We went to go see Ken this morning in Hinsdale IL. I must say he was doing pretty well. He did not have catheter in anymore and he is able to talk and is getting his mental faculties back. He wanted to talk about things and Bradley helped him to play cards, a slow game of war. I walked into the room and he saw me and said had love in his eyes and said "awe AMANDA!!!!!!" the best her could and rushed over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. We really made his day. Now hopefully in a weel or 2 he will get moved to a rehabilitation center for 5-7 months called Ballard in DesPlaines MUCH closer to us!!!! YOu can see in the picture he was MUCH happier. I am actually feeling a bit more proud to post this picture of him. Even though it still looks like he is in a scary state. I assure you this was GOOD for him today!!!




Now onto my fire pit..... it is far too windy today to try having a fire but I might give it shot? maybe maybe not.... but it is really nice and about time!!!!





I am going to have some great fires with this!!!

How to Eat for YOUR unique needs...

Time to calculate your Protein needs...
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Protein is your ENERGY FOOD. You need it to build body tissue, enzymes, hormones and antibodies.

You know you're not getting enough protein if you feel tired and weak all the time. You've got no oomph! Also hair loss and poor wound healing are signs of protein deficiency.

For my first 20 years as a vegetarian, when I drank and smoked heavily, my body was starved of protein. I was exhausted. I lit up in a big smile inside when I ate a soya hamburger, it felt so good. My body loved that protein, even though soya burgers don't remotely resemble anything in nature!

Super high energy came pouring into my life when I began to grow sprouts and baby greens.

If I add a full tray of fresh sunflower greens from my GoGreen Sprouter into my green smoothie at night, I can't sleep. It's too high in protein energy. Half a tray is my limit. Then I make up the bulk with a dead head of lettuce from the store.

I eat more protein in the winter. That's when my grains and legumes come out of my freezer and into my sprout jars (at the start of my healing, I used to cook them).

Come summer, I'm happy with lots of fruit, and tons of leafy greens in Green Smoothies.

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* Ball Park Needs *
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Rule-of-thumb is, if you're eating enough CALORIES a day from a VARIETY of fresh plant foods, you're getting enough protein.

If you're not eating enough calories, then you'll suffer nutrient deficiencies all round, not just protein deficiency

You know you're not eating enough calories if you're losing weight you don't want to lose.

Registered dieticians Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina sum it up in "Becoming Raw - The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets." To get your recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein, they say it's best to eat:

  "A mixed diet that includes raw vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds, with optional grains and legumes, in order to ensure an assortment of the indispensable amino acids."

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* Scientific Needs *
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You are unique. Today you may need more protein, but try to get the RDA.

For adults, the daily protein RDA is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. For 54 kg, you need 43 grams of protein (54 x 0. .  In non-metric US, you calculate it like this:

Body weight (in pounds) x 0.36 x 0.035 = recommended protein intake (in ounces)

So if you're 120 lbs (54 kg) you need 1.5 ounces (43g) of protein, and at 165 lbs (75 kg) you need 2 ounces (57g).

You can also calculate your protein needs as a percent of calories - 6% to 10% of your calories should be protein. As we age and eat fewer calories, that percent increases.

4 calories = 1 gram of protein, so if you're a woman eating 2,000 calories x 8% / 4 = 40 grams protein, similar to the 43g above for a 120 lb woman.

You may've heard that human breast milk is only 6% protein per calories. So why get 10%? Because human milk is unique so we can't compare - it's highly digestible and has a good balance of all the essential amino acids.

Dr Neal Barnard (the medical doctor who inspired TV Ellen to go vegan) writes in "The Power of Your Plate":

  "High-protein diets contribute to kidney disease and osteoporosis. ...there is no need to get out your food scale and nutrition tables. A normally varied diet of foods from plants will provide plenty of protein. If you include meat, poultry or fish on a regular basis, you are almost certainly getting too much."

He also mentions in the same book:

  "Chicken and fish are not health foods. They are overly high in protein and chemical and bacterial contaminants."

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* Protein from Plants *
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Plants happily meet all my protein needs. I have strength, endurance and high energy. After an hour of swimming laps, I stop only because I'm bored.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ("PCRM") advises that a plant diet is the healthiest choice, at:

==> http://pcrm.org/health/powerplate/

Here's GRAMS of protein PER CUP of plant food:

 * Supplements: spirulina 68 grams, dried shiitake mushrooms 38
 * Legumes: lentils 54, mung beans 44
 * Seeds: flax 40, pumpkin 34, sunflower 33, sesame + chia 25
 * Nuts: black walnuts 30, almonds 29, pistachio 26
 * Grains: wheat 30, amarinth 28, oat groats 25, kamut 24
 * Avocado - only 5 grams!

Roughly, it's 40 grams protein per cup of legumes, 30g for seeds, and 25-30g for nuts and grains. (5 grams = 0.18 ounces, so 40g = 1.5oz, 25-30g = 1oz, roughly)

It's easy to eat a cup of cooked grains or beans, while we don't normally eat more than half-cup of seeds or nuts, so protein *per serving* looks more like:

Legumes 40g and grains 30g per cup, nuts and seeds 15g (1/2 oz) per half-cup.

You see how easy it is to get protein from plants? Even if you weigh 250 lbs, you need only 3 ounces! A cup of beans, a cup of grains, and a half-cup of nuts or seeds will do it.

Vegetables, fruits and leafy greens are under 5 grams a cup. However raw fruit + veg is a perfect RATIO of carbohydrates to fats to protein.

If you take any 5 fruits + vegetables out of a barrel full, you're likely eating 80% of your calories as carbohydrate, 10% as fat and 10% as protein -- the ratio recommended by many nutritional researchers and clinicians.

That's why I thrive on fresh fruits, vegetables and leafy greens in the summer, with about an ounce of nuts or seeds a day.

The error rawfood newbies make, is that you don't eat enough BULK. Yes, it's the right ratio, but you need to eat a LOT of fruit + veg.

The size of your salad must shock anyone who comes into the room while you're eating. That big bowl full you used to make for the whole family? That's enough for one.

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* Protein from Leafy Greens *
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You don't get much protein when you chew on a few green leaves. But when you JUICE and BLEND leafy greens, that packs a power punch!

You need a pound (half a kilo) a day of leafy greens for an average 2,000-calorie diet.

In "Becoming Raw" Davis & Melina write:

  "Make the calcium-rich, low-oxalate greens (such as broccoli, bok choy, dandelion greens, kale, mustard greens, napa cabbage, turnip greens, and watercress) the backbone of every day's menus."

  "It is wise to include greens at least twice a day in your meals or snacks, using a total of about 1-1/3 pounds (600 grams) of greens on most days."

  [my note: and enjoy the lighter-tasting greens such as the wide variety of lettuces]

I've enjoyed blended leafy greens - as Energy Soup or Green Smoothie - 4-5 days a week since the early 1990's. I don't eat flesh protein.

Today my nails are so strong that they cut a hole through my socks! Which is a good sign that everything else in me is super-strong.

Wikipedia reports at:

==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_%28anatomy%29

  "Nail growth record can show the history of recent health and physiological imbalances, and has been used as a diagnostic tool since ancient times."

I don't take any special nail nutrients such as horsetail and nettle tea. My nails simply grew stronger and stronger the more raw foods I ate, and by blending tons of greens.

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* Protein from Seeds + Nuts *
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If you're not blending or juicing leafy greens every day, then most nutritionists agree you need 2-4 ounces of nuts and seeds daily for more protein (about 1/2 cup).

Dr Doug Graham at foodnsport.com disagrees, he says this is too much fat.

As usual, follow your own body. As you cleanse and rebuild, you get a feel for what you need each day.

More about nuts + seeds in next week's class on Fats.

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* Protein from Legumes (beans, peas + lentils) *
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I needed to eat a LOT of beans when I first began my transition to whole foods.

I cooked beans, sprouted them, and my filler food for hunger was soya hotdogs on Essene bread from my health store.

Raw foods are like taking your car in for service. As your cell membranes get cleaner, and your entire metabolism operates more efficiently, the beans may drop away.

Today I can't eat those soya hamburgers and hotdogs. They're like plastic in my stomach. But in the early 1990's they helped to keep me away from the bakery. If you're eating meat, then they're a good temporary substitute.

Also included here are soya milk, tempeh and tofu. I loved to make tofu chocolate mousse, and buy the flavored tofus. Today it's too processed for me.

RAW SPROUTED BEANS - mung and lentil are delicious raw. Sprout them in a jar for a few days. Instructions are here (this is for wheat, but you sprout beans the same way):

==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/dhd/recipes.php#grind-wheat

STEAMED SPROUTED BEANS - starchier legumes like chick peas (also called garbanzo) and soya beans are tough to digest as raw sprouts. Steam the sprouts for 3 to 5 minutes, they're a delight! Their starch converts into sugars, same as steaming carrots a little. Frozen green lima beans you can steam too. They're not raw, they're blanched before freezing, but they're a quick filler food.

COOKED LEGUMES - I found them such a hassle to cook, they'd always boil over! Paul Pitchford in "Healing With Whole Foods" advises that to cook beans quicker and digest them more easily:

 * Soak legumes overnight, or while at work - 4 cups water to 1 cup legume - you release the gas-causing enzymes into the soak water.

 * Cook in fresh water with kombu or kelp seaweed - 1 cup seaweed to 6 cups legumes. I loved this tip, I always added a big chunk of kombu when I cooked my beans.

 * After bringing legumes to a boil, scoop off and discard the foam.

 * Cook legumes with fennel or cumin to help prevent gas.

 * Don't give legumes to children under 18 months. They don't have the gastric enzymes to digest them properly.

The quick way to cook beans is to make a dahl. Simmer whole unsprouted mung beans, or green split peas, with a Tbsp of currie powder until they're soft.

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* Protein from Grains *
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Grains are low in the essential amino acid lysine, but high in methionine. Beans are the opposite - high in lysine, low in methionine.

So when you mix beans and grains, you get a good balance of protein. It's a nice warm meal in the early days of cutting out meat, with some steamed winter greens added.

I'd add a sauce from the health store (with no SFS) such as Thai, Chinese, Mexican. Or sprinkle pizza herbs on top. You can see I'm not a cook!

The pseudo-grains (look like grains but botanically are not) - amarinth, buckwheat and quinoa - have nearly double the lysine of other grains, and don't have any gluten.

Sprouted buckwheat is delicious, here's a recipe for buckwheat crunch:

==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/dhd/food.php#gr-crunch

With quinoa most of us (including me!) don't like it sprouted.  Quinoa tastes good only when cooked. It's a quick protein fix -- one cup quinoa to 3 cups water, simmer softly for 10-15 minutes.

For a low-fat yogurt, try this oat yogurt recipe at:

==> http://vegpeace.org/oatyogurt.html

Oats are the perfect bone-builder with their high silica content. Great for women over 40!

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* Digesting Your Protein *
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Sprouting, soaking, and fermenting a plant food makes the protein more digestible. They destroy the enzyme inhibitors in plants.

These inhibitors can inactivate the enzymes we use to digest protein. They're especially high in legumes.

Some say cooking makes protein more digestible. But it also coagulates the protein. You can see it when you fry an egg. The protein chains unravel and cross-link with each other.

Flesh protein is tough to digest. It's like braided hair. The amino acid chains (looking like strings of pearls) are wound round and round each other. Very hard for your enzymes to snip off each individual pearl.

Here's help to cut out meat one day a week:

==> http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

It's not what you swallow. It's what gets digested and absorbed into your cells! When a food is ALIVE and full of energy - like bean sprouts - it's easy for your cells to absorb its energy. But how often do you dig your teeth into a living cow?

Go for Green Smoothies and sprouted or soaked seeds as your protein back-up.

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* Consciousness is Compassion *
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It's easy to pick a fruit with love. How many of us can kill an animal with love? Can you slaughter your dog or cat for your evening meal today? When fresh vegetables, nuts, and fruits are all around you?

Commercial fishing strips the ocean bare. It starves the whales and dolphins of their food, and suffocates them slowly to death in its nets. It's a wasteland. So desperate are the oceans for intensive care (and our compassion) they're listed as "The Next Dust Bowl."

Rainforests with magical wildlife are razed to the ground to make room for cattle. Have you seen a wild animal being burnt alive? Innocent people suffer from hunger. What happened to the fruit fields where they worked? Turned over to highly-mechanized soya, to feed the cattle.

Can you look after grass-fed elk and bison on the rooftops of New York? Or in the slums of Nairobi? That's what the meat gurus say we must eat.

People ARE growing fruit and vegetables on rooftops, and in slums. Google this: "animals + birds killed daily for food in USA."

We can change direction. The steering wheel is our spending dollar.

Slowly we humans are realizing it's wrong to trap, enslave and torture to death the thinking feeling beings who share planet Earth with us. Just as in the 1800's we realized human slavery is wrong.

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* Your Homework *
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ACTION: Play with protein. Calculate your protein RDA for your weight:

* Body weight (in pounds) x 0.36 x 0.035 = recommended protein intake (in ounces)

* Or, Body weight (in kg) x 0.8 = recommended protein intake (in grams)

Get a feel for whether you're eating enough protein, or too much - allow 40g (1.5oz) protein per cup of legumes, 30g (1oz) per cup of grains, and 15g (1/2oz) for a half-cup of nuts or seeds.

You can enter what you eat at sites like nutridiary.com and fitday.com. They'll show you what percent of calories you're eating as protein. You want to aim for 10% to 20%.

Protein Recipes are here:

==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/eat/recipes.php#prot

Protein is your ENERGY food, especially LIVING protein such as alfalfa and clover sprouts (these are both legumes) and baby sunflower greens (sunflower seeds grown to leafy greens).

It's quick + easy to grow sprouts and baby greens in the GoGreen Automatic Sprouter at:

==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/sprout/gogreen.php

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READING: Understand your need for protein and the risk of getting too much protein.

Read at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:

==> http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/protein.html

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* Questions *
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Next class you'll calculate your Fat needs. Fat is the most hotly debated issue in the food world, and raw foods are no exception!

Any questions or extra tips you'd like to add to today's class? I'll do my best to answer on my Facebook fan page here:

==> http://www.facebook.com/valarcherwriter

Click the "Like" button and a window opens up for you to post.

warm hugs -- (womon)Val - DM @valarcher

P.S. "Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive." - George Bernard Shaw

(c) copyright 2011, Valerie K. Archer

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* Wondering What To Eat? *
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Are you ready to go slowly raw? Just for a month? Test the waters...

Husband & wife team Jinjee and Storm are on hand to help you every step of the way. They've raised FIVE raw vegan children!

Each season, 4 times a year, they run 2 online programs:

 * 28-day Transition to Raw, and
 * 21-day All Raw Cleanse
 * Back-to-back for 7 weeks - join just one or
 * Get both at bargain Special...

You pay only ONCE then you're free to repeat both Programs every Season every year, AT NO CHARGE for the REST OF YOUR LIFE

Join here:
==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/alinks/jinjee28+21.html

 * Recipes, Menu Plans, Shopping Lists - it's all spelled out...
 * Conference Calls - you get LIVE help
 * Private Online Community - to support you daily
 * Daily Email Guidance + Journal Exercises - so you feel better
 * a Program Pal - can't let your pal down
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 * Inspiring eBooks, Videos, mp3's - Anti-Aging with Raw Foods * Healing with Raw Foods * Raising Raw Children * Building Muscle on Raw Foods * AND MORE

 * Lifetime Membership - repeat any season, any year

Register here Today:
==> http://www.greensmoothie.com/alinks/jinjee28+21.html

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I am having a hard time today. Last night we ate at IHOP and now today I am not digesting or something and am real constipated. I have made a big green juice hoping that helps. If not I will make a fruit smoothie later. I need to clean out my system.

Also I am stressed out and I know that reaks havoc on your system too. we have a guest staying with us and even though she is a kid of 12, her life and how she is stresses me out. She has it so hard and she is being brought up in a bad town with bad people. So she is with us for several more days so she can have it nice and be safe.

Anyhow, I am now thinking I need to work out today to get my body moving and my system moving. I HAVE to clean it out today because I really don't feel well now.

Which is better? hmmmmmm

I still do not know how to endorse a raw food diet enough. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't think I had the right tools or enough money. I thought it was a snooty Californian thing. So many things going on in my head...... But you know what? From what I have learned so far..... you don't need a lot of money, you don't need to live in California, you don't need lots of expensive tools.

I LOVE fresh fruits and vegetables. I am having some serious fun with playing with my foods too. I feel like a new person. This is a transition process. I am not perfect and I am still eating cooked foods as well. But 75% of my day is raw. All I can do is point you in the right direction and see if you go that way right? This is what God meant for us. If you believe in God. We are not meant to eat the animals. You can say the bible says all you want to but nowhere in there does it say eat the animals literally does it? We are supposed to be eating the plants and berries and seeds and fruits and vegetables. This is what RAW is.

I love what Dan has to say all of the time. I respect his spiritual inner knowledge and his drive and focus on raw foods and life in general. This is a great example of his work and how he thinks.

And here is my latest video I made this morning...

I have found RawFoodRehab.ning.com

It is a social networking site for raw foodists. A friend of mine found me there just a day after I joined. She moved away a few years back and now I can socialize with her online about food. yay!

Now lets talk about poo. When I started this raw thing 3 weeks ago I swear for the first 3-5 days all I did was poo. It was a natural detox. The fresh fruits and veg really is what our bodies need. I may try a colon cleanse soon to get the years worth of yuck and bad eating out. But I need to find the right one. In this video she mentions enemas, so I will inquire at rawfoodrehab about which one I should do.

I am having terrible cravings. So I am assuming that my cravings are actually my body telling me that I need something. But my brain is off firing and telling me that I need what I crave which is WRONG. I am craving quick things like bread, chips, cake.... you name it. I don't know what to do about it so I am making myself green smoothies and other smoothies when I am peckish instead of eating the CRAP. Real foods in these smoothies are far fewer calories that what I could be eating and I am getting the nutrition. Shoot. wish me luck. I made a green smoothie just now that is.........

one peeled cut up orange 86 cal
1/2 a huge banana 100 cal
2 big handfuls of baby spinach 14 cal
a little water


TOTAL= 200 calories

blend


yum.

It sounds weird I know. You wouldn't think those things would go together but they do. This made a huge smoothie and it is around 200 calories. So far today in total I am under 1000 calories and I have had some honking big ass smoothies. The smoothie this morning wasn't more than 350 I am guessing So I am at 550 calories today only and I am quite WELL FED.

If we could just eat real foods like this we would NOT be a fat society would we. I guess I will lose weight naturally huh?

So for Dinner I am having brown rice with vegies mixed in like a cold salad.

1 cup cooked brown rice 216 calories then the shredded vegies I will guess about 50 calories at most

Dinner will be around 266-270 calories at most

I am looking at 816-850 calories for the day and I will be really well fed. It's unbelievable how few calories real food has.

NO WORRIES with real fresh raw foods. EAT WILL YOU!!!!! It's literally mind blowing.

I have such a sweet tooth. I miss cake so much. So I am looking up Raw Recipes for cake. I really like the Raw Food Family. Here is a cake they make for their kids. It is so beautiful and delicious looking!!!

Here I am with my breakfast green smoothie today.

3 or 4 huge curly kale leaves(destemmed)
1 banana
a dab of honey or agave nectar
1 1/2 cups water
BLEND!!!!!! get it smooth.

YUM!!!!