I try to be always connected!

So my phone, computer, tablet, tv...they are always open, active, charging and of course connected to the internet with all notifications open and beeping as loud as possible. I don’t miss anything.

NOT, of course, this is not the connected I wanted to talk about. Or maybe a little bit, this is the fake one I’ve disconnected from after I changed my food habits, for quite a long time now.

The main connection I talk about here, is the one with myself and my surroundings. I knew before of course that the fake connection is not what is best for me, now before my changing food habits, I had no clue of what another connection with myself might look like. I try to be as present as possible and really experience what is happening in the now. The connection I try to have is to go mindfully thru every experience and be there.

I realized quite fast that mail, email, sms, social app notifications… all create that kind of craving off. And for some it is what they want, now I can assure that it was not something for me.

I can enjoy sometimes the flirty side of communication, now it definitely has his limits for me. If the fake connection is resulting that I'm not present, then it's all over for me.

As soon as I realize that I too much depend on it, I change direction, since it really disconnects me from reality and brings me in some kind of environment that is completely fictional.

I feel really that in the world today, I'm constantly challenged and influenced in order to not think too much about my real connection to live. People are paid to bring out distractions that make me go on without thinking, and especially don’t have a possible difficult moment alone with myself. I have enough of these distractions, that’s not life for me!

I happily found a connected live with disconnecting from the fake one! I decide when it is good to connect and have more than faith that everything that has to come to me will find his way, no fake connection needed for that.

I feel… (the real connection of Werchter in the 90’s!)

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #freedom #giveupfear #realconnection #connectedtolife #connected #moby

Clean my body!

Like I explained here, I was mainly looking to get a better connection with my body, and my changing food habits provided me this completely.

With progressively changing my food habits, I realized that a lot of things that I saw previously as bad, or being ill, were in fact signs that my body was working in an excellent way.

It cleaned and clearly showed that to me in a natural way.

In the beginning, since it is a changing condition, there is of course fear of the unknown. What if this clean feeling is actually being ill all the time? Am I not more ill than I used to be before?... All these questions are a normal state when I change something that has been for so long the standard.

Today for me, there is really no way back, I love this new life, way too much.

Even if the confrontation is sometimes hard. I wanted to feel things more natural, well, I do today, now they are not always things I want to be reminded of.

Especially went it comes to mental and emotional things, since yes, I feel also these much more natural.

When the confrontation is hard, on the short moment, the ignorance I had before, looks like more attracting for them. Now this is very short term, since it will come back to me till I’m ready to handle it correctly.

By feeling all this, I can every day, work on myself in becoming a more authentic best version of myself, I love this life and could have never imagined just changing the way I eat could bring that to me!

I look today everything in the eye as an opportunity, rather than running away from it and trying to ignore it like I used to before

‘if you change nothing, nothing will change’

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #freedom #cleanbody #change #changenothingnothingchange

Communication and marketing of Vegan products.

Whether I like it or not, I'm influenced all over the place and quite often even unconscious. When it is for something I've been waiting for, for a long time, this can be great. Now quite often it creates a feeling of me wanting things I don't need, that I would normally not buy and are quite often not at all very good for me.

The solution for it, I should not watch them, now like nicely illustrated in the movie FOCUS with Will Smith, in the majority of cases I've no clue till which level I'm influenced. It might be wiser for me, to look for myself rather than trying to avoid outside factors. To set in question my consumption level, rather than trying to avoid to be influenced.

For every purchase I do, I ask myself;

• Why do I buy this?
• What if I didn't buy it?
• Is it really necessary for me to survive?
• If it is not the first time, do I really need more of them?
• If I think that it will make me happy, will it really and for how long?
• Presume I have to buy it to survive, do I buy the most friendly one I know for the planet and the people that have contributed to it even if that is more expensive?
• …

To question myself like that, reliefs quite often the marketing techniques used on me and helps me to work as well as I can to my globally known over consumption.

Of course, if I consume, it is better if it is cruelty free, ethical,... so regarding Marketing of Vegan products, I tend to believe that, the marketing is more efficient if people don't see anything related to vegan (it increases the target audience also tremendous, see more about that, in this great book from Tobias Leenaert).

I might see vegan as a very positive thing, now by not changing my point of view too much, I might also see vegan as a very negative thing. If a word can be so easily interpreted in 2 completely opposite meanings, it might be more fruitful not using it.

Not using it, how do I communicate with my customers than?

Take out the positive side and focus on that. If you are e.g. making tasty vegan food, rather than saying ‘tasty vegan food’ use ‘very tasty cruelty free plant based food’. In my point of view, if people have to try one of the above, the majority are more attracted by the second. Now if that ‘tasty vegan food’ is primarily ‘tasty', since finding that all normal food should be plant based and cruelty free, then why not try ‘very tasty natural food’ or even ‘very tasty food’.

It is really something a lot of vegan companies are applying today with big success. The restaurants ‘Little Pine’ and ‘Crossroads’ in Los Angeles are excellent examples of that. A lot of people in there whom I talked to, didn't know they ate vegan, they go there because it is good food for everybody and nice place.

Yeah, and then vegans don't know?

The vegan community is a very active searching and communicating community. If I want them to know, should be pretty easy and straightforward to reach.

A last, more personal influence I find, are colours. If in the positive message from a company there are also nice colors in it, then I'm influenced very heavily.

Let me take 2 examples out of the vegan world to illustrate that, which of course I find both wonderful acts, I'm just talking about the effect of their marketing to me.

Bite Back

They work to reduce animal suffering and doing great work. Now when I personally see the pretty dominant black in the communication, I'm not at all attracted by that. I try to support them in events, with their work, now I will not very fast wear a t-shirt from them or have somewhere a sticker or so. I'm a very passive supporter.

HappyCow

They make a platform for finding very easily vegan restaurants and health stores all over the world. They use a nicely drawn happy cow as their logo, with happy colors in it and with a green background on their stickers. I love their stickers and love to wear their t-shirt that says that I love veggies.

So what I want to explain from my personal point of view, is that if Bite Back would have a nice green t-shirt, with a picture of what can be seen as a happy duck, with written under that ‘I'm happy thanks to Bite Back’ or ‘I’m all love thanks to Bite Back’ or even more provocative ‘I've not been eaten thanks to Bite Back’ I would feel much more in-line with that and probably increase my support.

Wow, it looks like I'm today, unconsciously influenced by their marketing, unfortunately from a negative side and I hope that I'm the only one like that, so they have plenty of 100% supporters.

For me personally, let the positive and colorful side shine on the cruelty free, ethical and plant based world!

Thank you Bite Back, Thank you HappyCow… for doing what you do!

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #plantbased #veganmarketing #colors #crueltyfree #biteback #happycow

Love - Life - Live - Love!

I’m quite often surprised to hear that some love more, artificially created things above nature, or more precisely the body.

I do believe that we are spiritual beings living a human experience, so I could potentially say if I’m a spiritual being, the body is not that important.

That is partially correct, it of course depend on what kind of human experience I want to live?

For example, in my car I put this specific extremely expensive fuel, very specific oil...and why is that? Because that is how it works best, will last longer...so it will really be at its optimal performance.

What kind of fuel, oil… do I give to my body?

Is it mainly soda, biscuits , sugar, meat, carbs…

We might then expect it to be the most expensive and best quality of that stuff, right?

No, are you crazy, I look for the cheapest one?

Why is that?

Because I need money to buy more things like my car?

Is this world crazy?

Ok, back to the car, what happens if you set in bad fuel, bad oil...what happens?

It will not work very well, might get damaged, it might even stop working and I definitely lose my warranty.

How do I think my body will behave, if I treat it badly, like I treat my car here above?

So it looks like I have some kind of influence on the human experience that I’m having here.

It’s my choice as a spiritual being of how I will live my human experience.

Yeah, now for my car I know exactly what is good, I do not know that for my body.

Well, perhaps more than time to start learning about it right?

And do I really don’t know?

Let’s have a quiz;

Water or soda?

Fruit or refined sugar?

Whole food or processed food?

Vegetables or meat?

…

I know all the answers about what is good for me, now during my daily choices I ignore it because I prefer the sensation of what is less good. Fair enough, now I might have to face the consequences for that… I should think at the ride of my maltreated car, is that really what I want?

Do I like my car more for a ride than my human experience ride in my body?

Why is that?

I know that I’ve to ‘give love to get love’, if I don’t give love to my body, I don’t have to expect to get it out of it.

A question I ask myself is, if I don’t love myself, how can I love others?

I changed that point of view, today everyday I wake up, I try to be the best version of myself in all aspects.

To do that, I started to give my human experience body the love, attention, fuel, oil...with my change food habits and enjoy it to be what I describe as its optimal performance!

Love is all around.

One of my energy smoothies after sport; apples, bananas, kale, spirulina, ice cubes and some water.

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #love #loveyourbody #goodenergy

Best restaurant in the world!

I’ve been travelling a lot around the world from France, Spain, Italy, UK… to New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Portland, Canada...to even Tokyo!

I’ve been to restaurant in all different kinds and flavors in those places.

Personally for me, an excellent restaurant experience is a whole package.

It starts with how easy can I reserve, location, the place itself, decoration, atmosphere, the staff, other people in the restaurant...and of course the food!

With my changed food habits, I of course started to explore restaurants proposing that kind of food and quite often having exceptional experiences.

Now if there is one that sticks with head and shoulders out of all the others, it’s ‘Eten vol leven’ in Antwerpen.

Probably the reason, why they say, that I have to appreciate what is in front (or close) of me. Since quite often I’m searching all over the world, to not see, that what I’m looking for is just in front (or close) of me.

After I discovered it, I made having lunch in ‘Eten vol leven’ a one day event in Antwerpen and found it so exceptional.

It had it all, it was a great place, the staff has been very present (always open for a talk, as well as leaving me in peace enjoying the taste at some other moments), every dish was freshly prepared over and over again with a lot of passion and love. They are for me among the best raw chefs I know and have been truly inspiring to me.

When I have found such a wonderful place, I personally imagine that it will be a booming place to be and it never came to my mind or imagine that such a place is stopping their activities.

It was then quite a shock to hear from the owner that he will close down the place and that it is time for something new. So I was like, it had it all, what’s wrong?

Of course I understand and respect the decision, now from the other side, I felt very emotionally touched by that. To my eyes, people that setting all their love and passion in it, creating such a great place and then changing direction was like not compatible.

Over time when going back to other restaurants over the world, I realized that some others stopped activities as well.

Since I find the ‘raw living food experience’ one that everybody should at least have a chance to experience, I became a member of the ‘Tables Végétales’.

In which we try to propose a ‘raw living food experience’ 4 times a year, for everybody possible to join us and next one is on 24 November 2017 (contact me if you wish more information).

Through this experience, we see the challenges that amazing restaurants like ‘Eten vol leven’ had to go true, and I have to say that the appreciation is only increased by it.

Now why do these amazing ‘raw living food’ restaurant stop activities?

My personal view, based on what I’ve learned on the subject.

The first one, for the moment only very limited amount of the people are looking for great ‘raw living food’.

The second one, when I make ‘raw living food’, I’m extremely conscious about my ingredients and the quality of it. Which makes it food difficult to conserve over longer time and very expensive to make. So I end up with expensive food, which only an even more limited amount of people is appreciating and ready to pay for.

The third one, these extremely motivated people that are ready and appreciate to pay for ‘expensive’ raw living food with amazing ingredients, love to cook for their own as well. So they don’t go every week or month to a restaurant.

So these 3 points result in my personal opinion that the target audience for such a restaurant is becoming so selected, that it is very difficult to succeed in it with great excellent results.

For those who still see it as an opportunity, out of my research, I learned that success increases very high if also alcohol drinks are proposed in the restaurant, and if I can make it a fancy place with great tasty food, without talking about ‘raw living food’ or 'vegan' or... that might contribute to the success as well.

Now if some want to experience; ‘raw living food’ you of course still can, via;

‘Tables Végétales’ or via all the excellent workshops or experiences like;

http://www.etenvolleven.be/

http://www.julieslifestyle.com/

http://www.lechampdeletre.be/

Jeûne et alimentation vivante

http://www.gudrun-scholler.be/

...

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #etenvolleven #julieslifestyle #rawlivingfood #rawfood