Ever see a turkey you didn’t like? Vegans love turkeys so much they would never think of eating them so on this Thanksgiving day who do you think turkeys give thanks for when only one of them gets the presidential pardon?
Ever sign in to your e-mail and see some ad for turkey day or have you counted the number of TV ads that no longer even mention the word “thanks” when speaking of the “Thankful Thursday” yet to come? How did thanksgiving become shortened to turkey day anyway? To me turkey day would be the day everybody decides not to eat turkey, to give the turkeys a chance to live. The first thanksgiving was made possible by the Native Americans teaching the settlers how to farm in this new environment and corn and vegetables were much more a part of thanksgiving than turkeys although there might have been a few on the table. So why is the emphasis now on turkey and does that mean vegans are left out of a day of thanks?
Vegans have a lot to be thankful for. Normal healthy cholesterol levels from not eating animal products, being able to be active after a meal of thanks instead of getting that sleepy turkey feeling, and a clear conscience. Is it divisive to call it turkey day? I mean wouldn’t you want a holiday based on the emotion of thankfulness to be all-inclusive? Clearly, the irony of associating the national day of thanks with the nickname “turkey day” is all about creating more sales of turkey and an affront to the original meaning of the holiday and all those who celebrate it.
Few vegans ever started out their life being vegan but somewhere along the way they made a conscious decision to be “thankful” that there are so may diverse species of plants in the world which make thriving on a plant based diet quite rewarding. Even when I used to eat turkey I did not like Thanksgiving Day being called “turkey day.” I think most turkey eaters would agree it spoils the concept of giving thanks. The day was not created to eat turkeys, the day was created to celebrate life and be thankful for a chance to live. The pilgrims had a rough journey across the sea and then found it nearly impossible to grow food so without the help of Native Americans they were in threat to perish. You can just imagine the feeling of thankfulness at that first meal. People eat potatoes, candied yams, green beans, collard greens, corn, olives, nuts, carrots, celery, cranberries sauce and even salads on Thanksgiving Day and usually the chefs have made these items very tasty and the people are thankful to have them.
Then they watch the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions play various teams while the camera screen is filled with animated turkeys on the scoreboards and even commentators diagramming the huge turkey that is given away to the winning team. That’s ok if you love to eat turkey and even better if you love to sell turkey meat, but isn’t it insulting that a day of thanks has been reduced to a day of national celebration of the slaughter and consumption of turkeys? What do we care about more “giving thanks” or “eating turkey?”
What kind of nation has this become in a little over 200 years since the pilgrims first celebrated that thanksgiving meal? People can choose to eat what ever they want on Thanksgiving Day but what if the cranberry lobby was to out bid the turkey lobby and get all the ads changed to “cranberry sauce day?” Do you think people might be more offended then?
Can we take the emphasis off personal food choices and put it back on giving thanks this Thanksgiving Day? I care what I put in my body and others are free to make that choice for themselves so if we take personal food choices out of the equation we all can join in the emotion of thanks together. Give Thanks and Praises! You are free to eat anything you want this thanksgiving without the pressure of having to buy a turkey so give thanks for life, for water, for air and for sunlight. And don’t forget to thank those Native Americans and the plants they produced that saved the lives of the pilgrims.
So you have changed or are changing you life to include more raw foods and your kitchen needs to change to accommodate it. Unless you are 80/10/10 raw foods a la Doug Graham at then you are going to need a food processor, vita-mix, de-hydrator and garlic press to get started making all those wonderful recipes you’ll find at Annettelarkins.com or Rawfoodinfo.com or Rawfoodsbible.com or www.livefoodfactor.com or anywhere you find a raw food recipe you want to try.
Wouldn’t it make since to find one site where you can get all these machines from a long time raw foodist who has the best prices and has personal knowledge to share with you? That’s exactly what you get at my friend Al Natural’s site Green Living Oasis where you are one click away from everything you need to go raw. Mention my name and I’m sure Al will do his very best to cut the price as low as possible especially if you are getting several items at once.
Check out the pickle makers to make homemade sour kraut and pickles in 4 days or less without any contaminating air ruining the batch. I just bought a hand crank juicer for wheat grass that’s great for emergencies or camping. Al has air purifiers, blenders, citrus juicers, colenz boards, dehydrators, food processors, nut and seed grinders, juicers, pickle makers, rebounders, sprouters, water purifiers and vehicle Hydrogen generators.
I remember what a brown recluse did to me when my immune system was in poor shape prior to my health crisis and subsequent change in lifestyle and diet. I’m sure you’ll find some gory pictures of people’s wounds that never healed and other horror stories on the internet but I never heard of it killing anyone before my friends last e-mail said a young girl died from a brown recluse spider bite.
I also remember getting bit by a brown recluse about a year after I started eating better. I was gardening bare handed and while pulling weeds and I saw a brown recluse so I squashed it as it was trying to get away from me. Having had dealt with them before I washed my hands and checked for the sting mark and sure enough it got me twice on the hand long before I ever saw it.
So having a fresh batch of Sovereign Silver made by Natural-Immunogenics I immediately rubbed some in the spots where I was bit. I guess the combination of my much-improved immune system and the silver staved off any real bad results.
There was the typical swelling and pain the first night and the unmistakable red dot where they bit me plus the surrounding circle of strange colored skin that did not look too happy. Arthritic type symptoms and pain in the hand and a little up the arm resulted. The next day 90% of the symptoms were diminished as I kept rubbing more silver into the wound and taking it orally and the next day I was fine.
My previous experience with a brown recluse was not so nice. This was long before my health crisis and I was about 22 or so because my dad was still alive at the time. I had grabbed a suitcase from he closet and packed everything the last minute before we left. The first night in Georgia I changed into my Pj’s and turned the light off to go to sleep. Shortly after settling into bed I felt something in my pants run down my leg and a sharp pain like a mosquito had bitten me on my butt.
I jumped out of bed, turned the light on and tried to kill what ever it was while I stripped my Pj’s off. I turned my clothes inside out looking for the culprit and found some kind of squashed bug that looked like it could have been a spider. I was very tired and figured I had got it and went back to bed thinking nothing more of it.
The next day my brother wanted to play tennis. I didn’t feel too spunky but I agreed to take him on. We started playing and after warming up got a game going. As I got warmed up I seemed to be slowing down and getting tired. My legs began to cramp and my knee began to hurt although I had not injured myself in any way from the tennis match.
I had to call off the match and could barley walk back to his house from the tennis court.
He just figured I was out of shape and I felt really strange and did not know what to think. How could I go from running around to a cripple in such a short period of time with no injury?
The next day we got up early and drove to the mountains to see friends we knew from Florida who had built a nice cabin in the hills. The kids all wanted to play football and I did too but the weird pain in my knee kept me sidelined. On the way home from the mountains my brother was driving fast down the twisting turning mountain roads and I asked him to slow down. He said. Its ok, I know the roads” as he assumed I was scared. My dad asked him to slow down and he did a little bit but I was getting carsick for the first time in my life. I asked him to pull over right away and he kept driving. I told him I need air and was about to vomit all over his car if he didn’t stop. Finally he realized I was serious and stopped.
I got out and nearly lost my lunch. The mountain air and the stopping of the movement helped me regain myself. I told him that I could not take the fast driving and quick turns and I did not know why. He drove off just as fast as ever as what I said had little influence on what he did while I felt like I was getting vertigo.
So once again I told him to stop the car and he’s says, “Not again what’s your problem too much of that home made wine?” This time I got out and could not stop the internal heaving that had built up. I felt a little better but insisted I needed to drive so I can control the rate at which I could handle the decent and my dad made my brother shut up and let me drive.
The next day my knee injury got worse and I got stiff from the hip now too. I was walking like an old man the next day. We had to leave for Miami. After we got home I had my mom take me to the doctor. I could not see where the spider bit me as there was just a small red dot on my rear end but the doc knew it right away as brown recluse. A shot of antibiotics and a course of pills were immediately prescribed and I eventually recovered.
The bite was right on the sciatic nerve and the venom traveled down my leg with the activity of tennis to circulate it and most of the venom gathered in the knee and locked it up with swelling and pain was unbearable. I literally walked all stooped over dragging my leg and unable to flex it being in pain the whole time and felt like and 80-year-old man.
Keep sovereign silver handy and rub it in the wound immediately should this ever happen to you. Remember, the recluse is just that, a recluse. It loves hiding inside clothes, in drawers or in old suitcases in the closet that are not completely zipped up. They run from you but if you disturb them they sting you first.
Nature makes a fruit called Noni and if you have some fresh you rub it in the would and drink the juice and it would do the trick as well but not everyone has or can keep fresh Noni on hand like you can keep a bottle of Sovereign Silver in your medicine cabinet.
The old water heater finally gave out and started leaking so time for a new one. A lot has changed in 30 years. Now there are mini tank and tank less instant on water heaters. So which one is the best for me?
First lets look at what the home needs and what it has had for 30 years: 2 bathrooms and one 40 gallon tank style water heater on a 30 amp breaker max 4500 watts. So I went to www.consumerreports.org to learn how to size the heater for peak use and Gallons Per Minute (GPM). They suggested looking for a heater with a 12-year warranty, which typically includes a longer or thicker element.
I learned a lot about hot water heaters when hurricane Andrew blew the house down. We had no electricity from the grid for 3 months and so I hooked a 5k generator to the panel and made sure it did not feed back into the grid. Then I crank up the generator, turn off the breakers to the fridge and water pump while I heat a tank of water for 20 minutes. Once I had a tank of water heated up turn off the breaker to the water heater and turn the pump and fridge on and I can take a shower with hot water while the generator powers the water pump from the well.
So what if I go tank less? Well the smallest tank less requires a 40 amp breaker and 38 amps startup and that means my 5k generator will not power it I would need a 8.4k generator. I also learned from a Solar Passive House Reconfiguration course I took that I don’t need the power to the hot water heater all day and night. So I keep the breaker off to the hot water heater all the time unless I need hot water and if so then I turn it on 10 minutes before getting in the shower and 30 minutes for a bath. I turn the water heater off after the shower or just before entering and thus it remains off until I need hot water again. This practice reduced my electricity bill significantly.
I plan in the very near future to route the cold water up on the roof and pass it through a Solar Pre-Heater before going into the water heater. This may eliminate the need for electric heat and the new well-insulated water heater will serve as an excellent container to hold the water heated by the sun. The new heat trap nipples that come with the unit help hold the heat in when not in use. If I need additional hot water I just turn on the breaker for 30 minutes and I have a tank of hot water.
I checked out the National Corporate Home Improvements stores and they only had 6 year warrantees starting at $240 and the longer warrantees going for over $300. Then I stopped at Lawrence Plumbing where I have done business with the local Homestead Company for years. I love keeping the money in the same town and spending it with the little guy wherever possible because once you give it to the big corporations you never see it again whereas someone from Lawrence might by some fruit from me or send me a customer. So I bought 40-gallon high efficiency water heater tank made by AOSmith with a 10-year warrantee for slightly less than big guys wanted for a 6-year warrantee modal. What a deal!
I got at least 15 years out of the old AOSmith water heater so continuing with the brand that treated me right all these years felt good. I will continue with the “breaker off until needed” system and now this more efficient tank will hold the hot water longer and save me money. For those who’s breaker is not so easily accessed or they are too busy to remember to turn it off and on they can install a timer so hot water will be there for your morning or nightly shower. For most situations the water heater only needs to be on in the morning and at night for about an hour each time or even less for one person. That’s 2 hours a day or less instead of 24 hours a day. You can see where the savings will come in and pay for the timer installation real quick.
A Solar preheater for hot water heater is simple to build or buy and good to use with either a water tank system or even to pre-heat the cold water before entering a tank less system. With a pre heater and a well-insulated water heater for a holding tank in Florida it may provide most or all of the hot water demands year round.
September in South Florida means time to plant vegetable gardens for the earliest winter crop possible. Some old timers wait till October to plant the seeds and spend September prepping the garden beds because often times it rains so much it drowns the baby seeds in September which is the peak of hurricane season.
I say plant in September and if the seeds drown plant again right away. If you get lucky you’ll be eating something from the garden by Thanksgiving if you do.
If you have never planted a backyard garden now’s a great time to start one. Ask you child if they want to help and your first step is to get seeds. One of my favorite places to order seeds is from www.rareseeds.com, which is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Company. They carry over 1200 different varieties of heirloom seeds and give good portions of seeds for the price and always throw in a free surprise pack of seeds with your order. Heirlooms are very old varieties of plants and some of the tomato varieties are the same seeds the Native American Indians carried around with them and introduced to the settlers like my favorite the Cherokee Purple Tomato. Oh my, its big, ugly, wrinkly with green on top, red in the middle and purple towards the bottom and so full of juicy flavor especially when you have used ocean water in a 35:1 dilution with rainwater to feed them with all season long. You can also try www.heirloomseeds.com or do a search for heirloom seeds and find a seed company of your choice. Its fun to read through the descriptions of the plants, pick out what you want to plant and know they are on the way to you in the mail while you go to work prepping the garden space.
It’s easy to make a garden space in South Florida. Nearly everyone has lawns full of grass and you can pick out a sunny spot in the grass along the back fence or in a corner of the property and mark it off for a garden space. Then you take a round point shovel and jump on it down the line to mark the boarders and then cut out squares, dig underneath and simply lift the sod right out of the space and put it in a part of the yard you want to grow grass. Then some cheap 1”x 6” non pressure treated wood can be gathered from the store or any type of boarders choice you would like to make from your garden outlet to place around the edge and now you have created a garden space. Drive steaks in the ground and put chicken wire or other cheap fencing around the bourder to keep the animals out and to have something to tie tomatoes and cucumbers to.
If you don’t have good dirt from your own compost pile to add you can go get some bags of soil from the hardware store but its not really necessary if you are armed with ocean water and prepared to use it throughout the growing season. I like to spread mulch about 2 or 3 inches thick over the entire garden space and then pull back the mulch where I wish to plant along the fence and in the rows. At this point you can take your potting soil and fill the hole you create by pulling back the mulch and plant your seeds in that. The mulch helps keep the weeds down but nothing keeps the weeds at bay like weekly pulling. The more time you spending your garden the more beautiful and productive it will be.
So what did I plant so far? Around the fence I planted Fox Cherry tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes and Yellow Pear tomatoes, Genovese Basil, Parisian Pickling cucumbers, Sugar Snap peas and Wando Garden peas, Zucchini-Lungo Bianco and Hawaiian Orange marigolds for beauty and to ward off pests. Then in the rows I planted Arugula, Dwarf Siberian kale, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Early Wonder beets, Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and Tonda Di Parigi carrots. I’m half Italian so I love getting the Italian varieties but you can read all about the seeds and pick your own favorites.
Take ocean water and mix it at 3.6 ounces to a gallon of rain water in a pump sprayer and water your seedlings in and then continue this every week throughout the garden season and you will have a most incredible garden of nutrient dense food. Remember sulfur sweetens and magnesium is a very pivotal central type element that is missing from most soils as well as sodium. Ocean water has lots of sodium as well as every mineral in a perfect balance for plants. Few people know that sulfur and magnesium is 1/10th the amount of sodium in ocean water and that means you’ll be able to taste the difference come harvest time.
Contact you local saltwater aquarium for fresh ocean water or if you friend has a boat give them a few empty milk jugs to fill while they are far from land out fishing. As a last resort find the cleanest beach, dip a bucket in, and the mineral content gained far exceeds the pollution content besides you are gong to dilute it 35:1 anyway.
Have fun and remember to contact me when its harvest time! You may love the veggies I grow with ocean water but nothing will ever taste as good as the food your grow yourself!
Is it really possible to stay healthy just by eating raw foods? It certainly has changed my health but a big part of being healthy is ridding your home environment of excess pollutants from VOC’s, electromagnetic radiation, cleaning products and cosmetics. Now you can watch Dr. Craig Sommers N.D., C.N. explain all the reasons for going raw and how to clean up your home environment in his new DVD titled “Keys To Longevity”.
I was very happy to give him permission to use 2 of my songs “Testimony” and “Raw Food Boogie” both of which can be downloaded from www.rawtim.com as a complete song or as a ring tone for your cell phone. How rawsome is that?
His “Keys to Longevity” DVD covers vitamins, enzymes, minerals, protein, fats, fiber, food as medicine, cosmetics, indoor air pollution, new car smell, electronic radiation, mobile phones, use it or loose it and the mind body connection in a common since presentation just like his live lectures. All you need is 90 minutes to get an education from Dr. Sommers, which took him years to compile the research and gain experience living the “living foods” lifestyle for himself on a daily basis.
Raw Foods Bible
His book “Raw Foods Bible” would be the perfect accompaniment to the DVD so check out www.rawfoodsbible.com and see when Dr. Sommers will be lecturing in your town. I learned some new things from this DVD and he does a great job of explaining all the subtle differences in supplements and minerals and cosmetics so we can make educated choices for ourselves.
What does Dr. Sommers suggest for cosmetics, toothpaste, or whether or not to use anti-bacterial soaps? What about B12 and fluoride? Where can you get folic acid naturally and what does cooking food do to folic acid? What are enzymes and what are metabolic enzymes and digestive enzymes and what does cooking food do to disrupt the balance in our bodies?
What about key minerals like selenium and zinc and what does heating them do to them? What are good raw sources of minerals? Where is protein formed and what does the World Health Organization recommend and what are the best raw sources? What does cooking protein do to amino acids?
The essential fats omega 3 and omega 6 and what is the best food sources for them? Is fiber an essential component of food and what sources and amounts does Dr. Sommers recommend? What 3 foods have medicinal values and what is the difference between cholesterol and homocysteine levels?
Could our indoor pollution levels actually be equal to or greater than Los Angeles smog? Ever hear of marmoleum flooring instead of linoleum flooring and what are the effects of painting your indoor walls? What are VOC’s and how do they affect a person’s health?
What is off gassing and how can that effect your health?
It’s a rawsome DVD that is a guide to how to build your health piece by piece and I think you are going to love it. It’s nice to know Dr. Sommers walks the walk he talks and shares how you can walk it too.
“Ormus” is a group of essential minerals previously unknown to modern science because they did not show up in common scientific tests. Minerals like gold, silver and platinum-but they are in a different form, they are not toxic. We are discovering they are very common in plants, animals, air, soil and water. How is it beneficial? It appears to assist communication between cells in the body and between the body and spirit.”
Quote from “Ormus: Modern Day Alchemy” by Chris Emmons at www.ormusbook.com
If you have never heard of Ormus before get ready to rock your world. You can’t find this in school as yet so if you want to know about it get the book and do your homework. It’s easy, really. If Chris is too busy for personal instruction contact me at my website listed above.
I went to several workshops hosted by Chris and we went over the many ways to concentrate Ormus and my favorite is the wet process with either ocean water or sea salts. All the different processes to concentrate Ormus are including as well as the modern and ancient histories. Chris has done such a great job in compiling all the research along with her own meticulously detailed experiments.
I’m excited about the possibilities of using Ormus on plants and its easy to enhance your very own massage oils with Ormus to increase the effectiveness of the massage and allow for better flow of healing energy from the power of human touch and Reiki.
So if you hear someone talking about having more energy and clarity of thought ask him or her if they have started collecting their own Ormus too. Check it out.
“It’s a brand new day, lets go out and play”
“Another day to have a good time on this earth”
“The sun is on the rise open up your eyes and drink it in”
“Pour the sunshine in you feel so good within it purifies”
This is the third cut from the Raw Food Boogie CD now available for download from www.rawtim.com and the video features South Florida and the Florida Keys. With dolphins jumping, birds, bees, tropical flowers and ocean sunsets I’m surprised the chamber of commerce has not asked to use it for their tourist campaign yet.
The song is all about the celebration of the sun coming up everyday and how it makes everything we love grow. When I turned my eating around to include fresh tropical fruits I suddenly realized what I was missing all these years and the newfound feeling of appreciation extended to the sun.
Becoming a raw foodist made me much more aware of the connection between the universe and how all life is connected together. This song gives a glimpse of some of that fresh enthusiasm at the moment of revelation. Something as simple as opening a coconut and drinking the water can have a profound effect on my mood and health so naturally I had to do so on camera and my dogs were happy to help me pull it apart for the coconut jelly meat inside.
This video has been on you tube but I added new titles to reflect the new website and give an updated feel to it. I really like how the titles look with the bright new colors of the rainbow lettering. I’m really proud of the sunset shots with a bird flying by in slow motion while its shadow dances on the water below and it took 18 months to compile enough video footage to make the video.
“Take a good look at me, I am amalgam free”
“No longer does my body have to deal with mercury”
“Take a good look at me, I’m as happy as can be”
“I’m so glad to be mercury free”
“I went to see Dr. Edwards his dental chair has a view of the lake”
“His specialty is correcting all those mercury mistakes”
“He has the right stuff to fill your teeth so your body can be well”
“And when you’re done you can sing this song and ring that freedom bell”
After years of horrifying dental experiences I finally had a dental experience that had me feeling so good I wrote a song about it on the way home and later went back to shoot the video starring myself, the dentist and his staff. Now when I open my mouth all you see is white and I have the satisfaction of knowing I have been tested to see if my body would tolerate the filling before putting it in. How custom is that?
I had so much fun making the video sitting in the dental chair playing the Hawaiian ukulele while the pretty dental assistant danced and sang along. They treated me like a rock star and his office overlooking the lake is so spacious and open it is unlike any dental experience I ever had. Come to find out they treat everyone like a rock star so I’m happy to pass on the good news that there is a kind and gentle holistic dentist in the Orlando area who has a spacious lake view.
Most of the offices I had been in didn’t have windows and they were cramped and you felt like you were being suffocated while they drill your teeth. The waiting room is a round room of glass windows and when you sit in the dental chair the last thing you see before they tilt you back is the beautiful lake.
So sit back and enjoy the video and when you are ready to go see a holistic dentist give Dr. Edwards a call.
Walk into the Om Garden restaurant (www.omgardenonline.com) in Miami, Florida and you too can enjoy your choice of delicious raw vegan or cooked vegan lunches, dinners, desserts, soups, salads and smoothies Monday through Saturday. Check out all the different “Nori Rolls” and be sure to try my favorites the “Rainbow Roll” or the “Lotus Roll” and the fabulous “Celestial Caesar Salad” they make as well. It may be a little tricky to find at first (on Broadway which is S.W.15th road and 4th Ave.) but well worth the effort once you taste the delights you’ll find inside like the “Peace Pizza”.
If you are in a hurry you can order ahead for pick up or choose from the deli case favorites like the “Blessed Broccoli and Cheddar” the “Mystical Mushr-Oms” or the “Seven Seas Seaweed Salad“. They can cater events big and small and have un-cooking classes as well as vegan cooking classes to add some recipes to your collection. Friday night is movie night so check the website for movie titles you are interested in and combine a meal with a movie.
When I walk in I’m thinking T.G.I.V. “Thank God Its Vegan” but when my taste buds come in contact with the food all I can think is, “Om, that’s good!”
It’s easy to make a garden space in South Florida. Nearly everyone has lawns full of grass and you can pick out a sunny spot in the grass along the back fence or in a corner of the property and mark it off for a garden space. Then you take a round point shovel and jump on it down the line to mark the boarders and then cut out squares, dig underneath and simply lift the sod right out of the space and put it in a part of the yard you want to grow grass. Then some cheap 1”x 6” non pressure treated wood can be gathered from the store or any type of boarders choice you would like to make from your garden outlet to place around the edge and now you have created a garden space. Drive steaks in the ground and put chicken wire or other cheap fencing around the bourder to keep the animals out and to have something to tie tomatoes and cucumbers to.
So what did I plant so far? Around the fence I planted Fox Cherry tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes and Yellow Pear tomatoes, Genovese Basil, Parisian Pickling cucumbers, Sugar Snap peas and Wando Garden peas, Zucchini-Lungo Bianco and Hawaiian Orange marigolds for beauty and to ward off pests. Then in the rows I planted Arugula, Dwarf Siberian kale, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Early Wonder beets, Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and Tonda Di Parigi carrots. I’m half Italian so I love getting the Italian varieties but you can read all about the seeds and pick your own favorites.
If you are in a hurry you can order ahead for pick up or choose from the deli case favorites like the “Blessed Broccoli and Cheddar” the “Mystical Mushr-Oms” or the “Seven Seas Seaweed Salad“. They can cater events big and small and have un-cooking classes as well as vegan cooking classes to add some recipes to your collection. Friday night is movie night so check the website for movie titles you are interested in and combine a meal with a movie.