Fantastic Friday Night!!!

Last night I went into town to Victoria & Valya Boutenko's Green Smoothie Revolution tour lecture/talk. All I can say is WOW. Over 100 people attended the event. Both mother and daughter are wonderful speakers, sharing their story of transformation onto a raw food diet 16 years ago... Valya has such a wonderful gift of being fully present and her energy is just radiant. Victoria shares what she has learned about greens and raw foods in a way that is non-threatening to those on a SAD diet... it's just one woman sharing with others, like we're good friends. Easy to relate to.

I hadn't (up to this point) thought much about just how much the Industrial Revolution really revolutionized (lol) the way we were eating. Suddenly with the advent of refined foods like white flour and sugar, as well as the invention of canning, our diets changed rapidly over a very short amount of time (evolutionarily speaking). Here we are, less than 10 generations removed from the Industrial Revolution 180 yrs ago, yet it feels like forever-ago, and we're having (as a society) so many health problems that have "no known cause and no known cure."

I want you to try something: how many children in your elementary school class (pick a grade, any grade) wore glasses? Ask someone 20 or 30 or 40 yrs older than you the same question. Now look at a classroom today. It's a very poignant observation Victoria makes that eyesight seems to be quickly degenerating between generations. What's going to happen to our grandchildren or greatgrandchildren?!

I learned things last night about nutrition - I'm not one for memorizing facts... - I wasn't aware that Vitamin K is exclusive to dark leafy greens. Apparently it helps prevent heart disease, creates cartilage and blood cells. Here's another interesting experiment: look at a picture of people from 50 or 100 years ago and then look at a group of people from today. Who has bigger ears? If, as a society, we are becoming increasingly deficient in vitamin K, then it stands to follow that our bodies are making less cartilage and our ears, nose, chins, even knees and spine have less cartilage in them than even 50 yrs ago (thus, smaller ears, for example). Could this be why we need knee and hip replacements as we age now? Could this be related to the increase in spinal surgeries?

Here's another question to ponder: with what do you hear your thoughts? it's not your ears, is it. so what exactly are you hearing your thoughts with? do you have an inner ear somewhere? do you routinely take the time to ponder things like this with those around you? it's a wonderful thing to take the time to just BE with a child like this. They have such creative insights!

Valya talked about the food imprint and things we are habituated to - things like eating late at night, overeating, finishing everything on our plates, emotional eating... And how challenging it can be to overcome the food imprint (which is imprinted between 9 & 18 months of age!) and change our eating habits. (I can attest to this, lol).

Just as an aside, I'm going to compile a list of dark leafy greens I commonly have access to:

• dandelion leaves
• parsley
• kale
• chard
• spinach
• arugula
• miner's lettuce
• nettles
• sorrel
• clover
• chickweed
• purslane
• lambs' quarter
• bok choy

Any others you can think of? Victoria said she rotates about 100 different types of greens in her diet. I can't even NAME that many. good grief!! there is SOOOOO much abundance and opportunity in nature isn't there.

Re-reading this, it seems a little disjointed, like it doesn't flow well together. please excuse that. :) Hope you have a great day!