Fun McDonalds Facts

I did not know that Ronald McDonald tells children that hamburgers grow in hamburger patches and love to be eaten! That's hilarious! (Or disturbing?) McDonald's wouldn't tell children that unless there was reason to believe that children might be disturbed if they knew where the hamburgers really came from? And did you know that Jeff Juliano, the original actor to play Ronald McDonald, is a vegetarian?

I'm lovin' it.

Food for Thought

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. 

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

                                                               ~ Teilhard de Chardin 

Let's wrap this up. And let's begin again.

You might want to make some tea.  This one's going to be a long one.

First, my daughter and I made a snack today that turned out to be a feast.  It was entirely Jeanette's idea.  Can you believe I had never had a date?  I mean, I've been bowling and had plenty of awkward moments in odd-smelling vehicles, but I've never actually had a date.

 

When Jeanette showed me the dates, I thought they were dried up something else.  Which is really pretty silly, because there are date trees all over my Farmville farm, so obviously, dried something elses wouldn't grow on a date tree!  Duh!

Anyway, my daughter and I carefully sliced the dates open, and removed the pits.  We then filled the hole left behind with raw organic almond butter.  We then rolled these creations in organic raw coconut flakes.  We named them dinosaur eggs.  Then we ate these eggs, which probably rang in at about 300 calories each, with guilt-free reckless abandon.  Dear Lord were they delicious!  And completely healthy!

So, here's the wrap-up!

This month, I have lost 10 pounds.  While that really wasn't my main goal, I can't tell you I'm unhappy with this result.  More importantly, I feel fantastic, better than I can remember feeling in a long time.

Of course, there's the question of points.  I'm going to give myself 10 points right now, one for each pound.  Orville (my pleasantly plump bloodhound) also lost 5 pounds, so I'm going to give myself 5 more points for that.  I think this brings me to about 50 points, which is far shy from the original goal of 100, but really, the points were pretty darn arbitrary, and I just don't care.  I'm very pleased with my 50 little points.

So, what's next?

Well, first of all, I have just read an ebook that I got for free from Angela Stoke's website.  It's called Profoundly Raw and it's fantastic.  It's a collection of single chapters from other books written by all sorts of eating experts.  So really, it's a tease to get you to buy other ebooks, and it totally worked on me.  But even if you don't want to be teased, this is a free book with lots of valuable information.

One of the chapters, "Deep Food:  Accessing Nutrient Density from the Ground Up," by David Rainoshek, suggests that by accessing the abundance of nutrition, we can also access abundance at every other level:  emotionally, culturally and spiritually. 

One of the many things David discusses in this chapter is something he has coined "The Spectrum of Diet."  He puts all eating into three categories:  Egocentric, Sociocentric, and Worldcentric.  

Me waking up late because I'm exhausted from poor habits and rushing through the Dunkin' Donuts drive through, oblivious to the styrofoam cup, and the non-fair-trade coffee, and then eating on the way to work, swerving all over the road, speeding, eating, completely justified because I am, after all, in a piss poor mood ... Egocentric eating.

The way that most Americans eat, buying food at a grocery store, and cooking it in our kitchens, and trying to recycle, and trying not to buy eggs from tortured chickens, telling ourselves we're doing our part ... Sociocentric.

(Feel free to interrupt Dave, if I'm getting this wrong.)

And lastly, eating as an act of love for yourself, the earth and for all other beings ... Worldcentric.  A worldcentric eater would not eat something that had caused harm to someone on the way to his or her table.  This includes animals.  A worldcentric eater would have to be a vegetarian, probably even a vegan, unless this person keeps the beloved cow and chicken in the yard.  A worldcentric eater does not eat any food that has exploited anyone else.  A worldcentric eater also doesn't eat something that leaves thousands of pounds of byproducts and waste in the local landfill.

So, I got to thinking ... I could make my next challenge to be a worldcentric eater.  Then I thought, how about a worldcentric everything?  Then I got tired of thinking about the word worldcentric.

When I first began this blog, someone congratulated me about deciding to live consciously.  I'm sorry to be hypersensitive, but I took offense.  So I was living unconsciously before I bought a composter?  So my dad, who is an awesome, intelligent, loving, gentle, Godly man is not a conscious liver because he doesn't recycle?  I don't buy it.  

I think part of gentle living is not being judgmental of everyone we think is not living gently enough.  (Judge not, lest ye be judged)?  So, the last thing I want to do is to make these changes in my life just to alienate somebody who is on a different spot on the path than I am.  We're all learning here. 

I think most of us are living consciously.

Then I got to thinking, maybe it's living deliberately.  No, that's not right.  Few of us are living accidentally.

So, for now, because I can't think of a better term, I'm going to go with worldcentric.

For the next 30 days, I am going to try to make all decisions out of love for myself, for our home, and for other beings.  

Which will allow me to continue to eat my raw vegan foods, and it will allow me to further explore earth-gentle living, and it will motivate me to go shovel a path to the composter.

Thanks for reading.

Peace.

P.S.  As always, I invite any of you to do this with me.  It's wicked fun.  I promise.

Seaweed

I am eating seaweed.

Right now.

For lunch.

I am eating seaweed.

It is pretty gross.

Yesterday Jeanette and I talked about conscious eating, but I'm thinking right now I would do better to practice some unconscious eating.

Hang on, let me try dipping it in Tamari sauce.  (Also something I've never tried.)

Better.  Much better.

So, here's my lunch.  A sheet of Nori, which the package insists is a sea vegetable, not a seaweed, with red pepper hummus spread all over it, with thinly sliced organic cucumbers over that, with fresh organic cilantro on top of that, all rolled up into a mysterious looking purple cylinder.

The nori tastes like seaweed smells (I have no idea what sea vegetables smell like) but the texture is killing me.  I have to bring out my inner cave woman to bite through the stuff.

Oh God, I can't wait for this to be over.  I've got about two more bites. . .

Well, I took one more bite and then gave the last bite to Orville, because I thought it would be funny to share with you that he spit it out, but alas, he gobbled it up as if it contained nutrients from the fountain of bloodhound youth.  Shows you what I know.

I'm giving myself 3 points for this lunch.  I ate seaweed.

Happy Friday!

Ah, another week of (almost) raw and (almost) vegan.  I feel fantastic.  I'm off to explore Whole Foods in Portland tomorrow.  I've heard great things . . .

Food for Thought

To provide the yearly average beef consumption of an American family of four requires over 260 gallons of fossil fuel.

Food For Thought

Breathing in, I listen. Breathing out, I hear.

                                                        ~Thich Nhat Hanh