Checking In With Blog Land!

Hello!

Wow, it has been over four months since I last wrote here! And what an amazing four months!

Here are some highlights:

~We gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl on June 22, 2009. She was born at home on Salt Spring Island in to her Daddy's hands, 7lbs 12oz, 20.5 inches, pure joy and radiance.

We named her Sophia Katarina and have been smothering her in kisses and hugs ever since. She is almost four months old now and thriving on 100% mama's milk. She loves to nurse and suck, and delights in putting everything she can get her hands on into her mouth! Her excitement when she realizes she is about to nurse and the look on her face when she is full of sweet milk are some of the most beautiful things I have ever known. She sleeps in the bed with her Mama and Papa and wakes up with radiant smiles for us every morning. Sophia's newest trick is rolling over, and she even wakes up in the middle of the night to grunt away and work at it, the bed has become a baby gym!

Here is Sophia's first week in pictures!

Here is our Summer in pictures!

(I have been working on a new blog that is all about my experiences with pregnancy, birth, and motherhood and I will let you know when that is up and running!)

~In Juicey News, the Autumn Juice Feast is in full swing and just past the half-way mark. David is coaching a fantastic group of 8 people and I am loving being on the periphery of such juicy excitement.

One of the Autumn Juice Feasters (and our friend from Patagonia, Koali) is keeping a gorgeous blog over at Simple Healthy Beauty that I have just spent all morning reading, and happily reminiscing about my own magical adventures in Juice Feasting. For more blog pleasure, check out this I Love Me Some Juice Feasting! post by Phil Bolsta. Phil has done a fantastic Q&A about his experience with Juice Feasting that you might enjoy.

For those of you who are interested in joining a group Juice Feast in the future, keep your eyes open for an announcement about the New Year's Juice Feast, set to start in January, 2010! You can also register with www.JuiceFeasting.com if you'd like to receive email announcements about our work.

~Cafe Bliss is a hit and keeps getting busier and busier! I am so proud of my sister, and so excited to see our community loving the raw food glow! I was there yesterday with Sophia, and watched as two young men toasted each other with shots of E-3Live as I had some of Heather's amazing lasagna, a moment of perfection. Cafe Bliss was featured in the most recent edition of our local weekly, Monday Magazine (will post link if I can find it!) and was also mentioned in the Globe and Mail! For more on Cafe Bliss, join us on Face Book.

Ayrie and the new Bliss boards

Bliss Blueberry Cheesecake

Heather, Sarina, and the giant Bliss zucchinni

~I just compiled an album of Raw Food pictures from our Flickr account. Although my center of gravity is still on raw-vegan, I have been eating more as a "Whole-Foodian" with my pregnancy and now as a breast-feeding mama. This has been a wonderful and important shift for me to make, but I still love the beauty and simplicity of raw food and so created this album as an inspiration to myself! I hope you enjoy it too!

I think that is it for now, I hear my sweet Sophia calling my name!

I hope you are all well and have had a beautiful summer,

with many blessings and peaceful steps,

Katrina, and with love from David and Sophia!

2008 Global Juice Feaster's Reunion!

Hello All!

Well here we are in March of 2009, and thanks to some inspiration from Bronwyn, all of us now in Victoria who did the Global Juice Feast in 2008 got together for a little reunion.

As you will see in the video I was working behind the counter at Cafe Bliss and missed hearing everyone's Post-Juice Feast story...I just now watched the video and was so excited to hear everyone sharing how well they are doing! Continuing to spiral upwards in the never ending flow of growth!

If you are planning on joining the 2009 Global Juice Feast, starting this coming Saturday, March 7, be sure to watch these seasoned Juice Feasters (David, Bronwyn, Constanze, Ayrie, Robyn, and I) for some wonderful inspiration....oh the joys of fresh, raw juice!!

Enjoy!



LOVE!!!!

Katrina (who is still loving her Green Vegetable Juice!)

Feeling yummy!! 5 1/2 months!!!

Our Very Happy News!

Hello Dear Friends!

Wow, it has been quite some time since I last wrote, and quite a time too!

We hope that the year of '09 has been treating you with as much love, joy, and happiness as you can handle!! (I mean LOTS of goodies and abundance!)

We had a wonderful Christmas in Victoria with family and it was truly a special Christmas for David and I as it will be our last one without a BABY!!! Yes, we are having a baby, a great happiness for us both! Off on the next big adventure of life.......

The little one is due to arrive and come out to play sometime in June. Due date is summer solstice, June 21 for our sweet little summer strawberry baby.

Happy 4 1/2 month old baby in the belly!
I am now well into the second trimester and feeling great and loving the magical process of creation that is evolving! As many of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know, one of my main reasons for Juice Feasting back in March 08 was in preparation for Baby Rainoshek. I am thrilled that this little soul has now joined us and is letting me know how happy and strong he/she is by bumping all about in my belly! David was able to feel the movement from the outside for the first time last night, what magic. (Click HERE for a jump back in time and to read my personal reasons for Juice Feasting on Day 2 of my 88 Day Juice Feast!)

I have to admit that being on the computer is not my favorite thing right now, along with all other left brain activity, as my delicious pregnant dreamy right brain seems to take over!! So, hence the lack of blogging....but I do hope you are all well and look forward to hearing from and sharing with you in the near future!

With lots of love and sweet wishes to you,

Katrina and David and growing Baby Rainoshek

Enjoying a snowy winter day....

A 1 Day and 114 Day Juice Feast

Hello Dear Friends!

We are sitting here watching the rain through our window, enjoying the gentle arrival of fall on Canada's west coast. My tan is quickly fading and memories of Arizona sunshine and clear blue skies are going to go a long way this winter I can tell already!

I have not yet written about how amazing it was for David and I to meet so many people during Raw Spirit who had Juice Feasted! We were floored by how many stories of grace, healing, happiness, and strength that we heard. Even those people who shared stories of what they called "failures at Juice Feasting" said that over-all it had been an amazing learning experience and that Juice Feasting was something they wanted to try again at some point in the future.

For the record, a two week Juice Feast when one has set out to Juice Feast for 92 Days is not a failure! Two weeks is an impressive length of time to go on just juice! Even if you Juice Feast and decide you never want to do it again, bravo! Juice Feasting is just part of the gentle process of continuing to spiral upwards in health, and some of us need 1 Day at a time, some of us two weeks, some of us 114 Days!

114 Days??!!! A very special young woman is breaking out of her 114 Day Juice Feast today, and we have been very blessed to have her with us on our Juice Feasting Forums.

You can read Lilly's Blog in its entirety here, but here are some of my favorite bits:

From Day 83

"This summer and juice feast seems to have passed in a blur of good vibrations. As I shed the old and welcome the new, I realize what a miracle it truly is to have nature cure my illnesses.

Today, at my colon therapist's office they noticed me smelling the flowers, and asked about my pollen allergies. I realized at that moment that I haven't had any allergic symptoms since juice feasting. None, nada, zippo. In fact, I live near a park where I walk my dogs every morning, and haven't had any symptoms since juicing. Gosh, I'm happy to be runny rose free :)

Making my green juices has become a daily ritual. I can whip up thee greenness like Rosie The Robot from The Jetson's. As for my energy level, some days I sleep soundly, whereas other days I have boundless energy and read on until the middle of the night. Throughout the day, I tend to have good energy as long as there are 6 mason jars full of juice at my disposal :)

My eczema is clearing up well, about 3/4 of the psoriasis is cleared away allowing the new "me" to shine through. It has been 8 years with eczema... 8 years of wearing turtlenecks, of becoming more shy because of my "shell". When strangers used to stop me to say hi to my dogs, I would notice them glance at my neck eczema and then back at my eyes. It used to make me feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, and shy. But lately, the strangers I have encountered seem to pay less attention to my eczema. I'm happy people are starting to see me for me, not the eczema, or fear of getting eczema.

More than my skin has evolved... I feel more calm and content. I don't crave anything or feel like I need as much. I hope I can find the right words to convey this feeling. I want less... of everything, even the juices. I may feel thirsty, but I drink the juices for nutrition, there are no cravings anymore.

My thirst to learn new things has increased. I can sit for hours, often from 6pm-midnight lost in a great book. This was not the case before the juice feast. I used to have a hard time concentrating. For example, I would read for an hour, but then I would need to do something else- like clean, play the piano, check my e-mail, etc. During the juice feast though, my mind was stronger. I can't emphasis this huge change enough. My mind has become more clear, connecting words, and ideas more easily. This was not the case before my juice feast. Curious enough... my schedule now is more hectic then it was prior to the feast. So, I firmly believe the juice feast has cleared away old matter that has clogged my body and bloodstream; leaving a more lucid and clear flowing body and mind."

From Day 100:

"Today is Day 100 of my Juice Feast. It's hard to believe a hundred days have passed and gone by so quickly. So much has happened in the pass 3 months physically, mentally, and spiritually for me. This has had a big effect on the actions of my daily life. Physically, my eczema has 90% cleared and I lost a little weight.

Mentally, I have been able to concentrate for 6-8 hours and read books cover to cover for hours. I just fall into a zone every evening. I'm amazed. Spiritually, I find myself more calm, relaxed, and wanting less. I feel content and happy with less things. All in all, this has transformed my life for the better.

Gosh, I went into the juice feast looking to ease my eczema a bit... but I found so much more. Life is truly a blessing. I'm so happy to have been able to heal my health. It is very freeing to take control of your health. I'm continuing to juice feast one day at a time until my eczema is more clear. I'm almost there. And it has been great to have the loving support and supervision of some amazing colon therapists.

Thank you to the people that have done this before me, that have lead the way, that have provided answers for the future... you have helped me today and I am grateful.

Blessings and love to you, Lily flowa" Before and After Photos

Goodness! Sometimes (oftentimes) this whole business makes me rather teary eyed! Congratulations Lilly and many blessings to your journey onwards and upwards!

If you don't feel like 114 Days of juice is calling you just now, let me share a little story from ~n~, who just recently did a 1 Day Juice Feast:

"I'm very pleased to say that I made it through an entire day yesterday on juices (yes, it really CAN be done!). Officially, I guess I did a one-day juice feast! :) I made a lot of juice in the morning so that I would be able to just get something whenever hunger struck throughout the day. I made different mixes of kale, celery, beetroot, romaine lettuce, carrot, apple, and plum juices (nice rainbow, eh). I feel really good about the amount of greens that I got into me.

In Dr. Walker's book he says that kale juice, like cabbage, can cause gas to bubble up in the intestines as it allows the waste matter to release and be carried out. I don't know that I could actually drink a glass of it straight (but what he says is quite true)!

It was amazing to me, that even just one day of juicing could cause such massive change in my body - not only the effect of the kale juice, but also the mucous that came pouring out (sorry if that's tmi)... I couldn't decided whether it was the cold I thought I'd been fighting off or a detox symptom. I'm quite sure it was detox though because the odd thing is that there was a little sleep coming out of my eye corners (during the day) and my sinuses were quite plugged by the end of the day, but fine this morning (and if it was a true cold, I'd expect it to be the opposite).

Monday night I stayed up until 3:30 making travel plans. I simply wasn't tired and felt invigorated after having a pink bath (which aids in releasing anger and aggression, helps to build compassion and loving kindness) with rose essential oil and rose petals - sounds extravagant, doesn't it! And despite staying up half the night, I was up at 8 without too much struggle. Last night, however, I slept solidly from 10:30 until 8:30 this morning - a solid 10 hours. Usually I'll get 8-10 hrs of sleep, but it'll have been disturbed at least once, between the children & the dog. It felt wonderful to have an uninterrupted sleep of that length. I used to have issues with sleeping in (thoughts like "what a waste of your day! get up and get going!") but I have since learned to see it as very restorative and important for good health and well-being, and I must admit I live a rather pampered life that I rarely get up to the buzzing of an alarm clock.

I haven't yet "broke the feast"; this morning I'll be having some cantaloupe juice to start the day. Maybe I'll just keep going on this fast for the time being. Just taking it one moment at a time..."

~n~ you are absolutely right about sleep being a very important part of your day! Thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on your 1 Day Juice Feast! To read more of ~n~'s blog, follow this link.

What juice did YOU have today? David and I both had half a quart of cucumber, celery, kale, bok choy, beet, carrot, apple, pear, lemon and ginger juice for breakfast. WOW, talk about yummy nutrition! A little on the sweet and complex side of things, but a nice breakfast juice treat.

And, because we are not Juice Feasting right now we also had a bowl of chia pudding magic with blueberries, strawberries, maca, bilberries, and noble mushroom powder. Yum.

With much love and blessings for a beautiful day,

Katrina Rain

Our Summer in Pictures

Hello Dear Friends!!

Summer has been so wonderful that each time I try to sit down to write here, something such as a walk in the sunshine, a date with a blackberry bush, a swim in the lake, or a picnic by the ocean seems much more inviting!! That is summer for you!

We are happily moved into our new house in the woods, and I am loving having a full kitchen of my own once again as you will see in some of the pictures below. My brothers like to make fun of me for taking so many pictures of the food that I make, and it got me wondering "yes, I do wonder why it is that raw foodists love taking and showing off pictures of their raw food?"

I know that I am not alone in this habit taking pictures of my raw food as though it was my first child, the web is full of raw food pictures! Is it because raw food is so sumptuous and beautiful? So vibrant and delectable? Well yes, it is those things and many more (raw food is colorful, juicy, pretty, glowing, mouth watering, natural, yummy, yummy, and YUMMY!), but I also realized that pictures of food, all kinds of food, are EVERYWHERE!!

It is no wonder that as raw foodists we feel the need to balance out the plethora of cooked food pictures that we see in magazines, on TV, pasted on giant billboards, popping up on the web, on our airplane trays, in the grocery isles, and restaurant windows, with some pictures of the truly nourishing foods that we make at home! Pictures of pizza, lasagna, chicken, burgers, fries, and candy stimulate our appetites for these foods, and likewise pictures of red apples, gorgeous salads, juicy peaches, and green avocados stimulate our appetites to eat raw foods!

So I say go ahead! Let's flood the airwaves with pictures of beautiful, appetizing raw foods! I know it makes me excited to eat this way when I can find inspiring pictures of yummy looking foods. Storm and Jinjee and family have a fantastic project on the go called Take A Fruit Break, and you can even download beautiful free posters that will be sure to get your mouth watering for some tasty raw foods!

So, with that, we hope you enjoy these pictures from our summer 2008!

Ayrie with fresh salad greens from his backyard forest garden. I can't tell who is glowing more, my dad or the greens! An orange breakfast in an orange room. (In a house we babysat while waiting for our own house.)Making fruit faces with my sisters.Blackboard at Cafe Bliss.Cake. My mom made this from blended frozen fruit, just like ice cream cake! Chia pudding with fresh figs and blueberries. Chia has become a staple, I LOVE it!! I made a delicious chia smoothie with spirulina and cinnamon, which I thought was a weird mix of flavors but it worked out yummily.
Sweet flax crackers with guacamole, sun dried tomato sauce and fresh tomatoes, and of course SALAD!!Rosemary/garlic/onion/carrot/flax/pumpkin seed/sesame seed crackers with basil pesto and fresh tomatoes and of course SALAD!!
I Am Honoring Nachos from I Am Grateful, made for a dinner with guests. Made with I Am Kind Refried Beans, I Am Generous Guacamole, I Am Fiery Salsa, and I Am Ravishing Cashew Sour Cream. Served with flax crackers made by mom, and freshly made lemonade. Strawberry Vice Cream. Made with almond mylk and frozen strawberries. Joe aptly noted that is was silly for us to be calling blended nuts and spices "beans" or "cheese" and why didn't we just call it what it was? Just call it a spiced nut pate he suggested. For our "ice cream" he has bestowed the title "Vice Cream." V for vegan, vice for healthy indulgence (we don't really think this treat is a vice in the strict meaning of the word, don't worry.)
Alright! Done with the food shots, here is us on the Sonja after a sail, me about to jump in, David climbing the rat lines for a better view.

David enjoying sunset on a Northern California beach on our way home from the Vibrant Living Expo in Ft. Bragg (a fantastic event!)Setting up the tent to sleep by the sea.

Me visiting the redwoods.
Me swimming in a river, still feeling bon dans ma peau 3 months post Juice Feast!! Strike a pose Katrina!
Enjoying the island abundance of Blackberries, we are going to need a second freezer!
Look at the size of these babies!!

We are off again in a few days to head down to Sedona, Arizona for that fabulish gathering called Raw Spirit Fest! We hope to see you there!!

All love and blissings,

Katrina

Where Is The Raw/Living Foods Movement Headed?

The internet is really pushing the widespread knowledge, fascination, and acceptance of plant-based raw and living foods in the past 5 years. It seems everyone has a blog, a book, and is a raw food chef. We are all writing volumes about our personal experiences validating much of what plant-based nutrition experts have been saying for years. The library of printed knowledge has grown immensely, and you may have noticed recently that books on raw foods and raw food preparation are disproportionately represented on the bookshelves at your local whole foods-style market. We are still a minority, but our books are dominating the shelves, a sign of our creativity, understanding, and dedication to teaching this valuable knowledge and making it accessible to a wider audience (literally :) ).

Dr. Brian Clement of Hippocrates Health Institute was recently asked where the Raw Foods Movement would be in 10 years, and he gave this answer:



I agree with Dr. Clement, and want to continue this line of thought with the social changes I think we are going to see with the Raw Foods Movement, which will begin from within the movement itself.

BIG MIND - BIG HEART OF THE RAW FOODS MOVEMENT
In the past 3-5 years, I think we have gone a long way in the Raw Foods Movement in surpassing the fundamentalist, hard-core political/eco activist energy of the Vegan Movement, having included the best nutritional and social/economic/political realities, but without the harsh judgement or anger included. This is not to say that the Vegan Movement does not still have this sharp edge, but it would appear that a move to Raw Vegan is more expansive and legitimately hopeful that this is a cuisine that everyone can access, and all are invited - even those that have knowingly created harm.

I would suggest that the honest move to a plant-based raw/living foods diet involves a forgiveness of oneself, and an understanding that each of us has lived more egocentrically, less worldcentrically, in our own ways. There is a recognition that we must wake up together if we are to heal the many forms of damage we have collectively created. Guilt and blame become elements with limited use, except to acknowledge, learn, and move ahead.

In the next 10 years, I see the Raw Foods Movement as being commonly acknowledged as having many of the qualities other aspects of society will want to adopt: a grounded living in joy, cooperation over competition, living as a worldcentric act of love, and local economy (which is the last aspect of the Raw Foods Movement I want to discuss). What ground have we covered?

- Those of us who consider ourselves part of the Raw Foods Movement have, as a group, moved up the Spectrum of Diet away from processed, animal, and cooked foods.

- We have honored the value of fresh, nutrient-dense, local foods for their healing and health-protective qualities, not to mention the environmental protection, animal protection, and social/economic/political realities.

- We have figured out how to prepare raw foods in a delectable way for ourselves who want to be healthy.

- Moreover, we have developed thousands of dishes that even non-raw/plant-based eaters devour in front of us, leaving us with little food for ourselves as parties. Even some of our skeptical parents and friends have adopted Green Smoothies, more salads, juicing, and visits to raw food restaurants.

- We have recently made raw foods acceptable to the mainstream.

- Finally, with the advent of high petrol prices and a gentle awareness of optimal food freshness, we are pushing (and are being pushed) towards local foods. So what is the next step?


MOVING TO THE LAND
I believe it is moving to the land, and I do say "moving to the land," not "moving back to the land," because most of us at this point never lived on the land. The Raw Foods Movement is going to see a significant emphasis on urban farming; Urban Food Forests - a term I learned from Victoria, BC visionary Ayrie Cunliffe; and moving to the land out of economic and nutritional necessity. Food prices are skyrocketing, and recent events such as the mandatory pasteurization of almonds, the persistent efforts by agribusiness to dumb down organic standards, and suggestions to irradiate all leafy greens, etc. are threatening our fresh food supply.

This move to the land will not be best based on romantic visions of a fairy-tale Laura Engels Wilder "Little House on the Prairie" existence, but a solid use of the best technologies we have created with the Urban Experiment - such as the internet, radio, telephone, permaculture and organic practices perfected and widely printed in books that we all have access to, extraordinary nutritional and health knowledge, and a new appreciation for the impact our local living has on the entire planet.

Moving to the land is a big step, however, just as making plant-based live foods nutrition non-scary, solid, and scientifically-based has been. Keep your eye out in the Raw Foods Movement for those who are already growing food in urban and rural environments, and harvesting wild foods.

In my upcoming book, Juice Feasting: An Integral Hero's Guide, I will discuss this change and others, including political, economic, ecological, religious, and spiritual shifts.

With peaceful steps,

David Rainoshek, MA in The Green Room
www.JuiceFeasting.com

Global Juice Feast Day Twenty Nine!

I Love Spinach!!

Juice Feast Day 29

The Daily Juice Journal:

This morning we got up and made six quarts of GVJ with cilantro, parsley, cucumber, celery, bok choy, romaine, red leaf lettuce, carrot and ginger. We also made two quarts of orange and pineapple, and two quarts of orange, watermelon, lemon and cherry! You should see the color of this baby!

DAVID:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5 QUARTS

KATRINA:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5 QUARTS

Added to juices: MSM, bee pollen, Vitamineral Green, Spirulina, Hemp Oil, Kelp Granules, and maca.

Also taken: NCD, Vitalzym, MSM, Antioxidant Extreme, and water.

Rainoshek’s Daily Tips:

Bill Maher says “the answer is spinach” Add spinach to your juices, yum yum yum. John Heinerman says: “Worried about wrinkles? Try this Elixir” He also shares about this dark leafy green that Fran R., a midwife who has a practice based on a lifetime of experience, says that she recommends spinach and spinach juice to newly pregnant moms to help them minimize the risks attached to child birth. She has discovered that both spinach and its juice helps to reduce the incidence of birth defects and miscarriages dramatically. Fran says “All I know is that the spinach works. Those who take the spinach regularly have more normal births, less problems you know.” Fran recommends three to four helpings of spinach or 3 glasses of spinach juice a week “is what seems to do the trick in preventing them birth accidents.”

Spinach juice is also good for:
Anemia (it has adequate levels of iron which can help alleviate some of the problems associated with anemia),
Fatigue (after a woman’s period, her iron levels drop which can lead to fatigue. Spinach juice diluted with an equal amount of carrot or tomato will provide sufficient iron to boost women’s energy levels)
and Wrinkles! (OK, so this isn’t a juice to drink but see if you are inspired to give this Heinerman trick a try. Soak some cotton balls or a cotton cloth in spinach juice, and rub in a circular motion around the corners of the eyes, across the forehead, around the corners of the mouth, and down the chin. Do this for five minutes upon getting up in the morning and before retiring at night. Afterwards, rinse the face with cold water and then rub in some persimmon or pomegranate juice using the same technique. According to Heinerman, this procedure will help to tighten the skin and get rid of about 40-60% of existing wrinkles!)

Personal Journal:

I am so in love with my juices!! I love making them, the meditation of chopping, blending, squeezing, and then the glowing jars of vibrating juices, so alive with goodness. I love drinking them, and look forward to each swallow, I anticipate my juice with excitement!

I should let you know that yesterday wound down to being a difficult yet transformative day for both David and I. We wore brave faces until around 3 o’clock when we both admitted that the day was feeling very tough, and that we were both craving food like MAD! We both also had very powerful emotional breakthroughs and by night fall did not feel hungry any more, and felt at peace once again.

We received the news of a death of someone we both knew, a very beautiful and strong soul who had battled cancer for almost 9 years when he discovered Juice Feasting. He gave it a very dedicated effort last year, and two months ago, after almost 10 years of living with cancer, he passed away. We send his family our deepest blessings and love.

We came face to face with the fact that there is not always "the solution" for each and every one of us. Sometimes the solution is to love what is. We all come from different pathways, and our pathways all lead different directions, sometimes we have to embrace death and flow into that final walk of life.

I also had yet another transformation of my personal past, shedding layers one by one, they are falling away like gauze peeled away from a wound slowly healing, and almost ready to see the sunshine. Sometimes I think the layers are all gone, and I think indeed we do experience a freedom from layers at times as they get burned away in our brightest moments of joy and bliss. Then they seem to recover, and re-bury the gold of our pure heart again, calling for action to mindfully peal them away again, putting them aside.

It can be such a delicate balance of acknowledging the shadow and filling the mind with beautiful thoughts. On the one had we don’t want to bury the sadness by ignoring it and pushing it deeper, and we also don’t want to indulge the pain body by dwelling in thoughts that cause us pain. Sometimes I get lost in how to do it all, but it all seems to come out clean and sparkling in the end!! Oh happy day! I spent a good hour journaling last night, and find such amazing answers there in my black book. Not only cathartic, but my writing seems to take the tangle of thoughts and smooth them out into a nice even thread, like taking a mess of fleece and creating not only the spool of wool, but then weaving it into a beautiful tapestry!

I have also been re-inspired to get more intimate with my dumbbells, both by Terilynn and Tony Kay. Muscle is magical. For those of you worried about how your body is going to act post-Juice Feast please please get serious about exercise! I have never really been a serious as I could be about this important nutrient since going raw, and I think now is the time. Exercise is the golden key. As Happy Oasis says, we are “EXERCISEARIANS” and it is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself! Muscle is the tissue of youth, it burns calories, it is spiritual baby!

Have a beautiful evening dear juicies,

LOVE!!

Katrina and David Rain

And here are some Day 29 Photos, we are on the eve of our 1 month Juice Feasting anniversary!!

Happy Katrina about to have some juice.
MMMMmmmm the amazing orange, watermelon, lemon and cherry juice! (I just did a workout so I am allowed to have it with out greens...I think!)
I think I like it!
Want some?
It is really good!
OK, I'll drink it myself then!

Global Juice Feast Day Twenty Eight!

I Love Cucumber!!
Juice Feast Day 28

The Daily Juice Journal:

This morning we got up and made six quarts of GVJ with romaine, spinach, parsley, cilantro, kale, cucumber, celery, carrot, and yam. We also made four quarts of orange, pineapple and lime. Then we made 1 quart of grapefruit and garlic. Sounds kind of like yesterday doesn’t it? Yes, a lot like yesterday!

DAVID:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2.5 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

KATRINA:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2.5 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

Added to juices: MSM, bee pollen, Vitamineral Green, Spirulina, Hemp Oil, Kelp Granules.

Also taken: NCD, Vitalzym, MSM, Antioxidant Extreme, and water.

Your Questions:

I have started the Global Juice Feast with all of you... and have really enjoyed it. I did not lose much weight at all... on day 23 I think I have lost something like 3 kg - 6 pounds. BUT... my period is missing, FIRST TIME EVER! And this is what scares me. My periods have always been so super regular!
I have been experiencing all the PMS syndroms... but no period... this scares me because it may be indicative that I am missing minerals and perhaps iron? Am I becoming anemic on the Juice Feast? Am I exhausing my body rather than helping it?
A few months prior to this feasting I did have a blood test - and my doc told me I was EXTREMELY low on ferritin. She prescribed me (synthetic) iron supplement - but I did not take it and I thought I can correct it with all the green juices and other iron rich raw vegan foods. I have been consuming A LOT of green juices every day. All done by the book.... so what it going on?

What am i to do with missing period?!?!?! What am I to do with the low iron ?!?!! Is my missing the period an indication that my ferritin levels are even lower and this is why my body is holding on to the iron reserve?

I have been feeling quite weak and tired while on this Juice Feast... none of all the great energy everyone is raving about ... and after work - when I want to be active and excercise... I feel exhausted and cannot do much more that to relax on my sofa...

Could it be that the Juice Feasting is not for me at this time of my life? Should I interrupt the feasting and start a modified Juice Feast which includes smoothies and salads, etc? What should I do on this Juice Feast to increase the iron levels...and I have been consuming A LOT of greens including spinach and kale and parsley & bunch of celery / day, etc...

Is Juice Feasting bad for me?

~Nettle

We Say:

Hello Nettle!

This is a common experience for women on a Juice Feast, and it can be quite disconcerting. For those of us who do not experience a complete disappearance of our period, we will often experience a shift in our cycle. Sometimes women will have heavier bleeding than usual due to the body using this time of month to detox as much a possible. Some women will have very short, light periods, for me this has been the case. Some women, like yourself, will miss their period all together.

In our experience this is all a part of cleansing, healing, re-building, and re-structuring your body. Every single one of us will respond differently to this process.

The biggest reason that women miss their cycle (besides being pregnant) is due to being underweight. The women's body says "if I don't have enough body mass to make a baby, I'm going to make sure that I'm not going to get pregnant" Any animal in the wild will not get pregnant unless there is enough food around to nourish a new, growing baby.

Other reasons for missing your moon can be vigorous exercise or athletic training, emotional stress, hormonal imbalances, malnourishment, if you are breast feeding, chronic illness, and/or thyroid imbalance.

We know of several women who have missed their period for times up to as long as five months, and then had it return once things balanced out again for them.

Other signs to watch for WHILE also missing your period that can signal a potential problem are hair loss, changes in vision, headaches, and breast secretions and/or milk production.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms along with the loss of your period, please consult your health professional.

You can also check out this article from www.mothernature.com to see if anything there resonates with you.

Nettle, because you have weight to loose rather than weight to gain, and because you have had test results showing low iron levels, it would be my guess that you are not absorbing the nutrients from your juices very well, and have most likely not been assimilating the nutrition from your food for a long time as well. This is also a very common problem that we encounter. Juice Feasting addresses all of these issues very well given time! Remember too that often with cleansing, things get worse before they get better!

Because we are not doctors, and we are also not working with you personally, we can’t answer your questions with certainty. Please do work with your health professional on these health challenges.

We can tell you that what you are describing could all be linked to poor assimilation of nutrients, and what is possibly behind the anemia and the period loss are one common underlying condition: poor HCl (Hydrochloric/stomach Acid) production by the parietal cells in your stomach.

Poor HCl production is common among westerners who have eaten a SAD or even cooked diet for many, many years, and part of the reason is because of low amounts of organic sodium - our main alkalinzing mineral - coming back into the system, and due to dehydration, which is important for proper HCl production. Also, we tend to dehydrate as we go more times around the sun, regardless of our cuisine and lifestyle (but a diet of water-rich foods helps immensely).

Good HCl is important for the digestion of protein. Your stomach acid should be at a pH of .5, and for many of us, it is not. A low HCl activates pesinogen enzymes, which break down protein chains into amino acids so they can be re-linked and used by your body. If you do not have good HCl, this digestive process done by the pepsinogen enzymes activated by the HCl will not occur, and you get poor protein assmiliation.

Iron assimilation is also linked to HCl production. Victoria Boutenko writes in Green for Life:

"Most minerals, including such important ones as Zinc, Iron, Calcium and the B-Complex vitamins (folic acid and others) need certain amounts of stomach acid in order to be absorbed at all. Without stomach acid, nutritional deficiencies inevitably develop leading to disease."

Please consider beginning to supplement with HCl. One place I know you can get an excellent supplement is the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center Dispensary. Go to www.treeoflife.nu, find their number and ask for the dispensary. You will want to get Quantum HCl and Quantum HCl Activator by Premier Research Labs. Or go to your local health food store and get an HCl supplement, and use as directed with your meals.

I don’t imagine that it is the low fat that is causing your challenges, but rather a poor assimilation of nutrition.

I hope this helps! With love and peaceful steps!!

Personal Journal:

Hello, hello!

The days are all flowing into one another here in Patagonia. I can’t believe it is Friday already! Each day holds similar yet radically different moments, complete with butterflies, lavender blooms, poppies at the road side, skin turning slowly more and more golden in the sunshine, a subtle yet significant shift in body, mind, and spirit occurring every day.

I can’t even quite say today what exactly is shifting, but I know I feel better and better in my body every day, my eyes are clear and see things in sharp focus, my sense of smell makes me feel like I must be a dog not a person, my skin has me returning to it again and again just to make sure I wasn’t imagining its softness, my breath tastes sweet and sweat smells yummy. It is so nice being a natural human! I want to leap into the Matrix and say “Humans don’t stink! We smell really scrummy!”

My weight has remained quite the same since beginning on March 1st. In total I have dropped between 4 and 5 pounds, and then I will go back up again! But what I do notice is that my shape is shifting, and I feel my body is simply doing a trade of old cake and bread cells for orange and spinach cells! Things are firming up, to put it another way. I have decided to be happy about this, as it means that I am assimilating much of the lovely nutrition from my juices, and that my digestive system is doing its job! I am maintaining a healthy body weight on juices.

Enemas? Not as often anymore. I am still doing them 2 out of three days or so, David not so often. Today I have gone twice without any prompting. If you still have weight to loose, go ahead and continue with the enemas, they will help you body to move stuff along much faster!

Do you have your BreakStone Tea and coffee for coffee enemas ready for Day 30?? We are going to start some liver cleansing darling!! More on that to come….

Happy juicing,

With love and hugs,

Katrina and David Rain

Global Juice Feast Day Twenty Seven!

I Love Blueberries!
Juice Feast Day 27

The Daily Juice Journal:

This morning we got up and made six quarts of GVJ with romaine, spinach, parsley, cilantro, kale, cucumber, celery, carrot, apple, and yam. We also made four quarts of orange, pineapple and lime. Then we made 1 quart of grapefruit and garlic. No blueberries today, but were they ever good yesterday!

DAVID:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2.5 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

KATRINA:

3 QUARTS GVJ, 2.5 QUARTS FRUIT.

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

Added to juices: MSM, bee pollen, Vitamineral Green, Spirulina, Hemp Oil, Kelp Granules.

Also taken: NCD, Vitalzym, MSM, Antioxidant Extreme, and water.

Personal Journal:

Yet another amazing sunny day in AZ. It is really nice to be home, back in our Juice Feasting kitchen with our friend Seneca the super cat. I have really been loving making juice, and get so much satisfaction out of filling our fridge with the days juice in a snap (well, an hour isn’t really a snap, but it is less time than I usually spend in preparing food and cleaning up the kitchen when we are eating) I remember the first time I made juice using the Vitamix it took me SO LONG! I was making green juice for the fasters at the Tree Of Life while I was doing my apprenticeship in the café and it felt awkward, slow and silly. Then, I saw Michella (head chef at TOL café) doing it and I realized that there was a whole different side to this juice making, it was graceful, fast, and smart. I now feel that way when making juice, it is a skill like any other: we gain grace with it after practice.

Have a wonderful evening!

All love,

Katrina and David

Global Juice Feast Day Twenty Six!

I Love California!
Juice Feast Day 26

The Daily Juice Journal:

We made grapefruit garlic juice for the first time while on this Juice Feast today! Yum yum! Sounds yuck I know, you have to try it for yourself. We both realized last night that we were craving garlic, so we took care of that today. We also made orange, pineapple, and blueberry which is an OMG purple experience!

DAVID:

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

KATRINA:

TOTAL JUICE: 5.5 QUARTS

Personal Journal:

Hello Dear Friends!

How is everyone doing! I am slowly catching up with everyone’s blogs today and I am reading such wonderful stories of juicy adventures…

I did try to write while we were gone, I really did, but the days were jam packed, and my elderly old Mac just didn’t quite have the ability to pick up the WiFi signals where we were staying. There were just too many other exciting things going on!

So much to report, how can I fit it all in? We had an amazing trip, beginning with Wednesday in Tucson, finding a second hand dress for $32 (Buffalo Exchange I love you) and getting other random chores done. I felt more relaxed in the city than ever, contrary to my expectations! We slept in a hotel at the side of the I-10, woke up really early and made our juice for the drive to LA in 45 minutes (now that is speedy!) and went to pick up Cori Brackett who rode with us across the hills and open skies of Arizona and southern California, filled at this time of year with the most amazing swaths of wild flowers.

Wildflowers by the highway.

We arrived in LA around 4 on Thursday, and what glee, not a sign of pollution poisoning for David. We both felt relaxed and peaceful after the 9 hour drive and the city looked beautiful and miraculous to us! Filled with color and ideas, action and sunlight. I suffered much more thinking about what it would be like to Juice Feast while on the road and in a big city than the whole trip called for. It truly was a breeze.

We arrived at our hotel room after dropping Cori off in a trendy little part of Hollywood where it was dripping with hip, and cruiser bikes drifted along with the cars carrying kids with converse sneakers, jeans and lacy tops, looking through sunglasses that made them look like bugs. You can feel the ocean in the air.

Our home for the weekend was right downtown LA which was amazingly quiet, in a sea of sky scrapers, up on the 8th floor where we had a view and access to the sunshine. A clean old building where people live and stay for a time, an old boarding house. We set up our juicer right away and made a bunch of orange juice to celebrate.

On Friday morning we had the gift of juice delivery! As I mentioned earlier, we were blessed to be sponsored by Izo Cleanze while we were in LA. This meant that every morning we found a gallon of amazing, fresh, organic juice along with purifying teas, lemonade with cayenne, and other goodies waiting for us in a beautiful blue cooler shoulder bag, perfect for carrying around with you to work, or a film festival! Tim, WE LOVE YOU!! If you are in LA, or planning on going to LA, and want to juice, check them out!

We also had the joy of being joined by Victoria Boutenko, who shared a room with us for the rest of the festival. We enjoyed her company very much, and she immediately felt like family. Now we love her even more than we did through her books!!

The rest of Friday was spend finding a Tux for David, getting some produce (we tend to drink more than a gallon a day, and added in some citrus juices to our beautiful Izo red and green juices), and then it was off to the first night of the Raw Lifestyle Film Festival!

The whole weekend was wonderful, and we saw many inspiring films, including You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, Sweet Misery by Cori Brackett, Reversing the Irreversible by Valya Boutenko, All Jacked Up by Jennifer Mattox and Douglas Clemons, and more.

Sunday night ended with the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony with yours truly as the MCs and we had a lot of fun. It was perfect to be Juice Feasting for this, as we didn’t have to sit down and eat, but just kept right on juicing! I think a few of the high lights for me was seeing Victoras Kulvinskas awarding an award while in the full lotus position, holding himself up off the ground with his two hands, and Happy Oasis awarding an award while doing pushups, with the mike on the floor. Dorit really had an abundant evening planned, with live music, speeches, awards, dancing, and without even getting to the whole program we still finished up after midnight!

Victoras the yogi.

We ended up staying up till 3 am visiting with Victoria, and got up 4 hours later feeling refreshed and well rested. Oh the joys of juice and raw foods! After packing up all of our juicing gear, we headed off to LAX to drop Victoria off, and then we headed south to the beach. I had never driven south of LA and so I got to see the sights of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and on to San Onofre Beach where we lay naked in the sunshine and swam in the sea and drank our juice. What a beautiful afternoon.

We spent the later part of the day looking for and collecting veggie oil for the trip back home, and then started out in the setting sun through San Diego and on East along the number 8. We stopped just outside of Calexico (one of my favorite bands as well as a border town) for the night in a desert town surrounded by agriculture and dust. On Tuesday morning we woke up and made juice with what produce we had left, all fruit juice with watermelon, lemon and celery juice, orange, grapefruit and pineapple juice, and apple, ginger and pineapple juice. We also had some young coconuts that began the day. Amazingly we both felt fine on just fruit juice for the day, it must have been all the sunshine!

There you have it, we arrived home last night after stopping in Tucson for groceries happy, healthy, and juicy!

I would like to note that for me, thinking about Juice Feasting around food was far more difficult that actually Juice Feasting around food. I found myself enjoying the smells and looks of food, but did not in any way want to eat it, no problem! I was so happy to discover this. I was also happy to discover that instead of feeling more sensitive in the city, both David and I felt more at peace with it while Juice Feasting. We are now fully in the flow baby!
How did we Juice Feast while on a road trip? We brought three big coolers with us, one for our daily juice, and two for produce. We also brought along our Vitamix, nut mylk bag, and the Breville Juice Fountain. In a box, we took our Green Superfoods, bee pollen, MSM, and other goodies. In the morning we would make juice in our hotel room, which was easy as pie, done on the bathroom counter or little room table. Then we would fill the cooler with ice from the hotel, and we had a cooler full of juice for the day. We also once stopped at a Jamba Juice for fresh squeezed orange juice. It was really much easier than eating on a road trip, an hour in the morning and you don’t have to think about it again! Just reach into the cooler for your juice! Wonderful.

We will be working on our daily videos again soon, so keep an eye out for that. Thank you all for your words of encouragement and for letting us know you appreciate them! We appreciate you!!

We didn’t get many photos, but here are a few for kicks:

David on the way to LA with some wildflowers for company.
An LA Rubber Tree with flowers.
David drinking his Izo Juice on the Rubber Tree.
San Onofre Beach.
Happy Katrina knees at the beach.
A message from the cliffs of San Onofre.
Home again, home again, juicity juice!

See you tomorrow!

With love,

Katrina and David