After about six years of mindfulness meditation classes and now over 3 months of intense yoga classes, it is amazing to me to notice myself, as almost for the first time, in the kitchen. Hovering over a cutting board with my shoulders wound up to my ears with tightness and my breath really missing, I am surprised at how someone with my background and love of food, could have for so long entirely left my mindfulness training at the kitchen door. Especially when you pick up a knife to do some prep work it would seem like a very wise time to practice mindfulness, right? Try inviting yourself in the kitchen. The real you, right there in the kitchen, hello you, welcome, come on in, lets see how you are doing in here. Ed Brown offers some great cutting tips in his latest version (2009) of the Tassajara Cookbook. And of course, don’t miss listening to him, per the previous post. Also he is the star of a movie about cooking called How to Cook Your Life, which of course I can’t wait to rent. When you cut the vegetables, cut the vegetables. When you washing the cutting board, wash the cutting board.

I invite you to listen to the incredibly amazing, insightful, enjoyable, (etc. where can I stop?) Ed Brown on: Dogen’s Instructions To The Cook

Ed’s are exquisite podcasts here’s is another “Facets of Self”. Ed is just who he is and invites you into that experience of yourself…his is engaging and humorous…many times I am tempted to surf or do something else while I listen, I just couldn’t with Ed, I felt so me afterwards…hard to explain…he gets at the fakeness and the absurdity of it…

A little about Edward Brown which I found in 2007 via Tricycle.com while pouring through their podcast archive:
“Edward Espe Brown has been practicing Zen since 1965 (and yoga since 1980), and has been head resident teacher at each of the San Francisco Zen Centers: Tassajara, Green Gulch, and City Center. He has led meditation retreats and cooking classes throughout the United States, as well as Austria, Germany, Spain, and England. He is the author of several cookbooks including The Tassajara Bread Book and Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, and is the editor of Not Always So, a newly published book of lectures by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He has also done extensive Vipassana practice.”

In the book The World We Have, Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story of couple traveling with their small boy across a vast desert to seek asylum in another land. They ran out of food. “Realizing all three of them would them would die in the desert, the parents made a horrifying decision: they decided to kill and eat their child. Every day they ate a morsel of his flesh, just enough for the energy to walk a little further, all the while, crying ‘Where is our son?’”(p.17, The World We Have) and they are in terrible mourning. Was it easy for the couple to eat their son? Of course not. Thich Nhat Hanh wants us to think about the impact our choices have on the resources available on the planet. Each time we take something away and use it up, we can think about that.

Many people eat twice the calories they need a day; eating enough for two adults or one adult and a child. I remember seeing a great talk by a doctor giving a talk on google video about the value of being vegan and apparently the average american eats a very large number cows (15), chickens (900), hogs (24), sheep (12), etc. throughout the course of their lifetime.

Animal fat is solid at room temperature. It sticks to our blood vessels and clogs them. Whatever organ was at the other end of the clog is what is damaged when the blood can no longer get through the opening. In multiple ways, we actually increase human suffering and starvation by supporting the meat industry. The amount of land and soil and water being used to grow the mono-crops to feed these animals could feed exponentially more people if the land was devoted to growing crops edible for humans.

We were just watching an excellent movie called “Dirt” on Independent Lens. It is about the health of the life in dirt. Healthy dirt produces healthy vegetables. The movie says we are destroying our dirt. For example, when pests find a way to unlock the mechanism for by-passing a pesticide and eating a mono-crop like wheat or corn it then has an unlimited food supply. This problem is currently solved by creating new pesticides. The diversity of plant life is vital to the health of the soil. Also, when one type of plant can not handle one type of weather disaster another can survive and visa versa.

I just ate a couple dates and I thought of how many strong hands may have touched each one. You are eating the sun that shown on it and the water that fed it and the soil that became its body as well. If you go to the date company’s website you can see photos of some of the workers. The site says their dates are picked by hand.

Speaking of Thich Nhat Hanh, he has just written a book all about mindful eating and food choices, called Savor. I just ordered it, hopefully he will inspire another post here! Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh!

Here is what I am saying when people ask for ideas:
Go for a pound of greens a day (salad, smoothies, steamed, blended into soup bases, etc.)
Greens are primary. Everyone can eat more fruit, that is easy to grow to love. Greens take more thought and care.
One of my favorite ways to get them in is still (after all these years) the VERY simple: green smoothie (think: one can of pineapple, for the simplest possible way to have pineapple always on hand and as many greens (try collards, kale, swiss chard) as you can fit into your blender or less if you want it to only taste like pineapple juice; add water to blend. I add a tablespoon and a half of flax seeds.) The best blender (in my opinion) is the Ktech (Blendtec) see, http://www.blendtec.com/ (I paid ~350$ and have used it countless times over the years, it is still in perfect condition and VERY simple to clean).

Get about an ounce of nuts and seeds a day. Raw walnuts are super and easy to find in the cooking aisle. What I say about tahini (which is blended sesame seeds): I use it in dressings, hummus and one of my favorite things to do is mix it with lemon and a little water for an asparagus dressing (think: a tablespoon of tahini, half a lemon, water to thin). Hummus = tahini, garbanzo beans, water (optional lemon, olive oil, etc.). There are a number of salad dressing recipes that require tahini. I have used/and own a perfect ton of rawfood recipe books. If you want simple I say use the cookbook, Rawsome. If you have just a hair more time and want exquisite taste I go for Renee Loux’s books: Living Cuisine is the cookbook I have used the most, however it doesn’t have a good index and The Balanced Plate has a better index. Watch Ani Phyo’s youtube recipe videos.

The book, Eat to Live has such great tools and concepts. Many years ago (and I still reference Joel Fuhrman’s books, video online) he revolutionized my way of thinking about what a “good” way of eating is. I use huge salad bowls (I like Corelle’s biggest bowls because it is lightweight, stack-able and still feels like you are holding glass) and last and firstly – GO FOR A POUND OF GREENS A DAY! It is such a very beautiful and good fortune to be able to enjoy fresh plants on your plate. They have true beauty and you can enjoy them mindfully. Best wishes!

I am struggling with something. Whenever I leave town (which sometimes feels like leaving the country) I so often find that restaurateurs still believe the vegetarian option means the cheese option.

If a vendor is going to (as they sometimes feel – “go out of their way”) to provide a dish that is friendly (inclusive) to the majority of the world population’s digestive capabilities, this food will not include dairy.

Here’s wiki on lactose intolerance (which by the way is not the only reason people can’t do dairy; casein, which is a basis for wood glue, is also a problem and it is often found in soy “cheese” products):

“Lactose intolerance is the inability to metabolize lactose, because of a lack of the required enzyme lactase in the digestive system.[original research?] It is estimated that 75% of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood.[1] The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from as little as 5% in northern Europe, up to 71% for Sicily, to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries.[2]“

I am struggling because even locally for years I have repeatedly asked our large university campus to embrace this idea. With its population of students from around the world and vegans from everywhere, the resistance to the idea is astonishingly strong!

I have often heard/read that dairy is the very first and most important thing to drop because it is so toxic for your system (non-organic has especially intensified pesticide/hormone product in it). That is not even what I am talking about here, I am just talking about accommodating a simple physiological experience of the majority of the world population. It is still surprising to me that I don’t see this changing as fast as I would have guessed. Even it can be hard to find chocolate without milkfat in it (milkfat is a cheap filler and it is used as a way to keep the cost down for many chocolate companies).

I don’t want to say dairy is killing this country because I hate getting people angry who seem to thrive off of it (still, you can see the huge rise in consumption of dairy rise with the increased rate of cancer and heart attacks in this country). Hey if it works for you, don’t come after me! Do what you notice is working for you. 15 years ago I digested dairy fine, I don’t now, it is just the way it is, sometimes people lose the digestive enzymes as an adult.

Since I am complaining I might as well get it out, what I really dis-enjoy, is when you explain the idea to a restaurateur and they look at you with a blank stare like they have never heard of a non-dairy main course food option; like they have never seen food before and how can they not know food – it is their business! I get that they may not know digestion or anything about nutrition, although at least food it seems like they would know. : //