.
Dr Robert Young is the author of the best selling book, the pH Miracle. Denise Mari is the founder of one of NYC’s most respected organic and natural living centers, Organic Ave.
Health Savings Accounts: a better choice for health insurance for us healthy folks
Like many of you, I agree with most of what Susan Schenck had to say in her article about losing health insurance. And like many of you I also had a “but” to add to the article.
I’m young, I’m healthy, I feel great and I don’t visit a traditional doctor or dentist regularly. I plan on living a very long time and degenerative diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes are so incredibly far off my radar.
The health practitioners that I do see every so often aren’t covered by health insurance in general, so the only real value of having health insurance is to protect myself in that rare situation. You know, car accidents, bike accidents, durian accidents and things like that.
In her article Susan stated, “Yes, you might want to get a very high deductible insurance in case of accidents.” I agree. There is value in having high deductible insurance coverage. With high deductible coverage you are still protected from the rare event, but you also have access to low premiums, making the insurance much more affordable.
The best high deductible insurance coverage that I have seen, and that I personally have, is a Health Savings Account, also known as an HSA.
HSAs were not only designed to provide insurance coverage, but they also provide a tax-advantaged medical savings account. This means that any money you put into the HSA account, up to a certain limit each year, rolls over and grows tax-free, year by year. At the age of 65 any money that is in your HSA account is yours, 100% tax free. Cha-ching.
Now, the money that goes into your HSA account is not the same as your premium. Your premium still goes to the insurance company. And to give you some idea, as a single insured person my premium is around $98 for a $5000 deductible. This means that I have to pay 100% of the cost of any medical expense that I encounter under $5000. But that’s perfect for me since I don’t have any medical expenses right now at all and I don’t plan on having any regular medical expenses in the future either. Now, if that durian accident happens and I end up with a hospital bill of $25,000, my HSA insurance coverage covers 100% of the cost above $5,000, (I have to cover the first $5,000).***
Are you with me so far? Just so we are clear let me review…. So every month you have to pay a premium to your insurance company, that’s standard. But in addition to paying your premium you have the option of putting in up to a certain amount into a tax-advantage HSA account. In 2009 that “certain amount” is $3,000 as a single person, and $5,950 as a family. Every year the amount goes up a little bit. The money that you put in that HSA account grows each year and essentially becomes a retirement account. At the age of 65 you can take it out 100% tax free.
When you put money into your HSA account you have the option of paying for small medical expense with this money. Basically you’d be paying for anything under your deductible amount. In my case my deductible is $5000. I could use my HSA account money, if I needed, for things like the eye doctor, glasses, laboratory fees, acupuncture and a few other things. Any money that you spend on approved medical expenses from your HSA can be tax-deducted at the end of the year.
If you are healthy, if you plan on staying pretty healthy and if you are willing to be smart about your money, HSAs are the way to go for insurance. If you don’t plan on getting any insurance at all that is up to you, but I personally think durians and ceramic knives are pretty sharp!
Don’t go out an buy an HSA today without getting educated. Learn about it, ready about it and then, only then, if it feels right feel free to move forward. And only buy an HSA plan from an independent insurance broker who is not affiliated with any one insurance company. Independent brokers can shop around and get you the best price.
Here are a few resources you can check out to help you further your reading.
Article: HSA Qualified Expenses
Question: Do you currently have insurance? If you do what kind do you have? If you don’t, would love to hear more about that too!
Update 1: My friend Jainy Savla had a great point on facebook. Number one cause of death for young adults is “unintentional injury”. A good reason to have insurance.
Update 2: I incorrectly shared a deductible analogy here, thanks to Terry for pointing it out in the comments. I’ve updated it on this post. Sorry, I must have been smoking raw cacao.
Note: Funny thing is we have President George W Bush to thank for these HSA accounts. On December 8, 2003 President Bush signed the Medicare bill which created the HSA accounts. Probably one of the smartest things he did in addition to doubling the size of protect area in America. Anyway, I figure I ranked on Bush enough in my life that I might as well give him credit where credit is due. This isn’t the best system ever, but for insurance it is the best system we have right now.
So You Lost Your Health Insurance…
I asked my friend Susan Schenck, author of the Live Food Factor, to guest author an article for We Like It Raw on the topic of “loosing one’s health insurance”. During these tough times a lot of Americans are facing hard choices when it comes to insurance, especially if they are unemployed. And, on top of that, the number one reason for bankruptcy in the USA is medical bills! Geez!
So what’s the solution? Universal Health Care, aka Universal Sick Care? While that may look like a step in the right direction, the reality is if we don’t get to the root of the problem we’ll forever be stuck in a cycle of dis-ease and dis-harmony.
It really doesn’t have to be this way, this is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Here’s Susan Schenck to take the conversation further:
So You Lost Your Health Insurance…
Millions of Americans are feeling the stress of losing their jobs and as a result, their health insurance. But what if I told you that losing your health insurance could actually be a blessing in disguise? What if I told you that there is an opportunity in that loss…an opportunity for growth, and perhaps, with a bit of determination on your part, to reach and maintain your highest health potential?
When I was in high school in the ‘70s I developed an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa that flipped into bulimia) that lasted 10 years. Sure, I had insurance. But it was the pre-Karen Carpenter era, so no doctors or counselors had a clue—which made my insurance worthless! Nowadays they might prescribe a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but I am so glad those didn’t exist back then. Drugs do not get to the root of the problem and often have side effects nearly as bad, if not worse, than the illness.
Convinced I had to heal myself, I took eight university classes in psychology searching for a cure. But nothing worked till I moved to Mexico and got away from all the processed trigger foods. I also started taking super foods like bee pollen and brewer’s yeast, and… suddenly the eating disorder, which had been a 10-year hell for me, simply vanished! 10 years of praying and seeking a cure for my mind by reading psychology and self help books ended. I got well only after healing the body, not the mind.
I then knew the importance of nutrition as the principle key to health. Through the years I experimented with health modalities, even got a master’s degree in Chinese medicine and did acupuncture for a while. But I noticed herbs were even more effective than needles. The conviction grew that what a person puts into his or her mouth has the greatest effect of all.
When I discovered the cleansing and rejuvenating power of a raw food diet, my health soared! I was free from hepatitis C, PMS that had me depressed three weeks of the month, athlete’s foot, brain fog, herpes, even jet lag! I devoured every book on the raw food diet and came across a multitude of testimonials—people healing from disease without drugs or surgery. Victoria Boutenko, for example, was healed of arrhythmia and her husband of hyperthyroidism. Their son was cured of juvenile diabetes and their daughter of asthma. After just a few months on the diet, they were all going on extended hikes, bursting with energy!
Reverend George Malkmus healed himself of colon cancer…David Klein defeated colitis…Roe Gallo conquered a highly allergic sensitivity to the 20th century chemicals…Lou Corona healed from a head tumor…Dr. Lorraine Day reversed breast cancer…Angela Stokes lost 159 pounds… Jenny Smith no longer sleepwalks. The list goes on and on.
“But what about accidents?” you might be protesting. Yes, you might want to get a very high deductible insurance in case of accidents. But consider this: I know of people who even used raw foods as a main part of healing from accidents. Take Aajonous Vonderplanitz, for example. Four MDs told him that his son, injured from a car accident, would be brain dead for life. But using raw foods, Aajonous got his son to come out of the coma with a full recovery of his brain and muscles. His son went on to graduate from a university. (Aajonous details the entire story in his book We Want to Live.)
Then there is Dr. Joe Dispenza (who appears in the films What the Bleep Do We Know? and What If? and tells his story in his book Evolve Your Brain). Joe was injured in a car accident and was diagnosed with “multiple compression fractures of the thoracic spine with the T-8 vertebra more than 60% collapsed.” The doctors recommended Harrington rod surgery, but Joe was haunted by all the patients he had seen that had had this surgery. They never really healed, never regained their spinal flexibility, and many lived the rest of their lives addicted to pain medications. Filled with the conviction of the body’s innate power to heal itself, he rejected surgery and used raw foods plus visualization to heal himself.
Finally, there is my husband who injured his back from lifting weights at the gym. He was diagnosed with a herniated disc, and told he needed surgery. But he continued with a raw diet, getting lots of rest, and his MRI a year and a half later showed a complete healing!
Researchers are starting to learn that what you eat impacts your health more than anything, even genetics. What you eat feeds your genes toward health or degeneration. A friend of mine who eats a 100% raw diet says her friends are horrified when they find out she doesn’t have health insurance. She replies, “My health insurance is what I put into my mouth.”
Even if you don’t want to eat a largely raw diet, switching to whole foods goes a long way. (Don’t eat anything from a box, can, bag, or jar.) Get more alkaline by eating more greens (salads, green smoothies, wheat grass juice, chlorella, spirulina, blue-green algae). Avoid the worst culprits (wheat, dairy, table salt, sugar, transfats, monosodium glutamate, aspartame).
Also learn to use supplements instead of drugs. When I had hepatitis C, I took several pills of milk thistle three times a day. When I went back for a test, the MD was astonished to find that my liver enzymes were to be envied! My sister was hooked on a prescription drug and when she lost her insurance, if she didn’t keep buying it (spending $200 a month!) she couldn’t sleep at all. When I got her a month’s supply of tryptophane and told her to gradually reduce the drug while taking this supplement, she was finally able to wean herself off the costly meds.
There are other lifestyle factors besides diet that can make a huge difference in one’s health. One of the most important things is to get rid of the toxins in your environment. Get an air purifier and toss the moldy rugs or mattress (especially if you have asthma). Use natural, nontoxic cleaning supplies, makeup, tampons, personal care products, etc.
Exercise is another investment in your health. Vary it so you cover flexibility to prevent injuries and keep the spine youthful (yoga, stretching), endurance and cardiovascular health (walking, running, etc.), as well as strength-building (lifting weights, pushups, etc).
Other factors of health include adequate sleep and rest; supporting relationships; positive thinking; pure air and water; and adequate sunshine during the day so you can absorb Vitamin D.
The truth is that even if you have health insurance, the copayments can bankrupt you if you get a major disease such as cancer and you decide to go the conventional route. (This topic was brought up in the movie Sicko.) And even if you have 100% health insurance, the tendency is to not be proactive in your health. People who have that attitude wait till they get sick, and then expect some pills or surgery to heal them, and then wonder why they never feel good again. Many of these people end up spending a small fortune on alternative therapies that their health insurance didn’t cover (after they realize the conventional route didn’t really heal them) because they truly want to regain their health.
People tend to leave all of the responsibility for their health to their health insurance. I have come across people who accept jobs they hate simply because they want the health insurance. In San Diego, many teachers are turning down a very generous golden handshake because they don’t want to lose their health insurance.
People are selling their souls for their health insurance because they don’t realize that if they change their lifestyle, they can be in near complete control of their health! What is really needed is not universal health insurance, but universal health education.
Take responsibility for your health. You may find, after a year or two (as I have), that you go to the doctor only for the annual checkup to confirm that you are on the right path. You may find (as I have) that you have restored the vigor, energy and radiant health you had decades ago. You may find (as I have) that when you are in control of your health, having no health insurance suddenly doesn’t seem relevant.
Susan Schenck, LAc, is a raw food coach, lecturer, and author of The Live Food Factor, The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet. Susan is currently offering some free bonuses with her book, you can get all the details and purchase book here. Additionally, you can get the first chapter of the book for free here.
Playing for Change: Chanda Mama
Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music.
Big ups to Nirav and Frank Lipman MD for introducing me to the project.
Watch more goodness at playingforchange.com
Crock Pot Pot Roast - Easy and Quick to Prepare
I share a recipe for a crock pot roast. It is easy to prepare and delicious.