"This poem came about at the intersection of my passions and obsessions: the often unbelievable cruelty of life, the total unknowability of death, and our fundamental need to believe that there is someone who cares about us out there somewhere. When, in early 2010, I heard the coverage of Haiti's earthquake on NPR (another passion), I was inspired to do further research into the beliefs of Vodouisants in Haiti and to imagine how desperately they must pray for relief from the calamities that continue to beset their country, how abandoned they must feel in this life, and how ready to welcome the next. Though most of us will never experience anything remotely as horrific as the people of Haiti have, I hope the poem conveys compassion for the inevitable physical and spiritual suffering of this life and hope for a better deal in the afterlife."
The Vodou Afterlife
If we believed, as NPR says the Haitians do,in 16 reincarnations, half as men,half as women, with a year and a dayin "the water" between each,we could live for 800 years,
give or take, with a different bodyeach time, so that even when earthquakescome, and hurricanes, and heart attacks,even when help is hard to come by,there is always next time, another chance
to hear what the rocks say, sense how the trees feel,to learn again what the animals know.Vodouisants are smart enough to knowthat their big guy god, Bondye, is far distantfrom creation, and cannot be held accountable,
so they send their prayers to the loa,lesser spirits, like Papa Legba,the guardian of the crossroads,Erzulie Freda, the spirit of love, Simbi,the spirit of rain and magicians,
Guede, the guardian of death.They don't stick pins, not anymore, butmake fake people out of discarded shoesand nail them on trees near the cemetery,messengers to the otherworld, to say hello,
maybe, or help us out with these hurricanes,or send us some rain in this unbreathable heat,or give us strong magic, or to scream enoughwith the crossroads already, we're already dead.Send water, Erzulie Freda. Send shovels.
A Raw Revolution
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By JOANN KLIMKIEWICZ
Courant Staff Writer
July 6, 2006
For Rachel Andrews, it was pasta and breads just about every day. Sure, vegetables took a sliver of space on those meal plates. But her cravings for sweets - brownies sometimes served as breakfast - overpowered those healthful choices.
It wasn't hard for Andrews to work out the math on why she felt so sluggish and sapped. She read up on health and nutrition and made some changes. Out went the processed foods. In came the fresh vegetables and fruits. And soon Andrews began exploring a diet of vegan raw foods.
But for a fledgling raw foodist in the middle of Connecticut, resources and support were scant.
A dairy- and meat-free diet of fresh, uncooked foods calls for serious planning. It can require obscure ingredients and complex food preparation - to say nothing of the discipline in this get-it-now society of fast-food drive-thrus and pre-packaged foods.
"I had to go to New York if I needed anything," says Andrews, 24. She eventually orchestrated small monthly raw-food potlucks at her Milford home. But they fizzled once she moved to Newtown.
"It's difficult to make a drastic change in how you eat without help from other people. And there really wasn't any big, central meeting place in Connecticut."
That's poised to change. On a busy stretch of New Britain Avenue in an unlikely patch of Hartford, a mecca for raw foodists is taking shape at Alchemy Juice Bar Cafe.
Alchemy plugged in its first juicer and swung its doors open to this Trinity College neighborhood four years ago. And since then, this little-restaurant-that-could has amassed a quiet following of diners seeking organic juices and vegetarian comfort foods.
Now, owners John Zito and Imani are going raw. They're hoping to ignite a movement that's gained a foothold in cities like Los Angeles and New York.
"We want to be the source for raw foods in Connecticut," says Imani, who goes by her first name only. "Eating raw is about consciousness. And people are so out of balance, so out of touch with their bodies and with how they eat."
To help guide them back, Alchemy is expanding its standard fare of salads and wraps to include a menu of raw soups, pies, cookies and muffins - all made without heating any of the ingredients beyond 118 degrees.
The thinking: Cooking destroys the food's enzymes, making it harder for the body to digest and tougher to absorb nutrients. Vegetables, fruits and nuts in their natural states carry the highest nutritional value, raw foodists believe, helping the body ward off toxicity and chronic disease.
It's controversial, to say the least. And the philosophy has its detractors. But in the six years since learning about raw, Imani says she's read and heard first-hand countless testimonials of devotees' boosting mood and energy levels, shaking off chronic ailments and even curing disease.
As it gets ready to roll out the raw, Alchemy is planning regular workshops, tastings and lush, gourmet dining events in the coming months.
But the question is: Will Hartford support a raw-foods restaurant? The region has proved to be a good market for organic and vegetarian fare, with a handful of specialty restaurants and the arrival of Whole Foods Market in West Hartford last year.
Still, is the raw philosophy too `out-there' even for these patrons?
"That's probably the question, right? That's the big unknown," says Imani, 37. But she's trusting the answer is yes.
Customers have been asking for it. They want more information, she says, more of the raw products she sells in the cafe shop and through alchemyjuicebar.com. Hartford, she believes is ready.
Another green light? The restaurant's debut raw dinner event last month sold out, with 30 people paying $50 to sample the colorful feast prepared by Alchemy's resident raw chef, Erin Schuh.
"I was thinking maybe Oprah did a show on raw foods or something," jokes Imani. "I was like, where are all these people coming from?"
Something is shifting, says Schuh. People are making the connection that eating just-add-water meals, that unconsciously inhaling 99-cent burgers from behind the steering wheel, can't translate to healthy bodies and minds.
There's already a quiet buzz of raw activity in pockets here, from potluck groups like Andrews' to small markets that have carried raw products for years. And larger chains like Wild Oats and Whole Foods have taken notice, too. They're stocking their shelves with raw nut butters and crackers; exotic dried fruits like goji berries, said to have therapeutic properties; and date- and nut-based treats that satisfy sweet tooths.
Demand for raw at Whole Foods has been high enough for the store to launch a major product expansion. Two weeks ago, the store went from one small rack of goods to an aisle section - what the store estimates is the largest raw selection of any Whole Foods outside of New York. The store is considering adding gourmet raw dishes to its buffet counter, as have some of the New York locations.
But with their high-quality ingredients and labor-intensive preparation, these foods don't come cheap. A customer at Alchemy recently did a double-take at the $8 price for a serving of raw pie, Imani says. A 4-ounce bag of goji berries at Whole Foods retails for $4.99. And the One Lucky Duck line of raw snacks sell between $6 and $12 for 4- and 6- ounce bags.
"That does hold some people back," says Doug Pyne, associate grocer at the West Hartford Whole Foods, where he oversees the raw section. "Hopefully it's like years ago when organic food used to be so ridiculously expensive and then as more people got into it, the less expensive it got."
Still, consumers seem willing to pay.
So much so that Sarma Melngailis, president of New York-based One Lucky Duck, sees more business expansion in her future. Online orders for her macaroons, biscotti and ice cream (yes, ice cream!) come from across the country. Her products are in stores along both coasts, including 25 Whole Foods stores. Patrons of Pure Food & Wine, her trendy raw restaurant just off Union Square, run the gamut: Raw foodists and their curious friends, celebrities and local scenesters. (Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea came in for Father's Day, she says).
Raw is destined for the mainstream, she believes.
"It's kind of like the way Whole Foods has seeped into the mainstream and is kind of taking over," Melngailis says. Raw foodists have earned a cartoonish reputation for their zealous adherence. But for the more generally health-conscious, "it's not all or nothing. Most of our regular customers are not raw foodists."
If money is one barrier to raw, misconception is another.
"People think it must be tasteless and not satisfying," Melngailis says. "Or they'll go hungry, that they won't get enough protein or that it's just not sufficient."
Her goal with her raw line is two-fold: to bust this myth and to make the lifestyle more accessible to the masses. "It can be challenging if you work in an office building in Cleveland, Ohio, and you work long hours and there's nothing around," Melngailis says.
Or if you work in an office building in Hartford, and there's nothing around.
"This is where people need it. So we're here in Hartford, in the middle of Connecticut. And we can serve as this little healing mecca," says Schuh, 24, who just returned from a seven-month stint at a vegan restaurant in Hawaii.
Let's dispense with further myths of what raw food is and what it isn't. Yes, it's uncooked. And yes, its simplest example is a bowl of greens or piece of fresh-picked fruit. But, judging from the spread Schuh laid out at last month's dinner, it doesn't have to be so bland and dreary.
Soaking, blending, dehydrating - such culinary tricks yield dishes far more complex in flavor and texture that one might expect.
"My goal is to create raw foods that are appealing to everybody, no matter what their normal diet is," says Schuh.
It seems she succeeded on the recent Sunday dinner. Diners from across Connecticut - and with different levels of experience with raw food - packed the restaurant's adjacent yoga studio, transformed with exotic swaths of red fabric. They slurped a tangy, green asparagus soup and nibbled basil- and flax-seed crackers dipped in olive tapenade. They gave high marks to the pad thai, marveled over the inventive peppercorn-crusted macadamia nut cheese and relished the watermelon-rose sorbet - all the while attempting to decipher the techniques and ingredients that went into Schuh's creations.
And when it came time for the golf-ball-size chocolate dessert truffle, made from raw cacao, few left even a morsel of the rich dessert on their plates.
"It's so great to see this finally coming to Hartford," diner Mary Lawrence says. A personal chef who specializes in vegan cuisine, Lawrence, 38, says she's impressed with the flare and creativity of the menu.
Now, she says, if only the city's conventional downtown restaurants would incorporate these options into their menus. A city like Hartford, fancying itself as up-and-coming, needs to better cater to the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles, she says.
"I think it's only a matter of time," says Leslie Kerz, 37, of Rocky Hill. This, from a raw-food novice having just had her first taste.
How was it?
"Your [tastebuds] have to acclimate to it. But I definitely liked it. I'll be back."
And that's all Imani is hoping - for folks to give it a try.
"It's baby steps," she says. "It's simple things. Even for someone that eats a lot of processed foods, eating a salad a day might make a total shift for them. You can make a simple switch, and the power of that switch can be amazing."
Alchemy will host a raw-food tasting workshop Friday. Cost is $20. The next raw-food dining event is scheduled for Aug. 20. Call 860-246-5700 for more information.
Fans of uncooked food say it’s more than a diet, it’s a lifestyle
Andrews, 23, is part of a movement to eat uncooked foods, a trend slow to catch on here, but well-established in California, Hawaii and in big cities where raw food restaurants can be found.
"In natural hygiene, a toxin is anything ingested that can’t be used by the body. Anything cooked loses nutritional value and becomes a toxin," Andrews said. "I feel better now because my body’s not stimulated by all those cooked foods."
She believes that cooking depletes food of enzymes and other nutrients.
Andrews came upon the raw food diet in her quest to find more energy. The community college student, married to a man who still likes his steak and baked potato cooked, found herself dragging by 9 a.m. and again hitting a lull at 3 p.m. Then one day she was looking through books at a thrift store and for $1 found "Fit For Life," a book about a diet that promised new energy, partly through eating raw foods.
She started last fall by ditching her waffle breakfast for fresh fruit. Then she added more fruit for lunch. She felt so much better that she explored the raw food movement further on the Internet, where she discovered the International Natural Hygiene Society, of which she is now an executive board member. The society promotes "total well-being" through eating raw foods, getting enough sleep, exercise, water and sunlight and eliminating stress inducers that drain the body.
Today, Andrews is "mostly raw," save for steamed vegetables or a baked sweet potato, and evolving to a diet that is 100 percent raw. Andrews said since changing her diet, she’s full of energy and has more patience with the children she serves as nanny to after school.
After filling up on fruit such as pineapple or bananas for breakfast, she’ll dig into one of her favorite lunches: a sliced bell pepper. There was a time she would have eaten a cooked cheeseburger instead, but her taste buds have changed so, she said, that the bell pepper tastes better. For dinner she’s likely to have a salad with romaine lettuce, carrots, sprouts and unpastuerized or uncooked cheese, no dressing. If she has more fruit with dinner she eats the fruit first, otherwise, it is believed it will sit on top of the salad in the stomach and ferment.
"It’s made a huge difference," she said of the diet. "If I eat cooked food, I feel tired."
Raw food diets vary. Some raw food enthusiasts, such as Andrews, are vegetarian, some are vegan and eat no animal based products, and some eat certain types meat and fish, also raw. Part of raw food eating also promotes eating "living" foods, such as sprouts that are still growing.
But Dr. David Katz, the nationally renowned director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby, said while there’s an element of eating raw food that makes sense, all raw is further than people need to or should go. He said our species has had fire to cook food for millions of years — long enough for our bodies to adapt — and the nutrients and other good things in some foods are actually enhanced by cooking. He said eggs when cooked increase the body’s absorption of biotin and tomatoes when cooked increases the absorption of lycopen, important in helping to prevent prostate cancers. He also said there is also a danger of bacteria in uncooked meats and fish."I agree with the benefits of eating closer to nature, but I think they’ve taken a good idea and are making it an extreme idea," Katz said. "We’ve romanticized nature."
While our diets are too high in the wrong kinds of fat, sugar and other bad things and don’t provide enough fiber, "you don’t need to eat raw food to fix it," he said.
Ellen Liskov, outpatient nutritionist at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said that while Americans do need to eat more raw foods such as fruit and vegetables, as suggested in the newest dietary guidelines, eliminating items like grains, milk and cheese are likely to create a calcium and vitamin D deficiency that will lead to problems later. She said information about the raw food movement has popped up a lot lately in the media, but she doesn’t see it much in everyday practice.
"I think it’s more of a movie star, southern California thing than an East Coast diet," Liskov said.
In her effort to spread the word and get local people interested, Andrews has established a monthly potluck at her house by the beach on Pearl Street. Last month, three people showed up, including herself and an uncle, but she’s not discouraged and was happy to meet Milford resident Jean Coulton, 62, also a vegetarian, raw food and natural hygiene enthusiast.
Coulton — who brings her own meal when asked to dinner at a friend’s house and in restaurants orders Caesar salad, hold the dressing croutons and anchovies — brought salsa to the potluck dinner. The salsa was made of finely chopped red peppers, tomatoes and celery.
The small showing didn’t phase Coulton.
"It was still good ... like any support group where you’re on the same path," Coulton said of the meal. "Even with only two people there, we were able to share what was good for us."
Coulton decided many years ago that she didn’t like meat and went vegetarian. When a friend developed cancer, she began reading about the role of raw fruits and vegetables in bringing health and found the natural hygiene information. For three years, she’s been "75 to 80 percent raw."
"I’m healthy now, I’m 62-years-old and I want to stay healthy," Coulton said.The group will gather again on June 4, but this time the menu will include a talk by author Paul Nison of Florida, who has written three books on the subject, "Raw Food Part One," "Raw Food Part Two and "Healing Inflammatory Bowel Disease."
He also was once a raw food chef and gives as an example of a tasty dish prepared raw: lasagna. The noodles are of sliced zucchini, with raw cheese, raw tomatoes and ground up Brazil nuts instead of meat.
Nison, 34, has been on a raw food diet for 13 years and turned to it as a last ditch attempt to cure his inflammatory bowel disease, for which doctors said there was no cure. Since he’s been eating raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds such as pumpkin and sunflower seeds, he hasn’t a problem. Now he travels the country giving lectures.
"When food is raw, ripe, fresh and organic, it’s the highest it can be," he said. "This way of eating goes back to the Bible. In Genesis 129, God tells us to eat fruit and vegetables."
Anyone wishing to attend the two-hour talk by Nison can call Andrews at (203) 868-4780. cqThere is $10 fee for the special meeting in addition to bringing a raw food that could be as simple as a bunch of bananas or a pineapple.
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2005/05/22/import/14569054.txt?viewmode=fullstory
| ACSH Agrees rbST-Free Milk Marketing Misleading | |||||||
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| By : Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D. - (ACSH) August 29, 2007 | |||||||
By Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D. August 29, 2007 Both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have ruled that companies that sell milk and other dairy products may state that the milk comes from cows that were not treated with recombinant bovine somatatropin (rBST) bioengineered hormone is identical to the one naturally produced by cows and, when injected, extends the period of milk production. Monsanto, the corporation that produces rBST, had sued to restrict such labeling. Marketers who use the "our cows aren't given rBST" approach are thus legally correct but scientifically wrongheaded. There's nothing unhealthful or dangerous (to humans or cows) from using rBST, in spite of activists' claims (does anyone doubt that the proponents of organic foods are behind these claims?). But the implication of this labeling is that the milk from rBST-treated cows is somehow inferior to that from untreated cows, which it isn't. Thus it perpetuates a myth about the supposed advantages of "natural" products. While ACSH is in favor of truthful advertising and marketing, sometimes following the letter of the law can lead to the dissemination of misinformation. This is such a case. Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D., is Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com). |
