Raw food vegan provided me a life changing experience!
Quite often I receive the question, what changed, explain?
Well, everything changed!
I’ll try to evaporate them all on this blog, now if you wonder how it influence some subjects that you might wonder and that I didn’t cover yet, please ask and reach out, more than welcome!
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Not so long ago, I paid a lot of attention to material. If someone had asked me 10 years ago, Steven, what is important in life? Chances were pretty good that my answers were; money, work, home, family, looking good and then that hellish cliché, good health that I can't control. Health is something I have to hope for and that a lot of people will have to wish me, otherwise it can get very bad.
Today I know better and I am very sorry that no one has explained or taught me that before. Maybe I didn't want to listen, or maybe it just wasn't the right time. When I learned all that, I wanted to spread that message, explain it to other people and soon came to the conclusion that there aren't that many people looking for these things. They prefer to stay within their comfort zone, complain and don't change anything. I fully understand, I have been like that.
I try to take control of my health, started to change the way I ate and pay attention to the fact that it had the highest nutritional level for my body. It's a great discovery, it feels good and I continue to discover every day in this direction. Nevertheless, I realized that in addition to food, water is also a very important factor in my life and the way I feel. And in addition of food and water, it is air that is probably the most essential need for health and life.
I must admit that I only became aware of my breathing very recently. Before when I started working in my early twenties, I realized that when the stress would be quite heavy in all kinds of life situations, when I would breathe deeply via my nose, in my belly and out again. This would make the situation more liveable and make me less stressed. I just breathe differently, that's all.
I was also used to understanding that by running, when I breathed, I was able to lower my heart rate even if I ran sometimes faster. So, just by changing the way I breathe, to a different pace of calm experience than my running steps, even if I ran faster, put more effort into it, breathed consciously, my heart rate decreased.
Although I have never gone further in this direction, I understood that it was something special. Then after changing the way I ate, I started to explore with yoga, meditation...all kinds of practices in which this breathing takes an important place. It is only very recently, by going to Dirk Janssen's (aka Boempatatman) Wim Hof workshop in Leuven and making some concrete experiences with breathing, that I start to use it more and more and to give it an important place in my life. I live my own experiences and see how they can be beneficial in my life.
In the continuation of everything, I have read Dan Brulé's book -'Just Breathe' which makes me understand that breathing in, is breathing life and energy and that breathing out, is letting go and calming down. The book really invites me to explore with these basic parameters, and that's basically what I started doing from there.
It has only been a short period until now, now it's really amazing! Mind blowing!
Today:
I start the morning with the Wim Hof breathing method, in bed with the windows wide open to get some fresh air in the room.
Move to conscious breathing, performing some general household tasks.
I move on to a session of vipassana yoga (and I sometimes try to alternate them with a practice of pranayama yoga as well).
A little meditation of gratitude with conscious breathing.
A cold shower, really ready for the day with conscious breathing.
Conscious breathing during the outdoor walk during lunch break.
Sports activity.
End-of-day meditation with conscious breathing.
Breathing has received a very important place in my life and I am very grateful for it.
What are your breathing practices and experiences, I would love to hear about them?
I often hear, if I have this or that, then I am happy. Within that, I make my happiness a fact dependent on external things. As a human being, I came to earth and received one of the greatest gifts of nature, my body. I never learn to be very grateful for it, I maintain it in very poor condition and provide it with malnutrition all the time.
On the other hand, the body is so beautiful that it is impossible to buy or pay for it. Nature, the universe...... or whatever energy is behind it, ensures that everyone can freely dispose of it. Often I hear that good health is the most important thing, very often wished on special occasions and it sounds as if I can't do anything for that. What if I could do that?
If I had instead received a Formula 1 car, I would have to study, learn about it and buy some expensive maintenance to keep it running in the longer term. How do I think it will behave if I would throw in cheap nutrients? Why is this something, that I don't do for that precious body, I got for free?
Steven you know, I don't know what is good for my body?
Really? Ok, let's do a little quiz!
What do you think is best for the body:
Water or soft drinks?
Fresh air or cigarette air?
Fresh outside air or warm inside air?
Raw vegetables or fried vegetables?
Fruit or cookies?
Abundance of meat or limited amount of meat? (maybe no meat at all...)
Whole foods or processed foods?
...
Am I sure I don't know the correct answer?
I find it very strange, that I know very well intuitively how high-tech stuff works and have no idea how I can best keep my own body running? I take it for granted from what I hear on how keep my own body running. When I finally know, why don't I apply them? Am I naturally masochistic? Do I love suffering? Or is it because I have no idea about the value of my body, because I got it for free?
Praise the body every day, provide it with the maintenance and energy you know is best for it!
We have all won the lottery with that magical body, I'm not sure if there's a second chance to win......
The first things I would say as a Belgian citizen are: things are going well and don't change.
Really, Steven, it's good?
Today, in 2019, children who should be our future, are still starving on this planet and I say that we shouldn't change, that it's good?
This is a joke, right?
Let's assume that these people have access to clean air and clean water (which still many people on this planet do not have access to) and make a plan to feed them.
What is food?
If we leave out our foreign processed foods, we probably end up with fruit, vegetables and meat.
Fruit and vegetables only need air, sun, soil and water.
I know it can be quite a challenge to create it, now with our current knowledge of growing plants, it should be pretty easy to provide everyone on this planet with fruits and vegetables.
However, when it comes to meat, it is much more challenging.
Why?
For animals, what does for example a cow eat to provide me with the hamburger? Right, (fruit) majority vegetables.
That means that we don't eat the fruit and vegetables ourselves, and feed the cow with it to get the meat I think I need.
2/3 of all agricultural land worldwide is cultivated to feed animals.
I need at least 8 calories to feed to the animals, to get 1 animal calorie back.
That means that if I would use these fruits and vegetables on 2/3 of all agricultural land worldwide and feed them to the people, I would be able to feed at least 8 times more people with calories.
We are now with 7 billion, which means that we can go up to 56 billion, the future looks good, I would say.
Of course we're not that smart, we really want to insist on eating meat above every moral aspect.
Today we are with 7 billion and of course a large part of them has no access to meat, in the near future we are 10 billion, how are we going to feed them?
If we can make alternative meat from fruit and vegetables, then fewer calories need to be made, then that seems to me to be the only solution for the long term future.
That is why I am convinced that sooner or later we will all be eating plant based.
Why do we still eat meat, are we afraid that we will have a shortage and because we love its taste?
If we can offer the same, with the same taste and without cruelty to animals, who wouldn't buy it?
Since we're talking about calories, imagine that you're out in nature, just with:
A friend
A chicken
A cow
Some plants
Some fruit trees
And now you are starving to death.
What would your first instinct be to eat to survive?
And do you eat that thing raw and kill it yourself?
Since there is an abundance of all that in our modern world, make sure this is the choice you make today!
A small video on the subject:
If you want to know more about this topic, The Good Food Institute is also an excellent resource for the topic: https://www.gfi.org/
For those who have read this blog, know that I can really enjoy a salad. I am a big fan of greens. When I was looking for vegetables that were suitable for me for the sport, usually get energy and of course good recovery, in the U.S., kale seemed very popular for that. I regularly had the opportunity to taste it in the U.S..
Here in Europe it was hard to find in the beginning (a few years ago). In Dutch it is 'boerenkool' and in French it is 'chou frisé'. While searching for it in the organic shops, I started to find them more and more. Everything about the law of attraction, I think.
I really like its strong taste and started to experience with it, in green juices, to make kale chips… and to eat them as a salad, it took me some time to find a receipt that suits me.
Here I share my top receipt, for a raw kale salad.
Try it, it's very easy!
First of all I have to buy my organic kale, mostly in local organic shops, I buy mine in Beauvechain at the local organic farmer = http://www.lepotagerdelise.be.
Often there are still some small animals such as aphids on it. I used to think that, the kale is no longer good because there are aphids on them. Actually I find out in nature that the opposite is true. If there is nothing on it, be careful, maybe there are some pesticides on it. Most of the instinct of animals, works much better than the instinct of humans, and they know what is good for them and what is not good for them. So on a vegetable full of pesticides, they won't go, on a vegetable full of energy, they will not hesitate to sit on it.
Cleaning kale takes a little time, now it's not complicated at all. Take 1 kale branch, remove the leaves you are going to eat and don't use the stem. The stem is very hard, has a very strong taste and I don't like it in the salad. So I don't use them in it and keep them for a juice (together with apples, ginger and cucumber for example). These stems can be kept for a few days in the fridge.
Put all the kale leaves in the sink, cover with cold water so that all the leaves are covered, add a little vinegar in the water and stir. Leave the kale in the water for a few minutes and stir regularly.
After 5-10 minutes, remove the leaves one by one (I always do a small visual inspection) and put them in a salad spinner to make them as dry as possible.
When they are dry, I put them in an air-free storage container. This container can be kept in the fridge for a few days (I don't do more than 3-4 days).
The day I want to eat my kale salad. I take the part I want out of the container, cut an avocado (or more if the part is larger, can be done on my own taste experience) and put it on top of the kale part. I add some pepper and then start massaging the kale, avocados and pepper together.
For the amount of avocados and pepper, I have really experienced and found my own preferences.
As it is, I let the salad rest a bit, +-5 minutes minimum and then it's ready to eat.
On top of the kale/avocado salad, I often have some other vegetables, typical vegetable sprouts, cucumber, olives, onion, parsley, mushrooms, peppers, chickpeas, lentilles, quinoa....
Bon appetit!
If at some point you find a beautiful kale receipt that works for you, please share it with me, I'd love to hear about it!
