It has now been a year since my eyes were opened to the role that good nutrition plays in how our body functions, and 7 months since I headed down the mostly Raw food path. I can say with confidence that with most of the issues that plague our society, food is at the heart of it. The concept of putting more Raw and less processed foods in our body addresses a number of societal issues: our health, the health of our health care system, the health of our government, the health of our land, the reduction in trash which leads to a reduction in pollution., the reduction in crime as I believe that the SAD (Standard American Diet) effects behavior.

Although I have found that for myself, consuming a mostly Raw food diet gives me amazing energy and health, the act of consuming just a green smoothie for someone on the SAD diet is also very powerful. Instead of preaching the benefits of a 100% Raw diet, which I do feel provides optimal health; I believe that just the addition of the green smoothie first thing in the morning to anyone’s day will have a huge positive effect. The green smoothie is so packed with nutrients and enzymes blended in a way that our body can absorb easily, that it feeds our body like it has never been fed before. At some point of the day, we need to feed our body some real, fresh, organic, raw fruits and greens, and before breakfast is the optimal time.

When I take my program into the shelters, I promote the green smoothie to be available between 6-8am so that the residents drink it before they put anything else in their stomachs. This allows the body to fully absorb every ounce of this powerfully nutritious drink which also satisfies their hunger* and sometimes satisfies their appetite. *Hunger is the body’s way of asking for nutrition, not just any food. When the body is fed nutrition, it gets full, when the body is fed empty food; it is still hungry which is why people overeat.

I am working on a pilot program for schools. I will provide the breakfast for the children consisting of 100% fruits and greens in the form of smoothies, whips and whole fruits. This will allow the children to:

1. feed their bodies nutritiously
2. Feed their minds so they can think
3. Energize them so they can be calm, alert and focused in class.

When we feed the children nutritiously, it gives them the tools to be able to learn. Also, a side effect of the green smoothie and good nutrition in general is
weight loss for those overweight. Childhood obesity is a major problem and this program addresses that issue directly.

I challenge everyone to try adding the green smoothie to their morning routine for 7 days straight. You will feel energized and your body will thank you. Just the addition of this one drink first thing in the morning can make a difference for everyone. Please try it, and pass it forward.

It was my 15 year old daughter, Jane, who declared that she was going raw in July of 2009. Then my 12 year old daughter, Anna, and I joined her. Jane’s goal was to have beautiful clear skin. Jane was our fearless leader. This year she is studying in Rome and continuing with a 100% Raw diet. Her acne has cleared and she has found that her ability to focus is amazing. She doesn’t get distracted in class, her comprehension has greatly improved and she has become a voracious reader, especially when it comes to the Raw lifestyle. Her energy level is high and she started doing Hot Yoga. I have noticed that her stamina and flexibility has really increased. She feels her running is faster and stronger. She also feels more relaxed about life, which is a great thing, especially for a teen who is really far from home.

Just the year before she and her teachers were complaining that she couldn’t focus and was easily distracted and led into side conversations during class. Also, she would read the required reading books and yet be unable to demonstrate that when tested. We decide to have her tested for ADD, depression and anything else that may ale a teenage girl. The results
came back that she did not have ADD which was great but didn’t help us resolve her issues. She no longer has any of those issues, she is clear and focused and driven to get the most out of her mind and body. I also must add that our relationship has developed into something so very special. She truly saved my life and by following her lead she has taken our whole family on an amazing journey. It is incredible the places you can go when you just allow yourself to listen, trust and try.

Anna, my 12 year old, has had an amazing transformation. Her skin is beautiful and her mind is clear. She has a whole new level of confidence because her comprehension and focus are so heightened. I was talking to the Principal of her school and she told me that on the first day of school she had observed Anna and noticed a focus and clarity that she didn’t see last year. I told her the only change is the food that Anna IS now eating abundantly, and just as important, the food she is NOT eating. What a very powerful observation that out of all the commotion of the first day and totally unsolicited, that the principal would take note of the change in Anna. I asked if she would like to have an entire school filled with children clear and focused! Their school does a great job regarding food, but I am working to get even better food choices in the school for the children. One other thing I really need to mention as is a result of the raw food diet is that Anna now has this added energy and new awareness of her surroundings. She has taken it upon herself to be my kitchen fairy and also does everyone’s laundry and delivers it to their room on a regular basis. Both of these new tasks are completely unsolicited, she is just tuned into her environment and it is such a delight!

Next, I need to tell you about my 10 year old daughter, Margaret. At my sister Mindy’s urging, I purchased a dehydrator. She said that I could use it to make fruit roll ups and raw cookies that the girls would love. Margaret had very severe allergies to everything that grew outside and when the allergist put her on Allegra and Nasacort, she developed a reaction to fresh fruit and eventually fresh vegetables. Her throat would get dry and itchy, a side effect of the medication according to the allergist. (She could eat the fruits and vegetables canned or cooked, but not fresh.) She stopped taking both medicines but the itchy throat never went away. For 3 years she could NOT eat fresh fruits or vegetables so her diet was a lot of processed flour such as bagels, pasta, pancakes.

In December of 2008 we took her to CHOP, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, because she was suffering from such constant and severe stomach cramping. Our pediatrician had tested her for Celiac Disease. She did not have Celiac but did test positive for gluten sensitivity and I wanted to discuss that with the Doctor. Instead, he insisted that it wasn’t the issue. He said she had a very common ailment called it “Adolescent Gastrointestinal Blah Blah Blah” and told her to take Prilosec. Well, we didn’t fill the prescription and instead, tried to work on the diet. As I began making the fruit roll ups, Margaret tried them and she found she could eat them!!! I began dehydrating every single fruit I could buy; blueberries, grapes, kiwi, strawberries, bananas, cantaloupe…It was amazing! She was like a kid in a candy store. She hadn’t had sweet fruit for 3 years and she couldn’t get enough of it.

For three days she ate everything that came out of my dehydrator and for three days she DIDN”T eat the processed foods. She was already a vegetarian and I had already removed the milk from our lives so it must have been the processed foods that were poisoning her. Within 2 weeks she was able to eat ALL fresh fruits and veggies again!!!!! It was THE most incredible joy; I can’t even express the level of excitement that ran through our home. She has since moved forward and her allergies are all gone, her stomach issues are gone although they are now sensitive to bad foods, which is how it should be. It has been so remarkable and healing and empowering for Margaret. Margaret has complete control of how her body feels and she knows that she is free to make her own decisions for her own body and that is a wonderful gift to give anyone at any age. It feels like a miracle that we found a solution.

Well, my 8 year old Katie was not a willing participant at first. She is smart, stubborn and passionate. She had her melt downs. She wanted her doughnuts, bagels and chicken fingers back. I have to say it is a tough decision once you learn how harmful much of the food in the stores is. Do you go ahead and put it in your shopping cart or do you act like the mean mom who won’t give her children the things that they love????? It is a journey and the process was painful at times, but one thing she knows for sure is that I made these changes for her because I LOVE HER and not to be mean. It has taken her a while, but she now is very happy and has no complaints. We work together, lots of give and take. Watching her sisters and me go through the process has been really helpful for her and she does really enjoy it. My younger girls are at least 80% raw and have never felt better. I love them for trusting in the goodness of the food. We are planning to plant a beautiful garden this spring and I think that that will take us to another level of joy, health and togetherness.

I began making green smoothies. On Saint Patrick’s Day I made my girls their first green smoothie and they loved it. The bad news was that when they saw me make it the next day and realized that it wasn’t green food color they really got mad. They were not going to drink anything GREEN! So we worked on their own version which always includes lots of berries and not as many greens – it is a process!

I began to eat mostly vegetarian foods and cut out the processed, substituting spelt and sprouted products where I could. Perhaps the biggest change for me was to stop drinking milk. I was totally in LOVE with MILK. I kept a separate refrigerator stocked with 6 cases of organic skim milk, but after I learned the TRUTH about milk and dairy I could not drink another drop nor would I allow my girls to.

By July I had lost about 25 pounds through just the changes in food. My arthritis was so bad that I was unable to add exercise into my life. I did use my Vibra Trim; we call it the jiggle machine, everyday. The Vibra Trim is a piece of equipment that, through vibration, stimulates and helps drain your lymphatic system of toxins. For months I had to sit on it because my knees were so bad they couldn’t handle the motion. I do feel that this machine has a lot of merit, especially for someone like me that is so crippled with arthritis that we can’t exercise. Still, in the beginning of July I was in my orthopedic Dr.’s office crying like a baby for him to scope my left knee. I didn’t want to replace it yet, but was hoping he could give me some relief. He couldn’t and gave me a steroid shot to help the pain. On July 22, 2009 my life took an innocent and amazing turn.

My 15 (at the time) year old daughter had just gotten back from 3 weeks of sailing and scuba diving in the Sea of Thailand and her face had broken out terribly. After making me take her to the Doctor for a new face cream prescription and then suggesting Tetracycline, which was a definite NO, she spent the day searching the internet for a natural acne solution. I remember this day so vividly. My husband was in France for 2 weeks following and biking with the Tour de France and it was just us “chickens” at home. Jane pestered me all day to look at a website she had found and @ 7pm I finally sat down to check it out. Acne No More was the site and it offered an e-book on how to rid your body of acne for good. I bought it and printed the 142 page manual. As I began reading it, I realized that it was a RAW diet with a lot of cleansing. When I explained to Jane that this was a really restrictive plan, she said she didn’t care; she was going to do it. Being the adventurous curious type, naively I told her that I would do it with her. It took me a day and a half to read and reread the book and then shop for our supplies and then our lives changed forever. I thank my daughter Jane for having saved my life.

At this point, my sister Mindy had already found and begun eating raw and had wonderful results. I had resisted because my family wasn’t even fully embracing my smoothies and small changes. The fact that Jane brought the Raw diet into our lives made ALL the difference in the world. I wasn’t the crazy one but instead just a supporter. Jane journaled her journey which I hope she will let me post on the site.

Once we started, my 12 year old daughter, Anna, decided to join us. By the time my husband, Jamie, returned from France, we were settled into our new food choices and were in the midst of the juicing fast – MAJOR detox. He watched Jane stumble into the kitchen pale as a ghost, forehead beaded with sweat, and barely able to stand and looked at me like I must be insane thinking that this was a good thing. Well, honestly, I wasn’t sure but was emailing the site for answers and found out that it was a great sign, she was detoxing and we needed to push through it. Anna had the same reaction about 2 hours later and they both recovered by bedtime.

When I agreed to do this with my daughter, I didn’t really know what to expect from a raw diet. I hadn’t read any books, no testimonials, I did think that it was a little too extreme for a family but I was willing to try. A month into it, we were off to visit my sister Pam in CO and I had forgotten to pack my arthritis medicine. I was so afraid that after 3 days without it that I would be stuck in a chair watching everyone else have fun, but it didn’t happen. I was fine and I have never taken another pill since! We did our first Liver cleanse there with my sister helping us through it. The author of Acne No More believes that until the liver is clean, you will have acne. I think that I would extend that to not just acne, but every disease. Our Liver is our lifeline and if it isn’t functioning properly, then we are probably pretty sick.

Once we finished the 6 week program, Jane went off to Italy to boarding school for the year and the rest of us settled into a mostly raw diet. Every morning is only fruit, could be just fresh squeezed orange juice, banana whip or apple slices and lunch the girls are on their own in the lunch room to make their own choices. When they get home they make frozen berry smoothies, cucumber, broccoli and dip, more banana whips, or any other fruit that looks good to them. I do sometimes have chips and salsa, vegan gingerbread and chocolate covered sunflower seeds for their “junk” food choices, but for the most part, they make pretty good decisions. Our goal isn’t 100% Raw; it is just good delicious food choices.

I keep my Vibra Trim and Rebounder, mini trampoline, in my kitchen so when the girls pass through, they can jump and when a good song comes on, I can hop on the rebounder and dance. It is great to have it so accessible. I did graduate from sitting on the Vibra Trim to standing and now I have no problems jumping on the Rebounder which is loads of fun. I totally feel that my Arthritis has been reversed. I had such severe arthritis in my left foot that I wore a brace in my sneakers – the only shoes I ever wore. I couldn’t walk barefoot or in any other shoe without horrible pain. The medical solution was to fuse all the bones in the top of my foot together which would take about 6 months to fully heal. Today, I don’t even know where those stinky sneakers with the brace in it are! I can even wear my old cowboy boots again. I think that my foot hurt more than my knee but both made every single step very painful.

Today, I don’t have pain when I walk, I have just joy. My mind is clear, and focused and peaceful and my body is energized.

Life is a journey. I want to quote Arnold Kauffman who always says, “Every moment is a loving caring moment”. I totally agree, you need to move through life with your eyes, mind and heart wide open and enjoy your journey. I hope that by sharing my story and what I have learned, that I can help others in their journey.

Hi! For my first blog I want to start by thanking my sister Mindy for creating this site for me!! I LOVE you Min. Next, I want to start at the beginning of my journey, the third weekend of February, 2009.

Three sisters, three days, three lives changed forever:

For Christmas I invited my sisters for a girls weekend anywhere they wanted, just for us to be together. Pam was living in Denver and Mindy in Apple Valley ,CA. They both agreed, but Mindy had a small problem, she was struggling with agoraphobia and most definitely could not fly anywhere. We started our search close to her home and that was how we discovered the We Care Spa. A detox weekend was definitely NOT what I had in mind for our girls weekend, but I said I would do it if Mindy would promise not to leave us to go get chicken. At the time, Pam was the most health conscious of the three of us and she assured us that it would be FUN. Pam took charge of scheduling all of our treatments which included daily colonics (lots of butt jokes) and nutrition classes. We learned about food, peace, and to value the miracle of our body and mind. By Sunday, we were all three transformed, enlightened and forever changed. Our weekend fell on our Mother’s birthday which brought her spirit into our weekend experience making it extra special. Our Mother died in 1978 after battling Lymphoma for 13 years and we miss her very much.

After a 3 day liquid fast, we all headed back to our busy lives to figure out how we would move forward with our new found knowledge of nutrition, health and peace. I am going to let Mindy and Pam blog about their paths and now I will just tell you my story.

I have been married for 22 years, have 4 beautiful girls, ages 8, 11, 13, and 16. I also have 5 horses, 3 dogs and 2 cats along with a few pet rodents – a true funny farm. The evening I arrived back home from the spa I remember running into the house with my newly discovered body brush and proceeded to brush each of my girls from their finger tips to their toes while babbling about how important it is to help your skin breath so it can release toxins. The next day, I bought pure maple syrup to replace their Aunt Jemima, removed lots of processed snack foods, replaced their potato bread with spelt bread and ordered my Vita Mix blender, alkaline water system and vibra trim. My girls were a little upset with the changes, they thought I was really batty and going overboard. But life is a journey and we needed to head toward a healthier place.

At the time that I went to the spa, I was very overweight, had very severe arthritis and was very stressed. At Thanksgiving of 2008 my father actually sat me down and gave me “the talk”. He told me that he was afraid that if I didn’t do something, that I was going to die. I did not look or feel good. Funny now, but he thought that the solution was for me to hire a live in house keeper. I didn’t know what the solution was, but, I heard my Father’s concern loud and clear. We had just put an addition on our home and at my father’s urging had an elevator installed. I had my right knee replaced in 2003 and my left knee was beginning to fail me and I have to say that I was really glad to have the elevator to avoid the stairs. I was taking Mobic, a double dose of what my father took and I really moved slowly. When I went up and down steps, I only took one step at a time gripping the railing…