Fresh Living

Being more of a food-assembler than a food cooker, I rely on easy things to keep my frequent dinners of grain, veggie, and protein interesting. I'm a huge fan of Maine Coast Sea Vegetables' shakes--they have a dulse and garlic, a kelp and cayenne, and a three-sea veggie combo. Yum. I find this a great way to slip sea vegetables into my diet (they're loaded with minerals), especially when I don't have time for a full-on wakame soak.

My latest discovery on this front is from the same company as Bragg Liquid Aminos--a.k.a. vegan fuel. It's Bragg Organic Sea Kelp Delight. Instead of being straight-up sea-veg like the others (which I actually like), you barely taste the kelp and instead enjoy the lovely, nourishing flavors of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme--and lots of other less lyrical but equally delish seasonings.

The result is a secretly fortified, all-organic Mrs. Dash-like shake you can shimmy over any dish you like. Sea vegetables taste salty but have very little sodium. I'm especially loving it on baked garnet yams with a dollop of ghee (clarified butter). Num.

You can buy some here, at Bragg.com. 

And click here for more info on the wonders of sea vegetables.

Do you have a favorite seasoning shake? Or make your own? 

It's Foodie Friday, but alas, sigh, and blah.  I'm really not feeling so jazzed on food today, because I've just started an "elimination diet" on the advice of a new doctor--an integrative physician--I've begun seeing.  I make health-driven food choices every day, but for some reason this "diet" thing has got me feeling deprived and kind of down.

I went to see the integrative doc because I've been feeling sluggish lately, and I was worrying about the strength of my immune system, especially since last year I got every cold that came calling. 

He drew about a gallon of blood, and ran about a zillion tests.  And though my propensity for hyperbole tested very high, about a trillion other things tested low.  Zinc.  Magnesium.  Vitamin D.  Etc.  Etc.  I call my diagnosis "mondo depleto" because that's what the tests showed, again and again.  You're not sick, he told me, but you're not well either.  I nodded vigorously.

Supplements were prescribed, but then the part I was dreading:  the results of the food sensitivities tests.  "Too many to count," said the doc, causing a zing of panic to shoot through my body.  Please don't restrict me to the gluten-free aisle at the Whole Foods.  Please!

He didn't, mainly because I have IgG (an immuno-antibody found in the digestive system)-related sensitivities, which is different from an allergy.  But he did tell me to stop all cow's milk dairy and fermented product consumption for the next 6 weeks.  Fermented products, like including vinegar, wine, and bread.  Even my super-healthy 12-grain bread?  Yes.  Oh.

This post is skewing negative in the attitude department, but the fact is, I'm grateful to have gotten this information, and I feel empowered to re-plete my reserves and get my body boosted--especially as we're into flu season. 

I've been on the supplements and diet for about a week now, and I have to say I am already feeling better able to concentrate, more "plugged in" brain-wise, and I've even dropped the 2 pesky pounds that had recently showed up for no discernible reason.  Many of us probably walk around with some of the same deficiencies that my tests showed, and don't feel a thing.  But sensitive bodies are so-called for a reason, and I am a believer in leaving no stone unturned when it comes to not just health, but wellness.

Except that the whole no-bread-no-butter-no-wine is still hard for me to deal with on a daily basis.  So today on Foodie Friday, I put out the call--if you have food sensitivities or allergies, how do you keep your bliss around food, especially at the beginning of having to make changes in your eating habits?    

(image via: http://cookiejarprincess.wordpress.com)

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"What breaks your heart?" That's a question spiritual author and teacher Andrew Harvey tells people to ask themselves if they want to be a "sacred activist"--a term he coined about aligning your "grounded spiritual vision" with your service to the world.

The notion of sacred activism reminds me a little of the old rally poster: "Fighting for peace is like f$%#!ing for virginity." To truly serve we must come from heart and compassion, or else we're just perpetuating conflict. It's not new--this is what the likes of MLK and Gandhi spoke of and lived by-- but this question (I think), is designed to cut through the modern-world overwhelm of "What should I do to help?" Because at least for me there are so many things that are broken, breaking, and in need of tending--global poverty and famine, environmental destruction, sex trafficking, torture, war, the Texas-sized blob of plastic in the ocean, etc.--that when I think about where to serve, I shut down like a little kid in the cereal aisle, dazed by the endless boxes.

But "What breaks your heart?" is maybe one way out of the cycle. Last night at an event for Buddhist Global Relief, a non-profit that gives grants to address world hunger, Andrew spoke about how the world is in crisis and we all need to kick our apathy to the curb and do something. Now. He's not a total gloom-and-doomer, though. His latest book, "The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism," outlines practical ways we can align our soul and spirituality with the service we give to the world.

In his lovely, activating, howling talk last night, he suggested that it's possible to step away from "the collective false human self that has lost connection to our own sacred nature." To take advantage of  an "unprecedented opportunity... to turn apocalypse into grace." He said one way to begin is: Wake up at 3 am one night, and in the silence ask yourself: "What of all these causes breaks my heart the most?" And then "you will find the deepest, most radiant voice of your soul," allowing you to then "join other people of like heartbreak and do something real." 

I tend to walk away from such events swimming in shame. Why don't I volunteer? Why don't I give? Why am I such a total loser, so completely caught up in consumer culture, corporate-driven perfectionism, yadda, that I feel like I have no time or energy to give? This was no different. Surrounded by people who serve so directly, I felt like, "Um, well, I have this blog and I have a gratitude blog and I write articles on communication and yoga and love and, and, yeah. Um, squeak, don't mind me as I take and don't give." And then I berate myself for self-indulgently wasting time stewing in those thoughts instead of signing up for something real. Oy.

When I told someone (ok, my shrink) about all of this today she asked, "Do you pick up trash in the street?" Well, actually last week I picked up a big hunk of glass on the sidewalk because it looked dangerous. "Ok," she said. "That's not nothing." And she listed a bunch of other little things that I do that might just count as service, including my writing. "From this chair I see so many people devaluing what they offer," she said. And this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote came to mind:

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