Almonds, almonds everywhere and not a bite to eat...

OOooooo, this is exciting…did you see the recent almond update from Cornucopia.org? Some of the magic peoples from there went recently to Washington DC and met with 3 high-ranking USDA officials, to discuss the future of the almonds…eeeeek ;)
Inspiringly, they report that around HALF of the comments coming into the Secretary of the USDA’s office at the moment are regarding the almonds – WOW…and this seems to be having an impact…
Cornucopia set forth 2 suggestions for alternative strategies with the almonds. The first was that those who sell ‘unpasteurised’ almonds would have a ‘warning label’ to use on the product. This would leave the choice to the consumer.
The other suggestion is that the pasteurisation ruling would not apply to organic farmers, as their ‘rules’ are different anyway and there has never been any association between organic almonds and salmonella. (They are concerned however that this option might negatively impact small conventional growers.)
Now Cornucopia are eager to keep up the flow of letters, calls and emails to the USDA on this matter, to keep the pressure and focus on this key issue. You can visit their site to download a ‘proxy letter’ to send on to the USDA. Go to www.cornucopia.org, go to the Authentic Almond Project link on the left hand navigation column and find the proxy forms there. This is a critical point in this campaign...
If we pull together and act now, there still may be a chance to turn this ruling around and cease ‘nuking the nuts ;)

on December the 19th I had:

1 pint water
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #1
= 8oz water, 2oz apple juice, 1 tbsp liquid bentonite, 1tsp psyllium powder
Followed by 10oz water mixed with 1tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1tsp raw honey
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #2
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
1 pint water
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #3
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #4
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #5
2 cups water

FYI…I have posted details of our upcoming talks in Byron Bay and Perth on the front of the RawReform site – HERE. The website gremlins seem to have weedled their way into the events calendar at present, meaning I’m unable to add the lectures in there…So, for details of Byron on Jan 12th and Perth on Jan 23rd, just check out the homepage and scroll down a little...in the meantime, any 'time to leave now, thanks' vibes sent in the direction of the gremlins would be appreciated, ta... :)

on December the 20th I had:

3 cups water
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #1
= 8oz water, 2oz apple juice, 1 tbsp liquid bentonite, 1tsp psyllium powder
Followed by 10oz water mixed with 1tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1tsp raw honey
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #2
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/beetroot/carrot/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #3
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/celery/beetroot/apple/ginger/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #4
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/celery/beetroot/apple/ginger/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #5
2 cups water

Today was day three of my 7-Day psyllium-bentonite cleanse and I’m enjoying it so far. One of the things I appreciate about this cleanse is that one drinks smthg ‘nourishing’ every 1.5 hours. I like the pace of this…every time I start to feel hunger, it’s not long before the next drink comes…which alternates between ‘The Cleansing Drink’ concoctions and yummy veggie juice. I am doing an adaptation of Bernard Jensen’s cleanse, replacing all the supplements he suggests with veggie juice instead… So, what’s been happening for me with it? Well, yesterday I felt very cold a lot of the time…it’s summertime here, yet I was dressed in thick socks, a long skirt and a warm hoodie. My nose has been running a great deal. I have a feeling of ‘lightness’ and am noticing that my thought patterns are slower and I’m forgetting things more often…;) Seems the psyllium is cleaning out my brain as well as my intestines…lol… I’ve been getting a LOT of rest and doing my best to conserve energy during each day – i.e. cutting back the number of Tibetan Rites yoga repetitions in the morning from my usual 12 to just 3 of each move instead…I like to try to pace myself like this, rather than ‘crashing’ in the middle of the day…
The cleanse involves colon cleansing twice daily – morning and evening. Hence, it’s a pretty intensive programme, between that and the drinks every 1.5 hours. Jensen recommends using a colema board…I’m using a 6-quart ‘pro’ enema bag instead…I find that much more convenient. So far I’ve been releasing some pretty dark stuff with the enemas. I haven’t noticed any of the textbook ‘black tyre rubber’ nasty stuff yet…might be that it comes in the next few days…might be that I’ve already cleared lots of it…we’ll see ;) As I wrote before, it’s been about 4 years since I did a cleanse like this and I got some pretty interesting stuff last time – old lymph, mucus, dark old mucoid plaque etc…I’d been raw for about 1.5 years at that time, so I’m intrigued to see what happens now, after 5.5 years of this lifestyle… The main thing I’m seeking to release with this cleanse is old waste in the SMALL intestines. That is where the majority of ‘mucoid plaque’ resides and using a cleansing system like this can be very beneficial for releasing nasty old stuff and rejuvenating the body…as some of you may remember, Mr Monarch recounts his experience of doing this cleanse in ‘Raw Spirit’. He’d been raw for 6 months when he did it and on the final colon cleansing session, he had a huge release and his third eye chakra burst into effervesence and started vibrating…much to his surprise and confusion ;) Well…my third eye re-activated a few years back now…I’m excited to see what other shifts this cleanse brings me though... ;)

One love,
Angela. xxx

Flax Crackers; my Bridge into 100% Raw...

I was very excited to receive this piece of news recently from Iceland:

November 09 | First Compost Station Opens in Iceland
The first compost station in Iceland, located at Gránumóar near Saudárkrókur in northwest Iceland, was formally opened yesterday after two years of preparations.

WOW. As perhaps you’re aware, composting is a passion of mine…and this news is especially exciting for me, as I used to live in Iceland, on-and-off for 3.5 years, during which time I often tried to encourage more composting and get involved in promoting more Agenda 21 work…in a country with absurd soil erosion issues, it baffled me entirely that no-one seemed to compost…so, I am absolutely delighted to read this news that an actual Compost STATION has now been created there…I guess maybe municipal compost collections will start then to gather up people’s leftovers – NICE :)

On November the 10th I had:

3 cups water
2 cups watermelon/orange juice
1lb cherries
bowl of soaked dried mulberries blended with hemp seeds
1 quart water
3 cups parsley/spinach/lettuce/arugula/carrot juice
bowl of avo mushed with dill hummus, alfalfa, mung sprouts and Celtic sea salt, stuffed in nori sheets
3 cups water
slice of DIVINE raw cheesecake and a little raw chocolate ball
3 cups water

Last night we spoke to a delightful audience here in Sydney. We were extremely blessed to have the lovely Julie of Conscious Choice present, catering the event with her outstanding cakes and truffles. WOW. Now, Matt and I travel all over the world trying different raw foods – and I can truly say I don’t recall seeing such beautifully presented desserts anywhere else…apparently, Julie is an ex-pastry chef and it definitely shows…her creations are outstanding…and made with SO much love by this gentle, happy soul – YUMMY :)

on November the 11th I had:

3 cups water
3 big chunks of watermelon
1 paw-paw
bowl of avo mushed with sundried tomato hummus, alfalfa, mung sprouts and Celtic sea salt, stuffed in nori sheets, with a pack of Mexican power sticks
2 cups water
3 cups parsley/lettuce/spinach/carrot/arugula/chard juice
bowl of soaked dried mulberries blended with hemp seeds
3 cups water
2 mangoes and a handful of cherries
2 cups water

OOoooooOOoooo, we’ve been just LOVING the alive hummus packs from Matter of Flax (as you can probably tell – we’ve been eating them almost every day for the last few days ;) We just added the spinach and dill flavours to the RawReform Store – both feel very gently yummy to me – I enjoy the dill especially ;) I am TOTALLY loving the new Mineral-Rich Flax Crackers too, which we also just added to the site. Mr Monarch brought lots of random raw food yum out here with him and these crackers are just outstanding. They’re so thick that you can easily use them as a pizza base and feature the most delicious combination of pumpkin, sesame and flax seeds with dulse – it’s extraordinary – I can’t actually really work out in fact HOW they managed to end up tasting so great, as the ingredients are really simple…just the technique and the love in the product I guess ;) I have a particular soft spot for flax crackers – as many of you know, my final ‘hurdle’ of the cooked food world was rice cakes… I was on about a packet of rice cakes a day at the end of my cooked food eating…I was thoroughly addicted…then one day I thought to myself ‘why do I keep eating these things? They taste like cardboard…I could be eating flax crackers instead…’ …and so I did…I laid down the packet of rice cakes once and for all and flax crackers became my bridge to a healthier, 100% raw life :) They became my truly healthy alternative to bread. That was about 2.5 years ago now…and while it is of course very easy to make flax crackers, I also love to try other people’s and these 'Mineral-Rich' creations are highly recommended…you can see more about them on the RawReform Store HERE.

Enjoy :)
One love,
Angela. xxx