In Support of Preparedness

I was updating my original post on Preparedness (see that post here) with a few new resources when I came across an amazing article written by Todd at the Prepper Website.

I’d like to share his amazing letter to friends, family and readers so that it may help you reach your goals.

An Open Letter to Family & Friends

I’m writing this letter because I care about you. Please take a few minutes to read it and think about what I’m saying.

Why the Letter?

Our lives are crazy. We take care of our family, work, eat, play chauffer, pay the bills, etc. When we have a little bit of free time, we like to just veg in front of the TV and watch some brain numbing pictures flicker across the screen. We can go at it like this for days, weeks and even months, not knowing what is going on in the world outside our local community and just getting by with the talk around the water cooler.

And when we take life in these little chunks, separate blocks of our time and attention, it seems a little bit more manageable. We move from one task, event, errand, chore to the other.

The problem is when we look at our lives from a big picture perspective. What if our lives all of the sudden changed? What if the stress of the day came bearing down at you all at once? How could this happen? This can easily happen during an emergency. I’m not talking about your son just stuffed his GI Joe down the toilet, or the dog is out of food emergency. I’m talking about the BIG stuff.

The Big Emergency

The BIG emergency is the one that stops you in your tracks. It can be personal, based in your local community or worldwide. But it is the one that everything else stops and all resources and energy are put towards it.

The problem is that most people are not prepared for the BIG one.

Prepared?

Are you and your family most people? Do you have an emergency fund for financial emergencies? Do you have insurance for medical emergencies? Do you have food and water if there is a food supply/transportation emergency? Do you have other means of cooking and preparing your food if utilities weren’t available? Do you have first aid supplies and extra medicine on hand? Do you have basic skills that could help you: fire starting, water purification, gardening, first aid, etc.?

This is the whole reason for my letter. I want to help you see the importance of being prepared and to start being more self-reliant. It’s not too hard, but it does take time, planning and effort. But then again, what would the time, planning and effort that you put in ahead of time be worth in the middle of an emergency? You’ll be glad you did!

Action Steps

1. Make a plan – What are you preparing for? What needs to be done? Don’t look at the magnitude of the plan, that can be overwhelming. Take it in chunks. In reality, you will never be “prepared.” You can be “not prepared” or “overly prepared,” but never “perfectly prepared.” Consider the basics: financial, medical, etc. but also keep in mind your region of the country; hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, etc.

• Set goals – When do you want _____ accomplished?
  1. Get a 3 day supply of food. Then move to a 3 week supply.
  2. Revisit insurance: house, vehicle, medical, life, etc.
  3. Start an emergency fund – 3-6 months of expenses
  4. Start a garden
  5. Take a class: first-aid, sewing, gardening, firearm, wilderness survival
  6. Watch some videos on YouTube (search preparedness)
  7. Read blogs and articles on “preparedness” and “prepping”
  8. Get active – go meet your goals!

Warning

The world of preparedness/prepping can be an addictive one. It can suck you in, mess with your emotions and get you seeing the world in the fragile states that it is in. It is always best to approach preparedness within community. You should go it alone only if no one else is willing. Eventually, they will realize that you were right, even if that is in the midst of a storm.

Fragile

It is not in the scope of this letter to discuss all the possible emergency scenarios that you should prepare for. But outside of regional, natural disasters, it is important to me to briefly mention our global situation. Things outside our local community have gone from bad to worse! At first, we might not care about what is going on in some Asian or European country, but the fact is that we are ALL tied into each other now. What happens over there, affects us over here.

There are many “End of the World as We Know It” type scenarios out there. One such scenario is an economic collapse. Someone recently replied to me and said, “Yes, times can get hard, but we have been through it before during the Great Depression.” The fact is that it is way different this time. Our country didn’t have the debt that we have now. And, if for some reason the world loses faith in our government’s ability to pay its debts, we are up the creek. It really isn’t too far-fetched to imagine this happening if you’ll look into it. The concern has gone beyond the foil hat people. Just research it!

Do Something

Please take this letter seriously. If you prepare and don’t need it, the worst is that you have some food (food costs are going up/buy now at cheaper prices) and other supplies. But if you ever find you are in a position that you do need it, you and your loved ones will be glad you were prepared!

“AVOID THESE” ANTI-CANCER CHECKLIST

A fabulous article came out that I wanted to share with you HERE. So many of us think Cancer won’t happen to us because “I make healthy choices” but what ELSE can you do that you may not realize helps in the prevention of cancer?

AACI “AVOID THESE” ANTI-CANCER CHECKLIST

•     Stop drinking and bathing in tap water; use a chlorine shower filter
•     Stop using flouride toothpaste
•     Stop using anti-perspirant; (you’ve got armpits for a reason) Deodorant, OK, if non-aluminum
•     Stop using teflon coated cookware
•     Stop cooking most of your food, go raw as much as possible
•     Cut out TV dinners and microwave cooked food
•     Discard dairy products except for the Budwig protocol (occasional goat milk OK)
•     Stop drinking regular and diet sodas, products with added sugar and/or aspartame, and acid-forming beverages including sports drinks. Stop drinking bottled water. Use filtered water and if possible, ionized water.
•     Cut down red meat consumption — once per week acceptable, if organic
•     Don’t eat farm fed fish, buy it Wild, please

“City Commissioner, Chris Young, relates his unlikely cancer diagnosis, underscoring the importance of avoiding a toxic, cancer-causing lifestyle you may not even suspect you’re living…” (click here for more)

If you desire to learn more about Raw and Living Food Nutrition, join me at The Wellness Kitchen and Resource Center for our Raw Food Series classes each month as well as all of our other whole foods nutrition classes here.

Day 10 and Still Juicy

I’m really loving juicing green onions! They add such a lovely flavor to so many different types of juices. I’ve added one to an orange, celery, cucumber, leafy greens, ginger, lemon juice and today in a more liver cleansing juice of beets, celery, cucumber, leafy greens, ginger, lemon, orange bell pepper (2 quarts). I’ve also been enjoying fresh squeezed orange juice and I’d say I drink maybe 1 quart of it through a day (diluted with distilled water).

I’m considering taking Russell James’ home study course for Raw Chef as well as David Wolfe’s Raw Nutrition class. I’ve been wanting to further my education and why not do it in areas I’m extremely passionate about?!

Russell James’ makes amazing breads, cheeses and salads. I’ve purchased several of his Recipe eBooks over the years and now this course looks excellent!

David Wolfe’s course provides all of the Science behind raw foods, which I’ve always wanted to learn more about. This course looks like the best way for me to gain in leaps and bounds both personally and professionally as a Raw Foods Chef and Educator.

As for my juice cleanse, I’m doing very well. I had a little more detox symptoms come on yesterday including bad breath, cold body, coated tongue and lethargy. I slept about 10 hours last night, with occasional periods of laying in bed wide awake, and I feel great today.

A closer look at these symptoms:

The bad breath resembled broccoli which suggests sulphur and a period of high detoxification. This increase in detoxification makes sense as I’ve been adding more orange juice than I started with. Fruit juices tend to promote detox; whereas, veggies juice rebuild and repair.

The coated tongue was slightly yellow and white which suggests intestinal detoxification and suggests over-all body inflammation: more specifically my stomach and small intestine based on location of discoloration of tongue. I use a tongue scraper to take care of this and will add alfalfa tea, aloe vera juice, and licorice tea to my regimen to assist in repair of the alimentary canal; take a probiotic for lower colon health; and start each day with a glass of warm lemon water tea. I’ve not been as disciplined about Colosan as the label suggests so I will make sure I take this 3x/day for a few days rather than once every random day that I remember.

The digestive fire must be fueled, much like a camp fire, in order for it to continue burning. Since my hunger left around day 2, digestive fire is essentially not present and this is causing my body to get cold. For this reason, many teachers don’t recommend fasting during cold weather. Some suggest you can keep this balanced with more bare feet on the ground, which I have not done much of lately.  This is also why I’m not leading my next juice coaching program until the Spring.

Lethargy is just a bodily suggestion to rest and so I have. The body was working extra hard over the previous 2 days so it asked me to take it easy. I listen well!

Cheers 🙂

Day 5 – Fabulous

I made some amazing juices this morning.

1 quart

2-3 cups mixed leafy greens ( spinach, red leaf, arugula)

half cucumber

half stalk of celery

2 carrots

handful of cilantro

1 lemon

1 inch ginger

1 tsp Vitamineral green

So a dear friend of mine who has been joining me for yearly juice cleanses for 6 years told me she adds Vitamineral Green to her juices. We were on a conversation about Spirulina and I’d mentioned that I will try using it again after my cleanse; however, there are case studies suggesting it exacerbates Dermatomyositis, the autoimmune disease I have. I’ve used the powder, which has Spirulina, intermittently in smoothies prior to the fast but I’ll try it during as well. My primary concern, besides the case studies, is whether or not the powder will stimulate hunger while fasting. Hunger usually leaves by day 2 (at most day 4) but chewing gum, drinking pulp from fresh juices and even cooking food can stimulate hunger again.

So why try it?

In November of 2010, I observed a nickel sized mass in my breast that was tender to the touch. A close friend of mine, who was going through breast cancer at the time, suggested the majority of breast cancers are not painful to the touch so I didn’t fret. However, I am currently still experiencing pain and it has expanded to more of a ‘general region’ than a localized mass. Since I work with people who have gone through or are going through allopathic treatment for cancer, I have come to ask myself, “what would I do if I had to make that choice?” Luckily, I know without a shadow of a doubt, I’d not touch Chemo or Radiation even if they told me if would extend my life. Instead, I’d improve the state of my body with superfoods, fasting, raw food diet, high fiber foods, colon hydrotherapy, homeopathics, herbal teas, happiness, laughter, travel and LIFE itself. So why not just skip that whole ‘What is this?’  process and treat my body the way I would if required to do so!?

So I’m trying Vitamineral green and chewing bee pollen while doing the cleanse. I am about to purchase a Jing complex of mushrooms for their immunomodulating components and I’ll drink those also while cleansing. I’ve started taking higher doses of systemic enzymes and I’m doing Colosan during the cleanse as well. Phew … that was a lot to share!

I also made 1 quart of orange, celery, cucumber, bell pepper (orange), ginger, lemon which is equally delicious!

Cheers!

Day 3: Deliciousness

Cheers! This is a great day and I’ll tell you why. Because I am thriving on fresh juices, smiles, hugs, fresh air and love. Why? Because I created my experience today and now I beam with bliss.

I woke with a coated tongue, as one expects during a cleanse after eating not so healthy things prior. I use a tongue scraper, which I see as a life saver during fasting. It works like a charm to remove the build up of toxins. Your tongue is a great indicator of how long to cleanse. Based on the coloration and coating, you can easily determine the health of your intestines.

For those of you who have inquired about my next Juice Coaching Program at The Wellness Kitchen; I will offer the 10 day Coaching Program again starting in the Spring, once it’s warmer. Stay tuned for more details on that! The last program was a huge success.

Today, I’ve made:

1 quart – lemon, apple, mixed leafy greens, celery, cilantro, cucumber, bell pepper (orange)

1 quart – lemon, beet, beet greens, carrot, celery, ginger, cucumber

Started the morning with a cup of dandelion root tea

Water

Cheers!