Eat Dance Live

I know I don't post about my politics often, but this is a historical moment. (photo from Le Monde ) So, solidarity and respect to all the men and women in Egypt, who have shown both their government and the world that peaceful protest can be the answer to freedom. You've shown us all something of pride and beauty. On that note, I know that any of my achievements today will seem lesser compared to what else has been going on in the world today, but one of the reasons I was really excited about Friday was that I knew that... my homemade sauerkraut would be ready! Yes, I finally bit the bullet and tried my hand at fermented veggies. Last week during my kitchie date , my friend Amanda all but held my timid little hand through the process of making sauerkraut. I recently started taking probiotics to feed my tummy gremlins (I've intuitively been feeling like they haven't been doing great) and it's been making me feel fantastic. I figured that getting non-capsule version...

"Where do you get your B12?" The more nutritionally-conscious raw diet skeptics have cleverly replaced the age-old "where do you get your protein?" question with this one. However, as always, I come prepared! While we only need a very small amount of B12 every day, it's vital that we get it so I welcome the question. B12 helps your body convert carbs, fats, and proteins into energy. It helps maintain red and white blood cell health. Finally, it helps form necessary protection around your very important brain nerve cells. Deficiency usually expresses itself in the form of anemia, fatigue, weakness, constipation, inexplicable weight loss, and more dramatic neurological changes like tingling of the extremities, maintaining balance, depression, confusion, dementia, and memory loss. The thing about a B12 deficiency is that for some, it hits them suddenly, but for others it could take up to a period of as long as 20+ years to express (but then the consequences are pre...

Oh the successes, I have known this week! There's nothing like a 6 day camping festival surrounded by friends old and new, fire-lit drum circles, pine woods and cool rivers to completely rejuvenate you and make you feel alive. These past few days have been extremely curative for me both physically and mentally, and I feel so grateful for the life I have. But on to my successes: Success #1: Mosquito Prevention As I mentioned in my last post , one of the most successful ways to avoid getting bitten by mosquitos is to avoid potassium foods a few days prior to and during your camping trip. So it's been no bananas, pumpkin seeds, strawberries, whole grains, and brazil nuts for us for almost 10 days now and the mosquito bite tally: 5 over 6 days, while everybody else was massively attacked. I don't know if it's the raw diet or potassium or both but it worked so well that at one point, we were talking to a friend and all the mosquitos were swarming around him while we just sa...

Yes, it has begun... the long birth process of my very own kombucha scoby mother. For someone whose pretty lax about sanitation in the kitchen when cooking for myself (double-dipping, re-using mixing bowls, etc.), it's interesting to see how OCD I get about cleanliness the minute anything fermented is involved. Because I assume that things can easily go wrong with the fermentation process (mould, too much oxygen, unclean utensils, etc.) I read the instructions to my starter culture about 10 times and checked out all sorts of kombucha making websites before even touching anything. I was also extra careful to follow the instructions word for word and was probably more sanitary than I have been my entire life. (This coming from someone who has to be tied down to just follow a recipe.) Given the care I've put into this, I'm sure it's going to work awesome though! Starting your own kombucha culture is pretty easy actually. All I had to do was boil water in a steel pot, add ...