A Simple Eye

Wander lust bit me as far back as I can remember. The desire to travel the world and eat the finer things in life was the stuff my dreams were made of. My travel dreams came true when we owned a successful printing company. I researched the finest restaurants in every city and the trip centered around dining out. Now, as a frugal, organic farmer living in Fresno -- rather than in beautiful San Diego or Cosmopolitan Toronto or even Ethnic India, both my travel and culinary dreams are largely repressed.

It's hard for me to keep a simple eye with respect to these things. My ultimate dream career was being a personal travel sampler. The king had a taster, and although rich people have lots of money, they all have limited time. My idea was to go to exotic locales, find the coolest things to do and the best food to eat. Plan an itinerary where people could see the hidden gems of the location, be treated to the best health services, like massage and hot springs and eat the finest food. Whether I'm part of the vacation or not, I get excited when someone is going to travel. I want them to get the most out of their trip, whether it's business or vacation.

This past weekend was my first trip where I dined out extensively since adopting a pure food lifestyle. We stayed at the Hilton in Scotts Valley near Santa Cruz. Excellent hotel that I was able to get on priceline. Then we packed our picnic lunch and supper for Thursday since I wasn't going to pay the ridiculous prices for a Thanksgiving meal since we don't celebrate it anyway. I had pre-selected two excellent organic pizza restaurants, one in San Francisco and one in Santa Cruz. I spent a hundred dollars at the farmers market in Aptos buying fresh berries, sprouts and other items for our lunches on Saturday and Sunday. We dined at the most beautiful restaurant in Capitola called ShadowBrook. We ate organic sorbet and organic vegan hot dogs as a junk food thing. This trip followed a day trip to L.A. where we dined at two raw restaurants.

I have to tell you, my body was not happy with me.  When I ate at the two restaurants (both raw) in L.A, I needed to take a 2 hour nap because there was so much oil on their food. It all glistened with it. The organic thin crust pizza was probably the best choice of my trip. Shadowbrook left me feeling as heavy as the raw restaurants. For the frist time in my life, I appreciated what Jesus said in the Bible "The lamp of the body is the eye. If, then, your eye is simple, your whole body will be bright".

As I walked to work yesterday, I took time to converse with my God, Jehovah, and to thank him for the simple realization that it took me a lifetime to arrive at. I have the best life in the world. Every day I get to play with his food creations. I express my creativity and love in the diverse creations that preserve the inherent nutrients and flavors he endowed the food with. Keeping my eye simple by eating pure food has kept my whole body bright. My mind is sharp and alert. My feet tap energetically to the jazz playing at the cafe. My fingers deeply massage the greens, my skin glows with the purity of the food I've consumed and my eyes shine from gazing at my customers, my friends and family partaking, in these simple delights with me.

Perhaps it was an overindulgence in finer things that brought me to the realization that I don't want the life of the rich and famous. Maybe it was the thorough saturation of pure food this last year, or it could have been the little bulge my tummy acquired over this vacation -- whatever the case, I now revel in simple things. As the world bombards you with culinary temptations that will only make you irritable, drowsy and fat -- remember the simple life is the best one.

I finally understand. The glamor of dating, the excitement of courting is the stuff dreams are made of. Especially when money isn't a problem. Some people spend their whole lives dating and courting, touting the virtues of the single life. But it should be a prelude to a much deeper relationship. The excitement settles into a yearning. A gentle missing the person when they aren't with you. Instead of discovering new things about them, you draw on knowledge of your love to anticipate their needs and provide them with what they need so they never have eyes for anyone else. Your mate is what you're content with 24/7 for the rest of your life. When a stud comes along promising the world, you reject it, knowing that empty promises lead to broken hearts. All these years, I was courting food, trying to find the fit that was best for me. But now I'm married. My pure food lifestyle satiates me completely and I must keep my eye simple so that like a naive schoolgirl, I'm not seduced by a deceptive promise of things that aren't real.

I promise now and forever to keep a simple eye. I'm committed to unadulterated foods made with love by our creator to nourish our body and mind. For the first time in my life, with respect to fine dining, I can say "That don't impress me much".

May you too let your light shine with the simple things in life. Pure food, pure love, and pure thoughts.

I remain simply yours,

Ta-raw

www.ta-raw.com

Escape from Crude Reality

I rarely get sick but when I do, it's always the same pattern. I resist the general flu, then a stronger virus attacks and turns into a sinus infection because I continue working when I first get sick. I had not had a day off for two and a half months, and I've had 5 days off this past week. As a little girl, my mom made being sick a time of love and recharging.

I think Indians in general tend to be workaholics, but I've worked since I was 9 years old, and if I was too sick to work, my mom knew something was truly wrong. She would always start off with a head massage. Our whole body is connected to our hands, feet and head-- and her belief was that if you were sick, your body needed help to fight it off. She would part my hair into miniscule sections and apply almond, coconut or mustard oil to my entire scalp.  Then she would massage my head with short and long strokes and finally squeeze it like a large grapefruit. Sometimes a fully body massage would ensue. Then I was to lay in bed (wasn't allowed to watch tv) and read or sleep and eat.  She would prepare hearty lentil soups or one that was a mini black garbanzo bean. She would also make me peas porridge for breakfast. She was always an amazing cook but those tastes were more pronounced when I was sick.

When we went to Europe for the first time four years ago, I marvelled at how much less people ate over there. In France, (Nice and Paris) and Italy (Rome, Pisa and Venice) they all drank whine with their meals. In Nice, Rome and Pisa I ate on the cruise ship, but in Paris, Venice and Madrid we ate like the locals. I was shocked at the prices and we carefully selected restaurants. We don't drink alcohol, but our daughter Laura, who had been to Europe years earlier, said she regretted not trying the wine because everybody said how different it was. When water and wine are the same cost, 50 cent difference, I figured we should drink wine and sangria. We could only afford to eat until we were no longer hungry, not until we were stuffed like we were accustomed to in America. 

Like my mothers cooking, I remember every meal we ate in Europe when we weren't on the cruise. The dishes were exquisite and the wine was warming. The meal demanded that we linger over it since the expense meant it was an occasion to be celebrated and treasured. I was always warmly happy when I finished dining.

This past week, my husband and daughter filtered and bottled the first batch of organic wine that my son Kyal and he personally made at the farm. Our grapes are not only organic, but unsulfured. They have nothing added to them in the growing process other than neem oil. We didn't add yeast or sulfur or anything else to the wine. My husband brought home a bottle on Tuesday evening. After having a glass, I told him it reminded me of the wine in Paris and Venice. In Paris, we selected a restaurant very carefully. It was a cold drizzly day but we insisted on walking so we could see the city I had only dreamed about. After lingering over our meal, our bodies were warm and the cold didn't bother us. In Venice, we ate Italian Pizza with our wine and the evening wind didn't faze us at all. I had needed a hot water bottle in bed when I was sick, but after drinking the wine, I was warm from head to toe. I had another glass and was giddy with happiness. I should have stopped at one glass.

On Thursday, evening my daughter Lydia made an incredible spinach Ravioli with a red sauce. I ate three plates and drank no wine. On Friday, evening I asked her if there was any left and she said yes. She folded sauteed mushrooms into the red sauce too. My husband asked if I would like some wine with my dinner. We both had a glass. The food was unbelievable. That same day, at the cafe Ariana and Rachel were expressing their love in the kitchen. Eileen commented The enchiladas were so awesome, like a symphony of delicious tastes in my mouth! The Chocolate Cream pie was a perfectly healthy indulgent finale to the meal! Brian commented Your "surprise me with something" shake was FANTASTIC! More than worth the walk! Clearly, those customers, like me, reveled in their meal. Like Europe, I knew I could have only one serving of the pasta that day because there wasn't any more left. Like Europe, because I drank the wine with my meal, I didn't crave anymore. In fact the warmth that crept over my body was sublimely delicious. I was sick but happy. I never got giddy because I had only one glass.

It occurred to me then, that in America, we have made our entire eating experience crude. We eat on the run. We don't revel over our meals as an occasion to be celebrated, in fact most families don't eat together and more often than not our meals are consumed in front of the t.v., computer or in our cars. The food we are eating is heavily processed and not made with local farm fresh ingredients like the meals we ate in Europe. If we drink wine with our meal, it is not a house wine or sangria like the ones we drank in Europe made with love by local vintners. It is commercialized wine made with sulfur, yeast, malic, tartaric and citric acid added. The grape juice is often imported from Chile because it's cheaper. In fact both Trader Joes and Whole Foods have jumped on the band wagon with $2 bottles of wine. Americans are given cheap food, cheap wine, cheap soda and cheap junk food. In India and; Mexico, the sodas are expensive, the bottles are small, and they are made with cane sugar. Here corn syrup is added to most of our food and beverages because it's cheaper than cane sugar. Junk food in India, Mexico, England and Europe was very expensive because it is processed and requires machines etc. Organic veggies are cheaper because they're farm fresh and local. Here we can get soda cheaper than water and chips and chocolate cheaper than veggies.

In Europe everyone drinks wine with their meal. In France, their diets are rich with butter, cheese, bread and meat which all can lead to heart problems but they have lower rates of heart attack than Americans. It has been said that their custom of wine drinking is healthful for them. In the Bible, Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for his frequent stomach problems and Jesus drank wine with his meals. In fact wine was safer than water to drink.

For our anniversary, a dear friend who works at a winery in Northern California brought us a 10 year old bottle of wine. It is said that a woman should have 4 ounces of wine, and a man should have 8.  We tried to drink it, but it was too strong for us. We drink maybe once a year. When i drink our wine, it smells like a wine so my body prepares to dislike it-- but it goes down smooth. I don't wake up in the middle of the night like I usually do after drinking a glass of wine. As the daughter of a Sikh Priest who didn't belive in drinking alcohol, I hate to say it, but I can see why a little wine could be good for us.

I've heard the saying, when in Rome, do as the Romans -- but I must say that we have to exert our utmost effort to not eat like Americans when in America. During this holiday season when excess is rampant and quality is elusive, many are caught up in the whirlwind of "American" food. But our bodies are a temple to be honored and kept chaste. Unlike the idol worshippers who ate meat that hadn't been properly bled, Christians refrained from such practices. May we too refrain from eating food that pollutes our body and violates the sanctity of the gift God gave us: life. With our food and our drink, may we choose a little deliciousness over an excess of crudeness.

Encouraging you to focus on quality, not quantity
on value and not cost

I remain,

Ta-Raw Hamilton

www.ta-raw.com, www.revivecafe.com 

 

 

Government Studies support diets that support big corporations

I read a study today that had 22 health experts rating diets.  A vegan diet barely met the 3.0 overall rating. The Raw Food Diet was rated as one of the worst 3.  Why? The article says

2. Raw Food Diet (score: 2.1) 

• Type: Low-calorie 
• The aim: Depends, but may include weight loss, improved health and helping the environment
• The claim: Raw food is packed with natural enzymes and nutrients that help the body reach optimal health — and you’ll shed pounds.
• Promotes: Raw food that hasn’t been cooked, processed, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered or exposed to pesticides or herbicides, including fresh fruits, berries, vegetables, nuts, seeds and herbs
• Reduces: Eliminates anything pasteurized, all processed foods, refined sugars and flours, table salt and caffeine
• Pros: Fruits and veggies dominate the menu; nearly guaranteed weight loss
• Cons: Tedious meal prep; equipment required; lots of rules
• Cardiovascular benefits: According to U.S. News, it’s unclear, but this diet could have a positive effect. “An eating pattern heavy on fruits and veggies, but light on saturated fat and salt, is considered the best way to keep cholesterol and blood pressure in check and heart disease at bay,” U.S. News stated.
• Why No. 19? Experts found this diet to be lacking in calories, calcium and vitamins B12 and D. Its safety was also questioned because experts felt the emphasis on raw and undercooked ingredients resulted in a high risk of food poisoning.

 

Let's get this straight, the only cons they came up with is that there is

1) Tedious meal prep? I guess if nuking food for 30 seconds and sitting on your butt in front of the TV is your idea of fun, preparing healthy meals from the rainbow colored fruits and veggies pictured above might be tedious. This attitude has most Americans eating out instead of making home made meals like our grandparents. But if you don't want to prep, eat them as is.

2) Equipment required?! Are you kidding me? Eating Raw Food intrinsically requires no equipment for basic preparation, it's raw, remember? For the advanced or "tedious" preparation I guess equipment is needed, but is their microwave, stove and bbq not equipment?  The only equipment I know of for advanced raw-food is a food processor, vita-mix and dehydrator.

3) Lots of rules?! One rule folks, don't heat past 118 degrees. 

I love that it's unclear to them that "an eating pattern heavy on fruits and veggies and light on fat and salt is considered the best way to keep cholesterol and blood pressure in check and heart disease at bay." 

The experts found this diet lacking in calories. According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, obesity is now the fastest- growing cause of illness and death in America today. But hey, let's discredit diets that cut down on calories.

Lacking in calcium?! What because we don't drink pasteurized milk that actually weakens our bones? Sesame seeds, broccoli, kale, beans, almonds and walnuts which are all grown locally without mistreating animals are rich in calcium.

Lacking in B12?! Lifetime vegetarians in India don't have Vit B12 deficiencies. Maybe because Green Beans, Beets, Carrots, Peas, and under the sea vegetables like Nori and Spirulina contain Vitamin B12 as do fermented foods like Water Kefir, Miso and Fermented seed and nut cheeses. Vitamin B12 is necessary in miniscule amounts. It is needed in such small amounts it is spoken of in micrograms, not even in milligrams. Regardless of what authorities say, this much we can secure through a diet of fruits, nuts and vegetables as is illustrated by one of the most populated countries in the world, India, where the largest bio-diversity of vegetables is grown and consumed.

Lacking in Vitamin D?! Come on now, Sunshine is where we get Vitamin D and the sun shines everywhere. You can't blame food if you don't get up and get out in the sun. I walk to work every day to get my 40 minutes of sun. I guess getting out in the sun might be considered tedious by nutritionists too, but I call it logical. In India, as soon as the sun comes up, people go out in their courtyards which are in the middle of their homes and this is their living room where they actually live, eat, work and play. In America, the center stage of our indoor living rooms is the TV which promotes hiding from the sun and taking in more calories. 

Uncooked ingredients result in risk of food poisoning? Organic food is the purist, least poisoned food in the world. We can eat it uncooked and unwashed if we want to.  Cooking food doesn't kill the cancer causing carcinogens but I guess that's not food poisoning that's body poisoning which is making millions for these same nutritionists and dr's so they won't mention that.

Here is a link to the article: http://www.hellawella.com/dash-tops-list-of-best-diets-for-healthy-eating-atk...

May you not be duped into believing everything you read.  In the Bible, the Boreans were considered more noble-minded because they examined the scriptures to make sure that what they were being taught was true. May you too examine whether the meat diets this article is promoting is consistent with good health. Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn have demonstrated otherwise in "Forks over Knives" as did Joe Cross in "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." "Dying to have Known" also highlighted the medical communities unjustified attempt to discredit people like Dr. Gerson. 

Like the article said pure food results "in weight loss, improved health and helping the environment", what could be nobler than that?

Yours in knowledge, scrutiny and health,

I remain

Ta-raw Hamilton
www.ta-raw.com 

Thank You

I tell everyone that comes into our 600 square feet of raw paradise that my goal is to be like the general store that existed in the olden days where customers knew the owner and the owner provided them with the basics they needed to stock their homes. Sometimes in this global economy where internet has replaced face to face communication, I think that my goal is far fetched. How happy I was to hear an entrepreneur speaking of how social media is returning customers to one to one marketing where they are developing a relationship with the businesses they shop with. My brother, Jas, kept harping on me that I needed to blog and make videos to share my knowledge with others. Despite the vast amount of time this takes, I have done so as a Thank you to my customers. Sometimes I felt that it was pointless because very few people give me feedback electronically. However, I'm amazed by people who come into the cafe and tell me that they read all my blogs, they record my shows and they follow us on facebook. I guess a local economy in a global world really is possible.

This blog is to thank you. I want to thank every person who cares enough to come into our store and support us with your purchase of groceries, food or smoothies. Thank you for taking the time to read my blogs and taking in knowledge about food, farming and community. Thank you for investing the time to learn how to make healthy food by watching our show Ta-Raw on KGMC Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. or at our free uncooking classes Sundays at 1:00 p.m. Thank you for caring about your health. Thank you for being ambassadors of health to others. Thank you for returning to old fashioned values where your health, the farmer and the environment support each other and the city we live in. Thank you for rewarding my efforts to make nutritious food by coming in to enjoy it. Thanks for filling the social gap left in my life because I no longer go out with friends to eat unhealthy restaurant food. In the pecking order of perfect stranger, kind of stranger, acquaintance, friend and finally,-- family, our shared love of food and health has transformed us from perfect strangers and made us a close knit family and community.

As we approach one year of investing our lives into our cafe and market, I want to thank each and every one of you who has shown a vested interested in supporting my dream and goal for a healthier Fresno.

Yours in gratitude, health and love,

I remain,

Ta-Raw Hamilton

Flu Season and the holidays, any connection?

People have been sick or fighting the flu for a couple of weeks and will typically fight the flu until March. This is directly linked to the increased consumption of sweets from Halloween through Valentines day because sugar supresses the immune system. Many people excuse themselves from having to eat right during this holiday time because of the social aspect of food. However, I remember eating dinner with Ruth Mumby, who is treating her breast cancer naturally with treatment form the Hoxsy clinic. Since sugar feeds cancer, she didn't take even one bite of our desserts at the restaurant. She also had restricted choices because she couldn't have anything with tomato, vinegar or pork because it negated the effectiveness of her tonics. Feeling that her lifestyle was overly restrictive, I asked her if she found it hard to live this way all the time. She answered, "No, life means more to me than desserts and some food." I never questioned her choices again.

My husband was at Costco with our 5 year old son Daniel in the first week of October and Costco put out all the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas goodies right after Labor Day. Daniel saw a woman with a huge bag of halloween candy. He said, in his ever loud, robust voice "Wow, that sure is a big bag of candy. Dad, do you see that huge bag of candy. That's a lot of candy!" Mark tried to shush him and move on. Later, as they were checking out, the woman was in the next line. Daniel didn't see her. Another customer asked the woman where she got the candy, which made Daniel perk up and focus all his attention on them. The woman said to the man, "just take this bag". The man said "no, I don't want to take your bag, just tell me where it is." She said "no, really, I'm so sick of seeing this candy, just take it, you'd be doing me a favor." Although my son didn't mean to make her feel bad, pointing out what a large amount of candy the woman had in her cart, made her reconsider the wisdom of buying it. Daniel loudly proclaimed "I'm so happy she didn't buy that." You see the stores drown us in treats and junk food at this time of year and make it seem okay to indulge. However, since we only buy one treat at a time for our kids, it was unfathomable to Daniel that someone would choose to buy that much junk food because it wasn't good for them.

How about you? Has this holiday season brainwashed you into thinking that eating processed sugar, dairy and meat in large amounts won't affect your weight and health? I've just finished watching a movie "Dying to Have Known" which you can watch on netflix or for free at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dying-to-have-known/  This movie pointed out the link between food and health and also between food and emotions.

We are bombarded with images of happy family gatherings centered around food during this time of year, but we opened our store on November 22nd of last year and most people were far from happy eating turkey dinners, ham roasts and copious amounts of desserts. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I don't celebrate the holidays and although the store was closed, I went into work on Christmas Day to catch up on stuff. At least three people came in for something to eat because they were alone and hungry and everything else was closed. I made them smoothies and shared the warmth of my heart and store with them. Many people don't realize that more suicides happen during the holidays  than any other time of year. I know it's partially because of lonesomeness, but is it also partly because malnourished people make unwise choices? Although most people are eating far more food than usual, they take in far less nutrition then usual because they are indulging. Lack of nutrition is linked to depression.

Many of our customers admit to staying away from the cafe because they want to enjoy the holidays with their friends and family. They feel it's too hard to eat this way when the rest of America is absorbed in comfort foods. I have to admit, that in years past, junk food was a temptation for me too. Now though, I can make pumpkin pie, persimmon nog, pecan pie, sweet potato casserole, portabello steaks, falafels, pizza and truffles that are good for me. Most people indulge for two months and gain between 5-10 pounds and then spend January trying to work it off at the gym. Isn't it more logical to be an advocate for change? As you get invited to social gatherings, why not make love in the kitchen? Take a healthy dessert, salad, veggie platter with hummus, or entree with you. Use these invitations as an opportunity to introduce people to "real" food. The kind that cures cancer and other diseases. One of our challengers last month was supposed to take five shots a day for her diabetes. She went back to the doctor, after eating raw for 30 days and he couldn't believe her test results. He actually had to check that it was her chart he was holding.

Party food is like a one night stand, fun for a short while and then depressing in the morning. I don't know too many people who are impressed with a mate who is faithful 99% of the time, but our bodies are more forgiving. I'm not saying you can't indulge once or twice a week in a meal that isn't healthful-- but to eat junk food for an entire day, days, weeks or months because it's the holidays is punishment for your body. It can't defend itself against occasional processed food without a strong foundation of nutrition. More and more flu has been turning into pneumonia. The first sign that something was wrong for 25% of people that had a stroke, was the stroke that killed them. Don't let these holidays be the straw that broke the camels back. My show Ta-Raw which airs on Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. on KGMC will show you how to make delicious, nutritious food that you can enjoy and share with others.

Don't trust your holidays to industrial food, take your health and your families health to heart, by making love in your kitchen.

Yours in health, truth and advocacy, every day

I remain,

Ta-raw Hamilton
www.organicfresno.com, 559.497-5085, Revive Cafe, 1807 Broadway Street, Fresno 

A land flowing with milk and honey

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years to live." the author of this quote is undetermined but the significance of bees to our food diversity is beyond question. Taggart Siegel's movie "Queen of the Bees" was eye opening. I was a vegetarian growing up and we drank buffalo milk and ate honey. Many people think that Indians revere cows but as a Punjabi, I didn't. However, we took good care of all our animals. When our goat or our buffalo gave birth, they were extra nourished and their milk was left for their calf or kid.  When the baby was grown, we had a symbiotic relationship. We fed the animal well, and, in exchange, it provided us with milk.  People tried to nourish the animal in the best possible way because the healthiest animals provided the most milk. I think the same principal applies to bees.  When we feed our bees well by providing lots of forage that is pesticide free, we have strong bees that produce more honey than they need and we can have the bounty.  Therefore, when the Israelites looked forward to a land flowing with milk and honey, to me, it signified that everything was in balance.  

We live in an environment that is extremely unbalanced.  Instead of nourishing cows so we can have an excess of milk, Dairies ensure the cows have calfs so their body produces a lot of milk. They then separate the calf from its mother and sell us the copious amount of milk.  Instead of protecting our plant life so bees can have an abundance of forage, we monocrop millions of acres with plantlife that doesn't sustain the bees. Corn, Soy, Wheat and Canola are not sources of food for bees.  Although almonds provide a few weeks of pollen for bees, the millions of acres of monocropped almonds means bees can't live here in the valley because they have nothing to feed on for the rest of the year.  I discovered that commercial bee keepers transport the hives thousands of miles to pollinate almonds and then feed them high fructose corn syrup. They hope that there is enough honey left in the hives so the bees can derive enough nutrition from it to stay alive.

Dairy cows used to live 20 years, now they live 4 or 5.  Pigs and chickens are bred to be so fat that they can't stand up. Beef cattle are fed corn that will kill them instead of grass that nourishes them. Bees are dissapearing despite efforts by man to increase bee production by breeding Queen bees and impregnating them. All our animals are being mistreated, and for what? So that you and I can eat meat?

When I was a young adult, I ate very little meat, but when I did, I loved veal parmigiana. Someone tried to tell me that cows bred for veal were not allowed to have a life and they were confined.  I didn't really care because I didn't know how they were being treated and I didn't think that my occasional consumption of veal was going to change anything.  My previous attitude towards meat is now personified by most americans. Because we are so far removed from how our animals are being treated, we think that our individual consumption of meat won't change anything. Because we are so far removed from farming and how our plants are being grown, we don't understand how the pesticides are killing our bees and us.

The Bible tells us that knowledge brings accountability. In Genesis, God told us to take care of the animals and to eat fruit and vegetation bearing seed.  Many will protest that Noah was allowed to eat meat and that we aren't under the mosaic law anymore. That is true, but Noah was only allowed to eat meat because there was no fruit and vegetables. Secondly, people were not far removed from the animals and plants like we are now.  In India, we didn't eat the buffalo or goat when it died. Those animals were a part of the family. Every day they had worked to provide milk for us. The oxen weren't eaten after their death, they had plowed our fields. 

Knowledge brings accountability. If humans started to live for 20 years instead of 80 because of an external force or treatment, an outcry would erupt. But our consumption of meat has created an environment where animals are mistreated and live only a quarter of their lifespan in degrading conditions. Many choose not to learn about our food by refusing to watch movies like Food Inc, Food Matters, The Future of Food, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Forks over Knives and Queen of the Bees -- but ignorance is not bliss.  This ignorance is what is killing humans with diseases like diabetes, stroke and cancer in ever growing numbers.

Although Christians could eat meat, the apostle said that if eating meat made his brother stumble then he would never eat meat again. Although, we can eat meat, drink milk and eat pesticide sprayed vegetables, if our actions result in the mass slaughter and mistreatment of animals, should we not feel obligated to stop eating this way? Or, are we like the Israelites who didn't treasure the perfect food, manna, that Jehovah provided and demanded meat instead?

We have the grand privilege of living in California where there is a cornucopia of fruits and veggies that we can eat year round. We also have organic meat options that are pricey but reflect the cost of life. If everyone in Fresno woke up tomorrow and chose only to eat organic,-- overnight the meat industry and conventional farmers would start doing things differently. They are in the business of making money. If they can make money feeding us garbage and treating animals like dirt they will. If they can't because we demand humane treatment of animals and plants, they will change the way they farm.

If we can't care for our bees by being beekeepers, then the least we can do is grow, or purchase organic fruits and vegetables. This protects our bees who need to live in a pesticide free environment to survive. We should purchase only raw, local honey. This supports the beekeepers who carry the torch we can't.

May you take the time to take in knowledge. Then act on that knowledge. Remember if we are faithful in these matters that may appear to be little, then we will be faithful in much.  May the day come when all of us have the courage to faithfully honor and support a sense of community and well being for each other, in as much, as we have done it for those animals in our care from bee to calf.

Yours in health and kind treatment, I remain

Ta-raw Hamilton

 

Joe Cross's cup is half full, how about yours?

We've all heard the cup adage. Is yours half empty or half full? Listening to Joe Cross speak in person confirmed for me the part of his personality that I found most attractive: his optimism. In the movie when he talks about people who try to juice for 10 days and only get to 8 days, he doesn't consider them a failure, he says "good on you for trying". Similarly he spoke eloquently about his journey of health and the critical moment when he put his wealth before his health.  He was a successful entrepreneur and was spending 15, 16 hours a day working. He started to order in Pizza and consume larger amounts of fast food because his priority was work. He gained an average of 10 pounds a year until he was 310 pounds.

His expectation of doctors, like most American's was, your the doctor fix me.  He handed his health over to someone else. When he took ownership of his problem and made the movie, I loved that he didn't want it to be another movie that talked about the problems. He wanted to focus on solutions. How important is this attitude, and can it really make a difference to your health?

We've been entrepreneurs for many years and one of the most motivational speeches I heard was from one man who told about a childish experience that shaped his view for the rest of his life. He was too young to pour his own milk but was trying to do it anyway when he spilled the pitcher of milk all over the kitchen floor. His mother walked in and he looked up, scared, worried about the mess he made. His mom said "it's quite a mess you've made there isn't it?" He stopped being so worried and nodded his head. She said "well we have to clean it up, would you like to use a sponge, a cloth or a mop?" Now he started to get excited about fixing the mess and started to consider how best to do it. After he decided how to clean it up, his mom said "would you like to play in it before we clean it up?" He said that lesson affected his whole outlook on life. Every time a problem came up in his business, he was excited.  He knew he could fix the problem but he viewed it as an opportunity to learn something he wasn't planning for.

Joe Cross didn't think that his disease that affected him so severely that he couldn't touch anyone was a blessing at first. Now though, he says it was probably the best thing that happened to him because it made him think of his life and his choices. He's now in excellent health and has been for the last five years since he made the movie. People in the audience brought up problems like Monsanto genetically modifying our food but Joe said that he viewed the future positively. He believes that he's going to live to be 140 years old or so. He believes that future generations are going to look at the way we are eating and feeding our kids and they won't believe that we actually ate this way. We are headed towards positive change. People are realizing that they need to make health changes. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on health care in the last six months of their lives, children are realizing that they need to eat differently so they don't have the ailments their parents do.

He said he asks people all the time what the most important thing in their life is, my immediate thought was "my health", he said most people say their kids. When I became pregnant with my fifth child, I realized that I would be retired by the time he was grown and I didn't want him growing up worried about whether his mom was going to die. In order to take care of my two young babies, I put my health ahead of our successful printing business so I could be around to take care of them. Although I'm now a broke, organic farmer, I'm in the best health of my life. 

I believe that it's not our problems that who define who we are but how we rise to the challenge of meeting them. Although the health of Fresno residents is below that of the average California resident, my cup is not half empty, it is half full. Fresno came together as a community to listen to and support Joe Cross as he gave his talk yesterday. Today, I had at least four customers who have been inspired by him to start juicing. I have six healthy children, a daughter in law and son in law that love me as much as I love them. I have a grandson on the way. I have customers that make me happy to be at work although I haven't had a day off in 40 days. I was raised by the best parents in the world and I love all my siblings despite the distance between us. I love my God who gave us the perfect food that brings us awesome health. 

Instead of recounting all my challenges, I make it a point to count my blessings. I know my cup is half full, how about yours? Let me correct that, my cup is not half full, my cup runneth over.

May your cup runneth over with health and love, because you can't take wealth with you when you go. Invest the time and money in reaching good health now so you'll live long enough to see later.

Yours in health, love and hope

I remain inspired

Ta-raw Hamilton

Ta-Raw Warms up the Soup, Without killing the nutrition.

With the announcement that Steve Jobs died today at 58 of cancer, I had to ask myself why people are resigning themselves to death when they are so intelligent in other areas. I too believed there was no cure for cancer until I found out that most cancer is preventable and reversable. (see Forks over Knives and Max Gersons book). But, I have to admit, despite all this knowledge, in the rainy chill, my raw food soul craved soups comforting warmth.

When I first started learning about raw food last year, I thought I would never eat anything warm again. I took a raw food class where salad was converted to soup. The broth was hot and when it cooled down enough that you could touch it, we added the veggies. But I am a soup connoisseur and I have to say, I felt I was settling, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for nutritions sake. A year later and many hundreds of raw recipes under my belt, I awoke at 5:30 a.m. having listened to the rain fall all night whilst dreaming up raw food soup recipes that would satisfy.

Two of my favorite soups are a coconut milk Thai soup and a tomato minestrone. My mission today was to make a raw version just as good as the cooked version. I started off with 9 large fresh young thai coconuts. I carefully scraped the meat from each one and blended it with the coconut water until I had over a gallon of coconut milk. But this milk did not a broth make. We used fresh ginger and garlic and vitamixed it with a bit of the milk until we had a fragrant broth. I then used soaked sesame seeds and sunflower seeds with coconut milk and vitamixed it until it was a thick creamy rue, like the one I used to make with butter and flour.  I folded my rue and seasoned broth into the coconut milk. I grated cauliflower and carrots into short strands and added them to my broth so I had a creamy, hearty soup. I chopped Portabello mushrooms and massaged them with salt and then I diced red bell peppers very finely. I kept these garnishes separate. I added berbere seasoning, grated lemon rind and salt to the soup until it was perfectly seasoned. A slight warm spice with a cool sweet taste from the coconut. Topped with the mushrooms and bell peppers, my Thai soup was beautiful and tasty. Everything my cooked soup used to be, except not warm. 

On to the tomato minestrone. Rachel was in charge of this one.  We used fresh tomatoes from Smith Family Farms and made a tomato sauce. She blended parsley in with a portion of the tomato sauce. She made her rue with almonds, lemon juice, chick pea miso, garlic, salt, black pepper and basil. We folded this into the sauce and it made a hearty broth. We added finely minced leeks and grated cauliflower to the soup. Next, we diced fresh green beans into small pieces and massaged them thoroughly with a touch of salt and folded them in. Lastly, we added some hot water to our tomato soup, making sure we could still touch it with our hands. Our heavenly tomato minestrone was complete.

Dehydrated veggie bread strips were our crackers. We also cooked some potatoes and quinoa for anyone who wanted them added to the soup. Many customers chose not to eat the soup because I think they felt it was commonplace. The connoisseur in me wanted to say "but this is soup, liquid libation to quench your soul." I refrained and secretly delighted in combining the two soups together for a blush soup that peaked at perfection. As each customer ordered, we warmed the soup so we could touch the bowl and the soup reached a cozy 110 to 115 degrees. Warm soup on a cold rainy day. Could there be anything better? No, not if with every bite your food whispers nutrition and keeps cancer and other disease causing free radicals at bay.

I must live well past 58 to see my two babies grow up. How fortunate I am that we run a raw vegan cafe and my lifes work is creating nutritious, delicious food. I think sadly of the visionaries like Steve Jobs whom we've lost to cancer -- but thank God that I left the corporate train behind to care for what matters most in life; my health and the health of those around me.

Encouraging you not to be such a visionary that you lose sight of the basic things in life: health, love and family,

I remain your fellow passenger on the SOL (Simple Organic Living) Train.

Ta-Raw Hamilton

 

Food moods, are you in tune with your body?

Growing up, I only thought of food when I was hungry. I didn't eat three set meals a day, I just ate when I was hungry and filled up so I wouldn't have to eat again too soon thereafter. As I got older I started to realize that even after I ate, I kept thinking of food.  My stomach would be full but my mind kept craving something more... I started eating sweets after my meal to see if that's what my mind was craving, then I'd try a few chips, then something else. Now my mind and my body are in sync. When my stomach is full, my mind says thank you and, like my younger years, I don't think of eating until I'm hungry again.

Would you like to know the secret to this food contentment? It's nutrition. Growing up, I ate organic veggies from our family farm or garden so my tummy was happy from Mom's amazing cooking and my mind said thank you for the nutrition. Corporate America changed that. In San Diego, we didn't have a garden and although my tummy said I'm full, my brain was saying, "nutrition tank on empty here!" Now eating organic, raw food, my body is in harmony. When my tummy is full from the amazing delights from Revive, my mind moves onto something else. That's a wonderful thing.

Face it, if you're thinking of food all the time, you're going to eat more. If you think of food only when you're hungry, you will eat to nourish yourself rather than with gluttony. Mind you, as the chef at Revive, I think of food even when I'm not hungry because I'm constantly planning future delightful meals to nourish your body and delight your taste buds but my food mood is happy and my spirit is one of caring and sharing.

Think of when you eat fast food or cooked food, aren't you tired after? Don't you want to take a nap? We eat breakfast and we're tired, after lunch we're tired and push through the afternoon so we can make it home for dinner time. After dinner we're exhausted and just want to watch TV. Food mood is red. It's on high alert. Our body is working as hard as it can to process the food we're giving it and our mind is stressed trying to muster up the energy to deal with the chores you want it to complete while screaming for you to give it nutrition. There is no better example of this than in the movie Super Size Me.  He certainly wasn't a vegan to start but he seemed like an intelligent, caring, well spoken person. At the end of the movie, he craved McDonalds, sat in front of the tv and his attitude towards his mate wasn't very caring.  

One couple that did the raw food challenge for 30 days said that after incorporating cooked food into their diet again, they were moody and they argued. They reflected on this and realized that they hadn't argued the month they were on the challenge. Feed the body, feed the mind. Depression can be a result of a lack of nutrition. Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Cancer, Autism, ADHD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Candida are all treatable by diet too.  Do you think that these diseases aren't mood altering?

Bottom line?  Your body is your nearest friend, treat it well. If you took a date to McDonald's you might have a different evening then if you had a candle lit, home made dinner.  You are your bodies advocate, if you abuse it, who will protect it?  You want your body to work for you 7 days a week, 16-18 hours a day? Keep your body clean with pure water or water kefir, nourished with organic food, prepared with care to preserve the nutrition and seasoned with love to cheer your heart. Your body wants to love you and take care of you, do you dare to care and love it back?

I sing the same song for the inside and outside of my body -- Can't  touch this. Fast food, junk food, processed food, gmo food, pesticided food, pasteurized food, slaughtered food... can't touch this doo, da da, doo ... can't touch this.

In exchange, my bodies food mood is pretty much always green. 

Our Cooking Show "Ta-Raw, The uncooking show about healthy vegan food" will air again on Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. It is a half hour show and airs on the local station KGMC Channel 43 or Comcast Channel 10. Learn how to love your body and mind this week. It will post on our website www.makeloveinthekitchen.tv after that.

Yours in health, body and mind.

I remain,

Ta-raw Hamilton

www.facebook.com/revivecafe
www.makeloveinthekitchen.tv 

A third of Americans can't cook, are you busy too?

My favorite movie is Kate and Leopold.  I just love Leopolds strong sense of morality and this quote: "Where I come from, the meal is the result of reflection and study, menus are prepared in advance, timed to perfection. It is said, without the culinary arts the crudeness of reality would be unbearable." Like Kate, many Americans choose not to cook and one third of americans can't cook, so I ask you dear friends, have you tasted the finer things in life?

As many of you know, my mom is a chef and a vegetarian so the finer things in life were not associated with expensive foods, but time intensive foods. My father went to work at 6:00 a.m. and mom would be up earlier than him preparing his breakfast and lunch, the intoxicating smell woke us up every day. It wasn't the smell of bacon and eggs but sauteed onions and garlic. Today, many people would consider that a waste of time, but my parents are happily married 50 years later because although my mom never said it, she cooked my dad an "I love you" every day.

I was a book addict from a young age. A scrawny, spectacled girl with pigtails and dark skin wasn't popular in real life but in books I travelled the world and was glamorous! I would forego sleep and food for books. One night I read all night and my mom saw the light on in my bedroom as she headed to the kitchen. She came in and saw me reading. Instead of scolding me she came back with my favorite breakfast, peas porridge. Although she was such a stickler for cleanliness that we had to wash our face before we could kiss her, she said "I love you" every day with the nourishing food she made.

My second love became food. At 10 years old, I would walk into a restaurant and order meals. I was never given the kids menu. I guess I love Leopolds quote so much because it combines my passion for reading and food. I love reading cook books and nutrition books so I understand the balance between flavor and nutrition. I love making menus in my head for five course meals. I love preparing the food to perfection. At Pizzetta 211 they threw out the toast because it was slightly too brown for our appetizer, I love that kind of perfectionism. In my caprese salad this week, I studied about the benefits of balsamic vinegar and its use in the raw diet. I purchased an aged 30 year old white balsamic vinegar, I purchased fresh Basil and Arugula from KMK farms at the farmers market. I used heirloom tomatoes and made a punchy cheese. Like the tapas of Spain, you were meant to eat the tomato wedge with the basil leaf, arugula, balsamic and cheese in the same bite. Few things more delightful have ever entered my mouth.

As others prepared the salad, they didn't seem to care about the perfection of the combination and I think the taste didn't shine. Their attitude was more like Kate's, I'm feeding you, it tastes fine, eat it. Like Leopold, I am tempted to push my plate away in situations like that. I've been to many restaurants and thought this meal could be spectacular if only...  On one hand I can count the restaurants that I've been to where the food was perfect. On one hand I can count the number of times I've been to a meal at someone's home where the food was perfect. I lose count of how many times my mothers meals enveloped me in love and delight. Those moments in time are what every day aspires to. Is today going to be the day when reality will be escaped while I revel in sensory delight? 

My life is spent working on creating those moments. I am restricted because I have to balance taste with affordability but never do I have to sacrifice love. May you too be inspired to settle back to a gentler time when people planned what they were going to make and took the time to make it well. The lyrics of this song are apprapo: Saying I love you, is not the words I want to hear from you...More than words is all you have to do to make it real, then you wouldn't have to say that you love me 'cause I'd already know. by Songwriters Nuno Bettancourt and Gary Cherone. It was a motto my mom lived by, she never said I love you, because from 4:00 in the morning on, we already knew.

For true health, inside and out, may you learn how to say I love you so your family can escape the crudeness of reality.

Ta-raw Hamilton
www.makeloveinthekitchen.tv, www.organicfresno.com, www.facebook.com/revivecafe
tarahamilton@me.com 

 

Open Letter to Whole Foods

Dear John Mackey:

I felt compelled to write you because of the controversary I heard during the Q&A session of Vandana Shiva's keynote address at the Heirloom Festival. Not fully understanding the allegation from a member of the audience that Whole Foods was not a real alternative for pure foodists because of your failing to oppose Monsanto's GMO alfalfa seed, I came back and did my own research.

After extensively reading up on your company's position on GMOs and your 365 brand, I thought you might be interested in an organic farmer and pure foodists view of your market. 

I will confess that as an organic farmer, I had a bias against your company because so many people do one stop shopping at  your store and I felt that your presence negated the need and value of farmer and consumer contact. I also felt that your prices were unduly inflated. We operated a farm truck where we loaded up our fruits and veggies and those of other local organic farmers and allowed people to go shopping on our mobile truck. Most of our customers shopped at your store.  Having said that, last year I decided to adopt a raw food diet and was sadly lacking in the necessary nuts, seeds etc. that I needed to be successful. I abandoned my prejudices against you and arrived at your fig garden location in Fresno with a long grocery list in hand.

My shopping experience was tremendously confusing. Not owning a vita-mix yet, I was looking for unsweetened almond milk. I found organic sweetened almond milk and natural unsweetened almond milk. Not knowing what your definition of natural was, I asked for assistance and was told that your market doesn't carry strictly organic or pesticide free products, your standard is that the products not have any additives.

Next, I went to your dried fruits and nuts section. My questions about whether the almonds that weren't labelled roasted were truly raw received no definitive answer. My children love mushrooms and I thought I had found organic mushrooms in your produce aisle, but since it wasn't labelled as such, I checked with a clerk to insure all your produce was organic but was told that you sell conventional produce as well -- and that those mushrooms weren't organic. That was the second last time I entered your store.  The next time I was excited that you were carrying local stone fruit and I couldn't believe that your price was so reasonable. Upon enquiring, I was told that the stone fruit was not organic and therefore wasn't labelled as such, it was local.

My frustration at sourcing organic, non-gmo fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds led me to expand my farm truck to a retail store front where every consumer who enters would be assured that everything in the store was organic. My store is only 600 square feet and most of that is for our raw food cafe. I now realize that we need organic markets in Fresno. I cannot supply all of Fresno with organic produce, nor can the farmers markets supply it because we are not open the hours you are. I have customers who want organic fruit at 7:00 a.m. and I'm not open. Bottom line, we need healthy, organic markets everywhere. 

Your market could be that solution, but right now it fails dismally. As an organic farmer, I must ask you "what sharing does conventional produce have with pure organic food?" Since there are no labelling laws and you carry food that isn't certified organic, people that purchase your foods are already consuming GMO foods. Up to 70 percent of food in local markets have GMO ingredients, clearly your market is no exception. Since I'm not trying to bash your market but actually am trying to work out how all organic markets can be unified to provide consumers with healthy alternatives, the following are some of my suggestions.

1) Instead of telling consumers to look for certified organic products and your 365 brand, separate your products. Have your store split up. Have an organic produce section with green labels. That way people in that section of your store can be assured that everything is organic and the color of the label reassures them of that.

2) Any food that is certified GMO free but that isn't certified organic can have another color label. All the farmers that you are encouraging to go through third party scrutiny to ensure GMO ingredients aren't used can be blue. Include your 365 brand in this section when its not organic.

3) Any food that happens to be GMO free, organic AND local should have a red label. This is an ideal product because maximum nutrition is achieved from locally grown, pesticide free food.

4) Stop carrying any food that has cancer causing carcinogens otherwise known as pesticides. In Fresno there are four markets that claim to be organic, there are hundreds of grocery stores that aren't. If people want conventional produce, they can go to Food Maxx and Save-Mart, I thought people came to Whole Foods looking for whole or pure foods.  I named my farm and non-profit Whole Farms rather than Pure Farms for the symbolic value of complete, unadulterated produce. Live up to your name and stop carrying unwholesome foods.

5) There are people that can afford to pay the prices you charge. Despite my misgivings of the inadequate compensation the farmer receives in relation to the hefty price tag the consumer is charged, some people will spend anything to be healthy. Become the healthy alternative in the communities you are established in. 

I realize that there is little that just our non-profit and market can do to change the health of the people in our community who are assailed by pesticides. But you can be the mega giant that saves the day. Vandana Shiva said that supermarkets in other areas refused to carry any products that could have had gmo's in them and they garnered customer loyalty. You have the voice, please have the ethics to follow through. If you do, I cannot help but think that all us tiny voices united with yours will make a clamor that cannot and will not be ignored by lawmakers in our nation.

At the very least, the growing population of organic supporters will be your loyal advocates and customers for life.

In Food, Health and Hope, I remain

Yours Truly,

Tara Hamilton

Food War Killing Us All

Just got back from the Heirloom Festival in Santa Rosa, the first non-gmo food festival in the nation. I've been an exhibitor at many trade shows in my life, but this one was truly a fair where caring and sharing were visible everywhere. I took my 3 year old and 5 year old and was convinced that I would have to drop them off at the hotel during the day, not so! They had fun for at least 9 hours each day, every day.  My neighbors weren't bothered by them, the volunteers cared for them, and the numerous kids activities and exhibits kept them enthralled. So, first off, hats off to the Baker Seed Company for the best family friendly event I've ever been to! I met so many fantastic exhibitors like Fermentation Nation, I watched chef demonstrations, there was free movies, Q&A's with producers and heirloom varieties of so many veggies. The attendees were open and freely sampled our raisins and appreciated the work of growing them organically without any sulfur.

The Keynote Speaker was my hero, the foremost advocate of the pure food movement Vandana Shiva, who many of you have probably seen in Food Inc. and Future of Food. When I found out that she was going to be in California speaking at a free event, I just had to go.  Vandana has been advocating pure food for over 30 years, long before it was trendy to do so. She put in perspective the magnitude of what we're dealing with in GMO foods.  She pointed out that this is a war. A war on our food. Many people want to avoid the war. At one conference a speaker said that he has two sons, one is organic and one is GMO and all he wants is for the two of them to get along. They're different but he wants them to co-exist. The film maker of Future of Food, spoke up and said "one of your sons is a bully." Organic food will never contaminate and pollute GMO food, but GMO food contaminates organic crops. How can one co-exist peacefully with a bully except by being subjugated?

Vandana pointed out that when the war was over, war tactics were applied to the production of food and it was called the Life Sciences Industry. There were three things that this industry claimed. 1) Feed the World. Monoculture was needed to increase yields to produce the vast amounts of food needed. 2) Reduce Pesticides. GMO crops like Round up Ready Soy would get rid of weeds. 3) Seed was intellectual property.

As regards the first point, monoculture does not increase yields. Biodiversity of crops is able to produce higher yields. In India where Monsanto claimed that the yield would be 1500 per acre of Cotton, the yield was actually 400-500. As part of our non-profit, our goal is to have a sustainable small farm model where a diversity of crops is grown on 17 acres. The biggest difference I notice from when we stopped our monoculture of grapes, is that our family actually eats from our farm. Think about it, what is the point of owning a farm when you rely on the commercial food industry to feed you because you are only growing one crop? Vandana also pointed out that the "backwards" or "low yielding" varieties were the ones that survived in areas affected by typhoons and tsunami's. The "advanced", "high yielding" varieties didn't survive the climactic changes. Bottom line, even if yields were lower with a diversity of crops, the fact that the farmer could feed himself and that the soil would be getting input from the crops is reason enough to support this type of farming.

The second point about reducing weeds has not materialized. Instead of weeds, there are now super weeds. Indian farmers were told that if they bought Monsanto seed - which sell to the tune of 4,000 rupees per kilo, inflated from the 5-10 rupees per kilo that seed used to sell for, they would not have to use pesticides. They are using 13 times the amount of pesticides they used before. Think about the financial cost, the environment impact, and the health impact of that. Industrialized farming also uses 10 times the amount of water. The water crises is created by our farming methods.

Lastly: that seed can be patented. A patent is given for an invention that is someone's intellectual property. Vandana defined the definition of the hindi/punjabi word beej. J or Ji means life. Bee is the seed. Every seed contains life and propagates life. When we plant a seed, it freely gives life to thousands more seeds. The question then is, who has the right to patent life? Right now we think it's acceptable to patent seed, before we thought slavery was acceptable. Monsanto claimed that when they infected an existing seed and modified it, it was so different that it became their intellectual property and could be patented. When it came to testing their invention, they then claimed that there was no significant difference between their seed and what occurs in nature and therefore testing is unnecessary. Which one is it? Is it different or not? Oh, I forgot, they're the ones with minds not us. We shouldn't be asking questions, just planting their seed and eating the food genetically engineered for us.

Monsanto is creating pollution.  Their gmo seeds are either carried to other farmers fields or they are mingled with pure seeds and they contaminate crops. The governments job is to regulate pollution, to punish the polluter, not to fine the victim. With Monsanto, time and again, farmers have had to pay fines because gmo seeds, which are intellectual property, pollute their farms. If anyone doubts this is a war on our food, please reflect on the 250,000 Indian farmers that believed Monsanto's claims and that subsequently drank pesticides to commit suicide when they lost their farm.

Vanada said that in some places it has become illegal to collect and plant seed without governmental permission. Think about that, the seed that a plant freely gives us is the governments property and we cannot collect or plant without their consent.  The Bible says in Genesis 1:28 that every vegetable and fruit bearing seed must become food for us. That command was issued by God.  All plants bearing seed were a gift from our creator and inherently were meant for sharing, not for the governments to take what was already present in nature and regulate which varieties we get to plant and eat. Intrinsic in the above command is what shouldn't serve as food for us: seedless and genetically engineered varieties. The Bible says that man will dominate man to his injury. There have been 250,000 farmer suicides from drinking pesticides when they cannot pay the bill and Monsanto has taken their land.

There was a call to action last night. Vandana gave us countless examples of countries like Europe who have banned gmo seeds. There have been treaties created to regulate gmo's, problem is, the U.S. doesn't sign them. Gandhi did two things when the British were dominating India. 1) In 1930 he rebelled against the salt laws. The government ordered that no resident was to gather salt because it was the property of the government. He picked up the salt that was on the beach, and would not subjugate himself to British Tyranny, the little island that ruled three quarters of the world. 2) He said that every family should own a spindle and be able to spin their own cotton.  Many people wondered how that would help. His point was that it was small enough that every home could have it.  This empowered Indians to produce their own clothing. At 6, Vandana wanted a polyester frock and her mother said that she could have it, but that she needed to realize that the frock was like a Mercedes 4, the latest thing to make a corporation richer and that the purchase of a cotton frock would put food on the table for a local village woman since they lived in the area where cotton was grown. 

Two questions were raised about markets last night. Vandana said that markets independently run are not a bad thing. In India, most markets are that way. The commercialization of markets is what has failed and we can learn not to follow that model. Second, we shouldn't purchase food from any place that supports Monsanto. I know it's easier to go to one grocery store and purchase all your organic goods but how does that put money in the pockets of farmers who are fighting the fine fight and growing organically? These large chains buy produce from farmers at the lowest possible cost, i.e. 50 cents a pound for grapes, they then charge consumers $3 or more a pound for those grapes. We buy grapes for $1.25 a pound and sell at our little market for $2.50 a pound. The farmer got paid more than double and the consumer pays less. Everybody benefits from small markets. 

The parallel here is that each of us play a role in the food movement. Other countries have banned Monsanto because people stopped shopping at supermarkets where GMO food was sold or supported. They have stopped supporting politicians that supported GMO foods. Every home in the entire world can do one of two things. 1) we can collect seed. Build a bio-diversity of seed so we can weather any storm and feed ourselves with seeds that we collect and plant. 2) Eat non-gmo foods. When we choose to support organic foods and natural varieties, we support bio-diversity. We must insist that gmo food labelling laws be required.

May you stand up for what you believe in, even if it takes more time. I'd like to close with Raw Foodist and Actor Woody Harrelson's words: I feel like an alien creature for which there is no earthly explanation. In money we trust in which there is no happiness. Like a genetically modified, irradiated Big Mac is somehow symbolic of food. Morality is legislated, prisons overpopulated, religion is incorporated, the profit motive is permeated all activity. Can you imagine clean water, food and air, living in community with people who care? Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down, are you going to make the rich man richer or are you going to stand your ground? You say you want a revolution, a communal evolution, to be a part of the solution? Maybe I'll be seeing you around.

Encouraging you to get on the SOL train (Simple Organic Living), I remain

Yours in food and health,

Ta-raw Hamilton

www.organicfresno.com

tarahamilton@me.com

Revive cafe owner and chef

1807 Broadway Street

Fresno, CA 93721

559.4920.raw

911, It's how you view it

10 Years ago today, I was outside my hotel at the Marriott in Chicago waiting for the bus to take me to McCormick Place for our trade show with our eldest daughter Laura.  When the bus driver pulled up to pick up the 20 or so of us, in a panic he said "they've attacked New York".  It was happening as we rode to the Trade Show.  This was day four of an eight day trade show.  Needless to say, nothing else seemed to matter.  Most businesses in Chicago shut down that day and we were glued to our TV and missing the rest of our family in California terribly.  The sense of deep loss and sheer terror made me want to be close to those I loved and be reassured that my world wasn't collapsing around me.

I often look back at that day and think that how the whole group of us felt moments before being told about the attack was totally different than after the attack.  I personally didn't know anyone in that tragedy, just like I didn't know anyone in the Japanese Tsunami but I was more frightened than I had ever been before. Although that day was a tragedy, I have learned a valuable lesson about how powerful our mind is.  Before they attacked New York, the world was the same place as after the attack. Now don't get upset about that statement, think about it. Those terrorists were already out there, they were already planning the attack, they already knew they were going to kill thousands of people.  What changed after the attack was not just the massive loss of life as happened in the Tsunami, but our view of the world.  

Before the attack I viewed the place I lived as a secure, strong fortress.  Had it really been or did I just become aware of the fact that my view was an illusion? Now when I face situations that seem to be overwhelming I remind myself that becoming absorbed in tragedy as we all did in Chicago is not empowering.  For the next four days, business had NOT carried on as usual.  We were so frightened that the trade show pretty much shut down. The businesses remained largely closed. But, other than wallowing in fear, what good did we accomplish?  Looking back on it it now, I could have empowered myself to reach out to the victims of the families in some way.  I could have spent the next four days writing letters of comfort. I could have read books on how to comfort survivors of tragedies, I could have driven to New York and volunteered, I was certainly close enough.  Instead I fed my fear by being glued to the TV.

I've adjusted the way I deal with difficult situations now. I know difficult means something different to everyone but sometimes personal attacks on our character can be difficult and for others difficult is taking care of four grandkids ages 1 to 6, while your daughter is in the hospital. What was the lesson learned for me?  Assess the situation, see if your world is really any different than before you found out about the event.  i.e. before you found out about the character defamation or your daughters severe sickness, did the person already feel that way about you and was the disease already present?  The answer is generally yes.  Then I ask myself, is there anything I can do about it?  If I'm not sure, I seek advice.  Not from friends who don't really have all the answers but from authorities on the subject.  In terms of the sick daughter, read everything you can about that disease, find out what you're dealing with. Remember I'm not saying fill your head up with fear about the disease and worry about if your daughter is going to be fine, I'm saying real knowledge about what the root problem is and are there any solutions. Next take action about what you've learned. Do what you can to alleviate the problem.  It's not going to fix itself overnight, it didn't happen overnight. Although the action or hospitalization may have been swift, there was a long lead up to it. Once you've done what you can, focus on other things that need to be taken care of and that make you feel good. For example, if it's not our daughter that is in the hospital but someone elses, just like it wasn't my family that was hurt by the attacks on 911, can we do something to help the caregiver? Maybe a nourishing meal, a massage, a day trip with the kids.  This flow of positive energy helps overcome the fear and helplessness and reassures the person that you love them.

So today, don't just read about 911 tragedies, reach out to make our family, our community, our city, our world a better place. Remember that 10 years after the attack, you didn't sit in fear thinking about it, you reached out to help someone. Today, I'm going to teach people how to prepare food that nourishes their body and mind. I'm going to spend my resources supporting people working for positive change in their health. We will tape it, so all of you can learn from the comfort of your home later. May you reach out to help people today, in whatever way you can. In with the good, out with the bad.

Yours in health, hope and action.

I remain,

Tara Hamilton
facebook.com/revive
www.makeloveinthekitchen.tv 
www.wholefarmsexpress.com 

 

To be vegan or vegetarian, that is the question

I grew up in a Punjabi family where every farming family had their own buffalo and the ultimate sign of love, health and prosperity was being able to afford to drink milk. We lived in a village surrounded by farm land in the State of Punjab which has a lot of similarities to Fresno. It's an agricultural society and it provides half the food for the entire country of India just like California is the major grower in the United States. Punjabi vegetarians don't eat eggs but they do eat dairy in the form of paneer cheese, milk, yogourt and they cook with butter.  I found it hard then to understand why there was such a big hullabaloo about people being vegan and avoiding dairy in California. I have since then learned the vast difference between the dairy I consumed as a Punjabi and what is provided here.

The one thing that is most memorable to me about Punjab is the scent of country air. When I was 16 and we returned to India for a visit, we got off the plane in Delhi and it stunk so bad of pollution that I asked my mom if we could just go back to Canada right then. Boy was my mom upset. When we drove into Punjab though, the bad smells totally dissipated. Every day for four months, I walked to our farm from the village and the scent of vegetation hung heavy in the air mixed with dew in the early mornings. In Canada, my husband grew up in the country, in Callander, Ontario and when we visited, we smelled the difference in the country air.  Our eldest daughter lives in upstate New York in Wallkill, which is in the country and the air there smells far different from Brooklyn or the other cities. The closest description I can give you to the scent of India is when you are camping in the true back woods and you wake up early in the morning and there is a slight smell of the camp fire mingled with dew and greens. It's an intoxicating smell that you can envelop yourself in.

Fresno is pretty far in the country. I understand we live in the city, but we own a 20 acre farm and we lived in the small town of Kerman before moving to Fresno. On Friday, I drove down to L.A. to pick up supplies for the cafe and my senses were continually assailed by the country smell. Unfortunately, it wasn't the pleasant aroma of India, it was the stench of dairies. I left at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and this should have been the time for the air smelling the sweetest. Instead, I could barely breathe because of the manure scent at the Costco Gas station in bakersfield at 7:00 a.m. with not a dairy in sight. It reminded me of Kerman where we sometimes could not step outside our house because the putrid stink from the dairy was so bad. You've heard the commercials of happy california cows and you see the posters that say, "meet us, meet our cows". Now, the first time I drove to Kerman from San Diego, I was shocked at the first dairy I drove by. The cows were ankle high in their own manure and I nicknamed them mud cows. I lamented that dairy cows who gave milk every day were never allowed to leave the mud and were confined in such disgustingly filthy close quarters. I asked why some cows were pastured in fields that weren't a dairy and I was told they were beef cattle. How intelligent is that? Animals that are only used for food when they are dead are allowed to have a happy life, but animals that daily give us milk are treated worse than human slaves. After watching Food Inc. I realized that most feed lots are just as bad as dairies, the cattle I had seen were organic, free range cattle.

Well, I have to say that the farms in India, Canada or New York don't smell like the dairies here. I don't even know if they would envision degrading animals to such a degree that their entire life is spent in mud and manure. No wonder they have to pasteurize the milk, it is so contaminated you'd have to ultra pasteurize it to kill the germs, along with any nutritional value of course. My husband visited Organic Pastures and my son goes out there weekly and they say there is no stench from their farm. Their farm smells like the ones in Canada and India. My 3 year old and 4 year old both drink their raw milk. Megan brings me goats yogourt and cheese which is also nutritious and delicious. I have to say though folks, nobody anywhere in India consumes dairy like Americans do. Our one buffalo provided the dairy for our entire family. At $6.50 for a half gallon of whole milk, my children drink it conservatively too. My eldest son swears by raw colostrum to beat a cold and many say it helps with asthma and a host of other diseases. Organic Raw milk is high in Omega 3s and is good for you. Organic or regular Pasteurized milk is detrimental as shown in the movie "Forks over Knives".

If my noise bothers my neighbors they can call the police and get the situation corrected. The stink from dairies is not just bothering their neighbors, it's bothering tourists, travellers and people miles away and yet we all put up with it. Driving down the highway, they get to poison my air and we accept that because they are the all powerful dairies. I can't work at my farm some days because of the stink of cow manure but no police officer will respond to my complaint because they're allowed to infect my air.  Well I know a way to stop them, become vegan. If everyone became vegan, there would be no reason to treat cows like the manure they stand in. Or if people only purchased Organic, Raw milk we would indeed be surrounded by happy california cows. You pick. To breathe, or not to breathe seems more the appropriate question. I choose to breathe and let breathe.

Yours in food and health,

Tara Hamilton
Revive Cafe - facebook.com/revivecafe
organicfresno.com
559.4920.raw
tarahamilton@me.com

 

Don't Mega Size Me, Maximize Me.

My husband and I went to San Francisco this weekend for our wedding anniversary and we hung out with customers/ friends of ours who showed us the "real" San Francisco.  We went to Pizzetta 211 which uses organic ingredients when possible. The restaurant was half the size of our cafe but it was the best pizza I have ever had, including the pizza we had in venice, italy.  The place had 4 tiny tables and was busy all the time, I was getting stressed that people had to wait. I wondered when they would move to a bigger location and the guy said he'd been working there for 6 years. They had no intention of expanding, instead they maximized what they already had.  There was many similarities to our cafe with the care they took in preparing innovative fresh food for their clients.  Difference is nobody tells them to get a new location or get a bigger place. They aren't stressed when people have to wait and the people understand they need to wait for good food.  What other striking differences did I notice about San Francisco and Fresno?

1) The people there are generally much thinner than residents of Fresno.  They walk a lot more and they bike. Even when we drove somewhere, we had to park so far away that we got a good walk to our destination.

2) They support the local food movement.  There are mom and pop fruit and veggie neigborhood stores that people preferred to shop at instead of  large Save Marts etc.

3) There wasn't a McDonalds, Taco Bell or Carl's Jr. etc. at every major intersection, instead there was innovative neighborhood restaurants. The food is prepared by people who own the restaurant and make buying decisions with respect to their ingredients. Their food is not all high fat and low nutrition.  The coffee restaurant served organic coffee and the organic bakery served a different organic vegetarian pizza every day.

4) Although San Francisco is much bigger than Fresno, people's homes are smaller and the city is split into small communities where people know each other and support the local businesses. They don't have mega fever, they've learned contentment and maximize what they have.

What did I learn from my experience? I don't have to have mega fever, I can maximize what I have.  Like San Franciscans, I can promote a community neighborhood feel by personalizing my cafe to be a personal expression of my beliefs and convictions in an artistic way.  After all, we are in the mural district. I want to promote the little neighborhood I work in, I don't have to change all of Fresno, I just have to believe that I can affect change in my neighborhood and in the lives of the people I come into contact with.

Let's reject Mega Fever and embrance the contentment that come with maximizing what we have like Europeans and San Franciscans. Let's reject mega chain commercialized junk food and shop at neighborhood markets selling locally grown fruits and veggies. May we maximize our money and make our voice count with every dollar we lay down. Never give up believing that we can be a community and that we can connect with each other.  I look forward to the day that we can walk in Fresno at 11:00 p.m. at night with hundreds of others without fear of violence because we care about each other and the place we live.  I'm planning to change the whole decor of our cafe, so look forward to a more artistic atmoshpere in the next few weeks.

Yours in community and Health,

Tara Hamilton

www.facebook.com/revivecafe

www.organicfresno.com
tarahamilton@me.com 

To Kill or Not to Kill

To Kill or not to Kill, that is the question.  Killing has become so commonplace for people today that they don't even think about it.  We watch violent movies, play violent video games and violence is the top of the news.  The killing I'm referring to though is the kind that is killing us.

I've blogged about Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  The most exciting part of that movie for me was the new food pyramid that they said is the most successful in all history for losing weight and keeping it off.  In the food pyramid you were allowed to eat unlimited veggies, fruits, beans and legumes.  You were allowed limited daily amounts of nuts and seeds.  Meat was recommended once or twice a week.  One of our customers was kind enough to loan me a copy of Forks over Knives, the new movie that is released.  The movie is a documentary by two medical doctors, one who is a surgeon.  They talk about the china study and it's results tracking cancer and disease and their connection to diet.  In all of their research they found that 20% casein in your diet promotes the growth of diseases such as stroke, cancer and diabetes.  5% casein in the diet didn't seem to elevate these risks at all.  Where does casein come from?  Meat protein and dairy.

Let's break it down.  When we kill animals or eat animals that someone else has killed for us on a daily basis it is easy to consume 20% casein in our diet if one of our meals per day is half meat, like in a burger and fries.  Unfortunately, most Americans on the S.A.D. diet or M.A.D. diet, Standard American Diet and Modern American Diet consume meat at every meal, i.e. bacon and eggs with toast, hamburger or chicken burger or chicken salad for lunch and meat, potatoes and overcooked veggies for supper.  That is at least a whopping 30-50 percent meat in their daily diet.  Do you know that the USDA recommends a 5 ounce portion of meat as a serving, the typical steaks served at restaurants are 12 ounces.  So at one meal, you can eat two or more portions of meat.  The result: all this animal killing is killing us.  Sad fact is that for 25% of heart attack victims, death was their first symptom that anything was wrong.

Plant based diets are the answer as Forks over Knives clearly illustrates.  More than that like Woody Harrelson's documentary illustrated SOL living is the solution, Simple Organic Living.  David Wolfe, raw foodist whose parents are both doctors said that Genesis 1:29 is very specific about what kinds of fruits and veggies we should eat.  He said that it is fruit bearing seeds that were given to us.  Therefore seedless varieties or genetically modified foods are not optimal for our bodies because that was not what was provided for us.

In Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, the man who had heart surgery resumed his old ways of eating and knew that food was going to kill him.  He didn't much care about missing out on 5 or 10 years of his life.  Cancer patients are "cured" of their cancer and continue eating in the manner that caused cancer to grow in the first place as Forks over Knives illustrates.  The result? Cancer returns. 

Folks, we're slowly killng ourselves with the food that we eat.  We're killing animals, we're killing our soil with pesticides and we're killing the air and water that support life.  Most of us would never dream of killing ourselves with a bullet and yet, worse than that, we're killing ourselves and all the things that sustain life by the way we eat.  Each of us is personally responsible for the food we spend our money on and what we put into our bodies.

I love what Woody Harrelson said at the end of his movie: Go Further.  I'm going to close this blog with his words, because they are inspiring:

I feel like an alien creature for which there is no earthly explanation. In money we trust in which there is no happiness. Like a genetically modified, irradiated Big Mac is somehow symbolic of food. Morality is legislated, prisons overpopulated, religion is incorporated, the profit motive is permeated all activity. Can you imagine clean water, food and air, living in community with people who care? Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollare you lay down, are you going to make the rich man richer or are you going to stand your ground? You say you want a revolution, a communal evolution, to be a part of the solution? Maybe I'll be seeing you around.