Are You Getting Enough Iron on Raw Food?

This article was contributed by Joanna Steven

When I first told my doctor that I planned on getting pregnant some time this year, she immediately prescribed a multivitamin. Since I am aware of the fact that many raw women cannot stomach leafy greens and other super nutritious foods in the early months of their pregnancy, I decided to go ahead and take them. But when I noticed that each pill contained twice the daily requirement of iron, I was a little concerned.

According to the MedlinePlus Encyclopedia, iron overdoses can cause anything from dehydration to liver damage. When I told her that my hemoglobin level was already 44 (with 37 being the limit between normal levels and anemia, and 47 the limit between normal and excessive levels) without even taking a supplement, she stated that as a vegetarian, taking iron supplements wouldn’t hurt, and that pregnant women need more iron anyway.

In an article on the www.drspock.com website, Dr Elisa Ross, MD, mentioned the fact that women are often anemic in the last months of pregnancy, and this could possibly cause “low birth-weight and preterm babies”. As a result, while the recommended daily intake of iron is about 18 mg for an adult, it increases to about 30 mg if you are pregnant to build hemoglobin and a healthy placenta.

Still, I wasn’t convinced that I needed the synthetic prenatal. If my iron level is so good without me even paying attention to it, I should be able to eat enough iron rich food to get me through my pregnancy without difficulty. I was also able to find plenty of studies showing the adverse effect of iron supplementation during pregnancy. For example, a study conducted at the University of Turin, Italy, showed that “Iron supplementation is associated with glucose impairment and hypertension in midpregnancy”. Basically, women who take iron supplements have a significantly higher risk of developing hypertension and gestational diabetes; they also had lower levels of high density (good) cholesterol.

I started incorporating various iron rich ingredients into my daily recipes, and realized that really, when we eat healthy, nutritious raw foods, we should get all the iron we need without taking supplements.

Few SA dieters are aware of the fact that raw vegan ingredients contain more than enough iron for good health, more so than red meat and other supposedly iron rich foods.
For example, let’s look at hemp’s nutritional profile. A quarter of a cup of hemp contains 40% of our daily iron requirement. By contrast, a serving of red meat contains only about 10 to 15%. We would need to eat 10 steaks a day to get enough iron, while a little more than ½ a cup of hemp is more than enough!

L Avi

Another super iron rich food is parsley. Some people like to juice it, or add it to green smoothies. I personally find it a bit strong in smoothies, and there is evidence that parsley juice isn’t recommended during pregnancies (while eating parsley as a whole food is healthful, massive quantities such as in parsley oil can be detrimental). My favorite way of eating it is simply in tabbouleh. And since I substitute the traditional bulgur wheat with hemp, my tabbouleh really becomes an iron powerhouse!

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In the nuts and seed department, pumpkin seed and unhulled sesame seeds really shine. Just an ounce of either seed provide nearly ¼ of our daily iron requirement. I love sprinkling pumpkin seeds on salad, or adding them to flax crackers. And sesame seeds can be slipped into nearly anything as they are so small, or they can be a dish’s main attraction if you use tahini (sesame butter) as part of a salad or kale chips dressing. In general, other nuts and seeds such as sunflower, cashew or flax will provide around 10% of our iron needs per ounce. If using tahini, either make your own using unhulled sesame, or buy ready made tahini made with whole seeds. Hulled seeds contain significantly less iron and calcium.

Eating an iron rich raw vegan diet is really easy, and here are a few recipes to get you started!

Protein & Iron Strawberry Banana Shake (serves 2)

This recipe provides 30% of the FDA’s protein and iron requirement, as well as more than 300% of our daily vitamin C requirement, thus enhancing our body’s ability to absorb iron. It also provides 25% of our folate requirement, an important nutrient during pregnancy.

• 4 cup sliced, strawberries
• 2 large bananas, frozen*
• ¼ cup hemp seeds
• ½ to 1 cup water

Agave or honey to taste, depending on the fruits’ sweetness

Directions:

Blend all the ingredients until smooth.

* If using fresh bananas, add a few ice cubes for a cool, refreshing smoothie.

Parsley & Hemp Tabbouleh

I often look at ethnic recipes for nutrition. Often, the ingredients within them have been combined, consciously or not, to ensure maximum nutrition absorption while tasting wonderful. This salad supplies more than 50% of our iron requirement for the day, as well as a generous 20 grams of protein.

It is believed that parsley is an herb that facilitates abortions. However, pregnant women in many cultures have eaten generous amounts of parsley and carried their pregnancy to term. The problem seems to be with parsley oil, which amounts to massive quantities of parsley, but the herb itself is actually healthful and rich in vitamins and minerals that are very pregnancy friendly, such as folate and vitamin K.

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces parsley, chopped
• 1 Roma tomato, diced finely
• 1 T fresh mint, chopped
• 3 T hemp seeds
• 1 green onion, diced
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• Pinch salt

Directions:

Toss all ingredients together except for the tomatoes. Refrigerate until ready to use, and add the tomatoes just before serving. If the tabbouleh stays in the fridge for too long, it might start to dry out. Simply add a little more olive oil and toss one more time.

Quick & Easy Morning Cereal

This cereal is so quick and easy, and my husband likes it more than all the really complicated ones that need lots of dehydrating and prep time. Adding nut milk make the mix even more nutritious.

Ingredients:

• 1 T pumpkin seeds, soaked
• 1 T sunflower seeds, soaked
• 1 T raisins
• 1 T dry apricots, finely diced
• 1 T prepared raw chocolate chips, chopped (or a few cacao nibs)

Anything you want to add! Berries, fresh fruits cut into small cubes etc. are especially good

Directions:

Toss all the ingredients together into a bowl, add some nut milk, and enjoy!

A Big Birthday Announcement! Divalicious: Simple. Sexy. Raw.

At about this time two years ago, we made a request to participants of our 7-Day Detox to help us put together a recipe book by sending in their favorite recipes. We asked for simple recipes that are easy on the system and wanted to collect a whole book of detox-friendly recipes.

Then we called upon some friends–other go-getters in the raw food movement that we consider “Raw Divas,” and we asked them to contribute a few recipes each.  The end result is this:

Divalicious!
Simple. Sexy. Raw.

With 140 jam-packed pages of recipes, this book is a treasure. For months and months we sat on this endless pile of contributions and recipes and we just couldn’t get it all done. Then I called upon my friends and sisters in our Cozy Coaching group and asked for them to pitch in and help get this done.

The results are better than any of us could have imagined. When you flip through the pages of this book, you’ll see that A LOT of time, care and attention has gone into making it a GORGEOUS, INSPIRING, and HELPFUL representation of the culinary wizardry of a whole lot of exceptional women.

Until International Green Smoothie Day arrives on August 15th, we’ll be offering a special launch pad price. Get your copy now and save $5 off the cost of the book. This is an e-book, so you will not have to pay additional shipping or wait to receive your copy. Just download, print and enjoy!!

It’s BEAUTIFUL and I am SO, So, SOOOoooOOOOo excited to be able to finally show it off!!

Thanks for your support!

Love and hugs,

Tera and the Cozy Coaches

Are You Getting Enough Iron on the Raw Vegan Diet?

by Joanna Steven

Are You Getting Enough Iron on the Raw Vegan Diet
by Joanna Steven
When I first told my doctor that I planned on getting pregnant some time this year, she immediately prescribed a multivitamin. Since I am aware of the fact that many raw women cannot stomach leafy greens and other super nutritious foods in the early months of their pregnancy, I decided to go ahead and take them. But when I noticed that each pill contained twice the daily requirement of iron, I was a little concerned.

According to the MedlinePlus Encyclopedia, iron overdoses can cause anything from dehydration to liver damage. When I told her that my hemoglobin level was already 44 (with 37 being the limit between normal levels and anemia, and 47 the limit between normal and excessive levels) without even taking a supplement, she mentioned the fact that as a vegetarian, taking iron supplements wouldn’t hurt, and that pregnant women need more iron anyway.

Still, I wasn’t convinced. If my iron level is so good without me even paying attention to it, I should be able to eat enough iron rich food to get me through my pregnancy without difficulty. I started incorporating various iron rich ingredients into my daily recipes, and realized that really, when we eat healthy, nutritious raw foods, we should get all the iron we need without taking supplements.

Most dieters are not aware of the fact that raw vegan ingredients contain more than enough iron for good health, more so than red meat and other supposedly iron rich foods.
For example, let’s look at hemp’s nutritional profile. A quarter of a cup of hemp contains 40% of our daily iron requirement. By contrast, a serving of red meat contains only about 10 to 15%. We would need to eat 10 steaks a day to get enough iron, while a little more than ½ a cup of hemp is more than enough!

Another super iron rich food is parsley. Some people like to juice it, or add it to green smoothies. I personally find it a bit strong in smoothies, and I once read that parsley juice wasn’t recommended during pregnancies (parsley as a whole food is healthful, but massive quantities such as in parsley oil or large parsley juices aren’t recommended). My favorite way of eating it is simply in tabbouleh. And since I substitute the traditional bulgur wheat with hemp, my tabbouleh really becomes an iron powerhouse!

In the nuts and seed department, pumpkin seed and unhulled sesame seeds really shine. Just an ounce of either seed provide nearly ¼ of our daily iron requirement. I love sprinkling pumpkin seeds on salad, or adding them to flax crackers. And sesame seeds can be slipped into nearly anything as they are so small, or they can be a dish’s main attraction if you use tahini (sesame butter) as part of a salad or kale chips dressing. In general, other nuts and seeds such as sunflower, cashew or flax will provide around 10% of our iron needs per ounce.

Eating an iron rich raw vegan diet is really easy, and here are a few recipes to get you started!

Protein & Iron Strawberry Banana Shake (serves 2)
This recipe provides 30% of the FDA’s protein and iron requirement, as well as more than 300% of our daily vitamin C requirement, thus enhancing our body’s ability to absorb iron. It also provides 25% of our folate requirement, an important nutrient during pregnancy.

Protein & Iron Strawberry Banana Shake (serves 2)
This recipe provides 30% of the FDA’s protein and iron requirement, as well as more than 300% of our daily vitamin C requirement, thus enhancing our body’s ability to absorb iron. It also provides 25% of our folate requirement, an important nutrient during pregnancy.

−    4 cup sliced, strawberries
−    2 large bananas, frozen
−    ¼ cup hemp seeds
−    ½ to 1 cup water
−    Agave or honey to taste, depending on the fruits’ sweetness

Directions:
Blend all the ingredients until smooth. If using fresh bananas, you can add a few ice cubes for a cool, refreshing smoothie.

Parsley & Hemp Tabbouleh
I often look at ethnic recipes for nutrition. Often, the ingredients within them have been combined, consciously or not, to ensure maximum nutrition absorption while tasting wonderful. This salad supplies more than 50% of our iron requirement for the day, as well as a generous 20 grams of protein.

Ingredients:
−    2 ounces parsley, chopped
−    1 Roma tomato, diced finely
−    1 T fresh mint, chopped
−    3 T hemp seeds
−    1 green onion, diced
−    1 T olive oil
−    1 T fresh lemon juice
−    Pinch salt

Directions:
−    Toss all ingredients together except for the tomatoes. Refrigerate until ready to use, and add the tomatoes just before serving. If the tabbouleh stays in the fridge for too long, it might start to dry out. Simply add a little more olive oil and toss one more time.

Quick & Easy Morning Cereal
This cereal is so quick and easy, and my husband likes it more than all the really complicated ones that needs lots of dehydrating and prep time. Adding nut milk make the mix even more nutritious.

Ingredients:
−    1 T pumpkin seeds, soaked
−    1 T sunflower seeds, soaked
−    1 T raisins
−    1 T dry apricots, finely diced
−    1 T prepared raw chocolate chips, chopped (or a few cacao nibs)
−    Anything you want to add! Berries, fresh fruits cut into small cubes etc. are especially good

Directions:
Toss all the ingredients together into a bowl, add some nut milk, and enjoy!

Building Raw Community

No one wants to live in a vacuum isolated from community- but that is what it may feel like when one initially goes Raw. You feel soooo different, and it can be lonely until you find other people who are on the same page as you. For me, when we first went raw, we were living out in the country with mostly only cows and horses as neighbours, so there weren’t many people around, raw or otherwise! My girlfriend Gaia gave me my first raw recipe book by Nomi Shannon and I just read it and used it constantly as my only source of support and inspiration. I also called my friend Wayne Gendel who was the only raw friend I had. Then about a year later I bought Juliano’s book. It wasn’t until years after that that we bought a computer and I started to find new raw friends online.

Through sites like GIVE IT TO ME RAW, and JUICE FEASTING, I encountered so many raw folks to find camaraderie with.

Nadine Artemis is someone I had actually met about 20 years ago in her essential oils store called Osmosis long before either of us were raw, and then I met her again at a David Wolfe event. She is a Goddess of truth and beauty who is raising her son Lief raw, with her partner Ron while living in EDEN on their nearly 200 acre land, making chocolate and elixirs which you can see here www.livinglibations.com.

My family loves to visit them to frolic in the lake or go raspberry picking. Nadine also gave a beautiful interview for the Raw Mom Summit which was full of wisdom and raw mama guidance.

My sons and husband helped build some of their garden beds on one visit. There were so many raw folks there helping. It is so good to see people living anywhere and everywhere building community around them. If you invite people, and have raw pot lucks and just share what you love, people will be attracted to you, and soon you will create your own community too. Go online, search out what interests you, and through the LAW OF ATTRACTION you will magnetize everything you desire!

Blissings,
Xoxox Raw Mom, Shannon Shakaya Breeze

Wild Eats and Armpit Treats and more…

Just in case you missed it, another issue of Health in High Heels just popped off the presses. Super excited about this issue! Not only do we have 2 amazing articles, but there are also a whole lot of other exciting treats and surprises in there for you! Cool stuff, if I do say so myself.

I’ve decided that we should make Mondays our days for renewing our commitments on the blog. When we were going through the 90-Day Deep Tissue Detox, many of us would come here once a week to declare our commitments for the week. That extra accountability can really help!

Now that we have our Cozy Coaching calls on Sunday evenings, we have a great opportunity to get on the blog and lay down a few targets and objectives for the week. I love kicking off the beginning of the week with a solid list of my targets and objectives, or a good ol’ fashion “to do list”. It helps keep me focused.

Anyway, this week is off to a great start! Health in High Heels is ready for reading and the Green Smoothie Queen willing, we’ll be making a very special announcement this Thursday about something we’ve been working on for TWO YEARS! Finally, finally, finally it’s going to see the light of day!

Okay, Sunshine, I’m outta here! Enjoy this week’s issues of Health in High Heels and don’t hesitate to send us your suggestions for improvement and thoughts for things you’d like to see happening around here!

Love and hugs,

Tera

P.S.

I almost forgot to mention! I’m adding a bunch of pictures from the Raw Food Potluck we held at my house this weekend! If you add me as your Facebook friend, you’ll be able to check out a few new pics of my pad, my friends and some scrumptious foods!

P.P.S.

If you’re up for it, go ahead and leave your commitments for this week in the comment section below! I will, too!

Wild Summer Edibles: The Healthiest Foods are Free!

It is often written that organically-grown foods contain two to three times the amount of known vitamins, minerals and other essential health-giving nutrients as foods grown with the help of herbicides and pesticides. But what is unfortunately heard less often is that wild-growing food, that being, foods that spring forth from the power of Mother Earth alone, meaning no fertilizers needed for the soil, no hybridizing, no chemical sprays, no human intervention whatsoever, just natural rain cycles, Sunshine, and whatever soil these awesome plants can sink their roots into, contain more life giving and life-enhancing qualities than even the ‘best’ store-bought organically farmed foods do. Not just vitamins and minerals and all the other scientific discovered elements, but real life-force energy. These are Natural Superfoods. Eating these foods always brings a smile to your face. And that’s the best thing ever!

Imagine if we city dwellers could be so privileged as to be able to include such jewels in our diet. Well we can! Yes, right here in these sprawling giants known as Toronto or Montreal, we have a plethora of high quality foods just waiting for us to discover. City green spaces, thickly forested areas, little back laneways, front lawns, backyards and even our own flower beds and pots, all play host to a wide variety of wild foods. So what are these Magic Wonders? Let’s take a closer look.

Lamb’s Quarters is an incredible green leaf vegetable that Loves to grow from the base of fences in little laneways, usually more prolifically so on the Sunny side. It has a wonderfully salty taste that is NOT bitter. Fresh in a salad it’s dynamite. By mid-June it’s in full swing and lasts that way until well into September when the plants begin to seed. The seeds can be eaten raw and have a great spicy flavour, or they can be boiled for making a breakfast gruel or ground into flour. This plant just Loves to give. Given the right conditions this generous bush can grow up to two meters tall – spilling out into all directions. (Someday it will be illegal to cut this plant down). Lamb’s-quarters is very high in vitamin A, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus and is also a good source of protein, trace minerals, B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, iron, and fiber. (And it tastes great, too!).

A great salad companion to the above mentioned is Wood Sorrel. What’s so amazing is that this little Gem can often be found sprawling about on the ground right around the base of Lamb’s Quarters. Isn’t that convenient? She’s so wonderful! Wood Sorrel boasts a delicate lemony flavour, capable of giving any salad an original twist. As an added bonus, this plant can more than likely be found right in your own flower bed, box or outdoor potted plants. (Its seeds usually come downloaded for free in most bags of potting soil. Lamb’s Quarters, too! So you don’t have to go far. But please take note, if you find Lamb’s Quarters growing in potting soil that has been artificially enhanced with nutrients, it is not advisable to eat it, as Lamb’s Quarters are very adept at drawing nitrates from the soil and will therefore contain an unnatural balance of minerals.)

Let’s move on to one of the most power-packed foods Mother Nature has to offer. Dandelion! Yes, the scourge of many a Lawn Lover, is actually a True Gift. Often thought of as a bitter horror, dandelion can be quite palatable when the leaves are picked young. I’m told the flower buds pickled are great, too. Baked and ground, the roots will deliver an interesting coffee. And if you’re into juicing, even more mature leaves can be used. Combining four to six dandelion leaves with celery, cucumber and an apple makes a splendid juice, chalk-full of nutrients. Dandelion is a proven diuretic and revered liver cleanser.

The great thing about these wild foods is that you know how fresh they are because you picked them. No more wondering about how long they’ve been sitting in cold-storage or on the side of the highway. You can even stand there and eat them straight away. It’s a total blast. I literally do this regularly throughout the Summer in Montreal.

Another dainty treat are Daisies, not only are they exquisitely pretty, but the lighter coloured green leaves are great in salads.

Plantain, is about as common as grass and clover, and can be used in salads, too. But just make sure to use the young tender leaves, as the older ones can be quite stringy. Much has been written of the healing virtues of Plantain and a wealth of information can be found at www.botanical.com in an essay entitled A Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve.

In only slightly more wild areas and later in the Summer, the velvety red fruit clusters of the Red Sumac shrubs can be used to make the most fantastic ‘pink lemonade’. Gather entire fruit clusters then rub gently to bruise the berries. Soak them in cold water for 15 minutes then strain the water through cheese cloth and chill. Sweeten with Agave nectar or maple syrup and voila, you have a perfect summer drink. It really is good and it’s that easy!

City green spaces are amongst the many great places for finding all the different varieties of clover. They are rich sources of protein and can quickly turn any salad into a visual splendour. The fun just never ends! (Just get there before the lawn mowers do!) Red clover also contains minerals such as calcium, magnesium, chromium, potassium, and vitamins such as niacin, thiamine and vitamin C.

Well that should serve as a good Wild Food in the City primer, but I’m sure there’s probably a lot more goodies springing up between the cracks for us to discover. As wonderful and wholesome as I believe the practice of wild food foraging to be, a gentle word of caution is necessary to share at this point. One must be aware of dogs and their need to pee, seemingly at random, when they are out and about. So, use your best judgement, be particular about where you forage from, and when picking from plants growing along fences, choose leaves from higher up on the stocks.

I really believe that foraging for wild food, even if we are walking along a concrete sidewalk to get there, truly connects us to the energy of the planet or at the very least, heightens our awareness of our home, The Earth. The Earth is warm, giving and vibrantly alive and these qualities are passed unto us to a greater and greater extent the more we engage in a close and caring relationship with Her. The environmental impact of eating wild foods can be profound. Every little bit counts. I’d just like to write that again – every little bit counts. Consider how much of the fresh produce that we in Canada purchase daily, is actually coming all the way from California in a truck and is packaged in plastic. We can collect wild food on foot and it requires no packaging. When you’re finished there’s nothing left. That’s it, that’s all! If those who feel the slightest want decide to take a stroll next Saturday morning down the back lanes behind their homes, they will definitely come home with some interesting goodies for lunch. You might even come back with a whole salad and some herbs for a soup. (Just the other day I came across a substantial amount of Wild Garlic Mustard in the forest on Mont Royal in Montreal. I didn’t even know that garlic mustard existed until I bit into it. And I’ve since been back for more). Now that’s seriously delicious stuff. You can go a long way with that!!

To read more stories about Jimbo’s Journey with Raw Food,  visit his blog at www.jimbolinasunshine.com

Honey, I’m hooome!

I took a 3-day break and made my way out to the mountains to spend time with some fabulous women, fresh air and clean water. It was wonderful!

There were 8 of us experimenting with foods, sharing stories from our secret gardens and learning from each other. It definitely, definitely inspired me to start doing more live events. The calls and projects and programs we do touch the lives of a lot of people, but there’s something about being able to give a hug or look into the eyes of the person you’re speaking to. There’s something about getting your fingers in the pot and plugging things in and making stuff happen together that you just can’t get online.

Next month I’ll be conducting a series of workshops from my new pad. I picked this apartment because it’s the perfect place to give seminars and workshops about raw food. At least until I buy a fancy commercial kitchen. Anyway we will be turning this place into a course room and giving at least 2 classes a week. August is going to be action-packed and I’ll definitely keep you posted on what’s coming. You can add yourself as my friend on Facebook to be informed about these events, too!

Today I went out to our little garden plot. Mr. Right and I bought our first property together. A $10 plot of land in a community garden. This morning we planted cauliflower, chard, tomatoes and raspberry bushes! What a gift to have this little bit of country in the city!

Oooh! Just found out Jimmy is going to be posting a special article on Wild Edibles, so I’m going to post this and let the Jimbolina Sunshine take the stage!

Love and hugs to you all! Exciting changes and birthday surprises coming soon…

We have a brand new recipe book to release! Can’t wait to show it off!

Hugs!

Tera

Raw Mom Summit – After Thoughts

Hey there! I MISSED YOU! I feel like I have been gone for sooooooo long! I started preparations for the RAW MOM SUMMIT 4 months ago, and have been such a busy bee all this time. It was such a whirlwind of wonder and expansion for me.

My whole family had to work with me and my new schedule to assist me and so it was really a learning curve for us all. There were missed bedtimes and school drop-offs and pick-ups (we walk through the forest to school and I wasn’t able to for much of those months) so some independence was gained! And there were some really strange dinners a few too many nights- thankfully I find it easy to keep to my GREEN SMOOTHIES daily for the family, and on weekends a green juice, plus a salad every day!

But GONE were the lovely almond milks, the raw desserts or gourmet meals…I haven’t seen my Tae Kwon Do Dojang either, and my legs have felt so stiff and unhappy sitting on this chair for up to 12 hours without a break day after week after month.

WOW! Working Moms are INCREDIBLE! Its been so eye opening for me to not just get that intellectually, but to live it.

The support I felt from Tera always carried me through! Not to mention hearing the stories and insights of people I have read and admired for decades- like Dr. BERNIE SEIGEL…I hope you got to hear his call! I listend to it over and over again…He has dealt with life and death with such humour, wisdom and sovereignty and showed the medical community a more human face of cancer. I have always loved him.

And Jean Liedloff. Her book THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT was one of my first parenting books I ever read- I actually read it when I was about 20 long before my babies…I had always wanted to hear and read about mothering with wisdom, and this book is a classic. And Jean was such a generous guest to interview. In my excitement I interrupted her with questions and personal anecdotes, and she was so gracious about it all! Her information is SO PRACTICAL, and that is exactly what we moms so badly need!

And BYRON KATIE- How she took me and everyone through that process over the potential death of our children…it was so powerful! I am STILL learning to incorporate her profound words of wisdom IN…It has already made an impact on my anxiety level around my children’s safety and well-being.

I could go on and on- Victoria Boutenko and Vayla blew me away with their wisdom.
So did the kind and masterful Dr. Gabriel Cousens, David Wolfe, Shazzie. And Kate Magic inspired me like crazy- I have started to hand over more than 50% of the food prep to my sons because of her! And I was also inspired by Karen Ranzi’s dedication to her children!

Didn’t you just love SHANTREE? His passion for permaculture and the Earth is so inspiring and moving! And his partner Lorenna- what she shared about sacred relationships and ‘BLISSAPLINES’ was some of the best ideas I have heard anywhere.

Dr. Carolyn Dean and Wayne Gendel always fulfill my insatiable desire to KNOW the FACTS! Their calls were jam-packed with solid content. And so was BRIGETTE MARS’ call! What a treasure trove of fantastic information and ideas she is.

My call with SUSUN WEED was perhaps most controversial as Susun is known for her anti-raw ideas- but people misinterpret that I think. She really just doesn’t advocate any diet over any other as she embraces everything in the tradition of the WISE WOMAN WAY. And she doesn’t believe we are ‘toxic’ and need to constantly ‘cleanse’ and purify- she believes we are already perfect and whole. I honestly feel that is wisdom, because we need to NOURISH ourselves as she says, and we tend to over-indulge and then cleanse which can be so depleting. There is so much to be gained by embracing different perspectives, and just taking what works for you at any given point on your journey.

ALL OF THE GUESTS SPEAKERS did us a beautiful service. The message over and over again was to relax, go at your own pace, do what feels intrinsically right for YOU and your family. Raw foods feels optimal in terms of nourishment for me, but so does herbal infusions. It isn’t about judging ourself or our diet or anyone else’s. It isn’t about making our homes and dinner tables filled with tension and strive. Just the opposite.

The living foods lifestyle is a path of harmony and flow. Of nourishment and grace. Of love and goodness. And it is just a choice, another beautiful choice we GET to make.

I learned so much from the RAW MOM SUMMIT. I feel transformed. Softened. Calmer. More grounded in my own wisdom.

I truly hope you all received some beautiful life-long pearls too.

Blissings,

Shakaya

Happy Birthday to The Raw Divas! A Bold, Birthday Bash Sale!

Today is the official 2 year anniversary of our dear Raw Diva site. You can scroll back to two years ago and find the original first post, if you’re curious. It was on July 5th, 2007!! WOW, have we ever come a long way since then!! In two years we’ve gathered over 22,000 clients from around the world and we’re just getting started!

I’m actually on my way out to the country to soak up the sun for a couple days, and in honor of summer celebrations, I thought I’d do a ONE TIME ONLY BIRTHDAY BASH SALE!

We do have a VERY exciting new release that is planned in honor of this celebration and other treats and surprises that I can’t wait to share with you, but before that, I thought I would give you these birthday bargains for any orders you make before I get back from my holiday! I’m only going for a couple days, but when I come back, these deals will no longer be valid and you’ll know because the next post will be up on the blog, and this one may very well have vanished into thin air.

Here it is, Sunshine! Your birthday bash bargains:

My Baby: The Body Enlightenment System

If you order the Body Enlightenment System (by payment plan or one time purchase) I will offer an entire YEAR of monthly menu planners and monthly group coaching calls for FREE!! Just for BES participants. These will be STRUCTURED coaching classes and yours truly is going to be the coach. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and this seems the perfect opportunity to make it happen! Birthday Bargain Buyers Only! If you’re already a BESer, you will have to pay extra for these calls and menu planners! This program is the heart and soul of what we do around here and I want it to be on the top of the list of things worth doing in Divaland. I hope this year-long incentive of additional support encourages those of you who have been thinking about it, to take the next step and join us!!

FOR 34 PEOPLE ONLY:

If you order a copy of Green for Life, then I’m going to do a happy dance. I bought this case of books from Victoria and just haven’t managed to put the time together to make a sales page. (I mean, doesn’t everyone KNOW this book, already? ) It’s the CLASSIC book on Green Smoothies and the perfect gift for those who are new to raw food, as it encourages them with facts to try things out. If can clear my warehouse of these before I get back from vacation, then I’ll throw in a copy of the DVD, Making a Killing (a fascinating documentary about psychotropic drugs), and a copy of the complete manuscript for my soon to be released Green Smoothie Book aaaand I’ll even sign you up for the Green Smoothie Queen’s 3-Day Challenge so you can be entered to win a new Blendtec Blender during our International Green Smoothie Day celebrations on August 15th! All you have to do is order Green for Life. We’ll do the rest!

Also, in honor of this fine day, we have a cozy coaching call! That’s an open support call and a chance for you to get your questions answered and connect with other

delightful divas that are a part of this community with you! Here’s the link you need to access that call! if you can’t make it to the call, you can still send in your questions, thouhts and ideas and we’ll share them on the call later this evening!

So that’s it, my little Sparkle Puff! Happy Birthday to US! I hope you have an amazing start to your week, and I look forward to speaking to you again as soon as I get back from my outdoor adventure!

Raw Moms Talk Back

Well, I thought I would put this in an email to Raw Mom Summit participants, but it’s definitely worthy of a more open, public forum. We’ve received countless testimonials and life-changing stories in response to the Summit. It’s been an exhilarating week and we are so fortunate to have touched as many people as we have with this project.

But it wouldn’t be honest if we told you it was all roses and daisies. While we’ve had a few crusty critters that weren’t too impressed, we’ve also had some legitimate, thought-provoking concerns and questions that I feel are worth of addressing here.

I got some feedback that I wanted to share with you.

Contraction and Confusion

“I am getting very confused w/ all of the conflicting information that these people are putting out there. David Wolfe talks about super foods and Paul Nison completely disagrees w/ him…

I think this is a good way for us to get to know these people more, but why does everyone have their own opinions that conflict each other? I guess that’s the real world. I’m just 3 months into the Raw food diet myself and am feeling much better, but I would like to know more about what to eat and when, etc. I guess what I am taking away from all of this is that I need to trust my body more.

I love this question because at some time or another, we all asked it as we started off on the path to discovering the raw food diet. Even those of us who have been at it for more than 5 years are still stuck swinging back and forth between the myth and the maca.

“Listening to our body” is in my opinion somewhat incomplete as a suggestion. If I were to listen to my body right now I would be wolfing back a 3rd helping of the carob fudge cake that I made last night. The body can process toxins, suffer from deficiencies and respond to emotional and physiological signals of all kinds. The body can be a bit of a trouble maker, sometimes, if put in the wrong circumstances and conditions. But that’s the qualifier… putting it in the right circumstances and conditions, your body becomes a tool enabling you to assess and observe the reactions taking place inside the body.

Just this week I received an incredible inspiring email from one of our participants on the 6-Week Deep Tissue Detox. After months, years of beating herself up about her food habits, even after weeks of feeling totally unproductive and disappointed with her progress on the 6-Week Detox, all of a sudden something CLICKED! Check out this story:

The Missing Link:

“So anyway, the six weeks went by with me on the sideline watching and feeling like a failure. When you started promoting the Rawmomsummit, I sat at my computer and cried. I wondered how in the world I would ever get this fertility thing figured out when I can’t even manage to use the tools that come my way and I get all freaked out about having had cancer and maybe I shouldn’t have kids anyway and on and on. That cry fest spurred me to give it another shot but luckily for me, I had another trip planned just two days later. I rounded up all the detox calls I could find from the emails you sent and loaded them all on my mp3 player for the road. They ended up on my player in a very random order so I just listened to whatever I came to. First up was the liver detox call. Dr. Ritamarie started talking about those people with the MTHFR gene deficiency (my husband and I both have it – him homozygous and me hetero) and the GST mutation that the other 50% of the population has (I don’t even need the blood test to be POSITIVE I’m one of those too). Somewhere near Eugene, Oregon a light went off in my head that illuminated: HOLY @RAP, I’m missing some of the tools that my body needs to be able to detoxify itself and those tools can be added in the form of supplements, get off your damn high horse and take some of this and see if you feel better.

Once I realized that there might be something missing inside my body, I felt a huge wave of self forgiveness and optimism at the same time. My husband has two copies of the MTHFR1298 mutation and taking active B vitamins changed his whole life – could taking NAC and Lipoic acid do the same for me I wondered?

I listened to all the other calls I had with me and I burst in the door and pulled out all the supplements that naturopaths and even MD’s had given me over the years.

I poured through the literature to add to what I learned on the calls and I made my supplement order. I’m very happy to report that 4 days later, I’m feeling completely fulfilled on smoothies with a little extra protein added in, I haven’t had one blood sugar drop, no shakes at all, only one tiny caffeine headache, my liver is starting to agree that it could calm down and my brain is cranking along like all cylinders are actually firing, thanks to sleeping 4 nights in a row! Although only a few days, this is the longest stretch I’ve gone without self medicating with food since I first tried to go raw and I haven’t had to white knuckle it a bit.

I skipped some of the juicy stuff in the interests of keeping this post reasonably long, but the message is that sometimes there’s something (some variable or piece of information) that is missing that helps explain your particular health condition or circumstances. The only way to figure it out is by informing yourself and educating yourself as much as possible about what’s worked for other people and how the body works in general.

We have this, “Who’s right, who’s wrong?” attitude sometimes and it reminds me of being the daughter of divorced parents. I remember vividly feeling split in two as I tried to figure out who was “right” and who was “wrong” when it came to the arguments my parents had about money. I spent a lot of time and caused a lot of pain trying to pick sides only to realize that neither was “right” nor “wrong”.

There ARE different raw food camps and it’s a real pity that some people need to pit and pitch themselves against one another. If we consider the number of people on the planet that share our same values and interests, it’s quite an embarrassing shame that some people feel the need to insult others and make them “wrong”.

You are the only one who knows whether raw cacao is good for you or not. But inform yourself about it, then try it and see. We don’t need to read sinister agendas into other people’s projects and programs. Evaluate people based on their actions. What do they DO to make the world a better place?

We only have our point of view–the position from which we view the world. When you hear someone insisting that their way is the “right” way, run in the other direction.

I know people deathly allergic to kiwis and others that can eat them by the pound and have no reaction at all. Each of has to consider the uniqueness of our situations. These are just SOME of the factors that come into play in determing your overall health equation:

• physical environment
• seasonal availability of foods
• history of eating patterns
• emotional trauma
• genetics!!!
• budget
• physical fitness level
• social commitments and conditions
• interests
• preferences
• passions
• frustrations

just to name a few!!

So, your primary objective for your adventure in health is to inform yourself. Learn as much as you can!! I’ve received stunning reports and exclamations of gratitude about every single call we put together. I don’t know which guest will speak to you personally, but chances are good that some of them will. Just like this client who had her moment of “illumination” I don’t know what lights will go on when you take the time to listen to these calls.

We’ve done our best to bring together the wisdom and experience of some exceptional people and we hope you do what you need to take advantage of these calls.

Today’s the last day and we’re leaving the calls up for a little bit longer, just to make sure everyone takes advantage of the finish line.

Love and hugs,

Tera