Photo by Judy Pokras, copyright 2007The Vegetable Orchestra video on FoxyTunes Planet
[via FoxyTunes / The Vegetable Orchestra]
How to Buy Organic Apples (comic)
This brilliant cartoon needs to be in all supermarkets. It would make a great T-shirt and should also be on placards that protesters hold up for TV cameras to blast across the world's TV sets.
If you've seen Joel J. Jacobs' hysterical YouTube video about eating raw foods, you might wonder, as I did, what inspired him. Look no further! Here's my exclusive interview with this funnyman. If you haven't seen his video yet, there's a previous blog post here (June 20) with a link to it. You can find it easily in this blog's list of labels (tags) under Joel S. Jacobs.
Spainiards take it further than US raw foodists when they get down and dirty with their annual tomato fight (tomatina)! Think of mud wrestling, but in raw tomato sauce. (Don't miss the fabulous photos!)
I'm grateful for Cafe Gratitude, and I wish there were one in every town!
Their philosophy is awesome. I haven't tried their food yet, because they're 3,000 miles away from me. Here are the owners/founders talking about their vision.
In this video, raw foods personality David Wolfe talks about his deep love for trees. Very sweet.
Here's a trailer for Markus Rothkranz's upcoming film about how sexy the raw foods lifestyle is.
This is the coolest invention I've seen in a long time! It produces very strong plants, they can be grown indoors, and it equals the growing space of a much much larger area than the space it takes up.
One guy's funny video parody of I Will Survive, raw food style.
In this adorable video, Hillary Clinton tells husband, Bill, she ordered him raw carrots instead of onion rings because she's looking out for him. This is a must-see! Is Hillary into raw foods?!
Dear Mike,
I'm very impressed with Sicko. It's brilliant! Maybe you'll be president some day; but then again, maybe you have more real power as an indy filmmaker than as someone who would need mega millions for a campaign.
Here's hoping you'll take on the food industry next. There are so, so, so many things wrong with it. In no particular order, here are just a few:
-- Non-organic food contains toxins--pesticides and herbicides and industrial chemicals in ground waste--that are making people sick.
-- Genetically engineered food is being sold without our knowing it's been GE'd, and without our knowing what ill effects it may have on our health.
-- Congress doesn't allocate enough money for enforcement of the Organic Labeling Law; this in itself is a crime! We're paying extra for foods we believe are organically grown, and they might not be at all.
-- Most of the produce we find in supermarkets nowadays comes from other countries, not our own. Even when it's labeled organic, we can't know the conditions in which it's been grown. Food from places like China has been shown to be contaminated with all kinds of awful toxins.
-- We consumers don't know what's been done to fresh produce before it's allowed into the US; it might be fumigated, heat-treated, hot water treated, etc.
-- Non-local fresh produce is often coated with wax and various other substances to keep it intact during long trips. We don't know what those ingredients are or how they affect our health.
-- Organic Raw Vegan food promotes health so much more than processed, cooked foods. This is a fact that needs to get out more.
-- Research from The Picower Institute in the early 1990s and the Swedish Academy in the early 2000s showed that cooking food creates acrylamides--harmful chemicals that cause aging and chronic disease.
-- When food is heated over 118 degrees Fahrenheit, the food's digestive enzymes are destroyed. We're born with digestive enzymes but as we get older they decrease. The work of digestion takes a lot of the body's energy, and as a result there isn't as much energy left to fight off disease. We're better off eating raw food, whose enzymes are intact.
-- Raw vegan food is not only delicious (and it is!), it keeps people in excellent health, energized, slim and youthful.
-- Interest in raw vegan food is growing and will soon reach the tipping point. When I first launched RawFoodsNewsMagazine.com, in 2001, media mentions of raw vegan recipes, restaurants and books were rare. Now they're commonplace.
-- I'd be happy to recommend some fabulous raw vegan restaurants and books, and to work on this film with you. I'm a longtime journalist (having written for many publications, including The New York Times) with a background in film and video.
Judy Pokras
Editor/Founder/Publisher
RawFoodsNewsMagazine.com
Click on the headline to meet her. She's a raw foods super hero who always saves the day! Her MySpace page URL is rawgrrl, but her costume says RawGirl. She's the coolest!
And this is great for all of us, because Cafe Gratitude is expanding and, as you can see in the photo of the blueberry cheesecake that runs with the review, is bringing luxurious awesome idyllic raw recipe food to the world!
Kucinich is the only true peace candidate--the only one who voted against the war from the beginning, and never voted for any funding. He is the creator of The Dept. of Peace. He also wants to do away with our trade agreements, to bring jobs back to America. He has a 100 percent positive record on how he has voted on environmental and animal issue bills. He's vegan, meditates, is a pacifist. He's an amazing man, truly one of a kind. Please check out his website.
THANKS!
Marr Nealon
Volunteer, Kucinich for President Campaign
www.kucinich.us
Have you seen the Environmental Working Group's list of the produce containing the most and the least pesticides?
The FDA recently announced plans to begin pasteurizing all almonds. Have you signed this petition urging them not to, and urging them to label the ones that are? Also see action link at bottom of article excerpt.
Here's an excerpt from an article giving all the sordid details:
It is The Cornucopia Institute's contention that even if independent research concludes that treated almonds are in fact safe, labeling them as “raw” is misleading and deceptive to consumers, many of whom wish to purchase truly raw, unprocessed almonds. “Raw foods are increasingly in demand. The new rule is another case of the public being deprived the opportunity to intelligently choose their food supply,” said Jimbo Someck, who owns and operates four of the country’s leading independent natural food stores, in the San Diego area.
The new regulation to sterilize almonds coincides with the recent announcement by the Food and Drug Administration that it intends to relax its labeling requirements for irradiated food. The FDA proposal will also allow irradiation, the controversial ionization process, to be called pasteurization—a reference that is troubling many food safety watchdogs.
“Consumers deserve to know how their food has been processed,” said Food and Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “Mislabeling irradiated food as ‘pasteurized’ or treated food as ‘raw’ is an industry attempt to make consumers buy products that they otherwise might avoid.”
In light of heightened public concern, the Cornucopia Institute has appealed to USDA Secretary Mike Johannes to postpone implementation of the new regulatory requirements and reopen the almond docket to public comment. Only 18 public comments—all from the almond industry—were received on the proposal.
Unlike consumers, retailers, or other organizations concerned with food safety, all almond handlers received a personal letter or fax from the USDA alerting them to the sterilization proposal and inviting them to comment. "The industry and the USDA tried to slip this through quietly, under the radar, without adequate public scrutiny," Cornucopia's Kastel lamented. "We are asking the Secretary of a unit of government that Abraham Lincoln referred to as the ‘People's Department’ to intervene so concerned citizens can have a say. The close collaboration, away from the eyes of the citizens and the media, we are sure, is not something the Secretary will feel good about." An action alert with instructions for contacting the USDA, and a sample letter interested consumers can send to the USDA and California Almond Board, can be found on the Cornucopia Institute Website: www.cornucopia.org.
Teeravit Hanharutaivan and his VEGESee my letter to a Utah newspaper about their reporter's excellent article about a geophysicist who became a raw restaurateur.
