Sunday, April 20, 2008

Passover and the tomato sorrows!

יום פסח I hope you are all having a blessed Passover week. I am going tonight to a Seder at Harei Yeshua but I do have to bring my own food. But Passover is not really about the food. It is about how we were redeemed from sin by the blood of the Lamb (Yeshua). When we drink the wine (His blood) and partake of the matzo (His bruised body). We are redeemed from the curse of the law. It will be a wonderful time with my brothers and sisters in Yeshua, as we share together what He has done for us.
Well there was just a small little damper on the day. This morning I went out on the deck and discovered that my large tomato plants had frozen and were toast. It is strange though that the small plants coming up did not seem to be effected. Oh well, that is what I get for rushing the season and not taking my plants inside on a cold night. You cannot fight or trick nature.
My raw food journey is still going very well. I had to do some clothes shopping yesterday and I have went down two sizes, and I know that I will reach the proper weight. I did not go into this trying to lose weight but instead it was to get healthy. At this time I can say that I have gotten both. It is amazing to me that all those times I have tried all of the different diets that did not work, that all along it was just as simple as eating what Elohim created me to eat. It just goes to show that His ways are always true and streight are His paths. Thank you Adoni for your Word and Your wisdom.
Shalom till my next post.

Friday, April 11, 2008

A More Complete Story

Hi Everybody!
As you can see on my headline I have more than a few interests. I live in Far Northern California in the mountains with my husband of over 30 years and my two dogs. I have three adult children and 3 grandchildren who also live in the area. I am head over heals in love with Jesus because he saved me from a life in darkness and has given me the promise of eternal life with him for all eternity. He has made me find a life of love and peace in a very dark world full of all kinds of evil but, He allows me daily to explore the beauty of His creation.
I started raw fooding 4 months ago when I finally ended up in bed just unable to function anymore. I had taken an SSRI (antidepressant) a few years earlier and had developed bi-polar disorder and psychosis from the effect of that drug on my brain. Yes, I will talk about this because I do not want anybody else to go though the suffering that I walked. I had diabetes and high blood pressure also and was taking handfuls of medications.
As I was lying in bed, unable to do anything to help myself, I heard a voice. I don't know if it was an audible voice or if it was in my head but He said, "Do you want to live or do you want to die?" I had to think about it for a minute but I said, "I want to live." Then, I don't really know exactly how but all of a sudden I knew what to do. Eat raw food. So for the next four days that is what I did. I was then able to get up on my feet and I got on the computer and started doing some research. I ended up going to the website, www.hacres.com and learned there were others doing this and they had gotten well. It made sense to me because I believe there really was an Adam and Eve and I was to eat what they ate. At first I ate a cup of beans for cooked food everyday for my protein. I eventually cut that out when I learned that I did not need it at all. I did not drink the Barley Max or make carrot juice because I had no money for Barley Max and was really too sick to make carrot juice even though I had a juicer. I began to get better and better. It was amazing what happened. I stopped taking my meds and it only took about 3 weeks to not have any of those problems anymore. Praise God, I am free!
I learned that there are many schools of thought on raw diets ad natural health. What I ended up listening to was the Natural Hygiene model of health (Herbert Shelton) and the writing of Gabriel Cousens MD. Some people eat way too much fruit and this will just not work for most people especially for blood sugar types. I learned how to sprout my nuts and seeds and go to farmers market and buy the freshest organic food. I make a Living Pate using sprouted nuts and seeds. The recipe and explanation of this is on my blog below.
Oh, did I forget to mention that in only three months I lost 30 pounds without trying?
I am now putting in an organic garden under mulch using permaculture principles. I am putting in heirloom tomatoes, melons, peppers and squash. I am also adding herbs here and there and also will be planting some edible flowers just to spice things up a bit and to keep the bees in the garden. I do want to add though, that I am not a complete vegan as I do use raw eggs in my salad dressing I make and I also eat sushi about once a week if I can. Mostly I am 100% raw but I guess the little bit of rice that I eat on the sushi is my vice. The seaweed salad I eat at this Asian buffet is so good and I think that it is fresh frozen but it has to be my favorite food. I can't believe it that at this place I can eat all the sushi I want plus seaweed salad for only $7.95 for weekend lunch. You can't beat a deal like that. You would spend that much going to a burger joint and eating that MSG laden Franken food.
I feel blessed to be where I am at right now. It has not been an easy journey for me as I was always one of those people that generally tried to stand strong against the world but I was just about defeated. God picked me up and showed me how to live and I am so grateful to Him for delivering me from more suffering. Just a thought to those who would read this. Pharmacuitical medications are poisons. They may mask symptoms but they do not cure disease. Only the body, the way God created it, without the poisons that we introduce into it (meds, food, etc.), can cure disease. Think long and hard before you put that thing in your mouth and subject your body to it. There is a better way, if you commit to it.
Shalom
Rosemary

Monday, April 7, 2008

Why is the Moon on my blog page?

Here is a little bit about why I acknowledge the new moon every month. As we have went out of the darkness into light by the grace of Yeshua, so I look at the moon and pray that all my ways can follow that path. When I see that first sliver of the new moon each month I praise Yeshua for His wonderful gift to the World, and to me.

The system of keeping time in the Old Testament was based on the cycles of the moon rather than a solar calendar like we use today. In fact, the Hebrew term for "month," chodesh, means "new [moon]," referring to the new moon that began the month. The lunar cycle played a significant role in the cultural and religious life in ancient Israel so that time could be counted by the cycles of the moon (Ex. 19:1). The New Moon was a festival day, observed by burnt offering and sacrifices as well as banquets (Num 29:6, 1 Sam 20:5, 1 Chron 23:31). The New Moon festival was often listed along with Sabbath as an important religious observance (2 Kings 4:23, Ezek 45:17). Like Sabbath and other rituals, it also came to symbolize empty and self-centered religion when not accompanied by faithfulness to God in other areas (Isa. 1:14, Amos 8:5). Likewise, the middle of the month or the Full Moon was an important marker of the passing of time. Two of Israel’s most important festivals fell in mid-month (Passover, Tabernacles; cf. Psa 81:3).

I hope that all will use this feature for a praise to the Lord.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Raw Meaty Bones and Raw Nuts

Wow, this is the second post today but I have more to say!
About the recipe I posted, Raw nuts are not an easy thing to find nowadays. In the stores you will see many bins of nuts claiming to be raw. In fact most of them are not. They are either pasteurized, or fumigated with cancer causing chemicals, which is the law for almonds in California. As for most all of them, they have been heated to aid in cracking, making them dead un-sproutable food. It is deceptive but the governments definition of "raw" is that they are not "roasted". Convenient for the sellers isn't it? Well you may say, " I will buy them in the shell and crack my own." That is an idea but it does not mean that they have not been heated to control all those "pests". The only way you can truly get around it is to know the farmer and buy them directly after knowing their history. There is a few raw web sites where they are privy to this info but their prices are just out of my reach (not that I would not pay it if I had it). So I do the best I can with my local source and if you don't have a local source you may have to mail order them at that cost. This is why I give the option of using more pumpkin seeds in this recipe (you can usually get raw pumpkin and other seeds at your local health food store, and you also could, instead of the almonds, use a different nut. They are all pretty good. Oh, and I will add to this that there is no such thing as a "raw cashew" that I know of. Cashews are a soft gelatinous nut (seed?) growing on the outside of an apple like thing. The cashew itself has a coating on it that is poisonous and they have to be boiled to remove this then poisonous membrane and make the nut firm. They use the actual fruit part to make an alcohol product for locals. I have seen on a raw site them advertised as really "raw" and shelled by hand but I am a little skeptical of this and if it is true and they are super expensive. I feel sorry for those workers and would not buy for that reason alone. So even though they taste good maybe we should just, "Get over them!"
Penny got her first raw whole fish today. Yes, that may seem weird but here is why. She was having pain every time she ate commercial dog food. I did some research and started her on a raw diet two months ago. She has been eating antelope and elk and some ground beef, (my husband is a hunter so I have saved the "trim" scraps). I found this web site http://www.rawmeatybones.com/ that was good info on how to feed your dog and the importance of bones for the teeth and body. I was really concerned at first but I have came to the conclusion that my dog is in more danger from bloat from commercial feeding and poor health from cooked food, than she would be from raw meaty bones. So my hubby went fishing yesterday so I gave her a half of a smaller trout. It was really funny. I took her outside and she sort of just mouthed it a little and left it alone. I then took her inside and I put down a towel on the sofa and she ate it where she usually eats. As she was working on it, tail first for some reason, she growled at my big dog over it so I know that she was enjoying her meal. So, so far so good.
I hope I have not ruined your day over the raw nut thing but we have to be aware of what we are buying and putting into our bodies. This is also true for the pasteurized food in the store. That means "cooked" folks, sorry. If you want to know, "why raw" and "what's so bad about cooked food", just respond to this post.
Shalom
Rosemary

Louie to be missed and a good recipe for live pate.

Hi again,
I am here again and am going to try to post more often. I got a little side-tracked yesterday because my son's dog Louie died yesterday at the age of 12. He was a Chesapeake Bay Retriever and that breed usually only lives about 10 years, so I think he did pretty well. All day we tried to get him to come in the house and he would not so that night he passed alone, like he chose to do. We will miss him.
On a better note, here is a Recipe that I make for a nut and seed pate that is really yummy. Like I said, if you are in California and cannot score any organic live almonds you could just sub more pumpkin seeds for them. I do live in California and buy my almonds at farmers market from the grower, which is legal still. It sure is nice out government is looking out for us and all with new bazaar rules and regulations. It may get to the point that to get pure food we are going to have to act like illegal drug users to stay health. God help us. Please support your local organic growers by going to farmers market or buy direct from the farmer. This is not always possible for everything but maybe we should make the effort to do what we can.
For those who are wanting healing for diabetes there is a series of videos on Youtube on the subject by Gabriel Cousens MD. All you have to do is do a search on Youtube and you will find his lectures on that and other stuff. There is a lot of conflicting info and ideas out there that could really de-rail a newcomer but I think that he has the research to back up his claim. His 21 day program to heal diabetes has proved itself effective. I have taken his advice about not eating very much sweet fruit and eating as much "living" food as possible. This includes sprouts and soaked nuts and seeds.
Here is the recipe for my pate. I got the original idea from the book Living in the Raw, Recipes for a Healthy Lifestyle by Rose Lee Calabro. I changed it so much I call it my own but it has the basic health principles intact. I eat this about everyday but am working on a southwest version to make life a little bit more interesting.

Rosemary’s Really Good Live Pate

½ cup raw almonds (put out to soak night before must soak at least 12 hours)
½ cup raw sunflower seeds (put out to soak that morning must soak 6-8 hours)
½ cup raw pumpkin seeds (put out to soak in the morning)
¼ cup raw sesame seeds (put out to soak in the morning

Drain above ing and then put together these ing.

½ red or green sweet pepper
1 good slice of onion (about ½ inch thick)
1 handful of fresh parley (optional but nice if you have it)
1 T lemon juice or vinegar
½ t sea salt
1 T kelp powder
Process these ing in a food processor till well ground but not a “paste.” If you are using a blender be sure that you do not over process.

Add to this,
2 stalks of celery chopped very fine.
I cut mine up in small pieces and just run a few times in my food processor but if you are using a blender I would do this by hand as it gives the pate a little texture and interest.

You can serve this in a half of a sweet pepper cut lengthwise and de-seeded (don’t pile high just spread about ¾ inches thick as it is very rich food). I have also used it to stuff raw mushrooms and as celery fillings for crudités.

Hope you enjoy this and please let me know how it goes.

Shalom for today,
Rosemary