Moving into eating again

June 7, 2008

Today I drank 3 quarts of juice, and ate some delicious raw food. It feels so nice to be eating again. However, last night after eating the cooked food I developed a symptom: a feeling of bloating, bearing down and slight pain (not really pain, just sensation of an area I usually can't feel), of my reproductive organs: mostly on the left but now it's both sides, around my ovaries. I did go for a very light walk/jog this morning which did not exacerbate the symptoms, but they have not gone away. I also did an enema this morning which I'm sure was good but didn't alleviate. I'm hoping that as I stay on raw food and juice it will go away, but if not I wonder if it indicates I really need to continue juicing (especially since the main reason was to heal my reproductive organs!)

I think (know) that the non-vegan cooked foods last night - though not a large amount - was just too hard on my system and not the best thing to do. I think that a raw food diet in and of itself is very healing, so we'll see. I'll revisit this mid-week, (when my parents leave), and see if it may be better to go back to only juicing. Though I'm sure I will juice feast again, I am hoping that the raw diet and juice will help me since I am really loving eating.

Also: thanks again to everyone with your words of support! It really means so much to me that you are following along this juice journey, and that you take the time to read and comment and email. Your support is so incredibly helpful!

Today's juices:

• 2 1/2 quarts beet, carrot, apple + the green juice from yesterday
• 1/2 quart orange juice with chlorophyll and bee pollen

And I ate:

• a couple pieces of flax/seed bread (Ani Phyo's bread recipe), split up throughout the day
• beautiful salad with greens and peas from the garden and tomato, celery, yellow pepper and cucumber with orange miso dressing (orange, unpasteurized white miso, olive oil, water, garlic and ginger blended.)
• flax cracker
• couple of dried sweet potato chips...after 17 hours of dehydrating they were still not crunchy! Just chewy, like dried mangoes. Do they just not ever get crunchy?
• slices of tomato and 1/8 avocado with dulse
• a prune and a date
• strawberries

I know the seeds are a bit hard on the system, too. I didn't eat all the seed bread at one time...I cut some into little pieces for crutons on my salad, had a 1/2 slice with the tomato and avo on top.

Other than the symptom I mentioned above (which is significant to me), I feel great, though, and very happy to be eating.

Moody mood ring, or miracle?

June 8, 2008

I had a nice day today: starting with an outdoor yoga class up on Grandview Park (Mt. Washington) overlooking Pittsburgh, through Breathe Yoga Studio. Before class I had 1/2 qt orange juice with bee pollen and chlorophyll.

I felt a very spiritual connection at yoga today. Most (all?) the instructors at Breathe have you silently sent an intention or dedication at the beginning of class and then check back in with that at the end, and today was just very moving/spiritual/connected for me in that way.

After class E D and I were walking around and E gave me her little ring to hold: a heart shaped white stone. When I gave it back to her I noticed it had turned this most beautiful shade of rosy/pinkish/red. I hadn't realized it was a mood ring (we'd only ever seen it white) so I explained to her what a mood ring was. But the whole rest of the day, no matter who held or wore the ring or for how long, it stayed white! Is it a mood ring? Did some kind of plastic kid's ring miracle occur? We heated the ring up, cooled it against ice, wore it, held it, etc, and it did not change. Hmmmmm....

Getting home I made beet, carrot, apple, ginger, garlic, cucumber, celery and greens (from the garden) juice...about 2 quarts. I only drank a quart of it today, though, which is less juice that I'd have liked.

I marinated a portabello mushroom (in olive oil, tamari and garlic) and had some of that with my delicious salad, ate an apple, some flax crackers and some of the flax/seed bread with avo, tomato and cuke on top. I also ate some of a raw cacao bar that my friend Wendi had given me because Ella was just so anxious for me to open it. She actually ate most of it. It had blue-green algae, cacao and maca in it and was quite good. There's a bit still left in the freezer.

Then we went to dinner with my parents and I had a lovely salad: mixed greens, raw corn, avocado, grape tomatoes. Simple but lovely. I had the cilantro lime dressing on the side, but the vinegar was too strong for me so I topped it with some of the orange miso dressing that I had made and brought with me.

Symptoms today: Constipation! I did another enema last night which was helpful, but I am back being bloated and painfully unable to go. I soaked some prunes and had them with me today, but didn't have the opportunity to eat them. Now it's late and I'm not hungry so they are soaking in the fridge until morning.

Guacamole at Cheesecake Factory and 'Zine-making

June 9, 2008

Two additional restaurant finds are:

~ At the Cheesecake Factory: made-to-order guacamole with a small tossed salad (not-so-small beautiful raw salad with lettuce, carrot, zucchini, beets and cukes.) I asked for sliced cukes to replace the tortilla chips with the guac order and I brought my own miso-orange dressing (but the guac itself actually made a great dressing, with a little extra lemon juice and salt over the greens.)

No tomatoes or salsas, though, because of the recent "Salmonella scare", which I feel may be being used as a scare tactic to make people fear raw veggies and so people will want the gov't to "take care of us" by doing things like pasteurizing almonds and mangoes and genetically altering things for our "safety." Of course, this is another entire issue, but I really do think the money is in keeping people sick but alive, and fresh raw fruits and veggies defeat this purpose and so are a big threat to the powers that be!

~ At Kassab's Lebanese restaurant: fatoush without the pita chips. Parsley, lettuce, tomatoes (oh yes, they used tomatoes...not that I trust these pale wilty restaurant tomatoes, mind you...I'm not saying there isn't salmonella out there, especially with factory farm grown tomatoes), onions, cukes with lemon juice, sumac, salt and other spices.

I wouldn't make it a habit of eating out on raw, but since my parents only want to eat out, I have been happily surprised to find these lovely options around town.

Of course, I did bring a big beautiful salad from our garden, with a delicious salsa I made with our luscious cilantro and some more of my marinated portabello. I ate that for dinner along with the fatoush. I also munched flax crackers and the flax/seed bread throughout the day, and had some soaked prunes this morning. Oh, and I ate the mint cacao raw bar Wendi gave me, and I did make (and eat a little) raw cacao fudge: pecans, shredded coconut, cacao powder, coconut butter/oil, honey and a tiny bit of salt and vanilla.

Today's juice:

• 1 qt of the beet, carrot, apple, green etc juice from yesterday
• 1 quart (split into 1/2 quart am and 1/2 pm) of orange juice with water and chlorophyll. The morning juice also had bee pollen.

I heard that the Carnegie Library in Oakland is doing a girls and women zine exchange at the end of July! I love zine-making, though I haven't made one since college. But I thought I'd make a zine about my 42 day juice feast. I am very excited about it. I'll probably write summaries/highlights/experiences of each week and add artwork, pictures, quotes, whatever! I'll put recipes and resources and lots of other juicy things.

Post-Feast Retrospective

June 11, 2008

Today I wanted to take a few minutes and share what shifted and changed for me on my 40+ day juice feast:

1. I was never able to allow liquid (juice, smoothie) to be a meal. This was both physical and psychological. I always still felt hungry as I was used to eating large amounts, and psychologically, it just didn't seem like enough. If ever I said I was hungry and Dave said, "Make Juice," I would get annoyed and not even consider it. In the morning, I'd try to have a green smoothie for b'fast, but then afterwards I'd also have French toast, eggs, whatever else.
   
   Now, I am able to feel when I am really hungry, and juice is incredibly satisfying. I can easily have it as a meal, or even go a day (or two, or forty-two) with just juice and feel satisfied.
   
2. I lost 21 pounds. I wish I had done measurements like many other people did, but sadly I did not.
   
3. I totally enjoyed water fasting for a day.
   
4. I was able to survive and thrive on just juice for 6 weeks. I began doing yoga again, continued to nurse my daughter, began running and ran a race (5K), gardened, worked and did many other things while only drinking juice.
   
5. I felt so much better, almost immediately, to how I felt before feasting. I was anemic from the hemorrhage and was able to sense healing on a body, mind and spiritual level.
   
6. I got more connected to an online raw community, met people through their blogs, twitter, and their comments on my blog! I also heard from people from Pittsburgh who knew of me through the Birch Center, and I hope to meet the people I have met only virtually soon! This aspect was amazing.
   
7. learned about things I hadn't before: enemas, bee pollen, MSM, and revisited closely greens and spirulina.
   
8. found I have a taste for savory juices! Juiced onions, garlic, yellow bell pepper...who'd have thought they'd be so delicious?
   
9. I have such an appreciation for raw foods! Now raw food eating feels decadent and so far I have no desire to eat cooked foods! Wow, this is amazing.
   
10. Have clarified my healing goals and started in that direction (what a great beginning!)
    
11. Am loving gardening and am amazed at the abundance of our garden! Am also loving those Anastasia books that I bought. She says that as your garden gets to know you (through your presence, touch, bare feet on the soil...) that it creates the fruits and veggies you need specifically to heal yourself. How funny that we have literally hundreds of volunteer tomato plants shooting up all over the place! (And at one point during the feast, I stopped eating tomatoes, though I craved them, because I thought maybe the nightshades were bad for my joints.) The mind knows so little compared to the energy field!

That seems about it for now. If I think of more I will add them. I am also going to continue posting on this blog...about my raw foods journey, my garden, wild edibles, a possible water fast now and then, and maybe even revisit juice feasting. I hope you'll stay with me!

Today I had:

• green smoothie with garden greens, banana, frozen pineapple and frozen strawberries
• quart of beet, carrot, apple, celery, cuke, onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro, green juice
• flax/seed bread with avo and tomato
• juice and flesh of very young coconut (shared with Ella)
• flax crackers with miso/coconut oil "butter"
• raw fudge: raisins, pecans, shredded coconut, cacao nibs and powder, coconut oil, honey, salt and vanilla
• nori rolls and seaweed salad with miso/orange dressing
• green smoothie with lamb's quarters, red clover, banana, frozen pineapple and frozen mangoes
• lots of water

Black walnuts and paw paws

I just put a couple posts about foraging Black Walnuts and Paw Paws on my other blog: http://birchcenter.blogspot.com.

I'm trying to consolidate...it's so confusing to know which information to post where!

I hope you'll check out the posts on the Birch Center blog, though.

xoxo
~ Melissa

Please sign up for our monthly newsletter! We have raw recipes, information about Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and overall wellness information. Thank you!

www.BirchCenter.com

Vitamix RAW nut butter tip

So, many of you probably know this, but wow, that Vitamix can sure heat food up! Last entry I posted about my pistachio yum bars. Well, I had used nuts right from the freezer for that recipe. Today I tried it again with room temperature nuts (so like 85 degrees!) and they got quite HOT in there. I didn't even blend them down all the way to nut butter.

So, the tip is: FREEZE the nuts first before attempting nut butter in the vitamix, especially if you're trying to keep the nut butter raw.

Love and light,

~ Melissa

Please sign up for our monthly newsletter! We have raw recipes, information about Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and overall wellness information. Thank you!

www.BirchCenter.com

chocolate pistachio yum bars

Well, today is my third day all raw, and my total and complete energy crash didn't happen until 6:30 pm (and I got up much more easily this morning), so I'm moving in a good direction. The only reason I'm not sleeping now is that Dave was working and Ella wouldn't nap. She's going to sleep now, but I have an update phone call for energy mirrors (at 10 pm!), which is a kind of energy work I do. I actually haven't done it in a while, which may be part of my problem: I do feel much better when I do. But in general I like listening to the woman (Mary Lynch) who does the calls...it's interesting to just let my mind go and become more aware of possibilities......

But anyway. Do you remember (or did you have) those peanut butter bars in high school with the chocolate on top? They were little squares (brownie size) of a layer of peanut butter and a layer of chocolate. I've been thinking about them for a while, and today I created:

Chocolate Pistachio Yum Bars! (the piece in the picture is a bit heavy on the chocolate layer...but isn't it neat how the pistachio nut butter is green?)

• I put raw pistachio nut meat in the vitamix to make nut butter.
  
  
• I mixed the smallest bits of salt and honey into it (when I make again, I may make this layer a tad sweeter, but maybe not.)
  
  
• I pushed the nut butter into the bottom of a glass pan, about 1/4 inch thick.
  
  
• Chocolate layer: I mixed softened coconut butter/oil with cacao powder, lucuma powder, maca powder, raw honey, salt, vanilla.
  
  
• I poured it on top of the nut butter and put in the fridge to chill/harden.
  

Voila! Instant yumminess. I've actually been only eating tiny pieces of it - it's very rich. I just cut that big piece for the picture, then I put it away.

****

And, if you haven't seen it, I wrote about raw foods from a traditional Chinese medicine perspective on my Birch Center blog. I'm actually working on another entry about it for today, but I may be too tired to finish.