http://realbeautysketches.dove.us/

I was very surprised by this video and how much it made me think about how a lot of people including myself view themselves.  An artist sketches an individual without seeing them by only the words they use to describe themselves.  Then they do another sketch of the same person with another persons view.  It is amazing how different the two pictures are.  I love the emotions these ladies show when they get to see both sketches.  You can feel their instant conviction for the way the picture themselves.

It’s three minutes long but worth the watch, enjoy.

Try this Iodine Patch test:

1. Begin this test in the morning after showering.
2. Use Tincture of Iodine to paint a ’2 X 2′ square on the inner arm. (Tincture of Iodine is available from any drugstore. Make sure you purchase the original orange colored solution but not the clear solution.)
3. Write down the time you start the test.
4. Observe the coloration of the patch over the next 24 hours.
5. Write down the time the patch start to lighten as ___:___ am/pm
6. Write down the time the patch completely disappeared as ___:___am/pm
7. Describe patch site after 24 hour.
***Patch begin to slightly lighten after 24 hours — normal***
***The faster the iodine patch color disappear, the greater the body needs iodine***
If you are not sure the color change, take pictures with your cell phone, and bring them to a practitioner that retail Standard Process whole food supplement in your area. Log on to www.standardprocess.com to find a practitioner nears you.

by Elizabeth Bohnenstiehl

When I make Falafels I save the broth that is left over from crock potting the garbanzo beans down. I use the broth instead of water in the quinoa that goes in the Spring Salad Wilt. I also have enough Tzatiki Sauce left to use in the Spring Salad Wilt, so I basically have two amazing dinners for the price of one. If you have never had a falafel, it’s a treat. Here’s the first recipe.

Falafel

Falafel is a dish common in Egypt and Israel, and the Near East. It is fried chick-pea (garbanzo) balls, that are stuffed into pita bread together with lettuce, cucumber and topped with Vegan Tzatziki Sauce. We often have chopped onions, black olives, & tomatoes out, but the traditional taste would be just lettuce cucumber and sauce.

1 bag dried garbanzo beans, soak in frig. Overnight. Do not drain. Put in the crock pot with water level 2 inches over beans, and cook on high 6 or 7 hours. You can do this the day before so that you are not working with hot beans or if you have time you can let your beans cool.

• 1 tsp. Ground coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground garlic (1clove chopped fresh)
• 1 tsp. Ground cumin (no more that 1 tsp., to much cumin is to strong)
• 1⁄2 tsp. Cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper
• 2 tablespoon dried chives
• 1 tablespoon organic cane sugar
• 1⁄4 cup flour

Drain your chick-peas but keep the broth.

In your processor, about a cup and a half at a time grind up your cooked chick-peas. You might have to put a little broth in but not to much. Process till smooth. Continue till you have it all ground. Put this into a mixing bowl and add coriander, garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper, lemon pepper, chives, sugar, and flour and mix in your mixer throughly. It might seems sticky, but you can now roll it into balls about the size of a quarter. Most people deep fry the balls in oil at 375 degrees for two or three minutes till golden brown. I don’t want the extra calories so I put olive oil in two large skillets, and fry them, turning them ever so often till they are golden brown. I think they taste just as good without all that oil.

Vegan Tzatziki Sauce

• 1 cup tahihi (sesame seed paste) (make sure you mix your tahihi well, it’s like natural peanut butter, the solids are at the bottom)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder (2 or 3 cloves fresh garlic)
• 1 or 2 cucumbers (processed with skin)
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper
• 1 teaspoon dill
• 1⁄4 tsp cumin

Mix together. Save the leftover sauce for the next recipe.

Spring Salad Wilt with Quinoa

• Spring Salad Mix (One large bag, green & dark purple leaves)
• Leftover Vegan Tzatziki Sauce
• Quinoa made with leftover garbanzo broth instead of water.

Prepare quinoa ahead of time so that you can pull it out of the fridge when you need it.

To prepare quinoa, use two cups of liquid (garbanzo broth) per cup of quinoa, (do not salt it), combine liquid and quinoa in a saucepan or rice cooker. Bring the mixture to a vigorous boil, then lower heat and simmer, covered, until quinoa is tender but still chewy, about 15 minutes. Refrigerate.

Directions:

1. Wash bagged salad mix, put in large wok skillet. (If you do not have wok skillet, large non stick skillet is fine.)
2. Drizzle Tzatziki Sauce over lettuce like you would a salad (don’t over do it)
3. Sprinkle about 1 cup and 1⁄2 prepared quinoa on top of that. (experiment, you might want a little more quinoa maybe 2 cups)
4. Begin cooking, turning mixture over as you wilt the lettuce. Don’t over cook it.
5. When it has cooked down, eat it while it’s hot.
6. 

This is my sister and fellow Vegan, Margie Brimer. There is a slight resemblance, I know. Margie was skeptical of the diet and even more so,concerned that she wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I think that’s why a lot of people don’t try it, because they’re afraid to fail. It’s a huge lifestyle change. She started off slow and learned as she went and she has now been vegan for fifteen months. Margie is an author of young adult fiction and a teacher and a mother of three. The one thing she noticed the life change provided for her was clarity and energy – two things most any individual would say they could use more of. Three months into her diet she convinced her husband, who wouldn’t mind me saying that he was a football watching, barbecue grilling, 3 Big Mac a meal eating dude, to give the change a try for just two weeks. If she couldn’t make it taste good enough then he could quit if he wanted to. In April Margie’s husband will have been vegan for a full year.

Margie has a blog (brimersniche.wordpress.com) as well and recently wrote an article about the connection in the recent rise in veganism and social trends in society. There are reasons that people are suddenly becoming vegan and surprise, surprise – it has to do with money. It’s not exactly what you might think though! Here’s what it has to say:

I paid a short visit to the candy store that is Barnes and Noble this week and found myself, of all places, in the Philosophy isle. Okay, it was by accident that I ended up there but none-the-less I thoughtfully chose a book from the shelf with regard to intellectual growth. Yeah, that didn’t happen either. The cover of the Hunger Gamesdid grab my attention though and when I pulled the book from the shelf, thinking that it was in the wrong section, I discovered that it was actually entitled, “The Hunger Games and Philosophy ” As I looked further I discovered that there were other books dedicated to the success of vampire stories and zombie stories. Why in the name of all that is warm and breathing are we so hypnotically drawn to the un-dead?

Well it’s nothing new. In fact, one of the first vampire stories, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was written in 1897. The first feature length zombie film was featured in 1936, entitle,White Zombie. So why the resurfacing trend? One word, MONEY. But it’s not what you think. It’s more about the lack of money than the making of it. Society gravitates towards grim tales when times are hard. Basically recessions bring out the monsters. In the 30s monsters and horror films were on the rise and and our stock market was on the fall.

So why blood sucking vampires and flesh eating zombies? Why not GODZILLA or the BLOB? It’s about meat. Yes, ground chuck, T-bone, drum stick, meat. In the past it’s been hard to come by during recessions and war time, even being rationed at times. People associate meat with strength and feel as though without it they are weak. So we invent immortal monsters that will seek it out for us as we live vicariously through them. It’s also a reason why we’ve seen a recent rise in vegitarianism and veganism (I being the latter.)

Vegitarians and Vegans are, on the whole, not the norm. Meat eaters, lets face it, you don’t get it, right? Why would you give up BACON?! Oh sweet bacon, how I miss thee….eh-hem, sorry about that. Well according to this philosophy, meat eaters seek meat for strength and the Vs seek veggies for the same reason. They abandon the ideas that meat is the only source of power and look for alternatives in hard times. They’re those few strange individuals that like to play against the odds.

So, congratulations! You didn’t know that you were the one’s who decided what the recent Best Sellers would be about ,did you?

Welcome Veganville!

Coming from a small rural mid-western town sometimes makes being a vegan difficult. Residents of cattle country don’t always understand the choice so it’s great to see videos like this that get the message out in a HILARIOUS way! I wish I could ad-lib the way Justin Timberlake does! Heck, I wish I had his Tofut-ilicious moves! Watch and learn!

Ingredients:

1 Cup Old Fashion Oatmeal, Quick Oats work also

1 Cup Toasted Sweet Shredded Coconut

1/2 Cup Vegan Chocolate Chips

1 Cup Peanut Butter ( original recipe says 1/2 cup but it’s easier to roll with a bit more)

1/2 Cup Ground Flaxseed meal

I add 3 Tablespoons Hemp Protein powder and 3 Tablespoons of Chia seeds for extra protein and omega 3,6, 9′s

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1/3 cup Honey

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, if to dry add more peanut butter of honey.  Roll into bite size balls, put on parchment paper and refrigerate for 30 min.  Transfer to airtight container and enjoy!!

• Low in Calories
• Cleanses Blood and aids in New Red Blood Cells
• Dissolves Kidney, Liver and Bladder stones
• Found to increase the bodies production of Glutathione which helps the body Detoxify Cancer causing Poisons
• The Beet’s green tops are Rich in Iron 
• Lowers Blood Pressure and Hypertension 
• Lowers Bad Cholesterol and Increases Good 
• Betacyanin which gives the Red Pigment to the beet helps to prevent Cancer Causing Tumors
• Increased Stamina
• Cold Fighter due to it’s High content of  Vit C
• Contains Tryptophan which aids with Mood and Sleep 
• Aphrodisiac, high in Boron which is directly related to the production of Human Sex Hormones 
• Need your B’s eat a Beet
• Weight Loss, the Cleansing of the Blood and Liver help the bad Fat to flush correctly through the Body and not be Stored
• Stomach Acid Stabilizer
• Dietary Fiber and Juice of Beets scrape clean your Artery Walls and prevent development of Varicose Veins
• High fiber helps with Constipation

Not bad for a root you can get at your local grocery store!  I’ve been juicing a beet with some carrots daily and am going to try to keep it up, I would like to see the advantages that these beets have to offer.  I would challenge you try to add this vegetable to your diet cut up in a salad, juiced, boiled and put with couscous or quinoa, or try a borscht.  I haven’t had a lot of experience cooking with beets but plan to try some recipes and post them.  If you find a good one please share so we all can enjoy!

• Cucumber Sandwiches:  Pretty simple sandwiches, just whole wheat bread for nutritional value, slices of cucumbers lightly salted and vegan mayo.  We like the reduced fat soy mayo, I think it take tastes better than the other brands.
• Homemade Trail Mix:  We like peanuts, cashews, raisins, dried cranberries, vegan chocolate chips, and pretzels but you could also add any other nuts or dried fruit, sesame sticks, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds.
• Pretzels and Honey Mustard, Hummus or Peanut Butter:  Make sure to check the ingredients in your pretzels some are not vegan.
• Peanut Butter and Bananas, Honey or Jelly on wheat, this is definitely one of our staples.
• Frozen Fruit works well, by the time they get it for lunch it’s perfect.
• Refried Bean Quesadillas:  the night before we take vegan butter, organic wheat tortillas, and fat free refried beans with cumin, garlic powder, salt, onion powder and vegetable broth and fry them up in the skillet, let them cool, cut them and bag up for lunch.
• Pickles, olives: weird but kids love them
• Apples and Peanut Butter with raisins:  core the apples and cut them in bagel type circles, peanut butter them and sprinkle with raisins, cap with another apple like a sandwich.
• Last lunch idea before putting the kids to bed is Odessa favorite Chocolate Peanut Butter Wheat Tortillas:  just take a wheat tortilla and cover it in chocolate peanut butter and fold and cut.  Odessa likes to cut them into shapes like hearts and butterflies.