Raw Sacramento News
Newsletter to Raw Sacramento Thursday July 31">
Raw Sacramento News Newsletter to Raw Sacramento Thursday July 31, 2003
Friday Evening Dinner with Victoria &
Igor -- Important Instructions! Dinner
& lecture with Victoria & Igor on Friday Evening August 1. We have
increased our capacity, and anyone who had previously been placed on a wait
list is now registered for this
event. With the advent of cooler weather, we have decided to move the
Friday evening event to the back yard of
our host's home. For this reason, however, we need to ask 2 things:
1. please bring a folding chair for
yourself. (if you could bring an extra, that would be helpful). 2. please bring a sweater or light
jacket. I know whereof I speak. I was there last night & it could feel a bit
chilly by 8 pm. Payment for the dinner cannot be
made by credit card. Please pay by cash (preferred) or check when you
arrive for Friday's Dinner. Thanks! Here's the
official list of registered
attendees. If you seen any discrepancy,
email Mark or call him: 870-1658.
Directions to the dinner.
Time: 7-9pm! There was a bad link at one point showing
the location For Victoria's Workshop at the home of the Walters in West
Sacramento. Please be sure you have the location correct.
Raffle for an Excalibur Dehydrator At
all events during the month of August including Victoria's Weekend workshop, we
will be selling raffle tickets for a drawing for a brand new 5-tray Excalibur
Dehydrator. This is the ONLY brand dehydrator you want. It was
donated to Raw Sacramento by
Excalibur
which is located in Sacramento. They are the obvious choice for all
serious raw food kitchens. (Quintessence
Raw Restaurant in New York has 10 Excalibur units running 24 hours a day, 7
days a week). Thanks very much
to the Sacramento Bee and reporter Alison apRoberts. She did a fine job. Below
is my message I sent to her and the Bee food editor today: Thank you very much for the superb
coverage on our Raw Sacramento support group. I was awed with the excellent
write-up and great photos of our recent potluck dinner. It was a pleasure
working with all members of the Sacramento Bee staff. It was quite thrilling to
see such a great article! Raw Sacramento deeply appreciates the publicity our
group received---it was truly wonderful for us.
Best raw regards,
Mark Blackburn
on behalf of “Raw
Footage” Raw Food Cable TV Program -- Volunteers Sought Christa Bennett has a vision to create a
series of programs dealing with raw foods using the community local access
channel. In order to do this, she needs volunteers. She also has a great idea
to chronicle one or more volunteers as they begin and follow a raw food diet
over time. I urge anyone interested in assisting Christa to
contact her directly. Please contact her directly if you would like to
help her:
Hello
Mark,
I just
wanted to let you know that I have talked with Victoria and arranged to
interview her on Saturday for my new show Access show "Raw Footage." I am still
in the process of looking for a production assistant and someone to do lights
and sound. Let me know if you know of anyone who may interested in helping out.
I was
also wondering, for future shows, if you might know of anyone who is not yet
raw...but is ready to make the change to going raw....who also might be
interested in documenting that journey for future installments of the show.
Feel free to pass on my contact information to anyone you think might like to do
that. Let me know.
Many
Blessings,
Christa Bennett, C.M.T.
P. O.
Box 417034
Sacramento, CA 95841
email:
christabennett@comcast.net
(916)
331-5362
cell:
(916) 505-9134
fax:
(916) 344-3712
Christa
Christa's web-site:
www.thestressbusters.bigstep.com Some of you may expect some comment on the
Bee Article. Two people called me to discuss it, because they were uneasy
with it. I think I know why. If you're excited about raw foods and
the prospect of better health, you would like to share the credibility of it
with your friends and family. But this article quoted some experts who
scoff at the idea of raw foods. Let me make the following comment:
“I liked the article very much. It achieved what we had hoped to
achieve—recognition and publicity.” Remember, raw foods is not for everyone!
Most people prefer to sit on the couch at doctor’s offices, living with a
reduced quality of life, have flabby bodies and die early if they can just eat
their French fries, milkshakes, and burgers. It is worth it to them, and we
must respect their choices. (Sadly, in socialized America, we must also
subsidize their expensive choices & resulting excessive health care expenses).
So some experts think a raw food diet is
scientifically inferior. Remember, it was experts who told Harley Davidson,
Inc. in the 1950s that they had nothing to fear from the Japanese motorcycle
industry. (Harley would have gone out of business in the 70s if it had not been
for massive government bailouts & punitive tariffs). It was experts from
the Pentagon who told the world that Iraq had huge stockpiles of WMD – (but we
have yet to find a trace). Experts in China are building the largest
water dam in the world with great fanfare. Most scientists outside China
claim it will be the biggest water mismanagement disaster the world has ever
seen. And, it was experts (medical doctors) in the 1940s who told
their patients to smoke cigarettes, believing it to be good for
the lungs. Always listen to experts. After all, they might accidentally
know something! It was absolutely appropriate for a well-written & researched
article to cite some locally known experts. Remember, we are in a paradigm shift. New
ideas are seldom received with much acceptance--especially from those with a
vested interest in 'how things are.' In all societies the status quo is
rigorously defended. All truth goes
through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed.
Finally it is accepted as self evident. In this case (diet) there are huge
mega-corporations like Tyson Foods donating millions to the colleges &
universities who are turning out dieticians. Do you think these recipient
schools are going to tell their students that garbage food created by Tyson
Foods is GARBAGE? Of course not! If everyone in America went on raw foods many
major corporations would collapse! There is tremendous inertia to keep people
on the status quo. And, there remains a dearth of information sharing among the
scientific community of information assuring us that a raw food diet is
constructive. (There are many good studies which point to this, but they are
squelched and ignored). But, can we have confidence that at least some of the
scientific world believe raw foods are good? Absolutely! The most significant,
un-biased, well-researched (800 man-years) dietary studies undertaken in history
were the Oxford/Cornell/China Studies under the direction of Dr. Colin Campbell
during the 1980s and 90s. There has never before or since been a study which
has so meticulously, rigorously and authoritatively correlated the relationship
between diet and disease. This study is largely unknown, and trust me, NO mega
beef or poultry corporations are going to publicize it. You may find many
references to this study
here. There were actually two major China
Studies. The primary findings of China Study I are:
·
"There is no threshold of health improvement as one removes animal products from
the diet: "Our study suggests that the closer one approaches a total plant-food
diet, the greater the health benefit."
·
Consumption of cooked animal-based proteins are more closely correlated to
cancer than is consumption of dietary fat.
·
A diet
rich in a variety of plant foods--stems, roots, shoots, fruits & flowers….(the
historical human diet) is clearly optimal for health. The three major findings of the China study
II are here. Do they tend to support a raw food diet? An increasing
number of important studies all over the world seem to confirm that we in the
raw foods movement are on the right track. But, a lot of experts would
disagree. I take this in stride. You should, too. I remember
when my 45-year friend Rick Fletcher returned from a trip to India after High
School and announced he was going to be a vegetarian (whatever that was).
His family doctor (a well-respected 'expert' in Newport Beach) told Rick and his
parents that he would be dead within 1 year if he became a vegetarian!
(This was not good. Back then, we believed doctors! I'm sure Rick's
parents were not comfortable about this). About 25 years later Rick
was still a vegetarian...and very much alive. As I was talking with him in
his home in Nevada City, I wondered whether the Doctor was aware that Rick had
been a healthy, thriving vegetarian for 25 years. I asked Rick, "whatever
happened to your family doctor?" "Oh, he died...."
-Mark Blackburn
Many more outstanding raw food events are
scheduled in or around Sacramento. I have
to mention the biggest raw food event of the year on planet Earth: Portland's Raw Food Festival, scheduled
for August 21-26. Mark your calendars now!
Official Website of
the Portland Raw Foods Festival. Here are
photos of Raw Sacramento
attendees at Portland last year. Here are the
Raw Sacramento members
known to be going to Portland in 3 weeks for the festival.
Right now
Southwest Airlines has
promotional fares of just $34 one-way to Portland. Driving takes about 9
hours (580 miles).
Raw Sacramento now has a functioning
steering committee.
This is going to make our group and our events much better. You can join
this group, or, you can attend meetings of the steering committee.
Read about it here. The steering
committee will meet next on Friday, August 8 at 5:30 at the SNFC dining area
(inside or out depending on weather).
Where to get Raw Food in Sacramento? If you
read our events page carefully you'll see that we have a
monthly potluck usually on the 1st Sunday of
the month and on the Fourth Friday of the month.
Thursday night support group is suspended until after the vacation season and
after Victoria's workshop. But, would you
like to just show up & pay for a nice raw meal? As an experiment, we will
be trying this beginning on August 17
under the direction of Diane & Larry Walters.
If You're not eating Raw, You should be!
Raw Sacramento now has 145 people on our email list. If you know
someone who would like to receive this, please send it to them. They can
subscribe by sending
me a request with their first & last name & city of residence.
Raw
Sacramento's main Event Calendar Mailing List: Please forward this email to any interested
party. If you would like to join this list, please send me an
email. Thanks,
Mark Blackburn. Best raw regards, -Team Raw Sacramento Contact us: info@rawsacramento.net
Thanks to Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Bee Article Comments
Raw Sacramento sends about 3 emails per month. Raw
Sacramento currently has 150 individuals on our email notification list
(July 2003).