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.

How is Your Heart Beating?

As healthy people, we are aware that everything we put into our bodies affects our health, but do we stop to think of what's coming out of our body?  I have the privilege of meeting and serving awesome people at our cafe.  Many of them become near and dear to me.  Sometimes they're happy and sometimes sad, what can I say ... Life Happens.  Over the years I've had to deal with too many stresses to mention but I realize that there is a simple philosophy for keeping your heart beating strong.  Remember the serenity plaque "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference." In these difficult economic times, hard working people are having a tough time paying bills.  In the morally bankrupt environment we live in, parents are struggling to raise responsible children and single people are struggling to be contributing community members.  50 Years ago, nobody would have believed that the number one problem among our younger generation would be drugs and alcohol.  50 Years ago, nobody would have believed that people would choose to eat food that kills them because it tastes good. And that they would feed it to their kids because they're too busy to make wholesome food and they don't educate themselves about the difference. 50 Years ago, people would have been shocked that foreclosures would be a problem affecting mililons of Americans.  In this depressing climate how does the serenity plaque help us?

I always think of it in reverse order, I start with praying for Courage to change the things I can.  Every morning I wake up and make time for my two honey bears, Daniel and Sarai who are 4 and 3 years old.  After our daily text, I stay in bed working on the computer until they wake up at about 7:15 a.m. so they can cuddle with me.  We read books as time allows.  At 8:00 a.m. I hug them and kiss them and bid them adieu as I head off to work.  I walk 40 minutes to our store so I can prepare food with love for the people I love.  I work as hard as I can until 7:00 p.m. when our store closes.  During that time, I co-ordinate with my older children and try to train them to carry our their responsibilities so that they will be able to carry on without me in the future, should the need arise.  I always try to do the right thing.  By my family, my friends, my customers and my God.  This can be a challenge since there are scammers trying to bilk you at every turn.  I've learned you can't control everything but you can keep your heart beating strong and hard.

At work, we can't change the people around us, but we can make sure they don't change the happy, loving people we are.

At home, we can't make our children be who we want them to be, but we can make sure that we don't give up on them because they don't treat us the way we treated our parents.

With our money, we can't always earn more, so we can try to spend less. Figure out what we need and be content with those things.

 

At work, we show courage by being the best workers we can be, no matter how tired we are.

At home, we show courage by being the best parents we can be and making time for our children no matter how many other demands there are on our time.

With our money, we work hard and smart so we don't squander our money on late fees, service charges, parking tickets, speeding tickets and fines that could have been avoided with planning.

With our heart, we accept who we are.  We discern where we need to make changes so we can take better care of ourselves and our families. Then we give, give, and give until we are spent.

We trust that there is indeed more happiness in giving than in receiving.  

 

Find joy in all you do so your heart beats hard and strong, Find the courage to do the right thing so your heart beats true and your heart beats steadily, not giving out until there is nothing left to give.

May what comes out of you be as pure as the organic untainted food that goes into it.

Yours in health, inside and out,

Tara Hamilton

www.organicfresno.com
tarahamilton.com
facebook.com/revivecafe

Revive Cafe
1807 Broadway Street
Fresno, CA
559.4920.raw