Long time raw now....over due to post....

It has been a long long time since I started this blog and first posted on it.
I was determined at the time, to keep it up every week at least,
with fresh new postings about my new raw 'diet' .
( I choose not to call it a diet, it's a life-style/choice)

The upside is, I have remained successfully 100% raw in my day to day eating,
except for truly tiny transgressions, which I will happily share with you all.
Spring is upon us, and I have been working in my garden at a really high level
of energy for a few weeks now. The Vancouver Island weather has sent us a reprieve,
a surprise, super warm, sunny spring, with day after day of glorious sunshine raining down,
and I've been out in it from dawn, around 5:30-6:00 AM, about 6 days out of seven a week.

Gardening. Heavy duty, obsessive compulsive gardening disorder for sure.
But really?

Living out a dream I always had as an adult, finally, one that has brewed and simmered for decades of
my life. The dream of making my own garden of Eden. About turning the Earth,
and putting my fingers through the roots and worms and feeling it, and feeding it, seeding it,
creating an abundance of life where once there was little, an abundance of food! FOOD!
Fresh, unadulturated, organic, clean and pure, exploding wildly and profusely.....

So, while I haven't been posting about my raw diet, my raw diet has given me the energy,
vision and drive, to get up at 5:00 am in the morning and put in a 12-16 hour day of
gardening and general yard/home landscaping/beautification, Eden-ification... maintenance.

Soon I will post some glorious photos....

BUCK's for breakfast!

If you haven't tried BUCK BRAND California Organic Oranges,then you haven't tasted an orange!

Seriously folks, these are some tasty little oranges.
Yes, they have seeds in them, like natural fruits are supposed to!

But they are not that full of seeds, they are easy to deal with, 

and the flavor (and nutrients) is more than just worth it. 

Thrifty's carries them if you live in B.C. 

Otherwise I don't know where they are available.

Here we go, a fresh bag of delicious 

Buck Brand Organic Oranges. This is $4.99 for the bag

of twelve oranges. This was my breakfast so, 

a $5 breakfast you could say.

Do you have any idea how much nutrients there are in 

twelve organic oranges, compared to say, a bacon and 

eggs breakfast? It is like getting an enormous blast of 

sun energy, a total infusion of light, and there is no sugar crash,

the sugar is assimilated efficiently, perfectly, and quickly.

Just be sure and brush your teeth after feasting on oranges, they

can destroy your teeth in a hurry!

Bucking up some Buck's with my cool new antique pocket 

knife that I bought in a neat antique store in Bulgaria...

All Bucked up and ready for the juicer...

And then....."ahhhhh! That is some seriously tasty stuff!

Pure deliciousnessness~!

A Sweet Raw Sunday

Sweet Raw Sunday, keeping it clean!

This was my groceries for the day....pretty colourful!

Decided to try this combo for a juice.

the colour is intoxicating...

Got to swirl it up a little bit....

Pour a glass....

Translucent Elixer of the Gods!

This is one of the loveliest flavors you will ever 

experience, truly smooth and delightful! Wow!

Good, slightly tangy but very sweet, crisp apples

are the key. And all Organic too!

Traveling Raw

Traveling Raw

Since becoming a dedicated ‘raw foodist’ this year, I have had to travel twice so far. Once to Germany and the Czech Republic in April/May, and then to Amsterdam and Bulgaria, in July/August.

Obviously there were challenges, but let me give you the goods in a nutshell.

Way back in May, on the flight there, 9 hours from Vancouver to Stuttgart, I brought with me two very large (Parnoosh Dates) plastic containers stuffed with delicious fruit salads, and some apples and oranges, which passed through security no problem. So I had plenty to eat on the way there. The on flight meals they provided gave me very little additionally, and I was not tempted by any of their packaged, processed products sold as food….

I was in Germany to do workshops and sign books!

In Stuttgart, Germany, where I was conducting my Elemental Magic animation workshop and book signings, I immediately found a very well stocked, organic grocer near my hotel, stocked with fantastic organic bananas, pineapples, berries, mangos, and veggies. So I filled my hotel room with fruit and veggies, emptying the fridge of all the other stuff I don’t touch, and using it for veggies and berries. I had brought those Parnoosh containers with me, so I made two fruit salads each morning before leaving the hotel. That’s about ten bananas, a whole pineapple, a whole box of strawberries, and/or raspberries/blackberries and maybe some mango too. A good amount of pure, fresh organic fruit carb energy to get me through the day.

The FMX conference, where I conducted a workshop

Incredibly, I had been worried about the breakfast buffet, because I’ve always adored the croissants, buns and danishes, cheeses and cold cuts whenever I have visited in the past. Well, much to my delight, I walked into the breakfast buffet to find, incredibly, three huge bowls of fresh fruit, one mango, one pineapple, one strawberries, and all fresh and beautifully cut into bite sized pieces. On top of that there was a enormous fruit salad, with the standard melon, grape, apple concoction you usually see, but with some bananas in it as well, pretty tasty.

Sitting in the sunshine with my delicious breakfast!

There was a lovely courtyard, where I sat in glorious April sunshine and ate my freshly prepared fruit and listened to songbirds and the sound of the water fountain…

So my morning salad at the salad bar, afternoon fruit salads from the Parnoosh containers made at the hotel each morning. And then, every evening during the FMX Conference that I was attending, the guest speakers are all treated to enormous gourmet buffet dinners. Over a hundred of us, filmmakers and animators from all over the world, having a huge dinner party every night. And there was almost always a good supply of fantastic fruits and salad to fill me up as much as I could possibly want. At least the salad was consistent, not the fruit. But I had the fruit supply at my hotel.

And this is pretty much how I got through each day.

This banana on the plaque at the amazing Staatsgallerie was cool....

However, there was the time…that I went walking down to the theatre where people gathered during the day. The temperature, after several days of exquisite sunshine, had plummeted, and it was near freezing and started to rain. I found no one. I walked around a bit and bought an umbrella. I looked at people in warm cafes, where I was also looking for anyone I might recognize. I began to feel the cold, and I cursed the fact that I had not ‘carbed up’ more, I had not eaten a large amount of fruit before heading out.

So now I’m cold and hungry, wandering the streets of a suddenly cold and empty and forbidding Stuttgart, I’m lonely, and I can’t find anybody I recognize, although there are dozens of people I know who must be around somewhere, I have no way whatsoever of contacting anyone. Cold, lonely and hungry. Great combination. I’m texting Mariya, letting her know somewhat of my plight…but I’m hanging in there, shiveringly….

I am in a part of Stuttgart where there are a ton of restaurants and cafes, so everywhere I go, the smells of cooking and fresh baked goods  and candy shops and coffee fill the air. Everywhere I looked I see warm, smiling, happy looking people huddled over plates of steaming, warm, delicious looking hot food. Yikes! I made it back to my hotel and stayed out of trouble, and never left the hotel without eating enough first.

The following week, in Ludwigsburg now, just outside of Stuttgart, I had another close scrape. It was cold and I was walking through yet another bustling restaurant district near the school where I did a workshop. I had gone to visit friends earlier, where I had eaten a very nice salad they had prepared for me, knowing that I was a raw vegan. I broke the rules a tiny bit and tasted two pieces of tortellini pasta from the dish they were all sharing, to be respectful of their food too, and because it smelled SO damned good! It tasted good too and I didn’t worry about it too much. I ate a pretty good amount of food overall I thought, but when I left their place I was still inexplicably hungry. Very hungry. So as I walked through the long stretch of restaurants and fast food places, my stomach grumbled. Oh how I wanted to bite into one of those familiar old Gyros or a disgusting slice of pizza! With every step I was hungrier and it all smelled better and better. The last hurdle was the huge Joe Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant right next to my hotel, with its terraces packed with people, the fresh smells of their hot steaming tacos, burritos and tamales, spices and cheese making me dizzy.

With my small class of seven students 

who took the workshop in Ludwigsburg

 I made it back to the hotel, made a huge fruit salad, and then I ate an enormous box of organic cherry tomatoes and two heads of lettuce while talking to Mariya on Skype and calming myself down….I had gotten back to the hotel room shivering and pretty badly worked up. But slowly but surely I warmed up and I seem to remember having a pretty good sleep. Had the two little pieces of tortellini made me crave even more as I had walked home? Was that part of the inexplicable craving after a perfectly good dinner?

Did I ever cheat on any other occasions? And If so how much?

Yes, I ate about three croissants mixed in with everything over the first ten days of my trip. And I do drink coffee every morning. And I do smoke moderately as well.

More to come, on my smoking, drinking coffee, and making it through my Raw Journey through Prague….and then later, on through Amsterdam and Bulgaria!

Elemental Eating Emerges!

Ok, so I've made some changes in the way I live.

Well,

I'm here to tell you about it.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

I first began eating a low-fat, raw vegan ‘diet’ in a really committed way, in the beginning of the new year of 2013. By the end of January, 2013, I was pretty much 100% committed to the raw vegan lifestyle, with only very small eating ‘cheats’ here and there, (about which I will be as honest with you all as possible) I think there is more to learn about this journey if I am 100% honest about where I am struggling or NOT doing things right, as well as sharing all the positively wonderful changes I’ve made in my life.

This is basically a day's worth of food. Maybe a few more bananas....

It was an exciting time in my life in late 2012, heading into the New Year. I felt like I was on a positive roll, a creative wave of some kind, that was sweeping me along into a life spent more than ever, doing things that I truly feel are valuable and reflect who I am, always striving to be the best possible version of who I know I can be. I was working hard as an artist, painting for the first time in my life without an animation/design job with a fat corporate paycheck dangling in front of my nose, but instead, really painting from my heart, and my soul, whatever my inspiration/craziness prompted me to paint. 

My body of work, created over the last two years.

'Time Fluid' Painted Elemental Magic

(you could say that much of this is 'raw' art)

And at the very first exhibition of any of my paintings in my entire life I met a very remarkable woman, who was to be one of the single most powerful catalysts ever to walk into my life. The day I met Mariya was really the first day of this journey. Something ‘raw’ clicked deep inside of me on many levels, and started a process when we very first met, and it has not stopped ‘processing’ ever since.

Speaking of 'processing' here's my wonderful juicer.

(Thank you Leif!)

Mariya first introduced me to her version of a low-fat raw food diet, in a very simple and fun manner. One day, not long after we'd met and we were still very new and shy, I asked her about being a 'raw vegan' and she began to explain that 
her particular diet consisted almost entirely of fruit,
especially bananas.

I thought to myself, "Bananas, hmm, I could always live on bananas".
I asked her what her lunch might consist of, 
and she said she could show me, 
so I said "Fine, show me". She proceeded to whip 
up a spectacular fruit salad in an enormous 
stainless steel bowl, with about eight bananas, 
half a pineapple, half a box of strawberries, 
some raspberries, blackberries, maybe some other stuff...
She whipped it up good, really mixing it for a while,
giving it a good going over.

I took a bite. I took another bite.....

The rest, my friends, is as they say, history, 

a delicious history that remains to be told...

Armed with lots of exciting new knowledge about what we eat and how it affects us, coming largely from Mariya, and also from the outstanding outstanding and very readable books called ‘The 80/10/10 Diet’ Balancing Your Health, Your Weight, and your Life, One Lucious Bite at a Time’ by Dr. Douglas N. Graham, and “The Healing Crisis’ by (coming soon) I decided to give myself a chance to heal my body and soul, 100%, through a diet of 100% live, raw, organic food. 

I achieved this by eating, blending and juicing ONLY 60% to 80% raw, fresh, organic fruit, 10% to 20% raw, fresh, organic greens and veggies, 5 to 10% raw nuts, seeds, et.c This is the way, I am believing more and more in time, to truly heal ourselves, simply, through diet alone, with no medical intervention needed whatsoever. 

I believe my body is pefectly capable of healing me, thoroughly and magnificently, if I only provide it, daily, consistently, with enough oxygen and nutrients, and living energy from the sun, so it can do its work!

This is where I live.

Whew!

Breathtaking natural beauty and spendor.

Old growth trees.

If I want to clean up my 'environment'

I can start with cleaning up me.

100%. A serious cleaning up all of the toxins

I've been putting in to my body for a lifetime!!