5 Sexy Little Secrets To Help You Flirt With Your Food And Get People “Turned On” to Healthy Eating

I admit to having seen a fair number of shocked expressions and embarrassed smiles while people watch me eat my food in public places. It doesn’t happen all the time, but if I’m REALLY hungry, and the fruit or food is REALLY tasty, then I lose myself in an explosive experience of sensations, perceptions, juicy vibrations and *moan* unavoidable squeaks and expressions of pleasure.

You can see some examples in my old posts from last year up on the blog!

Pornographic Produce? Perhaps!
The perfume of peaches…
I’d rather kiss a persimmon.

One woman actually said, “You sound like you are having an orgasm,” while I was eating a fresh fig.

Naturally, I blushed.

Why am I telling you this?

Have you ever gone into a restaurant, and the people at the table next to you have something that looks so good, and they are so clearly enjoying it, that you just can’t help but order the exact same thing? That’s exactly the principle at work, here.

We know that most people are seduced by the savory aromas, and old memories, that come gushing forth when olfactory triggers are stimulated by cooked food smells wafting through the air.

Far too many people take a disciplinarian approach to the Raw Food Diet—feeling like they must eliminate, ‘avoid’ and generally deprive themselves of certain things, but the raw food diet is a diet of abundance! The flavors, textures, juicy variety, and sweet, seductive, colorful charms of fresh fruit and vegetables are parallel to none.

So, here they are, then, Ladies: My top tips for making your favorite raw food look like something the person next to you simply MUST have!

1. Take your time
Slow and steady wins the race. It’s not sexy to horde and gobble food like a half-starved dog. Take your time. Make each piece feel like it’s the last piece you’ll ever have. Treasure it. Let it linger in your fingers, Girlfriend. Just the way you hold that piece of succulent melon will have their curiosity piqued!

2. Eye contact is everything
While you nibble on that morsel of tasty, perfect food, let the flavors, textures, and delicate aromas be felt through your eyes! Do not underestimate your ability to totally mesmerize and grab a person’s attention with how you move your eyes!

3. Use your body
Hold what you’re eating as if it were a delicate flower you don’t want to squish! If you hold it like an afterthought, you can’t possibly turn someone on with it. You’ve got to hold it like the delicate little jewel of nature that it is! Don’t grab it like a cheap apple, treat it like the seductive, sinfully delicious apple that it is.

I swear to you, one of the sexiest things I ever observed was another woman eating an apple! She totally took the time to hold it and wrap her lips around it before biting and tasting it with porn-star perfection…

4. Squeak! Moan! Let Go!
I mean, honestly, if you’re hungry enough, this will just happen automatically. Get into it, Girl! Enjoy it and let them see and HEAR how tasty that juicy raw food is! Giggle at how delicious it is. They won’t be able to ignore it when you do this!

Finally, bringing it in for the power-move, number

5: Drip!
For heaven’s sake! That’s the sexiest part. The little drips that roll down your finger or face mean you get to smile an embarrassed little giggle, then clean up with the most obviously sensual, finger and tongue routine. Definitely drip, Darling!

And, that, dear Diva, is how you get others “turned on” for raw food, and admittedly, have a smashingly good time while you’re at it! Seduce those strawberries!

Natural Skin and Beauty Recipes: Ginger Lime Body Polish

Ginger Lime Body Polish
Take a mini vacation to the tropics with this exfoliating treatment that will leave your skin feeling smooth to the touch.

Sugar
A sugar scrub is a scrub made with natural sugars for a gentler affect. Sugar scrubs are less dehydrating than salt scrubs and can be used by all skin types. Sugar scrubs promote the growth of healthier skin cells and promote cellular turnover. I like to use white sugar in this recipe because once you zest the lime; the zest is visually stimulating to the eye against the backdrop of the white sugar.

Macadamia Nut Oil
Macadamia Nut Oil (Macadamia integrifolia) is expeller pressed from the nut of the macadamia nut tree and is high in palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid commonly found in other vegetable oils. Palmitoleic acid is also found in sebum, thus macadamia oil has been often recommended for mature skin, which starts to dry as the sebum production diminishes. It is high nourishing and emollient oil recommended for dry and mature skin.

Ginger Essential Oil
Ginger essential oil (Zingiber officinale) Ginger seems to improve the body’s ability to sweat, help circulation and help us get rid of cold symptoms and the flu.

Lime Essential Oil
Lime Essential Oil (Citrus aurantifolia) is steam distilled using the whole fruit and expressed lime oil is cold-pressed from the fruit rind of green limes. Cold-pressed lime oil acts as an astringent, counteracting overproduction of sebum, and is especially useful for oily skin. Its antibacterial property is useful for the treatment of acne.

Lime (fruit)
Lime (Citrus aurantifolia) is smaller in size than the lemon, with a thin smooth skin. It has a sweet smell and contains less juice than the lemon, but packs a powerful punch when used in food and skin care recipes.

Recipe:
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup macadamia nut oil
5 drops ginger essential oil
4 drops lime essential oil
Zest from 1 lime

Directions:
Combine 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup macadamia nut oil in a bowl and mix well. Add zest of 1 lime to sugar and oil mixture and combine well. Add 5 drops of ginger essential oil and 4 drops of lime essential oil to mixture and combine well. Apply mixture to entire body in a circular motion, paying close attention to heels, knees and elbows. Shower off in warm water and notice the soft touch to the skin left behind by the macadamia nut oil and the fragrant aroma of the essential oils. This scrub invigorates and exfoliates the skin, while the macadamia nut oil and essential oil are left to moisturize the body and leave the skin with an intoxicating aroma.

Enjoy!

By Tracy Neely

9 Tips for More Restful Pregnancy Sleep

About 6 months ago, I wrote about the benefits of co-sleeping and needing a bigger bed to accommodate my soon to be expanding family. Well, this family is finally getting its king-size bed! It will be delivered in a couple weeks – and not a moment too soon: with my ever-expanding belly and my toddler’s propensity to sleep horizontally across the bed, it’s only gotten more difficult to catch some good zzzz’s. While the bed will surely make a big difference, here are some other tips I’ve found really help to get some sound sleep during the often less-than-comfortable time of pregnancy.

1. Get sleep whenever you can. If you work, take a little catnap in your car on your lunch break, or if you’re at home with young kids like me, nap with them! Totally guilt free.

2. You are probably going to have to experiment with new sleeping positions, unless pre-pregnancy you always slept on your left side, and never moved. At some point, stomach sleeping will obviously get too uncomfortable, and it’s not advised that you sleep on your back as that can restrict blood flow to the fetus. Some women find a body pillow (I have friends who swear by ) helps them get comfortable, but, if you’re short on space like me, sometimes a pillow or two between the legs is all that’s needed.

3. Take a warm bath before bed or ask your husband for a massage to help relax the mind and the muscles.

4. Drink plenty of water during the day but not for several hours before going to bed to help avoid too many middle of the night trips to the bathroom.

5. Do not eat anything heavy for several hours before bed, but don’t go to bed hungry either. Eat something light – apples are good – an hour or so before bed. If heartburn is keeping you up, keep your head elevated with a couple pillows to prevent those gastric juices from coming up.

6. Get some exercise every day. Whether it’s prenatal yoga or hikes in nature or a little walking, regular exercise can really help to regulate and improve sleep quality.

7. Try relaxation techniques. I like to take a few moments to close my eyes and focus in on my belly, try to really connect with the baby growing within. I may daydream or say a little prayer. I visualize an easy birth and a healthy baby and happy family. This really helps to ease any anxiety I might be feeling. Deep breathing also helps to relax – during the visualization, or on its own.

8. Focus on the black. This one works for me within minutes every time! Close your eyes and look deep into the dark of the inside of your eyelids. Focusing only on the dark helps to shut all thoughts and images out, and you’ll be sawing logs before you know it!

9. Read a really boring book

Sweet Dreams! zzzzzzz

The Strength of the Feminine Spirit

I’ve been “happily productive” (as Laurette Willis likes to say) this week getting Pear Magazine all ready for publishing today! My Raw Mom entry from last week — Mighty Warrior Women’s Workout — is in this issue as well as other articles that Jinjee Talifero says “revisit the strength of the feminine spirit.”

About the September 2008 issue of Pear, Jinjee has penned a detailed, thought-provoking account of the contents that I want to share here, because I truly think there’s something or the other in there for every woman to ponder in some shape, size or from. On Pear Magazine’s front page that highlights what’s in the current and past issues, Jinjee writes:

In the September issue of Pear Magazine Online, now ready for you to “pick up”! – we’ve got everything from Annalise Jones’ incredible all-natural home-birth story in the United States to Shemittah and what raw life looks like in Israel!

This issue brings you the voices of raw chefs and coaches from The Raw Vegan Network – Chana Mark, who sends “Fruits of the Land” from Israel and Nancy Telfer, sending “Rawsome Nutrition” from Ontario, Canada. When you read about the difficulty of obtaining many raw organic foods in Israel, you may be inspired by the opportunities afforded us in the US, the UK and much of Europe, and Australia. When others go to great lengths to eat right, it tends to make us take greater advantage of our blessings.Chana does report that “as raw foods become more popular, these items become more in demand and eventually will appear in greater numbers and, hopefully, prices will go down. As a Raw/Living Foods educator here in Israel, I have been receiving more and more e-mails, calls and contacts as people begin their journeys.”Canadian raw foods educator Nancy Telfer writes: “The moment you start to simultaneously increase the amount of living food and decrease the amount of cooked food, the living body immediately seizes upon that opportunity and starts to correct any imbalances that exist. Your body will function with no pain or disease if it has all the necessary nutrients. If you knew you could live out your life free of pain, ill health and disease and could experience consistent high energy and vitality, is there anything you would choose over that?”Brenda Cobb introduces us to “Finding the Genie in Your Genes” – an in depth process to identify your desires and eliminate your obstacles to them, through discovering your archetypal personality and ancestral patterns, complete with links to a complimentary guide and workbook!

Not crazy about yoga and its origins in Eastern religion? I am, but I also totally understand those who are not. So, although I’d like to edit out the stuff that is anti-yoga in our feature article, for my more sensitive readers, I guess I’m more into free speech and freedom of opinion, so I’m going to leave our interviewee Laurette Willis’s words intact.

One of the reasons I hired Penny Powell to be the Editor in Chief of Pear Magazine Online is because she, like me, seems to be a Christian who also enjoys spirituality, philosophy, and gems gleaned from the religions of the world. I wanted Pear to act as a bridge between religions, to honor and respect all religions, and to give voice to opinions and beliefs that were different than our own.

I honor the journey of Laurette Willis, developer of the PraiseMoves fitness DVDs who Penny interviews, is inspired by, and writes about in this issue. Not all of her views perfectly reflect mine, but then, what two people have the same views of everything? We (people) don’t talk about religion, money, sex, or politics much of the time, in our valiant efforts to maintain peace – because we are so different and so passionate about these subjects. But then we don’t learn to understand each other either, sadly. So, I think it is good we open up about these things, and learn to hear things we don’t agree with, even if they attack things we believe in. If we can stay open and listening, not judging, not defending, not fearing, just loving, then we will learn much.

Strangely, even though I am a Christian, I have an issue with some Christians because they seem to me to deny the validity of other religions. The paradox is that their branch of this religion tells them it is good to deny the validity of other religions. So if that is their religion, then by my own philosophy, I should accept and honor that. It is complicated, but that is why I am actually excited about publishing this article!

So, we interview the creator of PraiseMoves – who was given the inspiration from God to “Transform your workout into worship!” This is not a Christian Yoga but a Christian Alternative to Yoga. I loved reading about Laurette’s journey through addiction and despair to her awakening to her path – it certainly seems as though it was guided, and the perfectly right thing for her. And it is benefiting many people!I love her passion for sharing God’s greatness! Here’s just one of the exhortations Laurette offers in this article: “Doesn’t it make sense that the One who created you knows you completely? He knows how to fix what’s messed up, how to bring you to the place of greatest fulfillment in your life and make your life a shining example of what God can do with a person who dares to trust Him.”Penny conducted the very lively interview with Laurette, whose program was purchased by TBN, and also contributes her own article on PraiseMoves, ‘Mighty Warrior Women’s Workout’, in which she writes…. “I became interested in interviewing Laurette after trying out one of her PraiseMoves DVDs, ‘PraiseMoves Alphabetics.’ After positioning my body in postures that mirror the letters of the Hebrew alphabet — and meditating on Scripture verses in the process — I had quite a moving experience. I ‘traveled’ through Proverbs 31 in a way I had never done so before, and I just had to write about it.”More from Penny’s article.. “I not only feel my physical body strengthening as I hold the postures, but my mind and Spirit, too. ‘She girds herself with strength and strengthens her arms.’ And, ‘She extends her hand to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy,’ are some of the Proverbs 31 verses that are heard throughout the workout.”Regular Pear Magazine contributor Annalise Jones writes about how she prepared her body, mind, and spirit, and how God guided her labor for a painless childbirth with her second baby, after almost dying in delivering her first! Congratulations Annalise! You are amazingly brave!Jinjee gives us an account of the first ever meeting of The Raw Vegan Village’s core group in Ojai earlier this month! – An inspiring update for all who want to keep up with developments of this exciting green utopia in the making!

I think this is a very empowering, deeply courageous, issue – with the recurring theme being the strength of the feminine spirit!

I know you will enjoy it, be inspired by it, and be blessed by it! ~ Jinjee Talifero

My Favorite, Easy, Cheezy Noodles

I’ve been making this little recipe a lot for myself and tonight I mixed it with a whole bunch of sunflower and pea sprouts.

2 organic zucchinis
a pinch of sea salt
a drizzle of olive oil
2-3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
3-4 raw olives

Directions:
With your friendly-neighborhood vegetable peeler, peel the zucchini into thin strips and pile ‘em high. Sprinkle with that little pinch of salt, drizzle with oil, and leave them just long enough to get slippery and for the moisture to start coming out of the zucchinis because of the salt. (10 minutes)

Now, sprinkle nutritional yeast, stir throughout and sprinkle some chopped, olives on the top.

Sit down with a gorgeous little bowl and slim, sexy fork, then dive in, Baby!

A Note About This Recipe:
OH MY GOSH! This particular recipe includes 4 of the things I have been depriving myself of for the last 2 years! Naturally, you can imagine my glee and salivatingly satisfying enjoyment of this little dish.

Since Dr. T has come on board for The Truth About Your Food campaign, I have been making some major adjustments to my diet! Sign up for the Truth About Your Food, and you, too, will have a total-health transformation!!