by Dreama Vance

(To review this series from Part One, go here.)

This is the new way to eat your sandwich! These are ideal ways to eat living food in a comfortable, familiar manner. You can buy coconut wraps and flax wraps online now. All the work has been done for you! Just like making a sandwich, pull out your wrap, add your filling, roll it up and enjoy.

There are many living food recipes that remind us of old favorites like tuna salad and egg salad. There are veggie burgers and “fish” sticks, all completely vegan and delicious. These are easy to make and great to throw together for lunch time. Pâtés like “not-tuna salad” will keep for a few days extra in the fridge, so you can make ahead and pull out your filling when it is time to make your wrap. Patties like veggie burgers can be frozen for future use. You can easily defrost them and use the same day.

Scoops are a vegetable that serves the purpose of and replaces bread. Things like romaine lettuce, a cabbage leaf, and my favorite, a napa cabbage leaf, all hold your filling and extras, just like a sandwich.

My very, very favorite way to eat a living food sandwich, though, is to make a SWITCH. I discovered this secret when we used to have breakfast burritos on the weekend. When I decided to eliminate wheat from my diet, I decided to put all of my breakfast burrito stuff in a bowl and eat it with a fork. It was sooo much better! You could really taste all of the ingredients. They came alive without being muted by bread or wheat flour. This is exactly what happens when you make your living food sandwich in a bowl. Stop and think about it. Really, what is the purpose of bread in a sandwich? Doesn’t it really just take the place of a plate? It just acts as a shelf for the filling of your sandwich.

The key is to put only the things you would normally put in your sandwich into your bowl. The good thing is you can put lots more of the good stuff in, like a thick Dagwood sandwich, and still eat it without making a mess! Plus, you can add those juicy tomatoes and not drip them on your shirt! Don’t you usually add lettuce and tomato to your sandwich? I always build mine with greens on the bottom, mix in your mayo, add your filling, top with tomato, sprouts, whatever you like, and dig into the super-good flavors.

You will be amazed at how good it is. It is so much better without the bread! I love cucumber and arugula sandwiches so I just scrunch up some baby arugula in a bowl, add my homemade nut “mayo,” stir it into the arugula, top with sliced cucumbers and sliced tomatoes and that’s it! You can do exactly the same with a veggie burger. You have to try it to believe it, but it actually does have more taste and flavor than it does on bread. The bread dampens the taste. Without the bread, those fresh veggies just shine with juicy goodness.

Don’t add any other ingredients than what you like on your sandwich. This is not a salad. It is a sandwich in a bowl. You can add more of what you normally put into your sandwich, but not a bunch of other things. You can load up on all of the things that go into a sandwich and eat as much as you want. There is no bread to weigh you down and your meal will leave you feeling light, satisfied, and refreshed.

It is so simple and easy to eat this way. I could feel a difference when I quit eating bread and wheat products. Many people who go gluten-free comment that they just feel better. That is probably because wheat processed into flour is a bit pro-inflammatory in the body.

Plus, did you know that wheat has 15 opioid elements that interact in a morphine-like manner with your brain?

Changing our habits takes effort. This Return to the Garden series of articles is designed to encourage you with simple ways you can begin to transition. When you begin the journey of making changes in the food you eat, you see from a certain perspective. Just like driving in a car when you start out on a trip, you are looking forward and moving toward a destination.

Once you get to where you are going, you see from a different perspective. The journey is behind you and your focus is now not on the trip, but on your destination. In other words, you have arrived. It doesn’t mean you didn’t enjoy the journey, because you should, by all means! But the point is that you want to get to where you’re going. It is here, when you arrive, that the blessings unfold like a bouquet of flowers.

Yes, you will experience many benefits along the way, more energy, balanced weight, better sleep, better concentration, less brain fog and many other physical, emotional, and mental benefits. All of these things can show up as you transition. But when you are no longer “working” to get there, when you have finally achieved your goal, that is when you can really notice the other wonderful things that take place in spirit.

It has taken me almost 18 years to discover the connection between raw, living food and spirituality. Almost from the beginning of my introduction to this way of eating I intuitively knew there was a connection. But how exactly did it work? There are many who talk about the benefits received physically, emotionally, and mentally. However, there just is not much information about the spiritual changes. People will tell you they “feel more alive,” or they feel “more connected.” Dr. Gabriel Cousens has a book on the topic, a tome really, that talks about our subtle energy bodies and 72,000 nadis. But what does all of that mean on a practical day to day level?

Here are the secrets I have discovered and want to share with you, for it is truly the spiritual benefits that make the effort to eat this way so worthwhile.

First and foremost, eating this way changes our consciousness. It took me 8 years after becoming a vegan to realize that veganism is about consciousness. Elevating consciousness is the reason spiritual teachings of old tell us to eat a vegetarian diet. Ancient teachings didn’t have to tell us not to eat processed food because there wasn’t any! But in today’s world, processed “food,” like the plague it is, must also be avoided. When you eat a primarily raw and living food diet even deeper changes happen in consciousness. It is your consciousness that transitions. You see life from a different level.

You experience a Freedom you weren’t even previously aware was missing. Once you reach this level of consciousness, one of the things you will be able to do is look back at your old self and see how you were bound to the miasma of 3D consciousness because of your food choices. It literally appears to stick to you, like stringy glue. You don’t see this when you are functioning at the level of 3 D because you are in it and experiencing life from that point of view. But as you rise in consciousness and are freed from those trappings, you can look back and see it. It is incredibly liberating.

Dreama, California coast

The second experience is Joy. This Joy, I think, comes from that higher state of consciousness as it resides with you no matter the outer circumstances of life. I have written about this Joy in previous articles and I know many of you know joy. I can only tell you that when I changed to a vegan diet, within two weeks that Joy descended upon me, almost like the descent of Grace, and it has never left me, not even in difficult and trying, soul-testing times.

The third thing is Communion. You begin to experience an actual communion with the food you eat. You will actually feel happy just by picking up your peach or your apple or cucumber. You will begin to “see” life in them. You will feel it, sense it. The life in the food begins to feed you in a totally different way. It is this experience, life communing with life, this opening to spirit that unveils itself when we come into harmony with nature with our food choices that I want you to understand.

This harmony begins to resonate within your being, connecting you to all life. You feel that connection all the time, not just once in awhile, or during deep meditation. Compassion, beauty, peace, these are the fruits of the spirit we receive when we eat the fruits and foods of the garden.

Tell a friend…

by Dreama Vance

I don’t know about you, but for me when someone says, “What’s for lunch?” I immediately think soup and sandwich.

So let’s look at the first half of that possibility. Let’s talk soup! Blended soups that are fresh and living food. Savory smoothies can fall into this category, but I like to call them raw soup because if I offer my husband a smoothie at lunch time, he turns up his nose, but if I call it a raw soup and serve it in a warm bowl, he slurps it up and asks for more! So, soup it is! Plus, after you blend up your recipe, you can dice some additional veggies into your bowl and it really is a soup.

Soup carries a different mindset. It naturally says lunch or dinner for most of us and so living soups that are blended and creamy fit right into our transition to adding more foods from the garden. After all, most of us grew up with tomato soup from a can and it is super easy and so much more delicious to make a raw tomato soup, particularly since tomatoes are now in season for us north of the equator! Add a bit of beautiful basil and oh, my goodness! That is exactly what it is: goodness. We are putting the good into our bodies.

These living soup recipes can also pack in the greens and you can use avocado to make them creamy or you can use nuts, seeds, or nut butters. Either way, you want them to be delicious. If you think of them as soups, then you can add pinches of spices like you would a cooked soup to flavor your recipe. Take your ingredients out of the fridge early and let them come to room temperature. That way you don’t have cold soup and if it is a good recipe, you’ll not even think about it being uncooked, it will just be good! You’ll be surprised at how filling they are, too.

Here are my two secret tips for when a raw savory soup recipe turns out to be less than you had hoped: Consider adding a bit of miso to your blender of soup. A teaspoon to a tablespoon usually does the trick. I usually use a chickpea miso that is unpasteurized. This adds that savory component that sometimes is missing in raw soup recipes. Also, consider adding a bit of lemon juice, about a tablespoon or two per blender of soup. Just like in cooked food, lemon juice “brightens” the flavor of food. These are tips I have used when my soup recipe didn’t measure up to my expectations. Let’s face it, some recipes are great and some are mediocre.

You’ll find favorite recipes, just like with cooked foods, and make them your own. When making living food recipes, listen to your intuition. You’ll find it telling you up front if it sounds like too much salt or too much chili pepper in a recipe! Learn to listen. Always go small to start. You can add more of an ingredient as needed. It is almost impossible to take it away!

Here is the thing about raw and living food: Each individual fruit, veggie, and herb is slightly different. For example, some lemons are more tart, some tomatoes are sweeter than others; some celery tastes salty and some has a sweetness to it. These differences are very noticeable in raw food dishes, unlike in cooked food where flavors tend to meld together and differences go unnoticed. It is one of the delights of living foods. Once you understand this, you’ll be able to modify your recipes accordingly.

Here is one of my most important tips: If a raw recipe calls for a clove of garlic, I often replace this with a bit of garlic powder. Raw garlic, as opposed to cooked garlic, is spicy hot and packs a punch that can be overwhelming. Garlic powder can add flavor without that pungency. I do this with onions, too, often replacing them with a bit of onion powder. Cooking onion and garlic softens and sweetens these herbs. In their raw form, they are much more potent and can easily end up being the only thing you taste in your raw spaghetti sauce! If it is a dish that usually has these herbs raw, like a salsa, then you may be on safer ground, but I would still start with a smaller amount than the recipe calls for and add as needed. These are tips I have learned and offer if you’re a newbie to this way of eating.

You want your food to be delicious. As your tastes change, as your taste buds awaken, you will discover all the vibrant flavors in fresh foods that have been hidden to you because we’ve eaten so much processed food. Your tastes will come alive, but this takes time. So it is important that you like your food; otherwise, you’ll stay stuck where you are on your journey. The vibrancy, good health, and realizations awaiting your discovery are too important. I don’t want you to miss them!

So, start small with one tiny habit. Make it yours. Hug it to you and guard it. Like a lioness guarding her cubs, don’t let anything come between you and your life-promoting habit. There are “thieves” and “robbers” out there waiting to pounce and steal your joy. Don’t let them. Guard that tiny habit and nurture it. It is precious. Here is a wisdom teaching:

When you make something a sacred part of your day, it moves up in priority. When this happens, it becomes important to you.

Make your tiny habit a sacred part of your day. Think about eating as a sacred act. After all, we are nourished by the Divine. Living foods connect us with that Light. When you begin to consciously eat living foods, at some point a shift will happen. It is like a door opens in consciousness. Think of what you eat as a doorway. When you eat living plant food, the door opens to more Light, to higher consciousness. When you eat cooked food, the light is gone out of the food and the door closes, leaving us as we have been, shrouded in the thick veils of illusion. The living food thins the veils of consciousness, revealing more and more our connection to all life.

We have talked about two major daily habits you can start using to move you forward on your healthy and conscious journey: the daily juice habit and fruit smoothies. These make great breakfast foods to start your day. Now you can add savory soups to your repertoire. At Rawfoodrecipes.com you can find lots of raw food recipes from many different chefs to get you started.

Here is one of my favorite anecdotes:

The teacher was explaining to John the difference between juicing and blending. She explained how juicing removed some of the fiber, but packed in the nutrients, and how juice was quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, requiring little expenditure of digestive energy. She explained that blending kept all of the fiber, was fast and easy to prepare, but still had to be digested. John listened, nodding his head as if he understood, and then said, with his brow furrowed, “Why don’t I just eat the food?” The teacher laughed and said, “I don’t know! Why don’t you? But you don’t. We have to find a way to get the real food into you. This is why we juice and blend.”

This story illustrates why daily juicing and daily smoothies and living soups are so powerful. This is how we get the living food, filled with light, into our bodies.

Next time we’ll talk about the other half of the soup and sandwich equation! But for now…

Eat from the garden. Eat real food. Juice every day. Have a smoothie or living soup every day. Eat some fruit every day. JUST START! You’ll be on your way, dancing with delight, and loving it in no time at all!

Tell a friend…

by Dreama Vance

A couple of years ago when we first moved to our new place, we popped into the brand new big chain grocery store that had just been built in our tiny little town, which is basically out in the boonies.

We stopped to get some organic apples since we were getting ready for a car trip. I stood in the checkout line and observed the woman in front of me. Her shopping cart was full of boxed and bottled items. The bottles were full of neon-colored liquid. I have no idea what was actually in those bottles, but she did have two boys with her that looked to be about 15 and 12, as well as a little girl in the cart. I can only assume those bottles of something that could not possibly have been grown in nature were for the kids. The two boys were busy raiding the candy trays on display at the counter and holding bottles of soda pop. I don’t really know what was in the boxes in her cart, either, but they, too, had bright colors and “grab your attention” packaging.

There was not one item of LIVE food in her cart. Not one piece of fruit, nor one vegetable was to be found. As I stood and watched the tableau of this family, my heart actually hurt for them. This picture has stayed with me and still weighs heavy in my heart.

Believe it or not, our food choices are closely tied to consciousness. Dead “food” promotes a “culture of death” as Dr. Gabriel Cousens calls it. Live food promotes life and feeds our spiritual awareness. Dr. Cousens is a well known advocate of a raw vegan diet and the spiritual enhancement that comes from this diet and lifestyle. He has several books out about the topic, including “Spiritual Nutrition,” where he specifically talks about how our food choices effect the subtle energy bodies, kundalini, and ultimately our spiritual path to God.

Processed food is, quite frankly, killing us. No matter how much good stuff you put into the body, if you are still polluting your system, you will simply be treading water, not making headway.

Think of your body as a pristine pool of water. When we start adding a drop of black ink to the pool, at first it is hardly noticeable. The more we add, however, the murkier the water becomes. If we decide to clean up and restore our pool to its pristine state, we can eventually do that by adding clean water, but only if we stop adding the black ink.

Improving our own well being and therefore increasing our spiritual awareness must involve the two steps of 1) eliminating the bad stuff and 2) increasing the good stuff that we eat.

I’ve often wondered which comes first, a change in diet, or a change in consciousness. I think perhaps they dance together with one taking the lead first and then the other. One thing that happens for sure is the cleaner you eat, the more aware and conscious you become, the more emotions will arise to the surface for you to become aware of and that you will have to handle.

Food and emotions are intricately linked in all of us. In fact, it is one of the main ways we are socialized into our culture. The sooner we see this food and emotion connection and begin to understand it, the easier it will be to make our own changes in diet and the more tolerance we will have in understanding others.

I’ve been involved in the raw food movement since about 2002. How that happened is a story for another time. I have watched many come and go in the movement. I’ve watched many leaders change their tune. Although I am not 100% raw, I am always moving in that direction. It stands as a guiding light in front of me, beckoning me on to better wellness and higher consciousness.

Recently I was talking a friend through prepping a raw dish and she looked at me and said, “You like doing this.” I stopped and realized, it brings me joy. Eating this way brings be joy. Somewhere in my journey during these last 15 years, the decision to eat more raw and living foods went from an intellectual decision to make good choices to one of wanting to make choices because they make me happy!

Before this realization, I often said I am in the “want to want to stage.” Many of us live in this stage for a long time, whatever the subject matter, be it doing daily exercise, starting a yoga practice, learning a new skill, or eating healthier. We live in that “want to want to stage” thinking about it, maybe even doing it, but if we are actually doing it, it is our willpower and discipline that carries us. When we finally reach the “want to stage” it is like finding freedom! Now we are doing whatever it is because we want to do it. Just like if you want a glass of water, you get up and go get one. Now you are motivated by the experience itself, and the joy and happiness you feel with the practice.

We all make choices everyday. We all do the best we can with what we know at the time and with the circumstances we encounter. So always love yourself. Always love the real food you eat and be most grateful for it.

Soon, I’ll talk about how I got started on this branch of my journey and share some tips for adding more living food to your lifestyle.

Tell a friend…