Lucid Nutrition

Big Food Trend Predictions for 2009

The following list of Big Food Trends and Emerging Trends was predicted by The Food People, UK's leading food trends and food innovation business. It seems like many of their forecasts have already gained some momentum here in the states, but it is still an interesting read. I added my notes and links in italics.

Big Trends for 2009

* Comfort food - Incorporating retro, nostalgia, feel good foods of the past. (ex. Jamba Juice will start selling steel cut oats with fruit for breakfast. Better option for those fast food mornings)

* Scratch cooking and home baking - More cooking from raw ingredients, also more breads, tray bakes, not just because it saves money but also it makes you feel great. (More Vegan/Raw Food Potlucks and Meet-ups)

* Less protein - It is expensive and also there are so many possibilities with vegetable accompaniments. (Thank you World Peace Diet!)

* Thirst for food skills and knowledge - More entry level cookery schools teaching the basics and how to get the best out of what you have. (for example: The Natural Epicurean Culinary School, Austin TX)

Restaurant and farm alliances - Savvy restaurateurs teaming up with farms to bring the consumers food that they know and trust. (For example: Casa de Luz, Austin TX)

* More miniaturization - Things getting smaller – greater choice, less cost, more variety, more cute factor. (The vegan cupcake revolution has been here!)

* Health - Instant nutrition, ultra low calorie, health through natural choices (ex. FDA's approval of Stevia. Finally! )

Emerging Food trends for 2009:

• Beauty foods - Foods that enhance your inner or outer beauty. (Get sweet with fruit)
  

• Raw food - Foods that are raw and retain all of their natural goodness, raw food diets (I am now addicted to green smoothies after participating in a free 3 day cleanse with Dr. Ritamarie a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend anybody with $97, a blender, and a very strong desire to take their health life to a brighter level to Sign Up for a  7 day cleanse. You are worth it and she is awesome and will give you all the inspiration ad motivation you need to get you through it.
  

• Free food - Incorporating foraging, freeganism, growing your own.
  

• Bistronomics - Avant garde cuisine at bistro prices by using what’s in season, not throwing anything away and using modern cooking techniques

• Community food projects - Power to the people, groups of people sharing land, skills and knowledge to share food within communities (here's a list of Community Gardens in Austin, TX)
  

• Anti (this and that) foods - Foods that fight certain conditions and aliments. (I don't see this trend ever going away, sometimes it can be annoying)
  

• Fun - Introduction of more fun, personality and informality into brands and the dining room
  

• Multi sensory emotional food experiences - Use of alternative techniques to cook, serve, present food to deliver a more all encompassing food experience that is multi sensory. (For ex. several upscale & risky restaurants are popping up in places like New York that are un lit; pitch black rooms allowing for customers to "focus" on the food. Interesting? ) 

Without clarity, we don't know we need to change. Without willingness, we cannot adopt better habits. Without discipline, we cannot keep from falling back into the old habits.

Raw Food Cooking Class

Yesterday I attended a raw food cooking class in Austin Texas taught by Dr. RitaMarie Roscalzo. She titled the name of the show "Magic in the Kitchen" and gleefully donned her favorite wizard tee for the occasion. :)

Wait, what do you mean, Raw Foods?!

The raw food diet is a diet based on unprocessed and uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans, nuts, dried fruit, and seaweed.

Heating food above 116 degrees F is believed to destroy enzymes in food that can assist in the digestion and absorption of food. Cooking is also thought to diminish the nutritional value and "life force" of food. Typically, at least 75% of the diet must be living or raw. 

Proponents of the raw food diet believe it has numerous health benefits, including:

Increased Energy, Improved Skin Appearance, Better Digestion, Weight Loss, and a Reduced risk of heart disease...

The raw food diet contains fewer trans fats and saturated fats than the typical Western diet. It is also low in sodium and high in potassium, magnesium, folate, fiber and health-promoting plant chemicals called phytochemicals.

These properties are associated with a reduced risk of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. For example, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that consumption of a raw food diet lowered plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations. Source: Cathy Wong

I believe eating more raw foods will help you live as lucid as you can live. The ingredients are fresh & alive, not burned or on fire. But what the hell is a raw foodist supposed to eat then? No bread. No pasta. No tofu chicken. No nothing? No.

BACK TO CLASS

Before the event Dr.Ritamarie asked us to clean out our refrigerators and bring in items (still fresh) that might typically be found in our homes. I brought in rainbow chard, fresh spinach, a yellow bell pepper, a large juicy mango, cilantro, fresh ginger, and lemons. Her mission was to take our grocery bags full of.....whatever we stuffed inside of them, and show us how to turn them into a quick healthy "raw" meal. What followed was the tastiest Thai "Soup" ever.

If you have a food processor or high speed blender this can work for you to. Try it.

Chop one large mango and lemons and add to blender to form a juicy base. The lemon juice counteracts the bitterness of some greens. Chop or tear pieces of rainbow chard, spinach, cilantro and add to blender. Add chopped yellow bellpepper and a good size chunk of fresh ginger. In come the secret ingredients: Add about 2 tsp of coconut butter, 3/4 tsp tumeric, and 1/2 tsp dulse (optional). You can also add a kefir lime leaf or lemongrass for the ultimate thai flavor. Now all you do is Blend It until you reach a desired consistency and enjoy. It is so savory and deliciously Green! As Green and Simple as it gets actually.

With what was left of  the greens I brought in, she made a simple salad. She chopped the rest of the rainbow chard and spinach, added lemon, and then massaged the greens with her hands. Finally she added olive oil and a lil sesame oil to give that Asian flavor, tossed on some sesame seeds and passed the salad around for us all to partake. A few women suggested adding ground nuts or ginger juice to top it off. It thought it was great as is. I never realized how easy it was to make a soft Asian salad.

Did I mention we also learned how to make the most delicious chocolate frosting in the world AND also witnessed a fabulous recipe redo: lemon fluff delight. Yeah, you can have it all raw. It is amazing how much creativity goes into this way of preparing food and the joy you get when eating it. With all the right equipment, and information abut what ingredients you will need to have in your kitchen, you will be all set.

If you are at all interested in learning more about raw foods, I highly recommend a visit to Dr. Ritamarie's website and blog. It contains an awesome collection of FREE articles, e-books, green cleanse videos, and all the inspiration you need to transition to living a healthier lifestyle. Also, if you are in Austin, consider attending a raw food POTLUCK. 

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Michael Pollan Secretary of Agriculture

Press Release: Website Launched, Lobbyist and Publicist Appointed

PollanforSecretaryofAgriculture.org

WASHINGTON D.C.--President-elect Barack Obama’s selection for Secretary of Agriculture has a new twist, thanks to a burgeoning grass-roots petition campaign endorsing Washington outsider Michael Pollan for the post.

Pollan, author of runaway New York Times bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma, NYT journalist, and unofficial guru of the local, non-industrial food movement, framed his agenda most recently in his essay ‘Farmer In Chief’ published in the NYT Magazine, the Big Idea being:

“Most of the problems our food system faces today are because of its reliance on fossil fuels, and to the extent that our policies wring the oil out of the system and replace it with the energy of the sun, those policies will simultaneously improve the state of our health, our environment
and our security.”

Now boasting 8,000 signatures, the petition and a new website are the brainchild of lobbyist and media representative Blane Friest. Featured on WNYC, the nation’s largest public radio station and on Bill Moyers Journal, Pollan and the petition effort are gaining credible buzz among the nation’s media outlets. A Facebook Group now approaching 4000 members has also been formed independently by another Pollan devotee, Bryan Giglio.

Pollan’s reluctance to throw his hat in the ring has caused many in the blogosphere to question the validity of the campaign, but Friest remains resolute, “In the Moyers interview he begins by saying he knows his limitations and doesn’t consider himself a viable candidate for the position. He then spends the next 45 minutes eloquently proving precisely why he’s the right one for the job. It’s not necessary to have a politician or bureaucrat as Secretary, but someone who knows the players well enough to hire the right people to write policy while maintaining oversight of the direction of the agency. Pollan is that person.”

The petition reads in part:

“Mr. Pollan has a unique understanding of the history, development, and contemporary practices of U.S. Agriculture and its relationship to the health of the citizens of The United States. He is singularly qualified to identify inefficiencies and present improvements in production, nutrition, and our problematic reliance on petroleum and petro-chemical based fertilizers, for the benefit of food producers and consumers both.”

The complete petition and position statement are at ww.PollanforSecretaryofAgriculture.org.

If you think Michael Pollan would be great for this position and country, why not sign the petition? I don't think he would turn down the job if it was offered to him.

P.S. I still think Will Tuttle would do a better job.

This Season, Think & Feel & Think Again Before You Buy

Back in April, Thom Yorke and the rest of his Radiohead bandmates joined forces with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to produce a music video for "All I Need," a song from their In Rainbows album.
Anonymous comment:

"How can you complain about this video, this is reality, America gets to live well and buy the consumerists goods they don't need because American companies have subsidiaries in other countries that employee children for low wages".

Some other helpful articles I read today pertaining to consumer awareness:

What would the Buddha buy?

How Marketing Tricks You and How To Beat It

World Peace Diet Lecture, Friday Night

If you are in Austin Texas on Friday December 5th you should stop by Casa de Luz, Center for Integral Studies to hear Dr. Will Tuttle give his lecture and presentation on The World Peace Diet from 7:00 - 9:00 pm.

And if you are unfamiliar with the Casa de Luz, you are in a special time. The vision is this:

The philosophy of how to live a great life (Macrobiotics) is the founding idea for Casa de Luz. This is an all encompassing philosophy, which includes all methods of supporting health and freedom. Our mission is to offer a sacred space for those that want to bring their disciplines to share with the community. Casa de Luz is open to all. Our reason for being is to practice and live in integrity. We believe that living with integrity includes practicing, learning, teaching, and sharing actions and philosophies to develop conscious living and cognition. It also takes commitment, authenticity, appreciation and openness to being wrong. The search of improvement is necessary, least we become arrogant and dogmatic. This is a place that is ever changing and colored by the practices that people bring to share.

In order to fulfill its complete destiny, Casa de Luz will create a full spectrum village which will be designed to include smart living modalities. Humanity's recent industrialized development has created conveniences that have proven to be detrimental to the overall health of all things on earth. The automobile, while wonderful, has proven to destroy well being. Industrialized foods have been made tasty, attractive and cheap, yet not only do they lack nourishment, but they also cause illness. By design, a village can support well being for all.

Besides being the gathering place for various forms of study including yoga, cooking classes, tai chi etc... the Casa de Luz kitchen prepares the most delicious foods all based on the macrobiotic regimen served buffet style in a communal style of seating. Every time I go there, I meet someone so interesting and on the brightest path of lucid living. It's wonderful. I will be meeting with Will before the event to capture some new video footage for his website and getting some details about his experience on th 13 month full time book tour in his solar powered RV across the country which is nearing completion. As you can tell,  he is one hard working, compassionate man planting peace daily and it has been great working with he and his wife Madeleine to help grow their online presence.

If you are unable to attend this event make sure you join the World Peace Diet Network, Read the Book, or follow Will's blog. Getting to know his mission and understanding his life work will definitely strike some harmonious chords in you and make you healthier too. Inside and Out. Really.

Oh and when you come to town call me or DM me on Twitter and we will visit Casa de Luz together :)