Day 153

Thoughts: Happy 50th Birthday JD! "You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." -George Burns

My great friend Jamie Dalton turned 50 years old today! That is his body has lived in "JD" form on this earth for 50 years. And he looks like he's in his 30's. How? Jd does not eat dead organic matter...that is cooked food. Yes he is a rawist. Being a rawist means living a raw lifestyle, eating raw uncooked foods like. JD says "The healthy way of life is the way." Jd defies all odds with the common thinking of today that you've got to get sick before you can die, and to get sick, you've got to deprive your body of its essential elements of life.

Jd works in the music industry and is the guitarist for his band Coldstone. He does bikram yoga weekly, works out at the gym, meditates and is an advocate for eating raw foods. Cooking is also known to diminish the nutritional value of food, but where did the nutrients go? They don't diappear, instead, the heat actually causes chemical changes in your food creating many of the carcinogens, mutagens, free-radicals and other toxins that are associated with many of today's diseases, from diabetes and arthritis to heart disease and cancer. Heating food above 116 degrees F is believed to destroy enzymes in food that can assist in the digestion and absorption of food. Cooking is also thought to diminish the nutritional value and "life force" of food. The raw food diet is a diet based on unprocessed and uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans, nuts, dried fruit, and seaweed. Specific cooking techniques make foods more digestible and add variety to the diet, including: Sprouting seeds, grains, and beans, Juicing fruit and vegetables, Soaking nuts and dried fruit, Blending, and Dehydrating food. Muhammad Ali said ""Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are." Having a clean and healthy body assists in crisp healthy thoughts!

"The human body is a perfect machine, there is no reason for it to age, so why does it age? We are ageing ourselves." my friend and stunt co-ordinator Diana Mitchell. Do you unnecessarily complicate your life and your workout? We have, so much written about fitness. There are many fitness blogs and websites hehe inlcuding this one. Everyday we hear about a new fitness fad, new gadget and every day a new research comes up which tells that the previous one was wrong. Your own body is the best guide. It will tell you when to stop and when to push it further. Just listen to your own body. I spent years trashing my body with days eating junk and no exercise and then days detoxing my body and smashing it at the gym. My whole balance was totally out of whack. I look back now and squinch at the thought of ever doing this again. It was so tiring. I know if I kept heading down that road I would have aged very quickly. Author Kiran says "Keep your diet simple. What is easily available, fresh, seasonal produce, is nutritious and healthy and fun. Opting for processed and fancy foods will only make you tired, weak and age! Exercise for the love of it. Exercise because it makes you feel good, energetic, healthier, younger within. Do not exercise to loose 5 kg in one month. Exercise because then, you can sleep better, you look refreshed when you wake up, you stretch better, have a pep in your step, are free from ailments, have better skin."

Stress, as an example, is catabolic. When stress hormones prevail, cell proliferation and tissue growth are retarded. A cell cannot defend itself and grow at the same time. One process must prevail, and environmental conditions must match as well. By that I mean you cannot physically prosper under the burden of oversecretion of stress hormones. As one small example, look at how rapidly our presidents age after just a few years in office.

Time is not ageing us. Time is not toxic. We are.

Yes, aging appears a mystery, because science can’t find a single reason for it except gross neglect for a lifetime. That’s the only way to age yourself to death.

Jd says "health is like the bottom line. If you don't have your health you don't have anything." Well really...If you don't have your health then what do you have?

Check out this youtube interview I did with JD on the Earth Diet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCqlAHcYmTM

I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel. -Elizabeth Arden

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16
-Bible

Jamie and Coldstone members with Australian Victoria Secret model Miranda Kerr.


Jamie and Craig from Coldstone being interviewed on the red carpet of the Australian Music Awards.


Jamie, myself, Stephanie Williams and Craig Green at the Australian Music Awards.


http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j44/ragnar.asp
http://kiransawhney.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/human-body-is-a-perfect-machine-let-it-remain-so/

Challenges: There is absolutely no reason for us to get old, grey, stiff, sick, have cancer and disease...unless of course we choose that and want that. We learn as soon as we are infants that as we get 'older' we should get grey and slow like Grandpa and Grandad, that when we get 'older' we have a chance of getting cancer, and that the average age of death is somewhere after 50 and before 100, and that to live to be 100 is an incredible accomplishment. We learn these things as it is a 'universal consciousness' at present. And perhaps if the majority of human beings on the planet were to believe that the human body is a perfect machine and only our minds have the capability of ageing, we could play with living 120+. I myself would love to live on this beautiful planet with you beings for hundreds of years ;)

Triumphs: I am living to be 120 years of age! And I will be healthy till the end ;)

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Hemp protein powder. A beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice. A avocado. Strawberries. A mango. Some grapefruit.

Lunch: Macadamias. 5 nectarines.

Dinner: Organic pork ribs with garlic and himalayan salt. Every now and then I will eat meat, and if I do it is organic free range. So the animals were not tortured nor fed crap to speed up their growth and life.

Dessert: Chocolate balls with walnuts.

Snacks: A nectarine

Recipe: Recipe for Chocolate Balls is in Blog Day 115.

Exercise: A walk around the Cypress neighbourhood in Florida :)

212 days to go!!!

Day 152

Thoughts: This blog thanks to Diana Mitchell....On April 9 2009 a broad array of 29 farmers, consumer groups, businesses and other organizations sent a letter to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, urging her to veto HR 2121, a bill passed by the Kansas State Legislature last week which would require an additional disclaimer on labels for dairy products produced from cows not treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH or rbST), a genetically engineered, artificial hormone that induces cows to produce more milk. The bill was sent yesterday to Governor Sebelius, who has ten days to veto it. A copy of the letter can be found here http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_food_safety/010910.html

“Since the FDA’s controversial decision to approve the use of rbGH, questions have only grown about its safety for humans,” said Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist for Food Safety for Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “HR 2121 interferes with consumers’ right to know what is in their food and how it’s produced and farmers and dairies have the right to tell them.” Consumers Union sent a similar letter to Sebelius urging her to veto the bill.

The required disclaimer would read: “the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined there are no significant differences between milk from cows that receive injections of the artificial hormone and milk from those that do not.” That statement is based on an 18-year-old FDA review; however, FDA’s own publications, as well as subsequent scientific studies have shown that there are significant differences, some of which may affect human health. The Kansas bill also goes against long-established Federal policy as outlined by the FDA in a July 27, 1994 letter to New York Department of Agriculture and Markets: “The bottom line is that a contextual statement is not required…and in no instance is the specific statement ‘No significant difference has been shown…’ required by FDA.”

In addition, the Legislature tacked on the dairy labeling rules of HB 2295 as a rider on HB 2121 without a hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee. This denied the numerous opponents of labeling restrictions the chance to testify. Even with the lack of proper debate, the bill barely passed the Senate by a 22-15 vote, just two votes short of failing, demonstrating that there is barely a mandate for labeling changes in Kansas.

“As she reviews this bill, and ascends to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we urge Governor Sebelius to veto this bill, protect the health of Kansas’ citizens, and to leave a legacy of support for the public interest, not special interests,” said Patty Lovera, Assistant Director at Food and Water Watch.

Due to growing consumer demand, companies are removing rbGH from their dairy products across the country. In addition, over 160 hospitals all over the country have pledged to serve rbGH-free products and the past president of the American Medical Association said in a letter to all AMA members that hospitals should serve only milk produced without rbGH.

“Kansas is taking a step in the wrong direction, as more than half of the 100 largest dairy processors in the country have gone partially or completely rbGH-free to satisfy consumer demand,” said Heather Whitehead, True Food Network Director at the Center for Food Safety. “If dairies decide not to label milk as rbGH-free due to these unnecessary labeling requirements, or decide not to sell their products in Kansas, citizens will be denied the chance to make informed choices about what kind of dairy products to buy.”

http://truefoodnow.org/2009/04/09/29-groups-urge-governor-sebelius-to-veto-bill-on-rbgh-milk-labeling-citing-concerns-for-food-safety-consumers-right-to-know-and-freedom-of-speech/

Challenges: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined there are no significant differences between milk from cows that receive injections of the artificial hormone and milk from those that do not......need I say more?

Triumphs: I aint drinkin milk!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Strawberries. 3 nectarines. Walnuts.

Lunch: A beetroot, ginger, carrot, celery juice. A avocado. A mango.

Dinner: Organic free range chicken with a salad. The salad had edamame beans, radish, green lettuce, carrot. mmm mmm

Dessert: A mango. Strawberries.

Snacks: Strawberries! Yes lots of strawberries in Florida!

Exercise: A walk around a nice neighbourhood in Florida :)

213 days to go!!!

Day 151

Thoughts: The brain dead generation? Sceptism or realism?

Diana Mitchell was the fight choreographer for the “The Man In The Maze” and has worked in the film industry in fight and stunts for many years including “Kalifornia” with Brad Pitt. I had the privilege in chatting with her about the Earth Diet and the new generation.

What is your philosophy on eating?
Everything natural, no preservatives, no chemicals, if it wasn’t on the earth 200 years ago I don’t eat it. I have been living like this for at least 10 years. I’m allergic to chemicals and preservatives, wheat, dairy, peanuts and potatoes. I didn’t know I was allergic as a kid so I kept eating it and kept getting sick. People should know that chemicals are there and the side effects it can cause, especially in this country where they don’t want you to know, they are just going to the next generation. I’m scared for my niece and nephew. They don’t eat real food. My nephew has never eaten a raw food and he’s about to turn 6.

Why don’t they tell people?
People don’t care. It’s lazy and too much money in this industry.

Do you think it will go back natural for example how it was 200 years ago?
No it will get worse. Worse unless...I don’t think there is an end to it, that will be the means to the end of this country. This country will be destroyed within itself. Self destruct. We have become such a consumer country.

Until people care nothing good will happen. There is only a handful of people right now that do care.

You become brain dead and when you eat all these chemicals it dulls your senses. I look at food as medicine. And it doesn’t matter what religion you follow everything is out on this earth that you need so why would you want to create a chemical anything?

Chinese believe there is a cure for everything and that we make ourselves sick and that we can cure ourselves too.

What’s something a lot of people don’t know about?
DNA. We have been putting human DNA in vegetables and fruits since the 80’s in USA and in Scotland since the 60’s. They think they can make tomatoes survive better and they become more tolerant to weather. If it’s more human like it can survive better, is their thinking. I don’t see playing god, we can’t do better than god. And it’s making people sick and it’s killing people. I only eat organic. I would rather go hungry than eat food that has been touched. I use the whiteout idea, I don’t eat anything white. Sugars, flours, breads and rice are out.

I start the day with green tea and ginseng, I eat lots of fresh fruits and have 5-6 meals a day consisting mostly of raw foods. I also eat organic brown rice, and vegetables, authentic Japanese soy products, miso.

I don’t push it on anyone; everyone finds what works for them.

Does it make you mad the amount of chemicals in the foods?
I almost panic and want to tell everyone but I can’t.

There are a lot of overweight people here in the USA and I noticed in NYC there are hardly any obese people. Mississippi is the fattest state in the country and now the government has enforced obesity tax. Which I don’t think will stop them, the people that eat junk will keep buying it regardless of the price increase. They need to stop making it. I think the government wants to make money off it or if they really wanted to reduce obesity, they would stop making it.

The more poor they are the more junk they eat. Junk food is so cheap. Food Inc doco exposes the food industry. There was a couple other docos that got started in Atlanta and most were shut down, the manufactures and governments shut them down.



It’s beginning to look like a sci-fi movie. Our food IS being poisoned.

You can’t trust your own government and that’s scary.

There is more death attributed to obesity than any other deaths. Most diseases are heart disease, disease and cancer.

Someone asked me a dumb question once “don’t you ever cheat?” I replied with “cheat on who? Myself?! Haaa!

Real food tastes sooo good, fruits and vegetables taste so good! And people don’t know how good it tastes; they have never eaten it before without putting chemicals and things on it. If only they knew. I was eating broccoli last night and my brother came in and said aren’t you going to put something on that? and I’m like WHY???

A organic lifestyle keeps Diana Mitchell mentally and physically fit!

Challenges: The goverment label obesity tax on foods (a new system in USA) and we think they are actually doing something good but if you look into more, we would think, why don’t they just stop making junk food all together? Are they really concerned with obesity? To me it seems if they actually cared if people are dying from disease cancers and obesity they would stop making it all together. They are just making money off the fat people who they made fat in the first place.

Triumphs: I absolutely agree with Dianna, I would rather go hungry than eat something that has been touched. And that is a huge commitment, it is challenging especially at airports where there is nothing, it requires total preparation and commitment. Totally worth it.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: strawberries. walnuts. chocolate balls on my way to set to film "Quaterlifers".

Lunch: a avocado with walnuts. carrots. a mango.

Dinner: A lobster. Raw cauliflower in olive oil and red capsicun.

Dessert: 3 nectarines. Chocolate balls with walnuts.

Snacks: Walnuts. 1/2 Avocado. 2 apples.

Recipe: Chocolate Balls recipe blog Day 115

Exercise: Working on the film set of "Quaterlifers", absolutely one of the BEST sets I have been on ;) loving the energy! Thankyou cast and crew especially Adam Fortner for being alive, passionate and bold! Search "Quarterlifers" - The Movie on Facebook :)



214 days to go!!!

Day 150

Thoughts: The Earth is filled with billions of human beings, and how many of these beings are actually courageous? Who can step out side of their small world, change up the rules a bit, make bold declarations and have a genuine passion and care for other human beings, animals and the home that we live on called Earth. Carolyn Wagner is one of these humans and now she takes on a 365 day challenge "The Earth Diet for Vegans". I created The Earth Diet 150 days ago, for me to eat only foods naturally provided by the Earth for 365 days total. This lifestyle means going back to basics, no chemicals, no processed foods, no additives, no chemicals, no artifical anythingness, no sugars, no chips, chocolates, and lollies, things I thought I would never give up! The Earth Diet means eating all the fruits, vegetables, nuts and meats I want...anything that the Earth naturally provides and hasn't been tampered with by man. I have discovered so many new things along the way about myself, about human beings, the earth, food, health, nutrition, animals and I could go on and on and on. I also discovered that most of the meat we eat today has come from unhappy and tortured animals that have been pumped full of anti biotics and hormones. While I still eat chicken and fish sometimes, Carolyn has taken on complete Vegan Earth Diet Challenge. I acknowledge you Caroyln for being such a courageous and unstopabble being, for these things don't just come naturally for a human being. It is much easier to not take on challenges I know, and what a boring existence that would be! Carolyn I acknowledge you for your committment for living a life you love, being healthy and inspiring others around the gobe. Here is Carolyn's first day...

(www.sometimesearthdiet.blogspot.com)-The Earth Diet For Vegans

Today I have started taking steps towards The Earth Diet created by my friend Liana Werner-Gray. I however will be putting my own spin on it. I will be experimenting with different ways that what I consume can effect the Earth. Everything I consume is always vegan. I am making the change gradually so that I will stick to it. As part of my transition to the Earth Diet I am also taking part in what I call a house diet. So anything I have previously purchased that is sitting in my house is elegiable for consumption. To reduce the wastage that would occur if I threw away all non earth diet products. However thanks to Chrisco I have about 10 tins of peas. I might put them in a homeless shelter collection. Then I'm killing two birds with one stone, no wastage and helping the needy. My first few weeks of blogs will be the transition period and then from that I will Earth Diet for a while, and I will also be experimenting with raw and detox diets. As a finalist for the Miss Earth Australia pageant this year I decided that it was about time I started eating a more eco friendly diet and taking on many other environmental challenges throughout the year. But having read that the food you eat is what affects your carbon footprint more than anything I thought this was the best place to start. The food you eat travels more miles in a gas guzzling truck or aeroplane than you would ever manage to drive or fly in your life. So my Sometimes Earth Diet will hopefully help people become more aware of what they are eating and where their food actually comes from.

Challenges- No caffeine!! No take away!! No deep fried product!! No potato chips!!! How will I ever manage. Got a headache throughout the day and really wanted some panadol.

Triumphs- I just did it. Pure and simple no caffeine, take aways or deep fried products. Slowly will be decreasing my sugar intake but I think my body is in shock from losing all the rest. Drank peppermint tea instead of taking panadol for my headache.

What I ate today-

Breakfast- Glass of water with lemon juice. 2 Vegan multivitamins, 1 cup tinned fruit salad, teaspoon of flaxseed oil, fennel and orange tea with organic soy milk, handful of cashews.

Lunch- Mediteranian cous cous- 1/2 cup cous cous, 1/4 chopped red onion, tblsp olives, tsp capers, 1/2 tsp organic garlic paste, three cherry tomatoes chopped, tsp pinenuts, 2 tblsp lentils, home grown cos lettuce leaf, home grown basil leaves.

Dinner- Lentils and rice- cup rice, 3/4 cup lentils, chopped red onion, cracked pepper, tsp apple cider vinegar, 2 home grown cos lettuce leafs and home grown basil.

Dessert- 1 cup tin fruit salad

Snacks- Peppermint tea with organic soy milk, 1 apple juice popper, dried apricot, tblsp organic sultanas, 50g almonds and macadamia mix, House of Biskota monte cream buscuit (Most amazing vegan biscuits ever), Cashews and Raw Peanuts.

Excercise- 50 star jumps and 10 minutes of yoga stretching.

Liana here now...
Challenges: When I am full of appreciation and love there is no room for challenges ;)

Triumphs: Thank you Carolyn for being alive and here on this planet :)

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A beetroot, carrot, celery and ginger juice. 2nectarines.

Lunch: Peppermint tea. 1 nectarine. Chocolate balls with walnuts, recipe below.

Dinner: Japanese, raw salmon, edamame beans, miso soup.

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Walnuts.

Recipe: Recipe for Chocolate Balls on blog Day 115.

Exercise: a 30 minute run to the park where I did some lunges and jumps up on a park bench :) It definately got my sweat up and heart beating...wooo Im alive!!!

215 days to go!!!

Day 149

Thoughts: CORN

"The problem started with corn. Corn is manmade."

I’m shocked....what?! How is it man made?

I chat with Brandon Russel the first AC on the "The Man In The Maze" where we met. He is also a pioneer, gardener, earth man, restaurant owner, husband, father of 6 girls and a member of Cannabis Defence Coalition and the National Organization for reforming marijuana laws. Check out yesterdays blog for an 'out of the box' conversation on CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA.

So it turns out that corn as we know it would not exist if it weren't for the humans that cultivated it and developed it. Scientists believe that people living in Mexico created it 7000 years ago. It can only survive if planted and protected by humans.

Brandon continues...."It’s a cross between a couple different grains. If man were to die today corn would be gone too. Why we grew it in the first place, that is pretty deep and I’m not sure of all the reasons, for some reason the government subsidizes to make it profitable for people to grow. It goes for the government’s food pyramid. Corn is at the bottom of the pyramid and they say to have 6 servings per day. Take a corn Kernel and it’s the little dot that provides nutrition and the rest of it is sugar and starch. There has been a direct link to corn syrup and diabetes. It’s absolutely delicious, it’s all starch and sugar, the last thing your body should be eating. Have you noticed corn kernels in your poop? Your body doesn’t digest it. They say don’t feed it to dogs, but in most dog foods. Cows and other animals are being fed corn. This is making the cows fatter in half of the time. So imagine what that is doing to us! So my wife and I went through our cupboards and almost everything had corn in it. So we threw it out. Corn. The liars!".

I was always wondering if corn provided us with nutritional benifits. I had heard that it doesn't and then I thought well it naturally grows from the Earth so it must provide us with something. I was WRONG! So first of all corn is actually created by human beings and our creations these days seem to deprive us of healthy benifits, and I researched a corn kernel and found that 61% of the corn kernel is starch, which causes immflamtion in our bodies, makes us fat, just as it beefs up a cow and causes us bloating. If they can feed chickens corn and they grow chunky in half the time, imagine what it is doing to us!?! Then 16% is made up of water, protein and fibre 19% and corn oil 4%. Now thats one kernel, imagine eating a whole corn on the cob...that's alot of starch.

I found this article BEHIND THE NEW WORLD ORDER.

Corn is in virtually everything we consume. It has become part of every meal, every day, in mass quantities, from children to senior citizens to cows.

•Corn starch is used in every bread or pastry.
•Corn starch, syrup and cellulose are used in every medicine you can put in your mouth.
•If there is sugar, there is corn syrup. That means in soda, in cookies, in candy bars, even in BAGS OF SUGAR, including sugar-free sweeteners.
•Corn syrup, starch and/or oil is added to french fries, peanut butter, saltines, steak sauce, table salt, margarine, iced tea, fruit juice (even ones that claim to be 100% juice), "raw" honey, fish sticks, soy milk, wine, beer, liquor, chicken nuggets, flour, barley, caramel, Vitamin C, vanilla extract, vinegar and/or yeast.
•Corn-derived glycerin is found in almost every soap, lotion, toothpaste and shampoo.
•Anything on the label you can't pronounce is better than even odds to be corn.

Almost every chicken, pig and cow in the United States is force-fed corn. Even salmon! These animals can't properly digest a diet of all corn (not to mention the massive amounts of pesticides used to keep the corn bug free). So the livestock gets sick. That sickness is treated by antibiotics and hormones which then bleed into virtually every piece of meat or cup of milk served in America, making the people who consume them sick.

With the government obviously in collusion with the corn industry, it is no coincidence that the government's food pyramid correlates to obesity and other related illnesses... perhaps because the government advised us to consume 6-11 servings of carbohydrates in one day!!



Can you imagine how much corn the USDA has suggested for us to eat as part of our daily dietary regimen? Thank god we just learned (in 2002, after three decades of Americans following this pyramid) it's a hoax, I mean, mistake. However, this discovery is not stopping the corn industry or it's bed buddies, who spend millions of dollars marketing sugar (aka corn syrup) to children.
http://behindnewworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/truth-about-corn.html

Check your ingreident list in your foods and find out for yourself.

American fast food is almost entirely produced from corn according to a chemical analysis of dishes served at McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's.Using a stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen to determine the origin of molecules present in hamburgers, chicken, and fries, Hope Jahren and Rebecca Kraft found corn to be the almost exclusive food source of the beef and chicken served in fast food restaurants. The researchers also uncovered evidence to suggest that fast food restaurants are misleading consumers as to the oils used in preparing french fries and that animals slaughtered for production are kept in confined quarters, rather than outdoors. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Fastfood corporations, although they constitute more than half the restaurants in the U.S. and sell more than 1 hundred billion dollars of food each year, oppose regulation of ingredient reporting," the authors write. "Ingredients matter for many reasons: U.S. corn agriculture has been criticized as environmentally unsustainable and conspicuously subsidized. Of 160 food products we purchased at Wendy's throughout the United States, not 1 item could be traced back to a noncorn source. Our work also identified corn feed as the overwhelming source of food for tissue growth, hence for beef and chicken meat, at fast food restaurants."

During the mid 1960s, about 75 percent of the corn was fed to livestock, 13 percent was exported, and the remainder went into human food and industrial products. By 2000,the relative amount of corn fed to livestock had decreased to 60 percent, 22 percent was exported, 6 percent was used for High-Fructose Corn Sweetener, 6 percent was processed for ethanol, and 6 percent went into other products.

One reference lists over 500 different uses for corn. Corn is a component of canned corn, baby food, hominy, mush, puddings, tamales, and many more human foods.Some industrial uses of corn include filler for plastics, packing materials, insulating materials, adhesives, chemicals, explosives, paint, paste, abrasives, dyes, insecticides, pharmaceuticals, organic acids, solvents, rayon, antifreeze, soaps, and many more. Corn also is used as the major study plant for many academic disciplines such as genetics, physiology, soil fertility and biochemistry. It is doubtful that any other plant has been studied as extensively as has the corn plant.

Also something interesting to watch is King Corn. King Corn is a feature documentary about 2 friends, 1 acre of corn and the sub-sidized crop that drives our fast food nation.



http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1110-corn.html
http://www.campsilos.org/mod3/students/c_history5.shtml
http://www.kingcorn.net/
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron212/readings/corn_history.htm
http://www.micorn.org/downloads/PLA_newsletter.pdf

Challenges: It's challenging for me to know this stuff, and I know that millions of people around the world, especially in the USA don't know this stuff. And if they did know it would they stop eating it? I doubt it. I want everyone to have this information available to them, and why don't they teach it in school? Is it selfish of me to want to go back to a organic earth?

Triumphs: Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Pineapple. Mixed sprouts, beans, lentils and chickpeas.

Lunch: 2 nectarines. Pitachio nuts. 1 apple. (I was at the airport, and the only thing they had that I could eat on the Earth Diet was apples, oranges and pitachio nuts, they don't seem to cater for the healthy).

Dinner: Steamed snapper with scallions and ginger.

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: A red apple.

Exercise: Sitting on the plane ALL day, exercising my butt muscles ;)

216 days to go!!!

Day 148

Cannabis, Weed, Hemp, Marijuana, Hash, Ganja...

Thoughts: Meet Brandon: pioneer, gardener, earth man, restaurant owner, husband, father of 6 girls, a Director of Photography and Key Grip in the film industry that I had the pleasure of working with on “The Man In The Maze”, and is a member of Cannabis Defence Coalition and the National Organization for reforming marijuana laws.



I hope this blog does justice in re-creating the 'out of the box' conversation we had today about the plant that we have been taught is evil and as such we either want it to be legalized so that we can use it, or we want to protect our young ones from it and we fear our neighbours may be using it. Regardless of what category you fall under, there is no denying that no other plant source can compare with the nutritional value of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA....

(For definitions of hemp, cannabis, hash, marijuana see the bottom of this blog)

Hemp advocate Brandon says...

“People on earth are allergic to wheat and soy. But no one is allergic to hemp.

I always think that whatever the earth provides, it is naturally going to be better for us.”

DID YOU KNOW...what Brandon wants us to know about hemp/marijuana

•“You can give kids with autism hemp.” Of course governments would laugh at this, and at first I was thinking well Brandon that’s a bit crazy and then I realized how backwards my thinking is... Is it really that crazy giving a child with autism natural grown plant hemp compared to a bunch of machine made artificial chemical pills?

•“There are thousands of uses for hemp, some are...
• Hemp oil
• Hemp ice cream
• Hemp cereal
• Hemp tofu
• Hemp nut butters
• Hemp waffles
• Hemp milk
• Hemp seeds
• Hemp protein powder
• Hemp clothes
• Hemp bread
• Hemp paper
• Hemp is also a great pesticide for plants, it grows so thick and close to each other and builds a wall to keep other.

•"The government subsidizes corn which makes it equitable for farmers to grow (see tomorrows blog where I chat again with Brandon about corn and how it is not a natural food to this earth!). An acre would give, if you’re growing corn for bio diesel for example 1000 barrels would cost a lot of energy to produce, electricity, machinery, fuel, so hemp would produce 30,000 barrels of fuel and doesn’t need pesticides and fertilizers so it takes a lot less energy to produce from hemp. So if you want to save the planet and if you’re growing hemp to make paper, 1 acre of hemp would replace 5 acres of wooded forest." (So why aren't they using hemp? The answer is usually MONEY. )

•"William Hurst at the time owned The Times and the Enquirer, and the paper mill for their own newspapers were geared so it would costs millions of dollars to re-machine everything. That’s one of the reasons."

•Also DuPont who are responsible for antiseptics, plastics, disinfectants, non-stick pans, cancer, car parts, electronics, the list goes on and if you remember my blog from Day 30 I wrote about Teflon and wrote about a story that leaked how the Teflon causes cancer and deformities, and they actually responded to my blog. You see they have people doing their work and constantly monitoring the internet for anything that is ‘truth’ and in their eyes ‘negative’ publicity. Yes this blog is being watched, of course it is. The money makers on this earth don’t like my blog at all. So Brandon says "DuPont is the major manufacture of ammunitions (gun powder) in this country since the civil war and their philosophy to save the world of their natural resources. DuPont are responsible for inventing all the synthetics, rayon (fabric made from stabilized gun powder which we wear and don’t know about), polyester, pesticides for farms and is killing us. They have their fingers all over the place. So it was between DuPont, Hurst and Harry Anslinger that made hemp illegal. Harry’s job was to bust moonershiners and when alcohol went out of prohibition he didn’t have a job so he had a good friendship with Dupont and Hurst and the 3 of them made hemp illegal. Well it didn’t become illegal, they made it impossible for you to grow.”

•“The pharmaceutical companies don’t give you anything natural; if everyone was growing hemp the pharmacies wouldn’t make money.” (Pharmaceuticals are the biggest money making company in the world...billions and billions, and think about it, they only make money if you are sick). “They did start with hemp based medicines until the 40’s and 50’s. Because they make more money keeping you sick then they do if you’re healthy. And they are for profit, so I guess you can’t blame them for that right?"



"When this country was founded most of the clothes were made with hemp, and you actually had to pay taxes if you didn’t grow hemp, if you didn’t grow hemp you were in trouble. During World War 2, the government made a movie called “Hemp For Victory” where they encouraged farmers to grow hemp. You were considered a patriot if you grew hemp. Then after war ended they went back to synthetics and said no more of that."

•“Back in the early days Levis made their jeans from hemp, and when you couldn’t patch up your jeans or clothes any more they would recycle it into paper.”

•“If you get hemp paper and you rip it, you get it wet and it bonds back together like it was never wet! (Fascinating...I had to see this so Brandon did it right in front of my eyes ).”

•“Benjamin Franklin who had the first newspaper made it out of hemp. They don’t teach this to American kids.”

•“Thomas Jefferson the fourth US president on the $20 bill risked his life and the life of his service men smuggling hemp seeds from China. He wrote in his diaries that some of his fondest memories were smoking hemp on his veranda starring out to the sunset.”

•

•If marijuana is so dangerous then how it is the last 3 presidents elected admitted to smoking pot. Obama, Bush and Clinton.

•“Ronald Regan said the most dangerous thing about Marijuana is college kids reading books having conversations. Why do they put fluoride in our water knowing that when you drink fluoride it cuts off the creative side of your brain? So it’s almost as if they’re trying to get us into conformity.” I asked who’s they? “Our government is not run by the people, its run by a select handful of co operations.” How do they sleep at night? “That’s a good question too. Doesn’t that suck that they are keeping it from us? The single healthiest thing we can eat and it’s illegal to grow."

•“In USA it’s illegal to grow hemp. In Canada it’s legal. In Australia I’m pretty sure it’s legal to grow industrial hemp...14 states in the USA have legalized marijuana.”

•Brandon’s far from the only one vouching for marijuana. The father of Marijuana Jack Herer quoted "CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the only known plant that can be grown from the Equator to the Arctic Circle and... Antarctic Circle...no other plant source can compare with the nutritional value of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA.” Herer is the author of The Emperor Has No Clothes (c. 1970), a book which has been used in efforts to decriminalize cannabis.

I have tried the hemp seeds on my salad and they were awesome, a fun crisp nutty flavour and full of protein. They are known as the superior plant protein, however the food co-corporations keep them hush hush as they make a lot more money using ‘protein’ to sell meat. Hemp seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. The seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. The fresh leaves can also be eaten in salads. Hemp oil has been shown to relieve the symptoms of eczema (atopic dermatitis). Hemp Seed contains a large dietary supplement of omega-3, higher even than walnuts which contain 6.3% of n-3. These oils are known to improve memory and strengthen brain cells. Hemp oil has anti-inflammatory properties. The Hemp Seed contains more than 22% COMPLETE PROTEINS, which is highly digestible due to its globulin form, as edestin and albumin. For more information on hemp go to my blog Day 114.

Hemp- is the name of the soft, durable fiber that is cultivated from plants of the Cannabis genus, cultivated for industrial and commercial (non-drug) use

Cannabis -also known as ganja is a genus of flowering plants and has long been used for fibre (hemp), for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug. Industrial hemp products are made from Cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fiber and minimal levels of THC (Δ9- tetrahydrocannabinol), a psychoactive molecule that produces the "high" associated with marijuana. The psychoactive product consists of dried flowers and leaves of plants selected to produce high levels of THC. Various extracts including hashish and hash oil are also produced from the plant.

Hashish also hash- is a preparation of cannabis composed of the compressed stalked resin glands called trichomes, collected from the cannabis plant.

Marijuana, marihuana, and ganja- refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug. The most common form of cannabis used as a drug is the dried herbal form.

The difference between hemp and marijuana...Both are forms of the plant cannabis sativa. They are essentially weeds that will grow in a wide variety of conditions, climates, and soil types. Over the years both plants have been used for a wide variety of uses. However, they are not the same. The difference in THC levels make hemp and marijuana a lot different. There are thousands of products that can be made from hemp. There is a difference in how hemp and marijuana is grown. Hemp is grown in rows one to two inches apart.

“Hemp and marijuana are the same plant; the only difference is how it’s grown. The further you place the plant away from each other the more THC it will produce, if you plant them close they will compete from sunlight. You can still get high from industrial marijuana 3%, medical marijuana has from 10 to 30%.” Says Brandon.

At the end of the interview I looked at Brandon and said “wow” and he goes ‘Yeah, that’s out of the box’.

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Jack:Herer.html
http://theearthdiet.blogspot.com/2010/02/day-114.html
http://www.helium.com/items/833112-the-difference-between-hemp-and-marijuana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_for_Victory
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0751040/

Challenges: Brandson said "So if you want to save the planet and if you’re growing hemp to make paper, 1 acre of hemp would replace 5 acres of wooded forest." I’m shocked with this new information and so how come they’re not using hemp instead of slaughtering our forrests? As usual the answer is money. And the pharmaceutical companies don’t give you anything natural; if everyone was growing hemp the pharmacies wouldn’t make their billions of dollars. It makes me sick to think that if we are not sick they don't make any money. And then I think well I shouldn't 'feel' sick at that because then they are just getting what they want, more sickness in the world, so instead I do something about it and here's my blog! "And they are for profit, so I guess you can’t blame them for that right?"-Brandon. This bizarre paper type thing that we all seem to obsess over and has power over the human condition.

Triumphs: Thank you Brandon for sharing your knowledge with us. Just like you said, "doesn't it suck that they are keeping it from us? The single healthiest thing we can eat and it’s illegal to grow." And thanks to people like you creating awareness of this herbal plant, perhaps one day (soon) we can enjoy hemp that is readiy accessible to all humans.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, ginger, carrot, celery juice. A pear.

Lunch: Avocado with walnuts. Chocolate balls.

Dinner: Grilled salmon with cauliflower, brocoli, carrot and cabbage.

Dessert: Blue berries.

Snacks: No snacks.

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" www.themaninthemaze.net

217 days to go!!!

Day 147

Thoughts: The next endangered species?

This blog thanks to Diana Mitchell who shined her light on this article and shared it with me and now I am sharing it with you...(www.thecampaign.org)

What are they doing to our food?

Over the past few years, an unprecedented large-scale experiment has been taking place with the world's food supply. Quietly and with very little media attention, giant "biotechnology" corporations have rapidly introduced genetically engineered foods into our food supply.

What are genetically engineered foods?
Genetic engineering creates entirely new types of plants by altering the genetic "blue print" of these crops. By cutting, joining and transferring genes between unrelated species, engineers develop plants with unique qualities.

At a first glance, it appears to be a "miracle of science". Agribusiness promise crops that are more resistant to freezing temperatires and stay on the vine longer for improved flavour. They promise fruits and vegetables grown with less dependence on chemical presticides. And by inactivating the enzymes that are responsible for rotting, they promise produce that will remain fresh longer without spoilage. However, if we take a closer look, we find that these promises came with hazardous side effects.

What are the dangers of genetically engineered foods?

It is a half-truth at best to say that genetically altered foods will require less pesticides. Many crops, in fact, will be sprayed with more pesticides, not less. A lot of plants cannot tolerate pesticides, so farmers don't use them on those crops. But new genetically engineered foods such Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans can directly sprayed with the herbicide Roundup. Researchers estimate that nearly 50 percent of the nation's soybeans are now genetically engineered!

Are genetically engineered foods threatening human health and the environment?

In the mad rush to profit from new technology, sometimes corners are cut, and long-term consequences are poorly understood. It turns out that the Monarch butterfly, a favourite of children everywhere, may be endangered by genetically engineered corn.

Recent laboratory tests conducted by a team of Cornell University researchers resulted in the deaths of nearly half the Monarch caterpillars that ate milkweed leaves dusted with pollen from a new brand of genetically engineered corn. The caterpillars died within four days of eating genetically contaminated pollen. No caterpillars that ate normal leaves without genetically altered pollen died.

This genetically altered corn, unfortunately, already has been planted on some 20 million acres of American farmlands since it's introduction a few years ago. In the spring, Monarch butterflies travel 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada passing through America's Corn Belt in the Midwest. Mating along the way, the Monarchs produce millions of caterpillars that feast on milkweed leaves, which frequently are covered with corn pollen blown by the wind from nearby cornfields.

Nineteen butterfly and moth species currently are on the EPA's endangered species list. Some of them also may be at the risk if they eat plants laced with genetically engineered corn pollen.

Challenges: If the butterflies are dying because of this, imagine what it is doing to us human beings? I can't imagine anything good. What other unkown environmental and health troubles might it cause as well? And it's crazy when I write "What are they doing to our food?" because it's like well who is the 'they' and the 'they' that are doing this are doing it to their own food, why would they do this? Unless they have their own organic farm and eat free of genetically engineered foods? The corporations promoting these foods claim they are safe. The United States goverment says they do not need to be label. But public opinion polls reveal that the vast majority of Americans want labeling.

Triumphs: Genetically engineered foods are being labelled increasinly worlwide. The European Union countries and Australia have passed legislation requiring labeling. It appears Japan and other countries will also require labeling. In a January, 1999 Time magazine poll, 81 percent of the respondents indicated they want genetically engineered foods labeled. If you and your loved ones

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice.

Lunch: Sprouts (chickpeas, alfalfa, bean sprouts) with walnuts and an avocado.

Dinner: Indian, yellow rice with lentils and curry powder with dahl (cooked black lentils)

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Walnuts.

Recipe: Recipe for Dahl is on blog Day 103

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" ;) www.themaninthemaze.net

219 days to go!!!

Day 146

Jamie Oliver's food philosophy..."We just need to re-discover our common sense."

Thoughts:
This blog is thanks to Don Tingle who took the time today to share with me his knowledge of Jamie Oliver and the new project he has taken on to transform lives...So I did some research and turns out Jamie is taking on quite the challenge...

"My philosophy to food and healthy eating has always been about enjoying everything in a balanced, and sane way. Food is one of life's greatest joys yet we've reached this really sad point where we're turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of."

"Knowing how to cook means you'll be able to turn all sorts of fresh ingredients into meals when they're in season, at their best, and cheapest! Cooking this way will always be cheaper than buying processed food, not to mention better for you. And because you'll be cooking a variety of lovely things, you'll naturally start to find a sensible balance. Some days you'll feel like making something light, and fresh, other days you'll want something warming and hearty. If you've got to snack between meals, try to go for something healthy rather than loading up on chocolate or potato crisps. Basically, as long as we all recognize that treats should be treats, not a daily occurrence, we'll be in a good place. So when I talk about having a 'healthy' approach to food, and eating better I'm talking about achieving that sense of balance: lots of the good stuff, loads of variety, and the odd indulgence every now and then."

Jamie has made a new series for American TV about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series was filmed in Huntington, West Virginia.

Jamie's challenge was to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He worked with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat.

"I believe that every child in America has the right to fresh, nutritious school meals, and that every family deserves real, honest, wholesome food. Too many people are being affected by what they eat. It's time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food!

You live in an amazing country full of inspirational people and you have the power to change things. With your help, we can get better food into homes, schools and communities all over America and give your kids a better future."

Below is one of Jamie's recipes with only ingredients naturally provided from the Earth mmmmm:)

http://www.jamieoliver.com

Challenges: Absolutely too many people are being affected by what they eat.

Triumphs: Once I know, I can put that knowing into practise and have it be real in me.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice.

Lunch: Sprouts (chickpeas, alfalfa, bean sprouts) with walnuts and an avocado.

Dinner: Indian, yellow rice with lentils and curry powder with dahl (cooked black lentils)

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Walnuts.

Recipe:
Jamie Oliver Salad
• ½ a cucumber
• A handful of fresh basil leaves
• 2 small, just ripe avocados
• 1 butterhead lettuce
• Large handful sprouted cress or alfafa
• 4 scallions
• Extra virgin oil
• Red wine vinegar
• English Mustard
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper



Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" ;) www.themaninthemaze.net

219 days to go!!!

Day 145

Thoughts: What is health? Is it feeling good? Looking good? Just being alive? Who defines health?

We do...the mass population have come to an “agreement” that healthy means being skinny, trim, fit, energetic, eating ‘good’.... really its down to interpretation.

The way I can describe it is that I experience lightness, I feel graceful and at ease with my body and my self, comfortable, peaceful, love for myself and my body, I feel clean, pure, and ALIVE.

If you look at the what’s so of a person with cancer...the what’s so is that a person has a dis-ease in the body. To me health is the absence of dis-ease. Do you experience dis-ease?

So what's a healthy diet? Well I've played with many different diets/lifetsyles like the one 'I will never eat chocolate or lollies again' hehe, I've tried the 'On Sunday I can eat anything and as much as I want' haha, the 'I will start being really healthy on Monday' and the 'I will eat everything in moderation' haha I have a retarded mind ;) . The thing with these lifestyles/diets is that they are to ones interpretations so I can alter my whats 'moderation' at anytime. It becomes thwarted. It wasn't until the Earth Diet that I actually experienced health as I described above.

Some interesting Diets I researched...

The Earth Diet!
Hehe yes the one I created, eating only foods naturally provided from the Earth! So all fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, AND you can eat as much as you want! How fun :)

The Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is widely believed to be one of the most healthful ways to eat, yet much of what we know about it is based on studies of people living on the island of Crete in the 1950s, who in many respects lived lives very different from our own. Yes, they ate lots of olive oil and little meat. But they also did more physical labor. They fasted regularly. They ate a lot of wild greens — weeds. And, perhaps most important, they consumed far fewer total calories than we do.

Vegetarian
There are various types of vegetarian - Lacto vegetarian, Fruitarian vegetarian, Lacto-ovo-vegetarian, Living food diet vegetarian, Ovo-vegetarian, Pescovegetarian, and Semi-vegetarian. The majority of vegetarians are lacto-ovovegetarians, in other words, they do not eat animal-based foods, except for eggs, dairy, and honey. Several studies over the last few years have shown that vegetarians have a lower body weight, suffer less from diseases, and generally have a longer life expectancy than people who eat meat. Similarly, much of what we know about the health benefits of a vegetarian diet is based on studies of Seventh Day Adventists, who muddy the nutritional picture by drinking absolutely no alcohol and never smoking. These extraneous but unavoidable factors are called, aptly, “confounders.”

Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is an international company that offers various dieting products and services to assist weight loss and maintenance. Founded in 1963 by Brooklyn homemaker Jean Nidetch, it now operates in about 30 countries around the world, generally under names that are local translations of “Weight Watchers”.The term weight-watcher, in the same sense, had circulated publicly for several years before the company was formed.Weight Watchers encourages members to select a goal weight that results in a body mass index generally accepted as healthy (18 to 24.9), although a member may also establish a goal weight outside of that range after providing a doctor's note to that effect. In the United States, in order to join Weight Watchers, one must weigh at least 5 pounds (2.3 kg) more than the minimum weight for his or her height.

Vegan
Veganism is more of a way of life and a philosophy than a diet. A vegan does not eat anything that is animal based, including eggs, dairy, and honey. Vegans do not generally adopt veganism just for health reasons, but also for environmental and ethical/compassionate reasons. Vegans believe that modern intensive farming methods are bad for our environment and unsustainable in the long term. If all our food were plant based our environment would benefit, animals would suffer less, more food would be produced, and people would generally enjoy better physical and mental health, vegans say.

Raw Food
The Raw Food Diet, or Raw Foodism, involves consuming foods and drinks which are not processed, are completely plant-based, and ideally organic. Raw Foodists generally say that at least three-quarters of your food intake should consist of uncooked food. A significant number of raw foodists are also vegans - they do not eat or drink anything which is animal based. There are four main types of raw foodists: 1. Raw vegetarians. 2. Raw vegans. 3. Raw omnivores. 4. Raw carnivores.

The Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet, officially called the Atkins Nutritional Approach, is a low-carbohydrate diet created by Dr Robert Atkins. The Atkins Diet is a departure from the previously prevailing metabolic theories. Atkins said that there are important unrecognized factors in Western eating habits leading to obesity. Primarily, he believed that the main cause of obesity is eating refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar, flour, and high-fructose corn syrups. The Atkins Diet involves restriction of carbohydrates to more frequently switch the body's metabolism from burning glucose as fuel to burning stored body fat. This process, called ketosis, begins when insulin levels are low; in normal humans, insulin is lowest when blood glucose levels are low (mostly before eating). Ketosis lipolysis occurs when some of the lipid stores in fat cells are transferred to the blood and are thereby used for energy. On the other hand, caloric carbohydrates (e.g., glucose or starch, the latter made of chains of glucose) impact the body by increasing blood sugar after consumption. [In the treatment of diabetes, blood sugar levels are used to determine a patient's daily insulin requirements.] Lastly, because of fiber's low digestibility, it provides little or no food energy and does not significantly impact glucose and insulin levels.

The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet is relatively simple in principle. It replaces "bad carbs" and "bad fats" with "good carbs" and "good fats." "Good carbs" vs "bad carbs"
According to Agatston, hunger cycles are triggered not by carbohydrates in general, but by carbohydrate-rich foods that the body digests quickly, creating a spike in blood sugar. Such foods include the heavily refined sugars and grains that make up a large part of the typical Western diet. The South Beach Diet eliminates these carbohydrate sources in favor of relatively unprocessed foods such as vegetables, beans, and whole grains."Good fats" vs "bad fats" Given that South Beach Diet was designed by a cardiologist, it should be no surprise that it eliminates trans-fats and discourages saturated fats. Although foods rich in these "bad fats" do not contribute to the hunger cycle, they do contribute to LDL cholesterol and heart disease. The South Beach Diet replaces them with foods rich in unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acid which contribute to HDL cholesterol and provide other health benefits. Specifically, the diet excludes the fatty portions of red meat and poultry, replacing them with lean meats, nuts, and oily fish.

The Zone
The Zone Diet aims for a nutritional balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 30% protein each time we eat. The focus is also on controlling insulin levels, which result in more successful weight loss and body weight control. The Zone Diet encourages the consumption of good quality carbohydrates - unrefined carbohydrates, and fats, such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.

Supplements
One last example: People who take supplements are healthier than the population at large, but their health probably has nothing whatsoever to do with the supplements they take — which recent studies have suggested are worthless. Supplement-takers are better-educated, more-affluent people who, almost by definition, take a greater-than-normal interest in personal health — confounding factors that probably account for their superior health.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight_Watchers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5847.php
www.nytimes.com

Challenges: There are so many diets/lifestyle out there it can be overwhelming, frustrating and confusing. Each person will find something that works for them. What works for me is eating everything and anything that nature provides. The low carb diet wouldn't work as I love to eat potatoes and they are naturally provided by the Earth. And we are human beings who love to experience a HUGE variety of everything, places, people, food, emotions, experiences, music, lifestyles, and I believe the danger with sticking to one particular "diet" would be borrrring and be restricting.

Triumphs: Stick to what nature intended and you can't go wrong...the experience of health is unavoidable. Health is one's own interpretation!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A beetroot, celery, ginger, carrot juice. A pear.

Lunch: A avocado with sprouts. Lots of sprouts. To be full and get the nutrition and energy you need, if you are eating things like vegetables, fruits, sprouts, you can eat as much as you want, don't hold back! I eat ALOT of sprouts, mmm I love them bouncing around in my mouth, they are such an energetic, light, happy food :)

Dinner: Indian rice with yellow curry powder, onion, chilli and cooked lentils.

Dessert: No dessert

Snacks: Walnuts! Food for the brain!

Recipe:

Holiday Juice
2 large sweet potatoes
1 bag of cranberries
3-4 Oranges
5 apples
½ Pineapple
Carrots

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze". It is my last week of playing the character 'Megan'. "The Man In The Maze" centers around four college students on a field study to learn more about the Trail of Tears. While traipsing through the woods, however, they stumble upon an Indian mound that marks the burial site of a Native American family that died on the trail. The mound was cursed by a distraught family member, and whoever disturbs it unleashes trouble and winds up lost in his maze, i.e. the woods. www.themaninthemaze.net

220 days to go!!!

Day 144

"If rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide Ladee Dee Ladee Daa."

Thoughts: Are you feeding the machine? If you eat foods that are processed, packaged, take-aways, human produced, then you are feeding the machine. Whether you believe in ego and consciousness, spirit and devil, soul....this may turn into a blog looking more like the script for Transformers 4...either way enjoy!

I will be referring to YOU as in the you you, the real, raw, authentic you, and then I will refer to the machinery, that thing that takes over you, instead of you controlling it. If you have ever had an eating disorder, an addiction or even a doubt about yourself and what your capable of, this is the machine in action ‘I can’t do that, I’m too fat, I’m ugly, I can’t stop, I’m not good enough’, - this is the machine in full swing. During my bingeing mine says “Just one more time, do it again, this will be the last time I promise, tomorrow I will start again fresh, I will just have one huge hit of food and then never again’.

This is an example of the ‘machine’. Kids in America are taught this ‘harmless and fun’ song from the children’s television show Barney.

If rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
If sun beams were bubble gum and ice cream, oh what a sun that would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide.
If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes, oh what a snow that would be.

The way its sung its quite a cheery and happy song. And when you actually write the words down, you can see the twisted-ness of it, why can’t rain just be rain, why turn it into processed sugary foods would make a better rain than the natural rain that we already have?

And it may have even been made up by someone who was trying to make a fun harmless song for kids...however who ever created it, created it out of machinery, without out knowing or with knowing, because if it came from god, light, presence, love, consciousness, source (what ever word you want to use) it would have ....

The machine is hidden in a lot of places, and if we really look we can see the programming everywhere...commercials, songs, movies, television, radio, bill boards, advertisements. When you look into someone elses eyes and they "What are you looking at?" instead of simply saying hello back and sharing themselves at that very moment.

We are turning this organic planet into a machine.

The earth provides us with everything we need, food, medicines, pleasure, sweet and sour tastes, everything natural. There are natural cures for everything! Swhy did we start making processed foods and chemicals and start adding man made artificialness to naturalness? Well the human population grew and grew and we needed to keep up with the demand and feed the demand of the people. Then we leant that we can have rice and meat and special sauces AND a variety of vegetables and meats and rice and sauces all on one plate. Animals don't go up 5 different trees to get food to make a complicated salad or fruit salad. Keep it simple. But we live in a modern world you may think and yes lets look at the health of the earth and human beings. AND ITS NOT WORKING...LOOK AT US!

People are fatter and sicker and more unbalanced than ever before. And skinnier...and unnatural. So why do we keep going??? Why do we keep feeding the machine? Are we that deep asleep???

Challenges: Are we that deep asleep?

Triumphs: Knowing that I too am asleep, means I can choose to wake up.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Abeetroot, celery, carrot, ginger juice. 2 nectarines.

Lunch: Avocado. A pear. Strawberries.

Dinner: Indian

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: Green grapes.

Recipe: Indian food mmm mmm rice with dahl.

Exercise: Working on set The Man In The Maze www.themaninthemaze.net

221 days to go!!!

Day 143

Thoughts: Meet Thor (Michael Lengies)! Sound master! He has worked in over 50 films from humpback whales to polar bears, from the Arctic to Barbados and is the audio director for "The Man In The Maze" and I chatted to him about food, health and hunting...

The conversation started with "So you had a spiritual awakening last night?”, I responded with “What why?”, Thor said “Because you ate chicken”. Yes I ate chicken the night before, beautifully grilled over coals, and I explained how I do eat meat occasionally, however not often as I know I would not kill a chicken, and I believe if I can’t kill it I won’t eat it. Thor being a meat eater said some interesting things and our conversation got onto Thor’s philosophy about eating from the earth.

“I avoid anything that is farmed. The ideal would be to eat wild game.”

Wild Game is anything wild that you can eat etc moose, dear, rabbit, buffalo, elk, partridge.


Why?
“Less fat, no hormones and they eat naturally from the wild. The secret to internal life is to eat the best animal flesh you can get your hands on. In the wild the animals get better exercise, they are healthy. If you eat healthy meat how can you not look and be healthy?”

Thor on hunting...
“The way I see it ethically you hunt what you eat and you eat everything that you kill. You don’t shoot something you don’t need. You don’t shoot for fun.”

“Hunting is part of the circle of life. So many people are anti hunting yet they will eat a big Mac and wear leather shoes. That’s hypocritical. Someone had to kill for it.”

Currently Thor has little time to hunt as he spends a lot of time travelling and working on films around the country. “I only eat fast food if it’s the only choice. Unfortunately I have to choose it too many times. Where I used to live near Montreal in Canada, our grocery store had an option of dear, horse, buffalo, wild boar, emu, ostrich, pheasant, quail. It tasted incredible because the animals had no fat, no hormones because they graze properly.”

“They produce far too much meat from the farms. The human population is so large that I don’t know what choice we have because of the big numbers. And we can’t all go hunting.” Thor is just like the rest of us, working to make money to live in the modern day society and says “Given the choice I would be on an Indian reserve hunting and fishing." A Earth man by nature and a audio director by machine....

“They way they engineer food these days there is a dumbing down, they put hormones and chemicals to make us sheep. It’s hard I find myself not as sharp as I used to be. I’m not preaching that it is true, I’m just saying in order to make an accurate opinion it is a piece of the puzzle.”

Check Thor out.... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2011252/

Challenges: Livestock production leaves a hefty carbon footprint, accounting for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s cars & SUVs combined. Aside from carbon dioxide, the livestock sector emits 37 percent of global methane, a greenhouse gas far worse than CO2; and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. 2.4 billion tons of livestock-induced CO2 emissions are a result of the deforestation of over 7.4 million acres of trees cut for pastures and feedcrop land each year. This loss of forest means the destruction of billions of trees, each of which had the potential to offset around 1,400 pounds of CO2. According to the FAO report, some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.



Triumphs: Personally, I don't believe there is anything wrong with eating meat, however I do believe that the meat consumption by human beings across the globe is selfish and indulgent. Reading these kinds of statistics above show how out of control the meat consumption has gotten and how we are cutting down trees so we can keep it going. Someone has to cut back on meat. That's why I respect vegetarians and vegans. And also hunting for your own food would make for a more sustainable planet.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Beetroot, carrot, celery, ginger juice. 3 neactarines.

Lunch: A pear, avocado and strawberries.

Dinner: Indian food, rice with dahl (cooked lentils)

Dessert: No dessert.

Snacks: No snacks.

Recipe: he recipe for Dahl is on blog Day 103

Exercise: Acting is exercise! Hehe! Working on set all day www.themaninthemaze.net

222 days to go!

Day 142

Thoughts: An article about vitamins and supplements...how they don't really work at all...

This blog is thanks to Earth Diet reader Daniel Toop. This aticle from www.nytimes.com

People don’t eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain. Researchers have long believed, based on epidemiological comparisons of different populations, that a diet high in fruits and vegetables confers some protection against cancer. So naturally they ask, What nutrients in those plant foods are responsible for that effect? One hypothesis is that the antioxidants in fresh produce — compounds like beta carotene, lycopene, vitamin E, etc. — are the X factor. It makes good sense: these molecules (which plants produce to protect themselves from the highly reactive oxygen atoms produced in photosynthesis) vanquish the free radicals in our bodies, which can damage DNA and initiate cancers. At least that’s how it seems to work in the test tube. Yet as soon as you remove these useful molecules from the context of the whole foods they’re found in, as we’ve done in creating antioxidant supplements, they don’t work at all.

Indeed, in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers. Big oops.
But we do understand some of the simplest relationships, like the zero-sum relationship: that if you eat a lot of meat you’re probably not eating a lot of vegetables. This simple fact may explain why populations that eat diets high in meat have higher rates of coronary heart disease and cancer than those that don’t.

To read the full article visit link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2

Challenges: I know a lot of people who will take a vitamin supplement so they don't have to eat that particular fruit or vegetable. I say it again and again, the Earth provides us with EVERYTHING we need naturally. And yet we go and rob something that is natural to create vitamins and pills and then market them so well that people believe that we should take supplements rather than absorbing the actual food.

Triumphs: The good news is that every vitamin supplement you see in the stores (if it is a legit vitamin supplement, and by that I mean not made up of a bunch of artifical chemicals, compounds and crap) comes from a food that the Earth provides so you can find it in fruits, vegetables, nuts and meats instead. For example beta-Carotene is found in nectarines, carrots, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, turnip greens, winter squash, collard greens, cilantro and fresh thyme and it helps prevent night blindness and other eye problems, skin disorders, enhance immunity, protects against toxins and cancer formations, colds, flu, and infections. It is an antioxidant and protector of the cells while slowing the aging process. To maximize the availability of the carotenoids in the foods listed above, the foods should be eaten raw or steamed lightly not be stripped from the food and packed in a pill or powder vitamin form.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: Juice, beetroot, ginger, celery, carrot. 2 nectarines.

Lunch: A pear. A apple. A avocado. Walnuts.

Dinner: Rice with cooked black beans.

Dessert: Chocolate balls with walnuts.

Snacks: No snacks.

Recipe: Chocolate balls recipe in blog Day 115

Exercise: Working on set "The Man In The Maze" www.themaninthemaze.net

223 days to go!

Day 141

Thoughts: The story of how basic questions about what to eat got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and journalism.

This blog is thanks to Daniel Toop!

Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times
www.nytimes.com

Unhappy Meals
Nutrients themselves had been around, as a concept, since the early 19th century, when the English doctor and chemist William Prout identified what came to be called the “macronutrients”: protein, fat and carbohydrates. It was thought that that was pretty much all there was going on in food, until doctors noticed that an adequate supply of the big three did not necessarily keep people nourished. At the end of the 19th century, British doctors were puzzled by the fact that Chinese laborers in the Malay states were dying of a disease called beriberi, which didn’t seem to afflict Tamils or native Malays. The mystery was solved when someone pointed out that the Chinese ate “polished,” or white, rice, while the others ate rice that hadn’t been mechanically milled. A few years later, Casimir Funk, a Polish chemist, discovered the “essential nutrient” in rice husks that protected against beriberi and called it a “vitamine,” the first micronutrient. Vitamins brought a kind of glamour to the science of nutrition, and though certain sectors of the population began to eat by its expert lights, it really wasn’t until late in the 20th century that nutrients managed to push food aside in the popular imagination of what it means to eat.

No single event marked the shift from eating food to eating nutrients, though in retrospect a little-noticed political dust-up in Washington in 1977 seems to have helped propel American food culture down this dimly lighted path. Responding to an alarming increase in chronic diseases linked to diet — including heart disease, cancer and diabetes — a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, headed by George McGovern, held hearings on the problem and prepared what by all rights should have been an uncontroversial document called “Dietary Goals for the United States.” The committee learned that while rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II, other cultures that consumed traditional diets based largely on plants had strikingly low rates of chronic disease. Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.

Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food — the committee had advised Americans to actually “reduce consumption of meat” — was replaced by artful compromise: “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”
A subtle change in emphasis, you might say, but a world of difference just the same.

First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement. Second, notice how distinctions between entities as different as fish and beef and chicken have collapsed; those three venerable foods, each representing an entirely different taxonomic class, are now lumped together as delivery systems for a single nutrient. Notice too how the new language exonerates the foods themselves; now the culprit is an obscure, invisible, tasteless — and politically unconnected — substance that may or may not lurk in them called “saturated fat.”

The linguistic capitulation did nothing to rescue McGovern from his blunder; the very next election, in 1980, the beef lobby helped rusticate the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein sitting in the middle of its plate. Organized nutrient by nutrient in a way guaranteed to offend no food group, it codified the official new dietary language. Industry and media followed suit, and terms like polyunsaturated, cholesterol, monounsaturated, carbohydrate, fiber, polyphenols, amino acids and carotenes soon colonized much of the cultural space previously occupied by the tangible substance formerly known as food. The Age of Nutritionism had arrived.

THE RISE OF NUTRITIONISM
In the case of nutritionism, the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient. From this basic premise flow several others. Since nutrients, as compared with foods, are invisible and therefore slightly mysterious, it falls to the scientists (and to the journalists through whom the scientists speak) to explain the hidden reality of foods to us. To enter a world in which you dine on unseen nutrients, you need lots of expert help.

But expert help to do what, exactly? This brings us to another unexamined assumption: that the whole point of eating is to maintain and promote bodily health. Hippocrates’s famous injunction to “let food be thy medicine” is ritually invoked to support this notion. I’ll leave the premise alone for now, except to point out that it is not shared by all cultures and that the experience of these other cultures suggests that, paradoxically, viewing food as being about things other than bodily health — like pleasure, say, or socializing — makes people no less healthy; indeed, there’s some reason to believe that it may make them more healthy. This is what we usually have in mind when we speak of the “French paradox” — the fact that a population that eats all sorts of unhealthful nutrients is in many ways healthier than Americans are. So there is at least a question as to whether nutritionism is actually any good for you.

Similarly, any qualitative distinctions between processed foods and whole foods disappear when your focus is on quantifying the nutrients they contain (or, more precisely, the known nutrients).

This is a great boon for manufacturers of processed food, and it helps explain why they have been so happy to get with the nutritionism program. In the years following McGovern’s capitulation and the 1982 National Academy report, the food industry set about re-engineering thousands of popular food products to contain more of the nutrients that science and government had deemed the good ones and less of the bad, and by the late ’80s a golden era of food science was upon us. The Year of Eating Oat Bran — also known as 1988 — served as a kind of coming-out party for the food scientists, who succeeded in getting the material into nearly every processed food sold in America. Oat bran’s moment on the dietary stage didn’t last long, but the pattern had been established, and every few years since then a new oat bran has taken its turn under the marketing lights. (Here comes omega-3!)

By comparison, the typical real food has more trouble competing under the rules of nutritionism, if only because something like a banana or an avocado can’t easily change its nutritional stripes (though rest assured the genetic engineers are hard at work on the problem). So far, at least, you can’t put oat bran in a banana. So depending on the reigning nutritional orthodoxy, the avocado might be either a high-fat food to be avoided (Old Think) or a food high in monounsaturated fat to be embraced (New Think). The fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while the processed foods are simply reformulated.

Of course it’s also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness.

If you want to read the full article go to link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2

Challenges: What occurs for me in my world, is that human beings have adapted this backward thinking that the avocado might be either a high-fat food to be avoided (backwards think) or a food high in monounsaturated fat to be embraced (New Think). As said in this article "The fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while the processed foods are simply reformulated." That is disgusting. I even have a friend who doesn't eat nuts because they are "High in fats" yet will happily eat a burger from Mc Donalds...

Triumphs: Sometimes I forget, and I go back to my old backwards thinking and think 'Oh I shouldn't eat too much, they are fatty' and then I remember I absolutely love eating an avocado, I enjoy the richness, warmness and creamyness, and yes I eat them regulary, almost every day, sometimes 2 a day, they are high in fats, but they are great fats. Healthy, organic, earthy and natural fats. And I am not fat!

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: A pear. Brazil nuts and walnuts.

Lunch: A avocado with salad, green and purple lettuce and baby spinach with some squeezes of lemon.

Dinner: Indian food cooked by Nimi, the directors wife....yellow rice with lentils and dahl (cooked lentils with chilli) mmm mmm!

Dessert: 5 nectarines.

Snacks: A pear.

Exercise: Working on set of "The Man In The Maze" www.themaninthemaze.net

224 days to go!