Will The Food Network finally address the Living Food Movement?...

I am not sure why the Food Network has not addressed the living foods movement. Whether it is because they feel it conflicts with many of the programs on the Network or their various sponsors, the fact still remains that the people of America deserves a show that explores the living foods lifestyle. Especially with all the celebrity exposure, medical research, and profound documentation on the healing ability of the raw food technology. The masses accept change gradually, this I understand. That is why I developed a show format where I 'Bridge the Gap' between the world of traditional cuisine and living food cuisine. No boundaries, no limitations. Exploring how to integrate more life into you diet. This is a very graceful way for the Food Network to address this growing movement and the nutritional illiteracy in this...The ball is in their court, and I trust they will give it a shot...

The Power of Celery...

They say some of the greatest treasures in life are right under your nose, or in this case buried in the vegetable drawer in your fridge. This green emerald is cheap, easy to find, and tastes great. Oh yeah andis a natural way to lower blood pressure. That’s right I’m talking about celery. With it’s fresh crunchy texture and subtle flavor, celery has been supporting character in the cast of veggies we all grew up on. Whether adding that refreshing accent in your stuffing on the Holidays, or co-starring in the classic “Ants on a Log” with peanutbutter and raisins. It is one of the most common veggies in use today and can seriously reduce the possibility of a life threatening health condition while being risk free of any potential side effects that it’s prescribed medicine alternatinative may result in. Not to mention it is one tenth the price of any pharmaceutical medication.
In a time where our culture, our society, is the unhealhiest it’s ever been, childhood obesity is now being labelded a lethal epidemic by the government, and cancer is at an all time high, we need to dig deep to shift this momentum because it’s not working. Now as strange as it is to look at in perspective, it is fairly common in the human experience that people need situations to get really bad before they stand up and do something about it. That is what is Americans around the country are starting to do. Wake up! Even in the media with shows like,“The Biggest Loser”, “The Food Revolution”, and even “Celebrity Fit Club”, are bringing awareness to the imbalance and disharmony with Americans relationship with food. The biggest issue I’ve experienced as a trainer, chef, and nutrition consultant is the lack of education or mis-education about how the body works and the basics of nutritional requirements that an individual needs to be a healthy body. So it is time to reeducate ourselves on eating for substance and not just for taste. Unfortunately with the commercialization and industrialization of food, we have been bombarded with empty food with artificial flavors. Our taste buds have been conditioned to these artificial chemical flavor, and it is our job to wake them up to the taste of fresh, natural living foods. There is so much amazing knowledge and wisdom for healthy eating and living if you are ready to learn, and the healing power of celery is a perfect example of how simple and easy, yet powerfully effective this knowledge can be.

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Now first and foremost, what is (HBP) High blood pressure? HBP, also known as hypertension, is a condtion where healthy arteries, which are made of muscle and a semi-flexible tissue that stretches like elastic, are made to pump blood more forcefully which results in the arteries stretching to allow for blood to flow more easily. Over time, when the pressure of the blood flow is often high, the tissue of the walls of arteries gets stretched beyond its healthy limit. This can result in number of lethal health conditions: vascular weakness and scarring, increased risk of blood clots (resulting in heart attacks or strokes), increased plaque build up on the arterial walls, tissue and organ damage, and an overworking of the circulatory system. When the arteries are not as elastic because of the build-up of cholesterol or plaque or because of scarring, the heart pumps harder to get blood into the arteries. Over time, this increased work can result in damage to the heart itself. The muscles and valves in the heart can become damaged and heart failure can result. All of these destructive effects can lead to damage to the heart and coronary arteries, resulting in heart attack, heart disease, congestive heart failure, aortic dissection and atherosclerosis.

HBP is actually a greatly misunderstood medical condition. Many people assume that someone with hypertension would be tense, nervous or hyperactive, but this is far from the truth. You can be a calm, relaxed individual and still have HBP. The next question is, what does high blood pressure do to the body? Well your organs and really all tissue need oxygen to live. In your body oxygen is carried through the blood. As the heart beats, it creates compression that moves blood through a network of tube-shaped arteries and veins, also known as blood vessels and capillaries. This compression or force - blood pressure - is actually the result of two forces. The first force is created as blood pumps out of the heart and into the arteries which are a component of the circulatory system. The second force is takes place as the heart rests between heart beats. When a doctor checks your blood pressure, these two forces are each represented by numbers. The blood pressure reading for a healthy person is 120/80. Individ

uals whose blood pressure is higher than 140/90 mm Hg (140 systolic or above or 90 diastolic or above) most often become patients treated for serious cardiovascular problems.

So you must be asking yourself by now, how can celery, or celery juice affect my blood pressure? Well this underated green giant is full of active compounds named phthalides. It is these compounds that create profoundly healing rewards by naturally sooothing the muscle tissue of the arterial walls thus causing the vessels to expand. This provides the extra space needed for the arteries to move the blood flow at a lower pressure. Phthalides are also known to lower certain stress hormones which in turn, lower blood pressure and support a healthy circulatory system. Celery is a biennial vegetable which means they take two years to grow from seedling to maturity for harvest. Celery also contains high amounts of magnesium, potassium, and calcium. These minerals have been reported to calm the nervous system by instantly neutralizing stress levels.

Looking back through history, Hippocrates who was a Greek physician and generally known as the Father of Medicine, treated patients suffering from nervous tension with celery juice. In the East, Chinese medicine long regarded celery juice as a significant cure in lowering high blood pressure. The Western world seems to be the last to get the memo as only recently has it begun to be researched and studied in the Western world. The first credited study done was from the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) documented celery’s effects on blood pressure. In one case, a father of one of the scientists at UCMC experienced a drop in his blood pressure from 158/96 to 118/82 after only a week of consuming around four stalks a day. That was only eating it celery whole, the juice is said to be more potent in its nutritional absorption. Another test was performed by a physician at the Whitaker Wellness Center and her father. They did a thirty day experiment of drinking celery juice daily mixed with a small amount of orange juice to soften the mildy acrid taste of the celery juice. What was the outcome? The systolic level of the father decreased from 148 to 128, and the physician’s systolic level dropped from 120 to 105.

Now this physician and her father masked the bitterness of the celery juice

with orange juice, but I have a recipe for you that will take your daily dose of celery to the next level of enjoyment. It really won’t matter to you if there was celery in this delicious beverage or not. You’ll be looking forward to this emerald nectar every morning. That’s actually what it’s called, Emerald Nectar.

EMERALD NECTAR

1 1/2 - cucumbers

2 - granny smith apples (about 2 cups)

4 - celery stalks

6 - mint leaves or spearmint - exspearmint!

1 tablespoon - fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon - fresh lemon juice

Run the cucumber, apples, celery, and mint through the juicer, and strain into a glass. Mix in the lemon and lime and drink up! Who knew that making this refreshing juice a part of your daily diet and lifestyle could prevent high blood pressure from ever being a potential health risk in your lifetime. Well, now you do! It’s up to you with what you choose to do with

this information. You

have the power...of celery!

Raw Pie Crust and more oh so easy...

This is an easy delicious and easy recipe for raw pie crust that is also very healthy! Your pie is really only a few simple steps away. All you have to do is press your pie crust in an oiled pie pan or plate, mixed the fesh fruit of your choice with some raw agave, and serve! Now the foundational powerhouse components that make this such a great energy food are the raw almonds and dates. They give the body great nutritional boost which is why I like to also take this pie crust recipe, add cacao powder to it to, and roll out little choco-energy balls to much n through the day! Now take it to another level and roll our little flat circles with your dough, place a piece of fresh fruit in the center, and roll it into raw bon bon-these are my favorite...

Here is your ingredients on the road to raw pie crust bliss:

PIE CRUST

1 1/2 cup - raw almonds (unsoaked)

1 1/2 cup - mejadool dates (pitted)

1/2 cup - raw coconut (shredded)

1/4 cup - raw agave

1 teaspoon - sea salt

2 tablespoons - raw coconut oil

1/2 cup - raw cacao powder (optional)

PIE FILLING

3 cups - fruit of choice

1 cup - raw agave

2 tablespoons - raw coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon - sea salt

Combine the pie crust ingredients in a food processor, and blend until a smooth dough like consistency is achieved. Transfer the dough to an oiled pie pan or plate and evenly press out your pie crust. (The pie crust will harden upon refrigerating) For this reason, I prefer to transfer it to the freezer for 2o minutes to get the crust to harden before I add the filling. Ten minutes in to the crust hardening in the freezer, begin making your filling by combining 1 of the 3 cups of fresh fruit in a blender or food processor with the cup of agave, coconut oil, and sea salt. Next, transfer the fruit sauce into a mixing bowl, add the other 2 cups of fruit,and mix evenly. (You may want to modify these measurements depending on the fruit you use and the size of your pie crust.) Now pull out your pie crust, pour in the filling, and taadaa! Raw fruit pie! You can also make another pie crust and roll out a flat top that you press seal around the sides to beef up the heartiness of the dessert. Raw desserts are awesome because they hold a substantial amount of nutrition and therefore can be eaten as a meal...I always tell people that's my favorite breakfast, Pie! Just another thing I love about raw food, you can have a slice of pie for breakfast guilt free! Look for more recipes like this in my new book, "The Sacred Geometry of Living Nutrition", and enjoy whatever it is you eat! Sat Nam!

An important question from an inquiring mind...

Hi Micah,

> What a fascinating person you are!
> I have a question: In your interview, you said that your daughter knows what her body needs and gravitates toward that.
> But what about the all those obese kids who "gravitate" toward donuts and soda? Their bodies can't need that. Would you suggest that if they were given an array of healthy foods AND junk, that they would go for the healthy stuff?
> Please explain.





Aloha Pam! My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I appreciate your message and intellegent inquiry. It is a valid question, and here's my answer. My daughter has been raised on natural foods, fresh foods, that is her foundation of knowledge intellectually to go off of, but more importantly her diet being so clean has created a clean intuition- a connectedness if you will between mind and body already at even 2 1/2 years old. She's never even tasted these nasty chemically addictive foods so there's no contamination to her internal guidance system so to speak. These obese kids, or just unhealthy kids in general they gravitate towards this junk because it was initially introduced to them in the first place- even if it was a commercial on TV...these trojan horse trash foods are designed to captivate and allure children with their pretty colors And chemical excitotoxins which literally stimulate their taste buds like crack leaving them wanting more and more. The kids never had a chance. Even though our kids are barraged with thE diabolical programming and commercialism of junk food, we can only look to the parents for allowing them to even be made aware that this junk food exists or that it is even could be considered a food and not what it truly is...junk. My daughter isn't going to want that sugar stick or McDonalds hamburger because she has been educated that McDonalds gets 16 hamburgers per pound of meat. One pound! Do you know how little meat that is. So what else is on that dead brown patty? She will have no desire to even taste it because she sees what it truly is. I recently watched this new show with a popular young chef trying to change the food in the school systems if West Virginia which has been labeled the healthiest region in America, and it was disturbing to watch him take fresh veggies into the classrooms of these first graders and they didn't know what they were. they didn't know what a tomatoe looked like! Oh but they knew what ketchup was...they didn't know what a potatoe looked like, but they knew what a french fry was...and even when this chef started making fresh food lunches for the kids...they still chose the crap food...bottom line...they shouldn't even know that crap exists because growing little bodies craving nutrients should not be eating empty processed food, period...thank you again for your question and keep'em coming if you got'em!







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Raw pate' for any day...

I have always loved the concept of a pate and was really excited to bring pate to life...this particular pate is a mushroom walnut sundried tomatoe. It is quick, very easy to make, and is great as a spread or with some crackers. To make a raw pate, simply combine in a food processor:

1 cup - walnuts (soaked)
1 cup - mushrooms of choice
1/8 cup - sundried tomatoes
1 Tbls. - raw Nama shoyu
1/4 cup - red onion (minced)
1 1/2 Tbls. - Extra virg. Olive oil
1 Tbls. - Herb of choice
1 Tbls. - fresh lemon juice or
apple cider vinegar
Fresh pepper to taste...

Blend until it reaches a smooth but thick pate consistency, remove, serve!


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My kind of breakfast...alive!

Raw Apple Pie, the ultimate breakfast...full of nutrients, enzymes, and minerals...this recipe and many more in my new cook book, "The Sacred Geometry of Living Nutrition". We will be posting recipes periodically on our blog, and YouTube channel so stay tuned!

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We all started RAW...

We all start out on a Raw diet-I'm sorry let me correct that statement...if your parents nurtured you the way nature intended it, fed off your mother's milk, then you began this life on a Raw food diet...even when giving your little one extra breast milk stock through a bottle(for daddy's feeding time), as long as when you heat it under 115 degrees, it still maintains it's live enzymes and nutrients. They also have discovered that breast milk, like many raw foods, has anti-cancer properties in it. You eat life, and you add to the life of your cells...you eat dead foods (i.e. baby formulas), and it hinders the life and growth of the cells (body)...you don't have to have any nutritional training or knowledge to understand this...it just makes sense.



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Sacred Forest...

This is the Sacred Forest down the street from my house. It was created by the Hindu monks that own a large amount of acreage of ancient land where it is said the the ancient civilization of Lemuria once existed. They have built the largest Hindu temple over where the lemurian temple once was, as well as a gigantic organic farm/ orchard.





This sacred forest is full of Rudraksha trees which produce the Rudraksha beads that are held sacred in Hinduism like a rosary and are used for japa (repetitive prayer). The berries / beads is also used for treatment on various disease in Aryuvedic medicine. There is a shrine of ganesha in the forest always adorned with flowers and gifts from visitors...this sacred forest represents the sacred forest that exists on each of us...it is full of healing, peace, and can be used for prayer or meditation...or it can just be walked through from time to time. It has a shrine that can be honored an adorned, or can be overlooked...how will you experience your sacred forest?

Cacao Carob Fudge Brownie w/ Raspberry sauce...

Aloha, and welcome to Mandala's living blog!