I love eating out and especially if what I’m eating is going to contribute to great health! If you’re ever in LA, check out Planet Raw in Santa Monica—one of the best known raw vegan restaurants around. I’ve reviewed it to whet your appetite…
A NATURAL STATE If you hadn’t heard of raw food aficionado Juliano and happened to stumble upon his restaurant in LA’s famed seaside suburb of Santa Monica, you’d be forgiven for wondering where the grills and ovens are. Here, words such as bake, boil, steam and barbeque are left at the door of the nearest fast food joint. At Planet Raw, it’s all about food preparation that keeps nature’s (organic) food in its natural state, with life-giving enzymes kept fully in tact to give you a boost that, quite simply, no other form of food preparation could. Yet, it’s important to know that carrots and beans on a plate it’s not. Food here is prepared with loving care, with many ingredients spending long, lazy hours in food dehydrators before being whipped up into gourmet works of art at the instruction of the “guru” himself, Juliano.
GOOD TIMES While optimal health through good eating is obviously important at Planet Raw, this is one must-visit restaurant that also knows how to have a good time. From organic espressos to the wine and elixir bar, a night (or day) out with Juliano is guaranteed to put a spring in your step.
MENU FAVORITES Whatever your pre-conceived ideas are about raw food, be prepared to leave them at the door. The Planet Raw menu is packed with incredible flavors in a menu that literally has a dish for every taste—from the “bacon” western double burger, with its side of more-ish zucchini fries to the green curry pasta (made from zucchini) dripping with a Thai nut curry kream and topped off with coco-noodles. Dessert (which Juliano suggests you eat at the beginning of your meal for your health’s sake) is also an experience to behold. I say go for the chocolate parfait or the “best ever cheeze cake”.
THE LITTLE EXTRAS Planet Raw is more than just a restaurant with great food and friendly service. Here, you can sign up for Juliano’s raw food classes, his seven-day detox program and stock up on all sorts of healthy goodies from kombucha
(a cold Chinese tea packed with probiotics and natural vitamins) to the God of all food processors, the Vita-Mix
TIP For those who are serious about raw food, inquire about Juliano’s certified raw chef program, which is said to be one of the world’s best.
609 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90405, U.S.A
Phone (310) 576-3180
www.planetraw.net
Juliano’s butternut squash soup pic courtesy: Swellvegan.net
Last night an interesting documentary caught my eye. Half Ton Son, from Britain’s Channel 4, told the story of Billy, a 19 year old boy who was restricted to his bedroom due to his chronic obesity.
His mother helped greatly to fuel his illness (perhaps initally at a sub conscious level) in order to keep her son close and dependent. Through her own lack of education about nutrition, she fed her son on elaborate helpings of burgers, fries and basically anything dead, deep fried and drowned in high fructose corn syrup-laden ketchup.
The doco followed Billy as he was admitted to hospital to undergo surgery to remove some of his fat stores, encouraged to exercise and adopt a healthier way of eating (see preview video below).
After leaving hospital at half his original weight, the first meal Billy’s mum served him up as a reward for his hard work was a hot dog. There’s certainly a lot wrong with this picture, no doubt. But who’s fault is it? Billy for eating in excess? His mother for feeding him toxic food? The education system? Or perhaps the big companies who market their deadly wares without concern for the consumer?
It made me think a lot about what we’re teaching (or not teaching) our kids in school. For years, the food pyramid that was taught to most of us was sponsored by the meat and dairy industries. Of course their products will come highly recommended as healthy and must-additions to the every day diet. But why did our governments allow such outright lies to be printed and promoted? Self-interests perhaps. The millions of dollars involved, quite possibly.
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I love the idea and practice of being your own doctor … listening to your body to understand what works—or doesn’t—to bring you to your personal, ultimate state of well-being.
Looking to a general practitioner for health advice has never felt right. Why, I often wondered, did doctors generally look so unhealthy, yet were offering me pills and prescriptions that were apparently guaranteed to make me healthy?
I started questioning doctors as an eight year old, wondering how they (supposedly) knew my body better than me. My trusted family doc told my parents I didn’t have a broken leg. Not being able to walk should have been a clue that I did. Or so you would think.
So now, if I’m looking outside of myself for health and diet advice, I want to know straight away if the person is living by their own book. Ultimately, I believe there’s not a soul on God’s green earth that knows my body better than me. It’s just a matter of listening to what it’s saying.
“The first thing is to realise one’s limitations. It should be obvious that the moment one transgresses those limits, one falls ill. Thus a balanced diet, eaten in accordance with needs, gives one freedom from disease. How is one to know what is the proper diet for one? The purpose of all this is that everyone should be his own doctor and find out his limitations.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”—Hippocrates
“Medicine is the most distinguished of all the arts, but through the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who casually judge such practitioners, it is now of all the arts by far the least esteemed.”—Hippocrates
This month’s New Moon has passed and so have the toxins from my liver and gallbladder (okay, that may sound kinda gross, but bear with me).
I recently blogged about how important it is to cleanse between the full and new moons, so that’s what I did this month: armed with the how-to from Andreas Moritz’s The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush. Without going into too much detail, the six days of drinking a litre of organic apple juice a day, before the the seventh day of the flush, were well worth the time invested.
I consider myself to be a very healthy gal, although my carefree 20s likely contributed to some of the toxins (ie stones) released during this all-important health-boosting cleanse. Also being around household cleaning chemicals, hairspray, dousing myself with the latest hip fragrance and eating animal products would have definitely added to my toxicity. Thank the lord those days are gone!
A day after the flush and I feel light, positive and have a mental clarity that wasn’t quite there before.
According to many religions and spiritual cultures, particularly Native Americans, Shamanism and Wicca, the New Moon represents new beginnings and is a great time to perform rituals and cleanses.
See my original post here.
Speaking of new moons, the actress who’s replacing Rachelle Lefevre (who played Victoria in the first two Twilight installments) is Bryce Dallas Howard (below). Bryce had been a vegan before switching to vegetarianism during pregnancy. She went vegan after watching the Joaquin Phoenix-narrated documentary, Earthlings.
A lot of big business has benefited from the rise of diseases such as cancer and diabetes (think pharmaceutical companies, multi-billion dollar charities etc). I love (note sarcasm) how some brands of margarine are marketed as having the ability to lower cholesterol. Who regulates this stuff? It’s just another reason why it’s so important to never believe marketing hype on any product. Ever.
Okay, whinge over.
The purpose of my post is to highlight a documentary I highly recommend to anyone who’s suffering from any type of diabetes, or any dis-ease for that matter. Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days is a movie featuring some of my favourite people in-the-know: Woody Harrelson, Tony Robbins, David Wolfe and Dr. Gabriel Cousens.
It’s an independent doco (see trailer below) that chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet of vegan, organic, uncooked food to reverse disease without pharmaceutical medication. The six are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and cooked food for 30 days. The results are inspiring and undoubtedly would give hope to people who want to be disease-free.
Imagine seeing an end to the likes of “World Diabetes Day” (which was yesterday) and products emblazoned with pink ribbons. Enough of big businesses making money from illnesses and multi-gazillion dollar research that only offers a band-aid “solution”. If we all become our own doctors and refuse to put anything into our bodies that’s not as nature intended, the problem, I sincerely believe, will be a problem no more.
Here are some great quotes from the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
“Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
“It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has”
“Walking is man’s best medicine”
“Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things – to help, or at least, to do no harm.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
So soy milk is out. What to pour over your oats now? Well, the answer is simple—and so much more delicious and nutritious than any supermarket packaged non-dairy milks that are often laden with preservatives and goodness knows what else.
Making your own almond milk at home takes a small amount of preparation, and not only leaves you with great tasting milk, but also the peace of mind knowing exactly where it came from.
As with any recipe, you can change this around to suit your specific taste. Even add some raw cacao for a chocolate drink like no other. Here is the basic recipe I use to make my very own fresh almond milk. Enjoy!
Raw Almond Milk
1 cup of soaked raw almonds
Spring water for soaking
3 cups of spring water (for actual milk)
3 to 6 pitted dates
• Almonds are best soaked overnight in a refrigerator, but if you’re in a rush, soak for a couple of hours and you’ll still be on your way to making a fabulous milk. Be sure to rinse them before using.
• I usually soak the dates in spring water for half an hour or so, but this isn’t always necessary if you’re using soft dates.
Blend the soaked almonds with the spring water until smooth. Then strain that mix through a strainer or cheesecloth (I find a strainer much easier to use). You can also save the left over pulp to sprinkle over cereal or use in baking recipes. Waste not, want not!
Place the almond milk back into your blender, throw in the dates and blend until smooth.
And, voila, there you have it, fresh almond milk. If you prefer a thinner or thicker milk, simply add or take away water as desired. Your milk will last in the refrigerator for about three days. Be sure to shake before using.
To make vanilla almond milk
Add the seeds from 1 vanilla bean or a natural sweetener such as agave or stevia.
One last tip: You can also add your almond milk to a green smoothie recipe to make it that much more delicious.
Pics courtesy of www.thehealthyeatingsite.com
Okay, enough with the vegan junk food! Ugh. Seriously, travelling becomes somewhat of a hassle (so I’ve realised) when you’re super conscious about what you eat. Sure, you can go to the nearest supermarket and fill your basket with bananas and grapes, but when organic fruit and veges are far between in your country of travel choice, what’s a vegan girl to do? Eat take away, of course!
I’ve found when you’re on the road and find a good thing, be sure to stick to it (thighs, be warned). As I type this, I’m on the verge of getting ready for a seven day juice cleanse. As such, my outright confession about scoffing back meals of vegan junk food becomes null and void (at least in my head). But what happens when the junk food of choice actually tastes GREAT and, when you break it down, isn’t that junky at all? Enter New Zealand’s Burger Fuel — an eco-fabulous burger chain that was green at inception back in the mid-90s when “green” was simply a shade of colour to the rest of the world.
The order of choice at this hip chain is the V8 Vegan for $NZD8.90 packed with flavour thanks to its pumpkin, cashew nut and ginger pattie, mushroom, olive and sage pate, salad and relish, sandwiched between the freshest burger bun you’re ever likely to encounter. Then there’s the lashings of red onion and avocado that you can add or take away, depending on what floats your vegan boat.
Kudos, Burger Fuel. Thanks for the memories.
Tastes better than it looks: the V8 Vegan burger from Burger Fuel.
With articles out there like this one from Donna Fish at the Huffington Post, it’s really important vegans help to educate others about what it actually means to live meat, dairy and animal-product free.
With a headline of “Help! My Daughter’s a Vegan” only perpetuating the false belief that veganism is unhealthy and nutritionally lacking, the media is doing little-to-nothing to dig up the real health facts. What results is an empty, uninformative article that flippantly suggests a meat based diet is superior to a vegan one. This, in fact, as many vegans know, is untrue.
Rather than me bang on about how a healthy vegan diet can transform lives in so many positive, healthful ways, I think it’s best I turn to Olympic athlete Carl Lewis on the transformation he experienced when he became vegan.
“Can a world-class athlete get enough protein from a vegetarian diet to compete? I’ve found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great. Here’s my story.”
“We’d like people to realise that eating vegan is not difficult if you do it well and if you’re around people that support you. It can be very enjoyable, tasty, fun and extremely healthy.” Compassionate Action for Animals’ Nicholas Orth, who is supporting more than 800 students as they go vegan and vegetarian for seven days at the University of Minnesota, during the college’s sixth annual Veg Week (beginning Tuesday).
Nicholas Orth with volunteers Rebecca McDougle and Alexa Nelson.
