Our New Home in Vilcabamba, Ecuador :)

WOW...so, we're at our new home in Ecuador now - we got here a couple of nights ago and life is just moving and shifting in such sublime directions right now - we are absolutely *LOVING* it here - I just came in from weeding the patches around some of the fruit trees we planted here last year and this morning we bought six more new baby trees: an avocado, two mangoes, three papaya trees...I am also starting off two avocado seeds and I have literally dozens of other different types of seeds to start off on our land...the produce at the farmers' market this morning was fantastic - we have a fridge and kitchen full of greens, mangoes, papayas, pineapples, avos, tomatoes and all kinds of yummies, including FRESH Incan berries :O :) We are feeling amazingly blessed and excited - there's so much to *do* and enjoy and unfold each day - I recommend keeping up with our adventures over at TheRawFoodWorld.TV for 'almost-real-time' daily updates ;) I also just posted a set of new pics to Flickr yesterday, from our first day here - see HERE...

Much more to come - soooooooo EXCITED :))))))

on February the 25th I enjoyed:

1 quart water
6 cups grreeeeeeeeeeen juice prior to going through airport security ;)
3 cups water
3 apples, handful of Hunza dried apricots, 2 tbsp tahini
1 quart water

I'm so happy to see that HUNDREDS of you have been making use of the current 50% OFF deal on my book "Raw Emotions" in either the printed or e-book form. I'm so happy to know that this material is spreading ever wider and further :) This is a little reminder that the 50% OFF deal finishes tonight (Sunday Feb 28th) at midnight Pacific time. If you did not already get your copy of this unique volume, you can jump in on this deal HERE for the rest of the day - enjoy ;)


on February the 26th I loved:

1 quart water
1 cup water loaded with Marine Phytoplankton
4 tbsp bee pollen
3 cups water
big bowl fruit salad
20 chlorella tablets
2 tbsp bee pollen, 2 tbsp tahini, 3 dried persimmons
3 cups water


on February the 27th I appreci-ated:

1 quart water
fresh local fruits in Vilcabamba: guava, mango (WOW ;), fresh Incan Berries and something else new to me that was very sharp tasting - strong Vitamin C flavour
30 chlorella 'nuts', 2 carob pods, 3 tbsp bee pollen
1 quart water
glass of fresh veggie juice at Sambuca Cafe
more local fresh fruit yummmmmminess: pieces of plantain/banana, papaya, mango blended with avocado into a pudding, avocado eaten with dulse/salt and lime juice - WOW :)
1 cup water with marine phytoplankton
2 cups water

Mmmmm, madame Shazzle-Dazzle Shazzie sent an interesting-looking link over today, for a free magazine on raising relaxed children/living a relaxed life, including many fabulous ideas for enjoying time with children, four pages on raw foods and much more - it's free and beautifully presented - check it out HERE and use the little arrows to the left and right of the 'magazine' to toggle between pages - enjoy ;)

All love and Incan berry kisses ;)
Angela Stokes-Monarch. xxx

Kiwi Life and the Master Cleanser...

Ok, there have been quite a few requests lately for more info on New Zealand - particularly where to get raw goodies here ;)
Well, we’re in Auckland for a few weeks at the moment...and as I said before, we had a challenge to locate organics to buy at all in the beginning, in the area we’re in, despite the fact that I KNOW there are many hundreds of organic farms country-wide here. It made no sense to me and we were very relieved when we started to find some goodies ;) Here’s what we’ve discovered so far...

Health Food Stores:

Ceres – This company seems to actually be a HUGE distributor of organic foods in NZ – we’re just fortunate to be located somewhat near their retail outlet in Ellerslie – see http://ceres.co.nz/ - they have fresh organic produce, plus a bulk section with dried fruits, nuts, seeds etc...

Huckleberry Farms – this company seems to have 2 big retail outlets in Auckland. The one we visited had lots of produce, a bulk section and even a juice/smoothie bar :) Apparently there is also a farmer’s market in the street across from them on weekends... See HERE for more info.

Others:

Auckland City’s Farmers’ Market – Saturday mornings, 8.30am-12.30pm, at the Britomart Precinct. A few organic growers/spray-free – not masses of choice – still, nice to buy direct from the growers ;) See http://www.cityfarmersmarket.co.nz/ for more info. It’s my understanding that there are a few other farmers’ markets at the weekends around this city too – I don’t know where any of them are though...Auckland seems vaaaaaaaast in terms of the land area it covers and we’re only just starting to get our heads round the public transport here ;)

Other than that, we’ve found that many of the supermarkets have a few organic fresh items – currently, mainly cherries (YAY), blueberries, kiwis and...dates...not much else...
As for raw food companies...well, our lovely friends Mark and Veronique here in Auckland run ‘Vital Essence’ - http://www.vitalessence.co.nz/ though they’re not doing a full raw catering business anymore.

Ooooo, one other really useful and interesting site I’ve found here is ‘Organic Explorer’ – see http://www.organicexplorer.co.nz - they have info on ALL kinds of organic contacts, resources, outlets etc in NZ...

I’m really excited to get beyond the city soon and explore more of this LUSH country...as I mentioned before, I was here years ago and worked my way round the whole country, on organic farms with WWOOF (http://www.wwoof.org), hence I KNOW they are out there ;)
If anyone reading this has more useful info to add about where to locate raw foods/services in Auckland or New Zealand in general, please do send them in and I’ll piece them together for another post – there’s definitely lots of reader interest ;)

on February the 10th I had:

1.5 quarts water
20oz spinach/carrot/zucchini juice
bowl of fruit salad with chia gel: banana/kiwi/golden kiwi/black plum
2 cups water
small handful of seaweeds – wakame and karengo
1.5 quarts water
2 handfuls of cherries
12oz spinach/carrot/zucchini juice
bowl of ‘figgy pudding’ – fresh figs and oranges blended together, with chopped up pieces of banana in it – yummmmmm ;)
3 cups water

Ooooo, Monika from the Raw Network of Washington (RawNOW) emailed through a link to all the items for the silent auction at their big raw fundraising event in Seattle this week, which I mentioned a few days back...the auction list’s pretty PHENOMENAL, so I thought I’d add the link here for all to ogle at ;) Monika also says that any items that AREN’T sold on the night will be put into an online auction – ooo lalalalalalaaaa – so, if you’re not able to attend the actual event, maybe keep an eye on their site afterwards, if there’s smthg you were interested in ;) Here’s the link to see the list:
http://rawwashington.org/events/auctiondonors.htm

Ooo and while we’re on the subject of raw events this week, a quick reminder that the Monarch and myself shall be sharing juicy raw tidbits and tips in Auckland next Sunday, the 16th...full event details HERE: http://www.rawspirit.org/events.php

on February the 11th I had:

1.5 quarts water
24oz celery/cucumber/parsley/spinach/lettuce/apple juice
big bowl of fruit salad with chia gel: banana/kiwi/golden kiwi/black plum/mango
2 cups water
1 peach
16oz celery/cucumber/parsley/spinach/lettuce/apple juice
3 cups water
big bowl of fruit salad with chia gel: banana/kiwi/black plum/mango/apple/cherry
3 cups water

There are some questions I get asked over and over again – one of them (somewhat bizarrely in my opinion, as I’ve never done it ;) is ‘What do you think of the Master Cleanser?’
Well, here’s an answer...

Hmmmmmm...to be honest, I don't feel great about the idea of the Master Cleanser (MC - also sometimes known as the 'Lemonade Diet', or 'Stanley Burroughs Master Cleanser'). For a start, it recommends to use maple syrup or molasses to cleanse, neither of which are usually raw. Even if one replaces those with agave syrup or raw honey, the glycemic content is very high. What MOSTLY concerns me abt the MC however is that it seems to be very low in nutrients - it is basically just sugars and spice.
Now, for some people it is a useful tool because they're coming from a background of SUCH toxicity and eating a lot of 'junk' foods, so merely the fact that they're NOT eating those kind of things and are giving the body a break from digesting solids is going to bring them MUCH healing, HOWEVER, I would SO much rather see someone do a cleanse on vegetable juices than the master cleanser recipe, as then they are also experiencing the benefits of putting down those other foods and getting a break from solids, PLUS getting in MASSES of nutrients from the veggie juices at the same time - seems like a much better deal to me ;) The Master Cleanser is much easier to prepare of course than veggie juices, which appeals to some people, plus tends to work out cheaper.
Another concern I have about the MC is that I often see people use it as a kind of 'escape hatch' from less-than-optimal eating patterns - i.e. - they will eat a messy intake for weeks on end, then go into master cleansing, then yo-yo out of the other side of that, straight into less-than-optimal eating again - it just doesn't seem very balanced to me - I'd rather see people eat a balanced, healthy, high-raw intake regularly, using veggie juicing to cleanse periodically...
Many people enjoy the MC though and seem to get happy results from it...so...the choice is yours, but I would certainly recommend you check out Juice Feasting in preference to living on spicy sugar-water for a week or more ;) You can see my booklet all about Juice Feasting HERE. If you want to read more abt the Master Cleanser, Stanley Burroughs' book is HERE and I believe curezone.com has a lot of good info on it ;)

One love,
Angela. xxx