- by Danielle Greason

When Raw Mom Joanne Newell put together the first ever raw food recipe book for kids, we knew it would be a hit, but we didn’t realize how well-loved and adored this collection would become!  So many kids of all ages have been inspired to get creative in the kitchen and love their veggies served with style, since this book was written.

The daily moments we create now with our children help determine the choices they make in the future.  Monkey Mike’s Un-Cookbook for Kids is the perfect kitchen companion to help make that happen!

This week we have up for grabs 3 copies of Monkey Mike’s Raw Food Kitchen recipe collection. Read on to find out how you can win a copy to inspire the little ones in your life along a path to vibrant living.

Meet Monkey Mike

He’s the new maître d’ at your house and he’s going to get the kids inspired and excited about eating more fresh foods!

Having grown up in the jungles of childhood fairy tales, Monkey Mike is the perfect companion for your child’s discovery of fresh, healthy food preparation. Being a vegetarian raw foodist himself, you can be sure he’ll choose the best foods for ingredients in his recipes, too.

These days, school lunch boxes are packed with more than just a sandwich and a crisp, juicy apple. There are refined blood sugar boosters, hydrolyzed pesticides, hydrogenated herbicides and artificially colored artery blockers!

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but have you noticed that the incidence of food allergies, asthma, ADD, child-onset diabetes and obesity are on the rise?

We’ve got to get back to the basics and get our kids eating more good ol’ fashion fruit and vegetables in their diets.

Get Your Kids Inspired!

The best way to get your kids eating healthy food is to inspire, educate & ignite their interest!

Forcing children to eat well only creates rebellion in the long run. With more than 140 pages, 36 recipes, and countless creative illustrations, you’ve got everything you need to get your kids excited, inspired and empowered about choosing healthy recipes like these ones:

• Cat’s Meow Chocolate Pudding
• Chunky Monkey Ice Cream
• Froggy Delight Green Smoothie
• Alien Slime Smoothie
• Walnut Creek Dip

The book is peppered with creative food facts, activities, a word search, jigsaw puzzle, and a coloring page, too!

No more spilled milk or burned toast!!

With Monkey Mike on the scene, all these recipes are guaranteed to be:

• dairy free
• gluten free
• vegan
• 100% raw
• good for growing bodies and brains!

WIN a FREE Copy of Monkey Mike’s Un-Cookbook for Kids!

The Prize:

3 lucky winners will receive a copy of Monkey Mike’s Raw Food Kitchen - The First Ever Un-Cookbook for Kids!  The book is in electronic downloadable PDF format ready for you to print into a ring-bound folder ready for the kitchen counter.

How to Enter to WIN:

To enter the giveaway, all you need to do is leave a comment below to let us know why you’d love to win a copy of Monkey Mike’s Un-Cookbook for Kids.

Want another chance to win?

Tweet this: 

It’s time to get un-cooking with the kids!  Please enter me to WIN Monkey Mike’s Raw Food Kitchen! @TeraWarner http://bit.ly/ADDtK6

Then come back here and leave us a comment telling us about it!

For yet another EXTRA entry:

“Like” the TeraWarner page at www.facebook.com/terawarner.fanpage. Then come back here and leave us a comment letting us know you “liked” the page!

If you’ve already liked the Tera Warner fan page on Facebook, let us know with a comment below, and we’ll still put an extra entry for you in the draw!

The Giveaway Contest Details:

• The contest will end Thursday night, February 9th @11:59pm Eastern.
  
• We’ll enter everyone’s name into a drawing and announce the winner here on the blog on Friday, February 10th!
• The winners will be contacted by email, and you’ll receive your copy of Monkey Mike electronically via email.

Time to get messy in the kitchen with Monkey Mike!

Congratulations go to Elena who won last week’s blog giveaway and will now be sporting her very own super-charged Green Smoothie Jug to transport those green blender concoctions in style!

Raw Food Recipe: Zucchini Linguini with Red Capsicum Tomato Alfredo

-by Priscilla Soligo, founder of Rawthentic Food

Are you missing your old pasta dishes? Replacing pasta noodles with zucchini can be one of the most fun tricks in the raw food book. Try this gourmet recipe on for size and let us know what you think. We have also included a recipe for a unique fig salad, over which we suggest serving this deliciousness!

By the way, keep in mind when you are munching your veggie noodles, that zucchini is high in fiber and rich in vitamins C, A, magnesium and potassium. In addition, figs are also a great source of potassium, which can help balance the pH in your body.

Zucchini linguini with red capsicum tomato ‘alfredo’

and ‘caramelised -unbaked’ figs on a bed of fresh greens

with sweet lime and macadamia vinaigrette

Yields:  Two servings

Ingredients

Pasta Linguini:

• 1 Lg Zucchini (Skin peeled off, spiralised, or peeled into strips with a potato peeler – into fettuccini strips.)

 Alfredo sauce:

• 1 Cup Red capsicum (chopped)

• ½ Cup Macadamia nuts (pre-soaked in filtered water for 2 hours, drained)

• 6 Cherry tomatoes (halved)

• 1 Tbsp Mixed Italian seasoning (dried)

• 2 tsp Onion Powder (organic, without caking agents)

• 2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil

• ½ Cup Fresh herbs (combination of: basil, dill, Italian parsley)

• ½ tsp High mineral salt (Celtic, or Pink Himalaya salt)

• 2 Tbsp Filtered water, or as needed

• Love!

Bed of salad with ‘caramelised-unbaked’ figs:

• 2 – 3 Cups Mixed lettuce leaves (packed)

• 8 Fresh figs (halved)

• 1Tbsp Coconut nectar

 Dressing:

• 3 Tbsp Fresh lime juice

• 1 Tbsp Macadamia nut oil (cold pressed)

• ½ tsp Coconut nectar

 Method:

Alfredo sauce:  Place Ingredients into a high-speed blender with the capsicum and tomatoes at the bottom to allow ease of blending along with filtered water.  Load the other ingredients in and blend until smooth and creamy and well incorporated.

‘Caramelised-unbaked’ figs:  In a bowl, stir through coconut nectar and figs and place onto telex dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for 8 hours at 115F, or until soft.  If you do not have a dehydrator, you can simply allow them to marinate in the fridge overnight, or bake them at 180C for 20 mins, or until soft.

Dressing:  In a bowl, hand mix all ingredients with a fork, or small whisk.  Set aside.

Final Assembling/ Plating:

Place salad leaves on the bottom spread out to cover plate with caramelised figs scattered around.

• In a bowl combine ½ alfredo sauce with zucchini linguini to coat the linguini (reserve the rest in the fridge in a glass airtight container.  Will keep up to 3 days).  Fold mixed herbs through and leave some for garnish on top.  Using two hands gently place ½ of the linguini on top of the bed of mixed greens.
• Using a spoon gently drizzle vinaigrette over the lettuce leaves that are not underneath the pasta.
• Garnish with a sprinkling of left over fresh herbs and a sprig of basil, or Italian parsley on top.  Serve immediately and enjoy the delicious in-season flavours and ‘life force’ that raw and living foods give us!

- by Eliza Ceci

There is so much confusion about fats in the diet, particularly when your intention is to lose weight.  The truth about fat is simply this: fat does not make you fat.

So, what makes a ‘good’ fat?

Simple. A good fat is a raw fat.

The ‘bad’ fats for ease and understanding are the cooked ones such as saturated, monounsaturated or partially hydrogenated.

So, to make things simple for you, look at your fats from one stand point: Are the fats I am consuming cooked and processed or are they raw and in their natural state?

The Best Raw Fats

Some of the best raw fats (both in quality and taste) are:

• cold pressed oils
• raw avocado
• raw nuts and seeds
• raw coconut and coconut butter

Fat has a notoriously bad reputation but the truth is we need good fats in our diet to properly detox and above all else, to live healthy, vibrant and long lives. I know it is tempting to think that ‘non-fat’ labelled foods might be better for you but it just is not true. Rather than looking at fat grams and calories look at the content and ingredient labels of the food. The most important thing you can do for your health is to realize that an avocado has one ingredient and it is naturally found in nature, which means your body knows just how to assimilate it.

Unnatural ‘Non-Fat’ Foods

But if you were to eat unnatural substances like the ‘non-fat’ processed foods from the store, the body gets confused because that ‘non-fat’ food isn’t recognized by your body as food at all. Sadly, those unnatural foods actually cause weight gain, premature aging, and stress on your organs. It’s ironic that if we had grabbed the whole fat from the avocado on a delicious salad we are actually losing weight as we eat because these foods are recognized and easily digestible whereas the confusing processed and expertly marketed food from the store cause simply more confusion and sickness within the system.

How Much Fat Should You Eat?

A wonderful rule of thumb for weight loss and the confusing question of how much is too much is simple. Begin learning what your body is telling you. Eat real foods, add in raw fats and notice when you feel satisfied. It can be easy to feel full, but push on with processed foods. Often when you begin listening to how your body reacts to real fats and even begin believing in their true benefit to your health and your body, you will know the correct amount. We are all different and unique in our own special ways.

It can be so easy to want a guide to tell you X amount of fat per day will help with weight loss but I want you to explore what feels right within your own cell walls. Remember, whether you are detoxing or simply turning to a healthier way of eating, fruits and vegetables are are the perfect foods to eat for energy and total health. When we eat these foods in the proper combination and begin noticing within our bodies what feels right, what feels like too much, and when you are satisfied, you will begin to ‘get it’. It does take time but we are all unique and special in our own ways so begin trying with your next meal adding in great healthy fat options, start small if you are unsure and notice how you begin to feel stronger, smarter and more vibrant with every bite (your purse will thank you too when you save money on the ‘low fat’ bon bons!).

Get Ready to Lighten Up!

What if you could regain your self-confidence, have more energy, stop the love-hate relationship with your body and finally release the excess weight you’ve been carrying around for years …without ever stepping on a scale or counting a single calorie?

It’s time to lighten up, with our well-loved Body Enlightenment program.  We’ve just relaunched the program on self-study basis, so now you can sign up any time and get access to all of the materials, community support and expert coaching right away.  Visit Body Enlightenment here to enroll today, and get ready to unshackle yourself from food guilt!

- by Rebecca Johnson

EFT or (Emotional Freedom Technique) is a simple, powerful and effective therapeutic tool that can be used to identify and eliminate emotional blocks and limiting beliefs that are keeping you stuck.

Traumas, big and small, tie up the energy in our bodies and cause us to feel blocked. You don’t need to spend a year in therapy to start feeling better about yourself. You don’t have to spend weeks toiling over self-help books and meditating your way to peace. You don’t even have to “believe” or have faith to experience the benefits of EFT.

It just works.

You can try it on everything, including your relationship with food!

Overeating and Bingeing

Do any of these scenarios seem familiar?

• You crack open a bag of sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips telling yourself, you are only going to eat a few. Before you know it, half the bag is gone!

•  You’ve put yourself on a healthy, new eating plan. You have been eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and tiny quantities of brown rice (no butter). Three days in, you are so sick of snacking on carrot sticks and cucumber, you decide to stop off at McDonald’s for that Big Mac and fries that have been calling your name.

• It’s 10:00 pm. Everyone else is in bed and you find yourself staring at the bottom of a bucket of Ben & Jerry’s “Chunky Monkey” ice cream thinking,  “At least it had bananas in it.”  Simultaneously, you wish you could rewind the clock ten minutes and take it all back.

•  It’s Christmas dinner. You’ve been polite at the table until now, but it’s time to clean up the dishes and put the leftovers away. When no one is looking, you stuff as many spoonfuls of mashed potatoes as you possibly can down the hatch. You’re already full and satisfied, but as you mindlessly finish swallowing, you reach down to unzip your jeans and accommodate your overstuffed belly.

Do you still truly love and accept yourself, even though you’ve just made a choice you regret ten minutes after it’s over? As counter intuitive as it sounds, being able to do so is one of the most crucial keys to exiting the cycles of overeating and bingeing.

Many of us have fallen into the trap of critically parenting ourselves inside our own head. We often unwittingly use deep fear and shame tactics, mistakenly believing that if we don’t drive ourselves and punish ourselves, we won’t ever start to behave “properly.”

How is that working  for you?

If you want to break out of these cycles, give EFT a try. Your battle with bingeing and overeating may not be over yet, but you can use EFT to become a loving observer of your behavior, rather than a shaming parent. When you are coming from a place of love, the cycle itself has no reason to persist.

Food Confusion and Guilt

In addition to overcoming bingeing and overeating, EFT can help you eliminate confusion and guilt about what you eat.

How do you feel about yourself when you eat specific foods that are counter to the intentions you have set for yourself? Maybe you are confused about what is ok and what is not ok to eat. There is so much information out there. How do you decide???

Are animal products good or bad for me? Is butter a healthy fat or a sin?  What about avocadoes? Am I allergic to gluten? With all the conflicting information out there, it can be so hard to determine what is best for your own body.

When you feel guilty about a hundred different food items or food combinations, and you are struggling with which of all the diets is the right one for you, you very well may be walking around with all of that bubbling just under the surface, barely out of reach of your conscious awareness.

As many of my clients have reported, you might feel fear, guilt and shame. You might feel like you are less of a person. You may even feel hatred toward yourself for not being able to figure it out.

These are powerful emotions that can stop you from realizing your potential and experiencing what you desire. When you are knowingly or unknowingly bathing yourself in feelings like guilt, shame and self-hatred, the chances of engaging yourself in really good self-care are slim-to-none.

EFT can help you eliminate confusion, and help you discover with total clarity, what foods your body needs and wants, and what is good and right for you. Once you have this clarity, guilt, shame and fear can quietly disappear, leaving you feeling free and confident about what to eat.

Cravings & Emotional Eating

One other lovely application for EFT is using it to address cravings! Who doesn’t get those!?!

Maybe you have already tried vigilant self control to resist cravings, but if you are anything like me, that rarely works in the long run. When you decide you can’t have something, you want it even more.

What you resist, persists.

While there can be many reasons for a craving, if you find yourself desiring something you really don’t want to pop in your mouth, you can whip out your fingers and tap on that craving right when it’s happening! You can look right at that food item, stare it down, allow all your resistance to come up, and tap into what it is you really want.

Nine times out of ten, it’s not the Twinkie or the Starbucks double-shot-espresso-with-cream, but something deeper that you are really hungry for. EFT can help you identify that true hidden need or desire with such efficiency, it might shock your socks off.

Find Out What EFT Can Do For You

Join me and 21-Day Green Smoothie Detox participant, Linda Stauffer, for a LIVE session of EFT where we show you what’s possible when it comes to sorting out your relationship with food using EFT. Linda has kindly volunteered to put herself on our virtual stage.

Please Note: Most EFT summits and interviews never really give you the opportunity to see what a full, private consultation in EFT can do, and the results can be surprising. We’re grateful Linda has volunteered herself for this experience and trust that you’ll enjoy getting a taste of what freedom can look like.

Here’s How to Access The LIVE EFT Teleseminar:

Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca Johnson is the resident EFT expert at TeraWarner.com. Her passion for helping others to release their emotional blocks and move forward in the pursuit of better health and abundant living  brought her to Tera’s doorstep. She’s moved right in and is now part of the family of health heroines seeking to make the world a better place–one tap on the noggin’ at a time.

]]> http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/how-to-conquer-cravings-overeating-food-guilt-using-eft/feed/ 4 http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/dandelion-wild-edibles/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dandelion-wild-edibles http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/dandelion-wild-edibles/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:38:37 +0000 Danielle http://www.terawarner.com/blog/?p=22046 Wild Edibles: The Not So Humble Dandelion

- by Heather Gardner of Conscious Earth Company

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale, member of the Sunflower family) are cheerful little plants with off the chart nutrition and medicinal qualities and rather tasty too, the leaves taste slightly bitter similar to endive. The bane of many lawn enthusiasts, they have been revered by herbalists worldwide for untold centuries, and have been used in Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine as well as by the Native Americans. It is still cultivated as a crop in many parts of Europe such as France and Germany. Dandelions are a sensational superfood and fabulously free, fresh and unpackaged.

Powerful Dandelion Nutrition

Here’s what so special about this abundant wild edible plant:

• Contains 112 percent of the daily recommended value of vitamin A & four times more vitamin A than lettuce
• Higher in beta-carotene than carrots.
• The iron and calcium content is greater than spinach.
• 32 percent daily value of vitamin C per cup of leaves.
• Contains vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B12, C, E, P, and D, biotin, inositol, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc, and many other trace elements and enzymes.
• Contains the antioxidant lutein, which is good for healthy vision.
• Also helenin which is reputed to help with night vision
• Rich in inulin, this is a prebiotic, which actually feeds and encourages the growth of the beneficial bacteria in the gut as well as balancing blood sugar and diabetes.
• The flowers contain lecithin, this helps the liver to break down fats and improves brain function.
• The MILKY SAP found in the leaves and flower stems have been used to remove warts, corns, callouses and other stubborn skin maladies.
• When placed in a paper bag with unripe fruit, the flowers and leaves of Dandelion release ethylene gas ripening the fruit quickly
• Dogs, cats, hamsters, horses and our other furry friends can also eat dandelions. It aids their digestion, and cleanses their liver and kidneys.

Wild Dandelion Pesto

Makes 2 jam jars

Ingredients:

• 1 big handful of Dandelion leaves (or a mix of foraged or garden greens)
• 1 handful or packet of fresh basil leaves
• 1 cup of walnuts or hazelnuts
• 1 cup of shelled hempseeds (or pine nuts)
• 3 tspns of lime or lemon juice
• 1-2 large cloves of garlic
• 1 small chili or half a large (optional)
• 1 teaspn of Sea or Pink Himalayan Salt
• 1 level tspn kelp powder
• 1 level tspn seagreen granules
• aprox 200mls organic virgin oil, I use a mix of hemp & olive.

Directions:

Place everything in your food processor (in 2 batches if it’s a small machine) – chop the garlic and chili first. Blend until nice and smooth but with a nice crunch. Be ready to add more oil as required to make a nice smooth consistency and to help the blades turn. Use whatever ingredients you prefer or have on hand and change the quantities if you like. Pesto is pretty easy to make out of anything!

Pack the pesto into glass jars leaving a little space at the top. Pour olive oil into this space to seal, this stops it from going moldy.

Store in the fridge. Pesto is best used within a few days for flavour, but will keep if the oil seal has been done properly.

About Heather

Heather is a Raw Food and Kundalini Yoga Teacher. She began learning about herbs and wild foods at a young age from her herbalist mother while growing up on a remote mountainside in Ireland. A lifelong vegetarian she began delving into the world of foraging, nutrition, raw & living foods as a teenager searching for answers to numerous health challenges.

At the age of twenty she was handed a copy of Viktoras Kulvinskas’s Survival into the 21^st Century and was hooked from then on. In 2005 she began to move onto a raw diet and has increased to a high raw diet over time. She has studied Natural Nutrition and many other healing modalities. She has over 10 years experience as a Natural Remedies, Health & Beauty manager and Brand manager within the UK Natural Products industry, helping people to achieve better health naturally.

Now she lives in the west of Ireland, teaching and running her business www.consciousearthcompany.com as well as running after her feisty toddler

Last Chance to Enroll for Wild Edibles Training With Sergei Boutenko Through Women’s Wellness University

Learn the skills and experience you need to feed your family for free, live a sustainable lifestyle and eatthe healthiest foods on the planet!

There’s a plant-based pharmacy waiting to be discovered in your forest!!

The Women’s Wellness University is currently offering its first course: An easy-to-follow, 17-week online course completely laid out to guarantee you master the skills to access the food and medicine of the forest (or just about any backyard)

Course registrations close on January 31st.  Classes begin on February 3rd.

If you want to get in on this adventure with Sergei and Tera starting on February 3rd, register here to confirm your place today.

How an Unsuspecting Email Landed Me on Tera Warner’s Front Porch

-by Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca Johnson is a passionate practitioner of EFT and other energy healing techniques. She was also a participant of the Body Enlightenment program in 2011. Her participation in BE launched her on an amazing journey that landed her right on Tera Warner’s front porch! Here’s how it happened…

Something Had to Give

Last year in June, I decided to do a series of three 90-day challenges. I figured if it takes 9 months to create a life, it would take at least that to recreate mine.

Many things including the frightening balance of my bank account, too many late night trips for hot fudge sundaes and fries, processed food staring back at me from my fridge and cupboards, a very dusty mini-tramp, a lonely flat-tired road bike, zero ability to muster up any love for my muffin top, general grumpiness, low energy, unflossed teeth, and the fact that I wore my yoga pants so many days in a row the butt was wearing out, were all strong indicators that something had to give.

Around the same time I realized I needed to reconstruct my life, I quit my job so I could be my own boss and help others experience transformation with the power of EFT.

I loved that I had more time with my son Ezra, and that that I was finally teaching EFT to really cool people full time. The problem was, the 4-week billing cycle seemed to roll around faster than my little toddler could run away from me. My self-care was in the toilet, and as far as being a parent and a provider, I felt spread as thin as tahini on a rice cake. I wanted to feel radiant and free, but instead I felt frumpy, mean, overwhelmed and stuck.

Enter Stage: Body Enlightenment

As part of my first 90-day challenge, I started to journal every day. My written words helped me illuminate patterns I had not seen before. I focused on my body, nutrition, exercise and my thoughts and feelings. I wrote down everything I ate, used a hunger scale, exercised, and learned about fermentation, raw food and juicing. I also got back into green smoothies.

At first my writing was really focused on these external things, but pretty quickly I started writing about my feelings, fears and insecurities. I realized how good it felt to be honest with myself about what was happening in my head, my heart and my physical world.

Somehow my project led me to Tera’s program, Body Enlightenment. I loved that she talked specifically about radiance and freedom, not just “weight loss.” She talked about counting blessings, not just calories!  Her 5 pillars for health and wellness (beauty/ self-care, personal organization, attitude, fitness and nutrition) were a breath of fresh air. It was a holistic, all-encompassing approach and it made sense. I was excited to go through the program and see what it could do for me.

My Whole World Flipped Upside Down

Shortly after I jumped head first into Body Enlightenment, my world flipped upside down. My commitment to the program, and to the betterment of my life on a deeper level, started causing a lot of things to get pretty rocky in my personal world, and I was totally caught off guard.

As part of the program we were asked to submit a daily journal. I shared some of the things that were happening in my life– things that were causing me to struggle. To my total surprise, I got a personal response from Tera.

She asked me to tell her more about my situation. I knew enough about her to know she is a busy, single mom of two AND somehow wrangles a successful, multi-layered internet business. Most business-owners try to separate themselves from customer service as much as possible. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I actually got consistent, personalized support from her and her entire team during the program.

A New Adventure Begins

After sharing more about my life, and what I was trying to accomplish, she invited me and my three and a half year-old son, Ezra, to come to Montreal. Tera was happy to have some help around the house with the kids, and I definitely needed a change of scenery. It seemed crazy, but it happened so fast, and it felt right, so we made it happen.

On December 2^nd when Ezra and I showed up at the airport in Montreal it was nearly midnight. Tera, her beautiful children, and their frisky rescue dog,”Lizzy” met us with hugs, smiles and wagging tail.

We’ve settled in really well. The kids all get along and help each other, and Ezra has become our counter top juicer!

If You Truly Commit, The Results Will Come

When I committed myself to my own personal transformation project, I had no idea the road it would take me down. I am still blinking and pinching myself sometimes wondering how I ended up where I am today.

Stay open to the beautiful things available to you on your own personal journey. Reach out. Communicate. Express what’s happening, because someone is listening and the solutions are out there. I would never be here if I hadn’t decided to just share what was happening and how I was struggling in my Body Enlightenment journal. The solutions will find you if you commit to improving your life and conditions, and you’re willing to be honest with yourself and others.

An Upcoming 90-Day Communication Cleanse

Tera and I have been so inspired by our little family soap opera, and we’re learning so much by being together, that we’ve decided we’re going to start a “90-Day Communication Cleanse” for the whole community!

If you are feeling like a lump of coal under a ton of pressure, I understand. That’s where I was, and it’s where I am some days still, too. Don’t let discouragement have its way with you. Stay committed. Persist. Open yourself to the ways the “Universe” or “God” or just “Good Luck” conspires to make your life a shimmering and vibrant reflection of how valuable you really are, and how much you have to contribute to the world.

Here’s Tera and I contributing some of our compost to the deer…

The Adventure Continues…

Ezra and I are still here in Montreal and I can hardly believe it’s almost February. Tera and I are doing some amazing things together and I am excited to announce that I have joined her team as the resident EFT expert. If you’re not familiar with EFT, I’ll be doing an upcoming blog post that explains all about it and how it works.

We’ll be incorporating EFT and other communication techniques during our 90-Day Communication Cleanse starting up soon!

Tera and I are both passionate about healthy living, but even more passionate about healthy communication, and the powerful impact it has on our relationship with ourselves, those around us, and the world at large. Tera likes to say,

“You are about as alive as you are willing to communicate.”

It’s this idea that has prompted our decision to release a 90-day Communication Cleanse and to make it available for FR.EE to the entire community. Stay tuned because more details are coming very soon!

In the meantime, I am tapping away, enjoying making the snow glisten with our winter compost, trying not to freeze, and staying up late at night getting punch drunk with Tera off of no sleep and bits of dark chocolate.

Here’s to radiance and freedom!

Rebecca

p.s.

We’d love to know what you would like to see as part of The Communication Cleanse. If you think this is something that would interest you, leave a comment below and let us know what you think!! It’s going to be an AMAZING program and we can’t wait to tell you more about it!!

]]> http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/how-an-unsuspecting-email-landed-me-on-tera-warners-front-porch/feed/ 40 http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/green-smoothie-jug-frisky-friday-freebie-giveaway/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=green-smoothie-jug-frisky-friday-freebie-giveaway http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/green-smoothie-jug-frisky-friday-freebie-giveaway/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:50:44 +0000 Danielle http://www.terawarner.com/blog/?p=21958 Green Smoothie Jug Frisky Friday Freebie Giveaway!

- by Danielle Greason

Time for more Frisky Friday goodies!  If you’ve been eyeing off our jugs, then you’ll be excited about this one!

Before we let you know what’s up for grabs today, remember you have two days left to enter last week’s giveaway:  The 30-Day Self-Study Body Enlightenment Original program.  Check out that post and get your entry in on both today!

Now, for this week’s Frisky Freebie, you could win a one of our very own Green Smoothie Jugs to super-charge your smoothie, take it anywhere anytime, and get slurping in style!

Super-Charged Smoothie Jugs

These power jugs have been inspired by the principles in the well-known book, The True Power of Water by Masaru Emoto.

Dr. Emoto’s research suggests that directing positive thoughts and feelings towards water have genuine PHYSICAL effects, and those positive thoughts yield positive changes! You can learn more about this concept here.

Just imagine the energy of all these positive, powerful words we’ve put on your smoothie jugs infusing into your smoothie!

We have literally SUPERCHARGED your Green Smoothies by creating these amazing Green Jugs!!

A Note About BPA

In light of recent concerns about Bisphenol A in polycarbonate plastic, we have ensured that our new Green Jugs are BPA-Free!

While our reading has led us to feel that polycarbonate jugs, cared for and used properly, are not as serious a concern as normal cell phone use, wireless internet, or watching TV, we understand that worrying about such things CAN be detrimental to one’s well-being. So we have chosen the new Nalgene Everyday line, made from Eastman Tritan copolyester that is manufactured without BPA™

WIN a  FREE Super-Charged Green Smoothie Jug!

The Prize:

1 lucky winner will receive their very own super-charged Green Smoothie Jug!

*Due to postage fees, this contest is only open to those who live in North America. Thanks for understanding!

How to Enter to WIN:

To enter the giveaway, all you need to do is leave a comment below to let us know why you would like drink your green smoothie out of on our jugs!

Want another chance to win?

Tweet this: 

I want to go green with style @TeraWarner ! Please enter me to WIN a super-charged #greensmoothie jug! http://tinyurl.com/greenjug

Then come back here and leave us a comment telling us about it!

For yet another EXTRA entry:

“Like” the TeraWarner page at www.facebook.com/terawarner.fanpage. Then come back here and leave us a comment letting us know you “liked” the page!

If you’ve already liked the Tera Warner fan page on Facebook, let us know with a comment below, and we’ll still put an extra entry for you in the draw!

More Smooth Details to Win the Green Smoothie Jug:

• The contest will end Thursday night, February 2nd @11:59pm Eastern.
• We’ll enter everyone’s name into a drawing and announce the winner here on the blog on Friday, February 3rd!
• The winner will be contacted by email, at which point we’ll get from you your postal address!

…Don’t you just LOVE receiving goodies in the mail? WAY better than getting bills and flyers! 

Here’s Wishing You Green Slurping in Style!

- by Alissa Geurink, Director of Women’s Wellness University

I am not a health nut. I do not preach to others how they should eat, act, or speak. Everyone makes choices based on their unique situation. No one knows what each person’s unique situation is except that individual.  But when something so amazing happens to me – I tend to tell everyone. Even if it is so personal that it falls into the TMI arena.

In December I had my blood pressure checked. I was actually surprised at how high it was. It was 130/90.

I started playing the blame game – Was I stressed out that day, what did I eat, what did I do or did not do? Looking back it was always something I could point my finger at and say… if only I did this differently, or if I did this I would change that.

Making Choices

This past weekend I had my blood pressure checked again. It was 110/65. I was literally jumping up and down. I was below normal.

But again I started playing the blame game – How did this happen? What did I do to get my blood pressure down? Did I change something?

I started drinking one green smoothie a day since the beginning of January. I have adapted to a true vegan lifestyle (no more cheese for me!).

But then I thought about it… really it was me. I made choices because I wanted to make them, not based on the question of if I change this, this would happen. Back in December I thought of whom I am and the direction I wanted to go in. I did not look at changing me at all. I accepted who I was and where I want to go.

I noticed that with simple dietary changes, such as adding a green smoothie a day, I am happy and have more energy. I noticed that if I eat the wrong foods I do not enjoy the aftermath. I noticed that with simple adjustments in my schedule I can accomplish more. Right now I am in two college programs, work full time, and have two wonderful children– not to mention finding time for yoga, parents meetings, and occasionally having a date night with my husband.

Forward Thinking

If I spend my time focusing on changing this or that, or wishing I could be 10 pounds thinner, I lose focus. Therefore I have learned I cannot focus on what I want to change, because there will always be a change that I want to make. I will be living in the past. Looking at what did I do, or what didn’t I do. How can I change something about myself?

My focus needs to be where I am now and where I want to go later.  I never want to change who I was in the past. My past helped me to become who I am today, today I will plan for who I will be in the future. To me it is all about choice and direction not about change and regret.

So now I ask myself not what I want to change, but where I can go tomorrow.

About Alissa

Alissa Geurink is the director of the Women’s Wellness University. Her motto is that anything is possible if you use a little imagination, creativity, and perserverance. She is currently studing for her PhD in Education. She lives in Madison Wisconsin with her husband, Josh, 2 adorable little kiddos, and 3 fluffy cats.

- by Sergei Boutenko

While there are countless benefits associated with eating wild foods such as breathing fresh air, exercise, premium nutrition, and more food diversity, there are also some risks. When you are harvesting wild plants for food, you are almost guaranteed that edible plants will be sharing their living space with non-edible ones. These non-edibles may range in toxicity from mild to extreme. If you are anything like me, then you too prefer to avoid any form of poisoning whether it is a mild headache or death. For this reason it is a good idea to first learn how to positively identify wild edible plants and then exercise caution when gathering them for food.

Which Plants Are Safe to Harvest?

Over the five years I have been traveling around the globe giving presentations about wild edible plants I have learned two things: first, people are eagerly seeking knowledge about wild edibles and secondly, there is a lot of confusion about which plants are safe to harvest. I have found that the term “poisonous” is very loosely defined and is easily swayed by personal biases and educational background. For example, experts coming from backgrounds of toxicology, botany, and medicine claim that there are exponentially more plant poisonous plants than other experts who come from Native American teachings. Unfortunately, when these inconsistencies of professional opinion mix with ill-fated, Hollywood movies such as “Into The Wild” they breed unnecessary fear, which prevents the mass populous from ever venturing into the world of free food.

Thus far, my research has lead me to the believe that out of thousands of healthful, edible plants growing in North America there are only a handful of poisonous ones. There are approximately 150 poisonous plants that are not recommended for consumption by the American Association of Poison Control. Out of these 150 plants there are only about 50 plants that are considered to be highly poisonous and may lead to death. The rest are classified as mildly poisonous. Thus, meaning that out of 150 plants, 100 of them may cause nausea, headache, and /or stomach upset, but will not kill the eater. And only 50 plants have the potential to harm the consumer to an extreme degree.

Learning Which Plants Are Poisonous

I think that this is a very encouraging statistic because it is relatively easy to learn to identify and stay away from 50 plants. This can be accomplished in less than a month if you were to learn two plants per day. Once you have learned to identify the 50 most poisonous plants, your chances of getting poisoned to death are severely decreased if not eradicated completely. Keep in mind, that many of the so-called “mildly poisonous” plants are considered edible depending on which book you reference. For example, I recently found common mint categorized as mildly poisonous in a book called “Common Poisonous Plants and Mushrooms of North America.” Does this mean this we should not longer drink mint tea? What do you think?

Fear is an important ingredient in the recipe for personal wellbeing and safety. When channeled correctly, fear can force us to question our judgment and make the best, most educated, guess. I think that harvesting wild edibles is like crossing the street in a cross walk, it is safe, but you still want to look both ways prior to stepping out into the street! I prefer to avoid any sort of poisoning be it mild or severe.

Educating Yourself About Wild Edibles

Let us now consider a few tried and true techniques that will further minimizing your chances of getting poisoned.

First, knowledge is power! The best way to stay safe is through good old-fashion education! The Internet is an invaluable tool for this. Using the Internet, you can track down a wild crafter in your area and take a wild food workshop from him or her! I recommended the hands-on method because it enables information to stay with you longer. For example, during one edible foods workshop I was taught that taking a few minutes to study each wild edible would help me remember it forever. I sat down with a dandelion and began to notice how many leaves it had, what shape the leaves were, if it had any marking or discolorations, etc. After this exercise, I will never have any doubts about what a dandelion looks like!

Another way to educate yourself about wild edibles is to purchase a good book on the subject. I have purchased most of the books published on this topic and have been disappointed by most of them due to the poor quality of their photos and confusing descriptions. When buying a book, make sure the one you settle on has clear, color photographs. It is also wise to think about book size, because ideally, you want a book compact enough to take with you when you go hiking.

Lastly, you can use the internet to help you identify plants. For example, if I am find a plant I am unfamiliar with, I will take a picture of it so that I can do an internet search when I get home. Because to me the plants’ name is still unknown, I describe what it looks like to the search engine, i.e. five purple petals, two green leaves, etc. As an added precaution, I might mention the geographical area where I found the plant: mountains, desert, by a lake, Northern California, Southern Oregon, etc. When I hit the “search” button it generating thousands of possible matches. I look through the images the search engine generated until I find one that resembles the picture that I took. From this search I get a name, “wild violet.” Now, I look up wild violet in one of my favorite wild edible books to determine if it is safe to eat!

Recommendations

1. Start Small - 0ur nature as humans leads us to jump without looking into something when we find out it’s good for us. While many commonly known edible plants are great for your health they will be foreign to you at first. I recommend that you always approach new food cautiously (start by eating small amounts) until you know that you will not have any adverse effects from it. Once you have confirmed that this food makes you feel good, then have at it!
2. Don’t Mix Your Weeds – again in the spirit of avoiding any sort of reaction it is a good idea not to mix the wild edibles you harvest during your first few harvests! If you mix your edibles and then have a reaction, it will be very hard to tell which plant caused it. So, do your self a favor and try eating a wild edible mono diet, i.e. one edible at a time until you are absolutely sure you are safe!

Poisonous Plants

Below is a list of the MOST POISONOUS plants in North America. If you are curious about wild edibles, then I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the ones that are most prevalent in your area. Enter the names of the plants into an Internet based search engine for see what they look like.

Aconitum, Autumn crocus, Angel’s trumpet, Azalea, Bittersweet nightshade, Bleeding heart, Black locust, Black nightshade, Buttercup, Caladium, Caster Oil plant, Daffodil, Daphne, Darnel, Datura, Deadly nightshade, Deathcamas, Delphinium, Dogbane, Doll’s eyes, Dumbcane, European Holly, False Hellebore, Foxglove, Hemlock, Henbane, Horse chestnut, Ivy, Jequirity, Jerusalem cherry, Jimson weed, Laburnum, Larkspur, Lilies, Manchineel, Mayapple, Monkshood, Moonseed, Oleander, Poison-ivy, Poison-oak, Pokeweed, Privet, Southwest coral bean, Star of Bethlehem,  Water hemlock, White snakeroot, Yellow flag, Yellow jessmine, Yew.

Study Wild Edibles With Sergei Boutenko Through Women’s Wellness University

Learn the skills and experience you need to feed your family for free, live a sustainable lifestyle and eat the healthiest foods on the planet!

There’s a plant-based pharmacy waiting to be discovered in your forest!!

The Women’s Wellness University is currently offering its first course: An easy-to-follow, 17-week online course completely laid out to guarantee you master the skills to access the food and medicine of the forest (or just about any backyard)

Course registrations close on January 31st.  Classes begin on February 3rd.

If you want to get in on this adventure with Sergei and Tera starting on February 3rd, register here to confirm your place today.

]]> http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/wild-edibles-sergei-boutenko/feed/ 2 http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/the-truth-about-eating-disorders-its-not-about-the-food/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-truth-about-eating-disorders-its-not-about-the-food http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/the-truth-about-eating-disorders-its-not-about-the-food/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:24:01 +0000 Tera http://www.terawarner.com/blog/?p=21901

The Truth About Eating Disorders: It’s NOT About the Food

 - by Tera Warner

First of all, I should make it clear that I’m not one for labels and specifically protest the diagnosis of “disorders” which never seem to satisfy my need to honor the mosaic of individuality that shows up in life. However, after having listened to these labels for so long, and having accepted them for ourselves, it seems the best way for me to address the subject of a self-sabotaging relationship with food and body image is to talk about “eating disorders.”

And that’s why this week we kicked off our “Getting Over ED” summit! We’ve had some fabulous and inspiring conversations from some of the most well-known and admired experts on this subject in the world.

One of the things that I’ve heard repeatedly, is that when it comes to eating disorders, “It’s not about the food!”

It’s About Communication

When Tara-jenelle Walsch‘s sister knocked at the door, it wasn’t to borrow a cup of sugar. She had traveled across the country to pick up her sister and deliver her swiftly to a hospital for treatment of her eating disorder.

It wasn’t the food, certainly wasn’t the charming decor, or even necessarily the “techniques” used to help Tara-jenelle recover that made her finally break free from her eating disorder. It was her courage to communicate, express herself and start living from the inside out that made her who she is today.

It’s About Stress

Carol Look knocks it out of the ballpark with her interview about how underlying our compulsive, obsessive, irrational relationship with food and body image is STRESS, ANXIETY and TRAUMA! Carol says that going about trying to remedy our self sabotaging behavior trying to restrict, avoid, or worry about food is absolutely the wrong way.

You’ve got to be able to identify the emotion coming up, you’ve got to be able to identify precisely and specifically and honestly how crappy, insecure, unstable, unloved or stressed out you feel in any moment, and only THEN do you start to reclaim your power to change your emotional state and vibration in life.

Carol is a Master EFT practitioner and shares in her call the tools and techniques you need to regain control over the story you tell yourself and manage the stress and anxiety underlying our disordered relationships with food and body image.

It’s About Marketing and Media

Jean Kilbourne, who will be joining us for the upcoming WISH Summit, is the master of having tuned in and turned up the volume on the fact that every, single day 3000 ads and media messages are bombarding you with ideas about how you should look, smell, walk, and what size and shape your body should be.

In this our “Getting Over ED” summit, Carolyn Costin says that without question, one of the very first things to do is to limit our relationship with glamour magazines and the incessant stream of messages from media. Do not buy the magazines, turn the TV off, go for a walk and get your hands in the dirt. We dramatically underestimate the effect that media and advertising have on our mood and mind set.

At last autumn’s Longevity Conference, I was seated at a special VIP dinner next to a film and movie producer, Steve Race, talking about our Body Enlightenment program. He turned to me and said, “Tera, I’m so glad you’re doing this. Women need to know that their insecurity, loneliness and self-hatred is by design. Companies are paying millions of dollars to make women feel terrible about themselves so they will buy the thing that ‘makes it all better’.”

It’s About Personality

Karen Knowler knows best when it comes to how our personality distinctly impacts our relationship with food. The way you eat, your motivations for eating do influence how you feel and there’s an actual “evolution” that takes place as you redefine this dynamic over time.

Having wrestled extensively with her own relationship with food, Karen clearly outlines the steps she’s taken to regain a healthy and empowered relationship with food, and helps pave the way for others to follow.

It’s easy to beat ourselves up sometimes because we don’t understand our own behavior. Transitioning peacefully to a healthier, more intuitive and authentic relationship with food and with life is possible, and Karen has certainly mastered many of the tools to take you there.

It’s About Sex and Sensuality

Pamela Madsen is a vibrant vixen whose shameless pursuit of sensual satisfaction has ignited the fire in the lives of millions of women around the world. She says very clearly that there is an undeniable relationship between sex and food. In our search for sensual satisfaction and pleasure, we’ve lost ourselves along the way to a chocolate-dipped doughnut.

Sensation and pleasure is what we’re really looking for in that bag of salty potato chips. We go to salt, fat and chocolate chip cookies thinking we’ll find the “fix” we’re looking for, but it never seems to work out in a climax we can feel good about.

Tune into your ability to sense and perceive pleasure, slow down, take time, breathe deep, allow yourself to let a bit more life in. Doing so opens up a big, wide window to the possibility of fully recovering from self-sabotaging relationship with food and body image.

Not the Last Word…

Any time we discuss something as emotionally potent as our self-sabotaging relationship with food and body image,  we’re bound to touch deep, hit hard and wrestle with a few opinions that do not necessarily agree with one another. We’re talking about the lives of intricate, creative and powerful people trapped in a relationship with food and, there’s a lot to do and a lot to know to help us reach the heights and freedom of which we are all capable.

While it may be easy to suggest that it’s “not about the food,” diving into the Pandora’s box of possible issues that could be under the surface is a delicate matter. Start slowly. One day at a time. Listen to these calls during our Getting Over ED summit and join me here again when I share all the reason why, when it comes to eating disorders, it has absolutely EVERYTHING to do with the food.

]]> http://www.terawarner.com/blog/2012/01/the-truth-about-eating-disorders-its-not-about-the-food/feed/ 0