Meditative Juice

Tuesday brought to my home as usual my great friend Denise, the Green Queen. As it is my day of work these days, I appreciate her arrival in the morning even more; there is no better reason to jump out of bed early then meeting up with your girlfriend and doing something you enjoy. This is especially vital if you have over-combined and overeaten your food the previous evening and you feel like had two bottles of red... Do you know this feeling? It happens as our bodies get used to the cleansing, simpler diet; as soon as we regress back to badly combined cooked or even sometimes raw but heavy food, our body lets us know that (s)he does not like this. I am very happy to observe though that there are things my body has learned to expect and it does ask for them. One of them is my daily morning glass of water with MSM and lemon juice. It's a great way to rehydrate the body after the many hours spent sleeping, and I also see it as some kind of internal shower. It refreshes and sort of wakes me up; I feel immediately ready for some San saluting. This morning I immediately followed up with a small glass of super green juice, which works wonders for me. I cannot get enough of the stuff. It has strong alkalising effect on our bodies, and so is great for as most of us are over acidic from eating too much processed or sugary foods and drinks. This morning, as I suffered from my morning-after-the-night-before-over-indulgence I felt better with every little sip I took. I salute the juicer! If you are feeling inspired by my enthusiasm, go for it. The only warning I give is in case you are on any kind of medication - then I recommend consulting a medical practitioner, preferably one who knows and appreciates the healing effects of proper (raw, vegan,green) nutrition. However, if you are (relatively) healthy and want to feel MUCH better, fresh green juices are waiting! If this is your first time with fresh juices, start with more fruity ones and slowly add your greens, that way you will get used to the green taste better and will end up enjoying them more.

Denise and I left out yoga this morning and spent an hour with Nadabrahma meditation instead. This meditation is based on ancient Tibetan techniques and was brought to us by Indian mystic called Osho. It is a very calming one, and after half an hour of humming and then some quiet sitting in inner reflection we were almost too sedated to talk. So we went to spend some more quiet time with the juicer and made us an amazing breakfast juice. Green,of course, what else?!

1/4 cucumber
1/3 butter lettuce
1/2 celery
leaves from 10 radishes
handful of parsley
handful of lambs quarters
3 pears
2 passion fruit, because it is Denise's favourite fruit, and because it smells heavenly

At the end the taste was surprisingly sweet. I bought some pretty green pears, but as they sat in our fruit bowl, they ripened and became lovely and sweet, and the passion fruit added a tropical touch.

I was not so good later in the afternoon when I met with another of my friends and ordered a cappuccino. Unfortunately, or should I make it fortunately, they didn't make it very well, the milk was a bit off and it tasted so bad I left most of it behind. I had to ask myself again and again when will I learn? When will I stop ordering stuff I only want because that's what everyone else is having? I don't enjoy it, it makes me feel bad and I end up being annoyed with myself... I know it is a question many transitioning raw foodist asked themselves before me and at the same time I am not the last one to go through with it, but I so wish I could be 'perfect'! I am going to do my best and follow my own advice - what happened has happened and with every next decision I will be a step closer to my own version of perfection... be it a vegan, 100% raw vegan or something in between.I have met a few individuals, who were able to stop eating everything they realised was bad for them overnight, but it is not an easy way, and it most definitely is not for everybody.

Dinner for me was another green juice and a Thai inspired salad from shredded red cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, mung bean sprouts, tamari marinated mushrooms, sunflower seeds and sun dried tomatoes marinated on herby olive oil with a very spicy dressing based on tahini and lime juice. Yum!

DRINK ME!!!

So this is how my first green juice looked like and it tasted something like ZZZZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRBURGUMBUNGRZBRUNG! There was not one piece of fruit in it if you don't count lime juice a I could taste and feel its vibrations long after I had the last sip. All I could feel was greenness, cleanliness, spring and regeneration and renewal plus multitude of feelings and thoughts.... but also I kept glancing at my fruit bowl and at the end I went to make juice from a few apples to soften the last of this green goodness. But, although this is a mere wine glass, it is Cooked Husband's wine glass and it is a pint sized one no less. So I got a lot of minerals and vitamins and other goodness and it felt as if every sip made me younger by a week. It does not show - not yet... Can't wait though.

So - Bottoms up! Your health!

Big little helper

I just wanted to show you how magically this machine works when it comes to greens. I am not having as much success with fruits, but for leafy greens it is magic. Well, you can see for yourself - the jug is about 1 and a half pint, and there was just about a small handfull of almost dry fibrous solid stuff. I run the fibre through second time as not to waste a single drop, and I thought that to get this much juice was simply AMAZING!

This was the first juice I have made, and in it was

1/2 green soft lettuce
1 cucmber
1 courgette
1 inch galangal root
juice of 1 lemon

It was very zingy and wonderful. Later that day I made a juice from

5 large chard leaves
1 cucumber
2 apples
1 lime
1 small head of celery

Poor brave Cooked Husband! He agreed to have a taste, but he is just simply not ready for all the goodness found in green juices yet. They are super-power stuf, not for the faint hearted. Not that he is faint hearted, but I mean - you have to taste a straight green juice to understand. He was very happy and impressed with the fresh pineapple juice I made him the next day for breakfast, so I will have to start him softly and sneak in a green leaf here and there, to build his taste buds up to the challenge.

Watch this space!

Oscar!

So he is here. He has arrived! And as I promissed he is absolutely amazing, super shiny and fabulous, and he is all mine! My new super juicer called Oscar!

I have to confes that he arrived already yesterday, but it was Cooked Husband's birthday and so it was not a day for me to open presents but for him. I will write a post about yesterday as well, but for now I wanted to let you know about our new family mamber. I unpacked him this morning, washed and polished him, and then I got him work. And is he clever!?

My first ever home made super green juice was made out of

1 cucumber

1 courgette

1/2 a huge lettuce head

1 lime

2 cm piece of galanghal root

It had a lot of umphf, so I added a juice from 2 apples to the last third to soften the taste. But still! WOW! Rather strong and zingy and GREEN!

I will blog about what I like and maybe not like about this juicer once I have had it for a while. After the first day I have to say I am very impressed with the yield for leafy and crunchy veggies, absolutelly amazing, but not so sure about those apples, as I got more like a thin puree then a pure juice. But that might be because those apples were a but dry... I know that serious juicy people sometimes have more then one type of juicer as they are better for different kinds of veggies and fruits, but me, for now, I am happy and juicy and celebratory.

Viva le Oscar! Viva la New Moon! Viva le Juicy life!

These sheep were so hungry they were following us... and I had nothing green to feed them... surprisingly so!

Everywhere I look there is a baby sheep

It has been SOOOO many days since I have written! Well, I am sure you have noticed that, but I actually almost haven't...

What happened is that I have been 'unplugged' from the Internet, and the computer for that matter, for a few days over the weekend and then spent some time looking after a friend in need, so I do have some legitimate excuses one might hope people will accept...

So. I went to Wales for the weekend. This trip was a part of the reason why I gave up my green smoothie life for a few days as I could not face hiking and travelling while eating and detoxing in that way. For a while I was a little bit unhappy about the whole trip though. You see, this was supposed to be Cooked Husband's weekend away with the boys, only at the end it turned into a family trip with our friends because some of the boys could not make it. Like I said, I felt a bit 'grrr' about this, as I had all weekend planned, no cooking, lots of juices, maybe even a water only fast.... and at the end I ended up eating chips for dinner instead. Quite a detour from my plan then. But I had so much fun, and I think we were so lucky to visit Wales during the only three sunny days they (apparently) get every year, and so at the end it was worth the detox break. It was even (just maybe) worth the chips. Also, as a bonus, there were baby sheep just about EVERYWHERE!!

I developed a special relationship to sheep almost as soon as I first crossed the Canal La Manche almost 15 years ago. For those who do not know this, you can see these peaceful woolly creatures standing by the road, watching the world go (or drive) by, while chewing on juicy grass. I have not seen anything like this before, as we do not have sheep filled meadows lined roads in the Czech republic very much, and the sight of white dots on green grass makes me for whatever reason illogically happy and jolly.

Enter mid March in Wales, the home of sheep. I was in a sensory heaven; enjoying fresh air, healthy dose of walking, catching up with my girlfriend and enjoying her children's company as well, and, as a bonus, walking through field after field full of mother and baby sheep. I especially enjoyed observing the close relationship between the mama sheep and the baby sheep that we could see everywhere. First, the mothers were extremely protective of their babies. Sheep are very shy and generally, if you approach them, they walk or even run away. Not when a baby sheep is present. The mama would stare at us, rather directly, and Baa loudly, in a deep voice, to scare us away. The other, even more amazing behaviour, and very natural indeed, was that every time any of the lambs strayed from the mama, as soon as the mama Baa-ed for them, they galloped back as fast as they could and immediately had a little cuddle and a little drink of milk. Now some of these lambs were bigger and were happily grazing on the grass, and the milk drinking was a quick one most of the times, more like a comfort blanket, like making sure the mother was really there. I loved this, it felt so caring and, well, natural. It made me sad in a way though as I thought of cows and their babies, who get taken away from the mother cows too soon, so that we, people, can steel their milk and drink it instead, while we feed the calves some human made stuff... It is really sad and makes me really want to be strong enough so that I can give up the white stuff for good. This subject will most certainly develop into another post about dairy, the whole industry built around it, what it does and does not do to us and our health, books to read on the subject and much else, but not today. This is now a rather long post, so let's just stay with the memory of the woolly happiness of jolly sheep.

As far as the food goes, I will only mention breakfast. It was interesting for one reason, and that is that I actually got organised enought o write to the B&B we were booked into and asked them to prepare a raw vegan breakfast for me. They had the usual menu of cooked Welsh breakfast, all about sausages, eggs and bacon with toast and cereal, and I knew that sitting there sipping hot water with lemon while Cooked Husband was munching away would leave me feel unsatisfied. So I wrote to them explaining that I did not eat any cooked or processed food and would they be willing to make me a fruit salad. And that is what happened. I was told that they actually had the fruit special ordered for me, and my breakfast was made of lovely ripe kiwis and strawberries with other crunchy fruit and bananas. It was yummy and even Cooked Husband tucked in. Admitedly, the lady who served us in the mornings was a bit worried about how I was going to survice the day, but it was beautiful, colourful and lovely. The perfect start to my day! I am writing about this to encourage you to speak out for yourselves. Too often we feel that because we are different we might be judged and people will not want fulfill the special request we make, but the oposite is true. And by asking for the food we like to eat, perhaps we might spark an interest in people. Imagine that every time we do this, ask for a fruit salad for breakfast in a cooked hotel or ask for a large raw salad for dinner in a posh restaurant, we could make one person think about eating more raw fruits and veggies. Would that not be great??

I leave you with that for tonight.

Good night, and remember to count the sheep before you fall asleap. There are far too many for me to be the only one to do so!

Salad day

OK, it's become incredibly busy in this household. How grateful I am that I can only work part time! My day definitelly needs to have more hours... but I know that if I eat carefully and simply then I sleep less... so it is a no brainer!

Breakfast:
simply just fruit, cut into pieces and enjoyed as it is
1 pear
1 asian pear
piece of fresh pineapple

Snack at work:
green smoothie made from
1/2 pineapple
handful of rocket and watercress
water
GREEN SMOOTHIE TRIVIA: rocket and watercress add a lot of umphf to your smoothie and are not for the novices, I would say. Start with softer tasting leaves such as spinach and various lettuces, lambs quarters, yummy herbs such as corriander and mint etc, but remember to ROTATE your greens. Do not stick to only one or two. Also if at all possible go for ORGANIC.

I was definitelly going through some coffee cravings today and the image of a muffin was swimming aluringly in front of my mind's eye. As I was going to my favourite health food store to pick up some raw goodies for the forthcoming hiking trip to Wales I was having a little discussion with myself about giving in and having what my mind wanted, reasoning that at least it was organic. Somehow, when I got there, I went straight to the salad bar and got a large selection from all the yummy lovely fresh goodies. I did not think of that coffee/muffin scenario until I was on the tube on my home, looong afterwards. A very interesting experience. And I am glad I did not give in. Every day that I resist the pull of the old brings me closer to the health and vibrant energy I desire. Lots of coffee does maybe bring longer days in the beginning, but there is a price to pay later on. Eating living energy giving healing food will make my life longer, so who cares of I sleep a bit more every day.... wink wink

Late lunch:
salad in a health food store
mixed salad leaves
grated carrot
lots of sprouts (not brussel sprouts, but sprouted growing seeds of watercress)
few cubes of roasted sweet potato
few roasted herbed mushrooms
few pieces of roasted red and yellow pepper

Even as I was picking this up, I was dreaming about getting a dehydrator or kitting my owen at home so that I can make dehydrated veggies, and so I can get the same taste and texture as if they were roasted without exposing their heat sensitive goodness (enzymes, vitamins) to the high temperatures. This is a change in thinking, and a very welcome one. I even designed in my head a change to the owen so that I can make it work. Now I just need a clever handyman, and we are in business.

Dinner:
2 large handfulls of kale
stripped from tough stalks
massaged with
a glug of yummy cold presses olive oil
and a few pinches of pink himalayan salt
which makes it wilt and soften
add
handful of baby tomatoes
few semi sundried tomatoes marinated in herbs and olive oil
chopped half a cucumber
finely chopped chilli pepper
scatter sunflower seeds on the top

Not the simplest salad but LOOOVELYYY! I learned about massaged kale salad about a year ago and I seriously mourned when its season here in UK finished. It was one of the things I looked forward to in winter! Does that make me sad?

Oh, by the way... are you there? Is any one reading this? LET ME KNOW!

Struggle resolved

The truth is, I have struggling with this green smoothie and juice regimen for a few days now. I must acknowledge and publicly say that the fault is not in the program, as surely as the proof is not always in the pudding. After all, I have attempted to follow a juice feasting program, and I still don't even have a juicer! Every day I have been eagerly awaiting my new shiny super duper juicing machine, but it has been, yet again, delayed, and is not coming till the beginning of the next week. The juice feaster's guide calls for 4 litres of freshly squeezed vegetable and fruit juice, with a big emphasis on juice from green vegetables; it also advices you that if you still feel hungry after you had those 4 litres to have more. And what have I been doing? I have been having a pint of green smoothie for breakfast and then about a litre of mostly fruit juices during the day, with some Master Cleanse put in for a good measure, and maybe, but only a maybe, a green smoothie for dinner if I was really hungry. This is not a feast but a fast and I have been almost consistently hungry for a few days now. And I don't mean having a sweet tooth. I really mean rumbling tummy.

Don't get me wrong. I feel great, and I am loving the weight loss. My ribs are happily sticking out above my waist, from which I have lost 5.5 centimeters. In just over two weeks! My face is more defined, my skin looks more toned and healthy despite a few very discreet detox bumps and spots, and my eyes are much clearer. Cooked Husband is dropping praises and so are my girlfriends, and I am happily basking in them. But I cannot sustain this any longer while living a normal life in busy, loud and poluted London. I would need to take this kind of program somewhere pristine and clean and calm and quiet, with time for journalling and reflection. And at the moment, I don't have that space. So after many days of pondering about it and about how people are going to be disappointed and let down (and some of them no doubt satisfied), I am going to start eating again. But only until the juicer arrives, then I will have another go at the real juice feasting!

There, I said it.

Breakfast:

3 pears

2 apples

1 banana

closed fistful of parsley

1 courgette

1 handful young rocket

1 handful baby red chard

I drank this on the patio, in the sunshine, while chatting with Denise about life, how it is now, and how we would like it ot be in the future. We talked about how we both love meeting on Tuesday morning for yoga and green breakfast, then doing some blogging, writing and translating during the day, working from home. No boss to shout at us, no tube to ride to the office, no given time for a break, just enjoyment and happiness. We both wonder how realistic this is. For me, at the moment, Tuesday is a day of work, because I am not needed at my office, and for her, this is her second months trying to make it on her own, freelancing. So we do not know how long it will last. What we do know is that we would like to live like this. And that there is no reason why we shouldn't. We want to work, we just want to do it in the way that fullfills us. Is it too much to ask? I am sure everybody out there, even the biggest workaholic, has a little dream inside them, that wants to come out and become a reality. Reality, that would make that person much happier and balanced, and in that way a much nicer person to be around, in many a case. And this is my vision for the future of the world. Don't you think that if everybody is doing what they trully believe in the world will become a much better place with a much more optimistic future? Let me know your thoughts!

Lunch:

1 mango

gel from 2 inches fresh aloe vera, which we were given last week while visiting the Earthship in Brighton

large handful of kale

water

I had a pint of this and my stomach felt empty in a couple of minutes. So I took the leftover pint and blended it with two bananas - now THAT was filling.

Snack:

a few brazil nuts

A note of causion here. I have not been strictly juice feasting, and so I feel quite ok to eat some dried fruit or nuts, but still I shall not over do it. If you are reading this blog as an inspiration, but you have been only drinking juice for a few days, you must break the feast properly, slowly and carefully. Have a look at Juice Feasting website for help.

Dinner:

salad from

baby tomatoes

cucumber

red and green pepper

few raw olives

soaked arame seaweed

olive oil and lemon juice

During the day I drank two large mugs of fruit tea and about a litre of water. I feel much better now... are you glad to hear it?

Le weekend struggle

So I have reached the point now when I want to eat some 'normal' food. It is my first real crisis, as I would call it, and my first reaction to it is that it is not really real, that it is something else going on. Emotional stuff? I also suspect that I haven't been drinking enough of my green smoothies and juices every day to get enough calories in me, as I have been feeling really quite hungry for most of the day, but I was somehow lacking any motivation to go, squeeze some fruit and consume the scrumy juice. What is going on???

We spent the weekend with Cooked Husband's parents and perhaps the change of scenery and not being in my own space threw me out of balance a little bit. I did not sleep very well and I felt cold, and the whole Sunday I felt tired and de-motivated. I ran out of maple syrup and forgot to buy lemons, so I could not make Master Cleanse, my savior and my inner heating helper so far. In short, a lack of preparation has caused me a lot of grief this weekend... What can I say? Learn from my own mistake and try harder, that's what I say!

Just a short post today due to all the reasons mentioned above. Have to go and immerse my body in a bath full of steaming hot water with some yummy smelling salts and then will eat a huge plateful of fresh juicy sweet watermelon, my most favourite food in the whole world!

Bright Brighton

This was such an unusual and adventures (and coooold) day. Thursday is my day of work and it is most often spent doing yoga, poking around the internet and maybe doing a liiiiitle bit of work or studying from home. Today was completely different and it's soooo late and i have to go to bed because I am so very tired and cold.... so I will tell you what I ate and what I did and what I will be blogging about soon.

Breakfast:

1 banana

3 apples

large handful of kale

water

My first time blending kale, and it was wonderful. Loved the taste of the smoothie, and my body was singing.

At the train station it suddenly hit me how MANY coffee and muffin stands there are. No wonder we all eat it all the time! Determined as I am at the moment to eat only raw, my mind was reeling from all the cake pleasure-land! I did, however, and surprisingly, found one store that sold FRESH smoothies! I really did not see it coming, and it just shows that I should have more faith!

Train station snack:

strawberries

fresh orange juice

smoothie

I packed a green smoothie with me for the trip, but now I was SOOOOO full and happy from the pink concoction above, I thought I would not need it. However, I carried it with me through the day and its time came later on...

Lunch:

hot apple juice with cinnamon

and

apple

celery

and ginger

juice

in a juice bar in a bright hippie area in Brighton :-)

We spent the day wondering around the town, visited the Earth Ship and then 'hiked' accross the town for Angela Stokes' talk in Manna cafe - the first 100% raw cafe in Europe, apparently. WOW, that must be my most-linked-sentence to date... And they are all very worthy links, too! Anyway, I will find time to blog about all of them in the next few days; for now, here is the rest of my food of the day:

Afternoon snack:

home made and all day carried smoothie

3 peaches

large handful of baby spinach leaves

Dinner:

GREEN JUICE!

I mean GREEN, no fruits in it!

celery

cucumber

spinach

kale

lemon

ginger

This was my FIRST EVER seriously GREEN juice and it was AMAZING! You can see I am still buzzing from it with all these capital letters, but I had to let you know. I loved it. It was tingling and slightly bitter and juicy and it made you take just small sips at a time, which is the perfect way to eat or drink anything, and it just filled me with peace and pleasure. GREEEEAAAT, now I just need my juicer to arrive so I can start making my own! Absolutely cannot wait, but wait I must... The universe knows what it is doing, maybe I am not ready for daily green juices yet and need to stay with the green smoothies to slow the detox. All right then, shall go with the flow....

How are you all? Have you tried a straight green juice yet?