High Vibe

Easing towards green

Here at High Vibe, we're all about the green. Can't get enough! We have products for ANYONE interested in putting more green into their life: devoted raw foodists, vegans and vegetarians, or just someone looking for a healthy and tasty treat. We support people across the spectrum. We pride ourselves on being able to meet everyone where they're at and help them get to where they want to be.

I ran across this article in the Times last month and have been meaning to bring it to the blog for awhile now. I like it because I speak to many people and know many families who would love to shop organic, but the prospect of revamping their whole lives - and spending the money to do so - is just too daunting. This article provides some great tips on how to bring more organic items into your life in a manageable, bite-size step. I thought it was not only a really useful piece, but also a great indication of the growing awareness, acceptance and appreciation of organic foods, which a generally not only of higher quality, but also better for the environment. More green all around!

Even if you are primarily an organic consumer yourself - which many of our readers are - you, like me, probably know a lot of people who are interested in a more organic lifestyle and aren't sure where or how to start. This is a great way to get going!

Five Easy Ways to Go Organic by Tara Parker-Pope

"Switching to organic is tough for many families who don’t want to pay higher prices or give up their favorite foods. But by choosing organic versions of just a few foods that you eat often, you can increase the percentage of organic food in your diet without big changes to your shopping cart or your spending.The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases." Read more here...   

A few of our other favorite resources include these items, which make great gifts for anyone interested in learning more about going raw, or just getting more green into your life!

Baby Greens by Michaela Lynn and Michael Chrisemer. A live-food approach for children of all ages!

Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko. A unique yet simple and delicious strategy for boosting our nutritional levels. Green smoothies are nothing short of revolutionary!

Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen. An up-close and personal session with Alissa Cohen on DVD!

Greens Can Save Your Life An inspiring and informative lecture by Victoria Boutenko on DVD

Vegetarians take the stage

Just found out about a new show going up at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre called Be My Oswald. It's about a militant vegetarian and her conspiracy to assassinate Santa! It's only running from November 29th through December 5th, so call the Pioneer at 212-591-0434 for reservations.

We hear it's "Shallow Grave" meets "Reservoir Dogs" via David Lynch - wow! Check it out!

Giving thanks for raw!

This weeks kicks off the holiday season, and we at High Vibe find it appropriate that the first one to come along is Thanksgiving. It's a great opportunity to think about all our blessings and to appreciate the wonderful gifts of nature. Of course one of the first to come to mind is the beauty and power of raw food. We're surrounded by it all the time, and it's a real pleasure to stop and marvel at it all over again!

Of course, it's true that the holidays provide challenges as well, so we thought we'd supply a couple of Thanksgiving-specific recipes here. Whether you're uncooking for yourself or bringing a dish to a gathering, here are a few ideas from our friends at rawfoodsnewsmagazine.com that will help enhance your holiday this week!

TODD'S NUTTY WILD RICE PILAF by Chef Rawboy - Todd Ewen from Virginia Beach, VA

(Makes approximately 3 pounds. All amounts are dry measure)

2 cups wild rice, soaked for 2 days, then drained, changing soak water every 12 hours
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked 12 hours, then drained
1/2 cup almonds, soaked 12 hours, then drained
1/2 cup pine nuts, soaked 4 hours, then drained
2 med. carrots, pulse-chopped small in food processor
1/2 large red pepper, pulse-chopped small in food processor
1/2 large bunch parsley, finely chopped in food processor
4 medium cloves garlic, pressed
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 to 1/2 cup nama shoyu (raw soy sauce), or equivalent.

~ Thoroughly mix all ingredients in a large bowl
~ Let marinate for one hour, mixing occasionally, to let flavors blend
~ For variations, substitute other herbs, veggies, nuts, or seeds.

STUFFING SUPREME from Eating without Heating by Sergei and Valya Boutenko
(Makes 1 cup of stuffing; multiply amounts to make more)

1/2 cup soaked sunflower seeds
1 to 2 teaspoons dill seed
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon irish moss powder
2 teaspoons minced onion
1/4 teaspoon salt

~ Mix all ingredients in food processor. Serve sprinkled with paprika and garnished with parsley.

SWEET POTATO PIE

By Rita Romano, author of Dining in the Raw

NOTE: This recipe requires a Champion Household Juicer 2000 PLUS G5-NG-853S -WHITE MODEL

Crust:

2 cups walnuts
1/2 cup dates, pitted
1/2 tsp. 5-spice powder
1 tsp. Bragg's Liquid Aminos

~ To make the crust, mix the last four ingredients in food processor, using "S" blade attachment.
~ Press into pie shell and set aside.

Filling:

6 medium sweet potatoes (or yams)
1/2 cup dates pitted
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon 5-spice powder
2 tablespoons irish moss

~ To make the filling, peel and slice sweet potatoes.
~ Put the sweet potatoes and the nuts and dates through a Champion juicer, using the blank attachment, and alternating some of each ingredient.
~ You should end up with approximately three cups of sweet potato puree.
~ Add the remaining ingredients to the mixture and mix well.
~ Press mixture into the pie shell.
~ Garnish with pine nuts around the outside edge of the pie and chill.

Go to www.rawfoodsnewsmagazine.com to order their Little Book of Raw Thanksgiving Recipes containing festive and fabulous Thanksgiving recipes by great American raw chefs. The e-book features 32 recipes for tasty soups, salads, "turkey," stuffing, side dishes, and many scrumptious desserts from more than a dozen top-notch professional raw chefs--and from the editor and publisher of RFNM, plus tips for entertaining.

Chocolate Demo with Vanessa of Gnosis!

Vanessa Barg of Gnosis Chocolate taught a chocolate-making class last night here at High Vibe. Again the house was full! Vanessa brought plenty of samples, which we passed around as she started with a short history of how she got into raw chocolate and the beginnings of Gnosis. Vanessa has been interested in health and healing for several years, and trained to be a holistic health counselor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She used to make chocolate for friends, many of whom encouraged her to go into business. Last November, Vanessa started offering her chocolates for sale, and just a year later Gnosis is available in 12 stores in New York City as well as online!

Vanessa then demonstrated the creation of her Simplicity bar, explaining the ingredients, equipment and techniques used (recipe below). We talked about the amazing cacao bean, its history of use dating back to 1100 B.C. and the properties that make it a superfood, including its antioxidant properties and benefits as a source of magnesium. Vanessa explained how to moderate the proportions of low-temperature melted cacao butter  to cacao powder to create a darker, richer bar (more powder) or a smoother, more melting bar (more butter). She then added the vanilla, demonstrating how to scrape out vanilla beans (keeping the pods for tea) and sharing the exciting, glittery effect of crystal manna, an amazing superfood in its own right! Then she added some agave nectar and asked a few students sample the mixture to help decide how sweet to make it. Then it was time to pour the chocolates into the molds and chill while we had a question and answer session, and more chocolate samples.

There was a lot of discussion about the effects and benefits of cacao; we also talked about the use of carob, which can be used with or instead of cacao, and is rich in calcium (which interacts synergistically with magnesium). Vanessa talked about the pros and cons and different effects of different sweeteners, explaining that her choice of agave was a combination of flavor and texture preference over yacon syrup, although yacon is another good option, as well as a healthier and more sustainable choice than corn syrup (which is rarely raw and organic anyway). Vanessa also chooses to use honey but is always conscious of her choice of honey supplier, ensuring that the bees are treated well - which goes for all her ingredients. She emphasized the importance of ascertaining the purity and ethics of all her sources, a philosophy that we follow at High Vibe as well. Finally, and also in accordance with High Vibe's mission, she talked about the importance of the love that goes into the chocolate and how the desire to bring something beautiful, delightful and healthful into the world using wildcrafted ingredients is fundamental to the creation of Gnosis Chocolate.

It was a fun, fascinating, helpful, inspiring, and empowering evening! Thanks so much to Vanessa for sharing her love and expertise with us!

We are also excited to announce our plan for another chocolate-based evening the second Wednesday in December! This one will focus on smoothies, puddings and treats, and will be based on the idea of bringing more raw love into our lives throughout the holidays. Call now to reserve a space!

Vanessa's Basic Gnosis Chocolate Recipe:

• Chop raw, organic cacao butter into small pieces/shavings
• Melt cacao butter at a low temperature in a double boiler using a bowl of a substance other than metal
• When most of the cacao butter is melted, turn of heat and cover. The heat already in the bowl will slowly melt the rest of the butter at a low temperature to maintain the integrity of hte butter and ingredients added. It takes a lot of heat to raise the temperature of the butter over 100 degrees, but you can use a food grade thermometer to be sure
• Add raw, organic cacao powder - more powder makes a richer bar, less powder makes a smoother bar
• Sweeten to taste with raw, organic agave nectar, honey, or any other raw, organic sweetener
• Add organic vanilla (not cured in bourbon) and any other organic herbs or spices to cacao mixture to taste and let marinate
• If desired, chop raw, organic nuts and dried fruits by by hand or in food processor and add to cacao mixture (beware of using fresh fruits - only do so if you are planning to eat the same day)
• Pour into molds - if you don't have "official chocolate molds" you can sue ice cube trays, small muffin mold, etc. It is best to use flexible molds so the bars can be popped out with ease
• Chill in refrigerator or freezer until hardened (10-20 minutes depending on depth of mold)
• Remove from refrigerator and enjoy with love an appreciation of all the forces - farmers and distributors, yourself, and Mother Nature - that made your chocolatey experience possible!
• Give as a gift to yourself, those you love, and even those you want to forgive... chocolate is a powerful healer!

Living on Sunlight

Living on Sunlight is it possible?  Of course it is without sunlight we would just be a rock out in space. To live solely on the sun is another story. To gaze into the sun is it dangerous? In the early morning or in the early evening when the the U V index is under 2 it is safe when it is from 2 to 5 it is safe for the skin above 5 it is harmful and we should be shaded. In the winter up north here it is o k to gaze during the day for 10 seconds building up to 15 minutes in 3 months adding 10 seconds each day. What about becoming blind from staring at the sun? When Galileo stared at the sun through a telescope one eye went blind and came back to normal vision within a few days. They report the blindness and not the recovery. 

Monthly lecture recap - the gall and liver flush

Last night’s class was really great! The house was packed. (In an interesting development, we had exactly as many chairs as we had students! Thanks to Donna and Michael at Gravity East Colonics for lending a few chairs!) Dagger spoke for about an hour and a half, starting with a little about the shop and where HighVibe comes from. He then described some general benefits from cleansing and how the body defends itself from toxins in our environment and diet. From there he went into the specifics of how and why the body creates gallstones. Next was a description of the cleanse that precedes the actual flush (3 days) and then how you do the actual gall and liver flush itself, including a few different options depending on the experience and needs of the person doing the flush. Then there was a question and answer session, followed by a bit of socializing as we ended the class and got ready to go our separate and beautiful ways.

It was a very low-key, relaxed and friendly evening, filled with a lot of great information that was explained so it would be easy to understand even if you’d never done any cleansing, but with enough detail to interest people who’d had a lot of experience. We were lucky enough to have colonics expert and shaman Janice Zwail in the audience, and she chimed in with a few helpful insights from her experience.

You can find outlines of two versions of the flush here including the process, some frequently asked questions, recipes and further reading.

Some of the components available for order online at the store include ultra-phos and malic acid  (to help soften stones), oxy mag  and oxy oxc  (to help loosen and break down material in the colon – actually great for any time you want to cleanse the colon), Hi-Zimes  (a digestive enzyme that helps during the cleanse), Swiss Kriss  (an herbal laxative), castor oil  (to help lubricate the gall and liver), wool flannels, our hot water botte/enema bag, olive oil, and the “The HighVibe approach to the Gall and Liver Flush” booklet. These items are also available as a kit!

You can call now to sign up for our upcoming classes - the chocolate class with Vanessa Barg  next week is starting to fill up, and December's class on weight loss and the January class on acid and alkaline balancing promise to be great!

Free chocolate making class - Tuesday, November 13th

Want to make the most amazing RAW chocolate (cacao) ever?

Free class on how to make your own raw chocolate exactly how you like it - sweet, bitter, nutty, fruity, spicy, choc full of superfoods, or whatever makes your tastebuds dance!

Lecture will include step by step instruction and demonstration of the process used at Gnosis Chocolate , along with information on the health benefits of raw cacao and the ingredients used.

These include cacao butter, cacao powder and agave!

Question and answer at the end by Vanessa Barg, Certified Holistic Health Counselor and proprietor of Gnosis Chocolate. Free samples to your heart's delight!

Tuesday, November 13th, 7 p.m.