Vegan Bodybuilding Diet

What Nutrition Plan Has Worked Best For You?

I am currently a Vegan (I do not eat meat and animal products such as dairy). I primarily eat like this because I am against the cruelty that these animals suffer at today's "factory farms." To eat meat and animal products is to condone the inhumane treatment that these animals receive at these farms. Eating meat and animal products would therefore be bad Karma.

I also find that maintaining my Vegan diet allows me to stay very lean in the off season and super lean during my contest prep.

I eat numerous small meals through out the day at approximately 3 hour intervals. A typical day of contest prep for me might be something as follows:

Meal #1: 4 oz oats and a 1/4 package of tempeh
Meal #2: 4 oz oats and a 1/4 package of tempeh
Meal #3: 1/3 block of firm tofu with 1/2 cup brown rice and 8 oz vegetables
Meal #4: 1/3 block of firm tofu with 10 oz vegetables
Meal #5: 1/3 block of firm tofu with 10 oz vegetables

Aligning your world

Is beauty important for your career when you are not beautiful?

Is curiosity important for your personality when you are a journalist?

What kind of person are you now?

What kind of person were you before?

What kind of person do you want to become?

The answer to these questions have more to do with our choices in friends than we ever might have imagined. What we must do to survive is quite different than what turns us into slam-dunk winners. What turns us on and keeps our interest is very different than workin' for the man. "Finding your bliss" is a new age saying that rings of spaced-out fairies and useless losers who have nothing better to do than hug a tree. 

Or does it? 

The path of least resistance to an object is certainly when it holds our attention.  Nothing holds attention of the average American better than passion addiction and fun. Regardless productive humans require leadership, skills and an interest in real education.  This ups the anti and allow for a more challenging game.  All this is great but without people we're fucked.  Right or wrong, good or bad extrovert or introvert... we need people. We want to admire useless dreamers but when it comes to the business of life and pursuit of human potential we need the best.  That's when the hypocrisy shows up and we become the mirror.

Is beauty important for your career when you are not beautiful?

Is curiosity important for your personality when you are a journalist?

What kind of person are you now?

What kind of person were you before?

What kind of person do you want to become?

The answer to these questions have more to do with our choices in friends than we ever might have imagined. What we must do to survive is quite different than what turns us into slam-dunk winners. What turns us on and keeps our interest is very different than workin' for the man. "Finding your bliss" is a new age saying that rings of spaced out fairies and useless losers who have nothing better to do than hug a tree. Or does it? The path of least resistance to an object is certainly when it holds our attention, and nothing holds attention better than passion addiction and fun. Regardless productive humans require leadership and human skills that up the anti and allow for a more challenging game. We need people. When this is so we can love and admire useless dreamers but when it comes to the business of life and pursuit of human potential we need the best.

It all has to do with the people you know and weather or not they will fully support you or subtly suppress you. The distinction is not always that clear. Morticia Addams once said "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc!" Which translates to: "We gladly feast upon those who would subdue us." Not just pretty words! They (The Adaams') had no need for others. We, however must align ourselves with honorable useful teams of people who know the game of life take our interests seriously, and who in very real terms would carry us, living or dead, home.  Who are your people and are they good enough ...really good enough to cut it when the mustard gets cut?

Reaching your potential is all about the people who live within your sphere of influence. The same applies to criminals in the "hood" and in Washington and in your world too. The South Central Gangs of Los Angeles bear a striking similarity to congressmen the "suits" on Wall Street and in the board rooms of Monsanto, Dow Chemical or even Google. Secret societies, exclusive clubs and informal but rigid family credo's enhance and structure beliefs that literally carry humanity and at the same time defines the modern human family spirit into the darkest corners of mob mentality. To be alone or on the outside of such human structures is to be truly alone. The absence of "we" in your vocabulary renders you powerless as a subject at risk of domination from any number of more powerful agencies whether it be a boss, a family, a business government or gang. Without the right people you're toast.

Watching life with the sound off while at some level hoping you will die during the commercial is who most people really are in this country. The lies we tell each other begin with the lies they tell themselves. Everyone is searching for "real" love and "real" people with "real" lives while taking less responsibility for their own reality as they often foist more upon their constituents, mates or family than they would ever consider taking on themselves. It is literally the emotional equivalent of a ponzi scheme where the takers take more than they ever intended to give. It is for this reason that choosing your friends, boss, the company you work for and your mate are the most important choices you will ever make. You are literally the Human Resources department of your life. You hire and fire your employers, you set the bar for friends and you create the reality of your world when you set the criteria to which, willing or not, the world must comply.

I must have missed the boat, in fact I know I missed the boat. I should have been a journalist. We can't all be journalists but we can push ourselves to tell the truth of our lives. We can tell the real story by tearing away the soft and comfortable lies that surround us as we slowly begin to reveal our true interests, our genuine dreams and the facts of our lives even the facts that speak to limits, fear and inspiration. Understood that daily life should be explored with energy and endurance at what ever level one is capable. And if you are one of those people who's life is spoken for by obligations commitments to the world and others I pity you. Or if you are a person who has fallen to depression or if you have lost faith or simply given up then your prison IS your life. The key is to know that it is not your fault.

In a world of excuses and shifting blame to anybody but yourself the key to surviving your lies is knowing that it is not your fault. Man is not an island they say. And the wisdom of the Addams Family writers makes it clear to wit we must celebrate our inner warrior as we feast upon forces that would limit us. When we shift our view of life in such a way we begin to crack the walls of our prison, much of which was built by others who profit upon our passivity.

When we know the game, if we survive the instruction manual, we can then live life unencumbered. The "sheep", the "walking dead," The "silent majority," all must wake. I myself must continually awaken as I shake life down for all it is worth - what ever that means to me, or what ever yours means to you it is those whom we choose to walk through it all that matter, and frankly... nothing in life matters more.

Orange Juice, what you don't want to know.

May 14, 2009

Ask an Academic: Orange Juice

Alissa Hamilton is a fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the author of “Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice,” which comes out this month from Yale University Press. An edited version of my conversation with her appears below.

Why orange juice?

In general, I am interested in how the food-processing industry is affecting the growing of major agricultural crops in the United States. It struck me that orange juice would be a perfect case study, because so many drink it, and the product is essentially processed oranges.

In your Introduction, you write that most orange-juice drinkers are “misinformed about what it is they are drinking.” Is it the “processed” part that most consumers are misinformed about?

That’s part of it. Most are surprised to hear, for instance, that the big brands, which market their product as “pure” and “simple,” add flavor packs to their juice to make it fresh. But people are also misinformed about the growing of juice oranges. A flight attendant once told me that he gets far more requests for orange juice on flights to Florida, because there’s still a strong association of oranges with the state. Yet most of the juice he’s serving now comes from Brazil, where there are fewer environmental regulations, and labor and land for growing oranges are cheaper.

Woah. Back up to the flavor packs. Why doesn’t orange juice taste fresh naturally, especially if it’s “not from concentrate”?

Flavor packs are fabricated from the chemicals that make up orange essence and oil. Flavor and fragrance houses, the same ones that make high end perfumes, break down orange essence and oils into their constituent chemicals and then reassemble the individual chemicals in configurations that resemble nothing found in nature. Ethyl butyrate is one of the chemicals found in high concentrations in the flavor packs added to orange juice sold in North American markets, because flavor engineers have discovered that it imparts a fragrance that Americans like, and associate with a freshly squeezed orange.

Freshly squeezed orange juice tastes fresh naturally, and some supermarkets do sell it. However, “from concentrate” and most “not from concentrate” orange juice undergo processes that strip the flavor from the juice. The largest producers of “not from concentrate” or pasteurized orange juice keep their juice in million-gallon aseptic storage tanks to ensure a year round supply. Aseptic storage involves stripping the juice of oxygen, a process known as “deaeration,” so the juice doesn’t oxidize in the “tank farms” in which the juice sits, sometimes for as long as a year.

Are these recent inventions?

The tank farms that have come to play a central role in the large-scale production of “not from concentrate” orange juice are a fairly recent innovation. In the nineteen-eighties, Tropicana’s solution to providing a year-round supply of Pure Premium “not from concentrate” juice was simpler: it stored frozen slabs of freshly squeezed juice in above ground tunnels. In the early nineties, it replaced most of these tunnels with the cheaper aseptic storage tanks. Some say Tropicana used to taste better. Considering the degree to which aseptically stored juice must be doctored to taste like orange juice, it’s not surprising that those who have been drinking Tropicana long enough can taste the difference.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to ask you this, but what was your take on the Tropicana redesign controversy?

The controversy was mostly over aesthetics. I don’t have much of an opinion about that, and don’t feel entitled to one, because I don’t buy the product. However, I do have something to say about a statement I noticed on the top of the new and now discontinued carton: “squeezed from fresh oranges.” Although meaningless as is (I would hope the oranges Tropicana squeezes for its juice are fresh), it looks and sounds a lot like “fresh squeezed” and could easily be read that way by supermarket shoppers. It isn’t the first time Tropicana has tried to reinvent its juice from the outside rather than the inside. In the late nineteen-eighties, it came up with the phrase “not from concentrate” to distinguish its pasteurized orange juice from the cheaper “from concentrate” or “reconstituted.” The idea was to convince consumers that Tropicana’s juice was a fresher, less processed product than reconstitute, and therefore worth paying more for. Then, unlike now, the effort was successful: within five years of the name change, sales doubled and profits almost tripled.

Thoughts on health attitude and culture from the soul

I can't believe it's not Summer! Early October always represents a shift in local weather here in Southern California. It is such a beautiful place but "winter" snaps in exactly now, in early October. Now is the time we pull out all the vegetables that have stopped producing or feed the ones that can eek out a few more lame tomatoes or peppers or whatever.

Next year I am planting HOT peppers and now that I know they do not die in coastal winters it is even more exciting. Chili peppers are really good for you! And they spice up food without the use for salt. I really have to focus on planting beans so I get a big harvest this fall. The snow peas are already six inches high and I have to cage them somehow.

As you all know Americans are reklessly in pursuit of the truth. So in this vein I may go see the Michael Moore movie "Capitalism" and get all upset. Certainly I can take a Xanax before paying my nine dollars to see his "not for profit" movie. I wonder what Moore does with the profits? Have you ever heard of a Michael Moore Foundation? There might be one but I never head of it!

All is calm on the homefront. Taters and beats are baking, lots of organics in the fridge and six weeks under my belt on the Gerson Therapy. I am wondering how to simplify the therapy to make it work for people who have no access to organice or as many organics as well as those who can not afford it? Some things you have to pay for I guess. At the end of the month I'm going to tally up how much I spent at Trader Joes Whole foods and the Ocean Beach "Co-Op" called Peoples Market. I never saw a more profitable "Co-Op." Sure appears to be rather profitable to me considering their prices SUCK.

Locally produced foods usually means expensive because we are supporting local farm families who have to pay all the bullshit taxes and fees and real estate nonsense we all have to pay. So stuff gets expensive. That's why the quality at large chain stores is poor. They ship GMO, artificially raised on life support crops from one distant place to their stores in large trucks that pollute adnauseum. Then expect us to eat what looks good but which is in reality a slury of chemically enhanced crap lacking in nutrients and trace minerals and God knows what else.

I think I would rather eat less, support local farmers and cut out all the middle men including the small chains and "Co-Ops" like Peoples. Also at People's Market they say their quality is better than Whole Foods. Well, it might be true but their produce looks like hell sometimes. Not "old" just tattered and lacking in some way. It might actually BE better that the glistening organics at Whole Foods. Still whole foods has the largest and most beautiful butter lettuce I have ever seen. And it tastes great.

The coolest thing about eating organic and drinking distilled water on this diet is when you go eat something or drink something fake. They taste gross. I rinsed my mouth out with shower water yesterday and it tasted putred. I spit it out and shook my head like a dog that just ate peanut butter. It was dis-GUSTING. Now I am usually pretty easy to please bu this time it was no contest. I have to put in a household water filtration system. Gary is NOT going to be happy about that when I ask him to pay for it. Yeah, that'll happen.

I find myself purifying the air in my house and the water I drink. Not even the reverse osmisis system that cost almost five hundred dollars does a good enough job to clean up my water in terms of what is required by the Gerson Therapy.

The last word on whether or not people should pursue the Gerson Therapy is this: If you are getting achey stuffed up allergic, cranky without explanation, depressed, arthritic, or have low spirits all the time you are probably toxic. Your liver is probably not processing properly. The vegetarian diet, the liver cleansing and the remarkable ability of caffeine to help the liver dump toxins is an effective way to clean up your act. But you must have a good juicer. Centrifical
juicers destroy most of the desired properties of juice. Juice must be ingested immediately after juicing. There is something about this fact that works. They really do not know why. It just does. Time after time Max Gerson tested these theroies. We can thank him for his amazing work and his many discoveries. He cured Albert Schweitzer and Alberts family of many chronic and terminal ailments. That is why Schweitzer called Gerson "the most preeminant genius of our time."

Septillion!

There are six septillion things going on in your body every ten seconds. Is it any wonder that we should feed our bodies better? Chew on that one!

Gerson Therapy Diet daily timing

Gerson Therapy timing:

Meal and Juice Timing:

9:00 am Juice two oranges
Start oat meal with stewed fruits of many kinds
10:00 Carrot / Apple juice /w 4 tsp potassium
11:00 Carrot / Apple juice /w 4 tsp potassium
11:30 Green Juice NO potassium
1:00 Lunch of Hip Soup, Salad and cooked vegetables and fruit
2:00 Carrot / Apple juice /w 4 tsp potassium

5:00 Dinner of Hip Soup, Salad and cooked vegetables and fruit
Evening snack organic lemon lemonade with stevia, plain popped corn with flax oil mixed cold with dill and garlic powder

Vinegar found to be best fabric softener!

Naural Organic Fabric Softener:

Many people love to use fabric softeners in their washing machines and dryers to help keep their clothes soft and plush and also smell nice. Understandable, yes, but many people do not realize that fabric softeners and dryer sheets contain many harmful chemicals that stay in your clothes and are absorbed by your skin. Some of the chemicals are highly toxic and have been linked to brain damage and cancer.

Below is a list of some chemicals commonly used in fabric softeners and dryer sheets:

Benzyl acetate: Linked to pancreatic cancer

Benzyl Alcohol: Upper respiratory tract irritant

Ethanol: On the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Hazardous Waste list and can cause central nervous system disorders

Limonene: Known carcinogen

A-Terpineol: Can cause respiratory problems, including fatal edema, and central nervous system damage

Ethyl Acetate: A narcotic on the EPA's Hazardous Waste list

Camphor: Causes central nervous system disorders

Chloroform: Neurotoxic, anesthetic and carcinogenic

Linalool: A narcotic that causes central nervous system disorders

Pentane: A chemical known to be harmful if inhaled

The chemicals in fabric softeners and dryer sheets do not smell very good on their own especially when heated, so manufacturers have to add very strong perfumes and scents to mask the poisonous smell of thses toxic chemicals. This can also cause skin irritation and possibly even cancer in certain individuals.

So what is the solution? How can people have a healthy natural and organic fabric softener that is not toxic?

The Solution - A Natural, Cheap and Organic Fabric Softener?

White Vinegar with a few drops of and essential oil!

That's correct, white vinegar makes the best fabric softener you could find, and it also has the added benefit of neutralizing the soap reside in the clothes. Just add it to the fabric softener compartment in your washing machine with a few drops of essential oil. The vinegar leaves no smell residue, even if used without the essential oil.

An natural alternative to dryer sheets is to put a few drops of an essential oil (lavender smells nice and is antibacterial) on to a sock, and put it in the dryer. The smell will go through all the clothes.

Interestingly enough, the reason vinegar is so effective is because it is acidic and washing powder and soaps are alkaline, so the vinegar neutralizes the soap residues during the rinse cycle which help keep the clothes soft.

The skin of humans is naturally acidic, so using vinegar will be good for your skin also. Many skin problems such as ringworm, jock itch, athletes foot, tinea, dematitis and more are actually caused by using soap in our washing machine and in the shower. Soap disrupts the skins natural PH balance, killing the natural protective friendly bacteria that thrives on your skin, thus allowing unfriendly bacteria and fungus to enter into the skins pores. Many people with fungal skin rashes have found a cure by simply switching to a neutral PH mild natural body wash and not using soap on their skin. Also using vinegar in the washing machine will help.

Beach Anyone? What to buy?

I need to get a beach chair and umbrella. I wonder which kind is the best or if Costco still has those cool combo backpack ones in stock? And I absolutely have to get to whole foods for decent sunscreen. Whole foods UGG so spensive!

It's 1:33pm now and I am contemplating the beach. Coronado, PB, even OB or should I go to Tourmaline or perhaps up to Windansea? Just south of La Jolla cove are some nice beaches down below the cliffs. Blacks is nice but too inconvenient - and too many naked people pervin'. So many beautiful beaches, so little sunscreen.

I love the fact that I now know that the sun is our friend. 20 minutes in the sun does a wonder of good for the body. I have also learned that 50mg of Niacin 3 - 6 times a day is remarkably good for you in so many ways it is amazing. Like juice it can not be patented so the doctors do not "sell" it. The "cancer cures" in western medicine are mostly scams for your and your insurance companies buck. Well meaning or not this industry of death must be enlightened by the truths of life. Nutrition based healing is the way to more health than a body can stand. My rant for today.

There are too few moments in life when we reflect on what matters most. Here is a beautiful excerpt from The Beautiful Truth movie that really makes you think about what really matters.

It would not be so bad if we all could get along but there are forces in our world that aim to control us, and not to our benefit. The food, chemical, drug, health industries and wall street elite are immortal cartels, corporations that grow like a deadly virus eating away at the life force in you and your family. Integrity, morality and the treasure of the human mind and spirit are cast down by these organizations and labeled "consumer."

We are not consumers we are citizens and we are the highest form of life in the known universe. Just because there are 9 billion of us on the planet is no reason to exploit and control poison and pillage entire populations of people while greed reigns supreme. We are truly still in the dark ages where mankind plunders and steals and hoards for vanity, security and from abject insecurity has arisen demons who offer human sacrifices en mass but they do it legally and with YOUR CONSENT. It is time to wake up people.

Five Star Scallops and Shrimp - In Yogurt Dill and Garlic Sauce

Finally I get to eat real food! Tonight I created this recipe to go with my Gerson six week diet program. Little did I know I was creating one if the best recipes ever. It is a MOST AMAZING dish!

Garson!
Scallops and Shrimp - For modified Gerson diet for "once a week fish" dish lovers.

Pre-heat serving plates in oven at 200 degrees (serves two)

12 large scallops, obtained from well known clean fishery
7 large shrimp (12-20 count) obtained from well known clean fishery
5 cloves garlic (more if desired)
1 tsp Dill (fresh or dried) more if desired
1/3 cup Organic non fat yogurt
5 tbs water
2 tbs olive oil (can be deleted from recipe with no significant consequence)

Bring six cups water to a boil in a large sauce pan.

Prepare the sauce:

• Pan roast finely chopped garlic cloves in three Tbs water for 3 minutes on medium heat. Add water as needed.
• Turn off the heat and and pour off excess water. As the pan cools toss in two tbs olive oil in with the water braised garlic and saute with no heat for 15 seconds. Then add the dill and yogurt to mix. Saute another 15 seconds allowing it to warm up a bit in still-warm pan. Do not reheat - keep flame off! Allow to warm from residual heat.
• Pour the garlic mixture into a hand mixer container or medium bowl. Mix for ten seconds on low. The sauce is now done.

Prepare the shrimp and scallops:

• Place the shrimp and the scallops in boiling water
• Remove the shrimp in no more than 1 1/2 minutes (1 minute for small shrimp)
• Remove the scallops in 3 minutes.

Remove plates from oven and place them on the counter. Pour half of the mixture onto each plate then place and arrange the shrimp and scallops on the plates artistically and serve!

Eating suggestion: Cut shrimp in 4 pieces and slurp up with a soup spoon to get the maximum sauce with each bite as it is a little thin. But the flavor is astoundingly fresh and the sauce goes remarkably well with the shrimp and scallops.

Note: Olive oil is briefly warmed off of direct heat in this recipe.

September 2nd 2009

Oy veh! Is it hot!
I am totally happy I have A/C that works enough to keep me from dying already!!!

I cannot remember a hotter summer in San Diego. it was 99 degrees the other day. It has been years. I hope this extreme means that we will have lots of rain later. ??

Hope everyone is doing great. I'm tired and heading off to bed. Heat exhaustion - sort of.

Great Website regarding Cognitive Distortions and psychological insights.

Cognitive Distortions and Insights

Quotes about truth
We leave you to contemplate some wise words about this subject:

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man."
William Shakespeare

“To treat your facts with imagination is one thing,
to imagine your facts is another.”
John Burroughs

“You can only find truth with logic
if you have already found truth without it.”
G.K. Chesterton

“Much truth is spoken,
that more may be concealed.”
Lord Darling

“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes

“A truth that’s told with bad intent,
Beats all the lies you can invent.”
William Blake

“The truth that makes men free,
is for the most part,
the truth which men would prefer not to hear.”
Herbert S Agar

“ ’Tis strange — but true;
for truth is always strange.”
Lord Byron

“Be so true to thyself,
as thou be not false to others.”
Francis Bacon

“True and False are attributes of speech,
not of things.
And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.”
Thomas Hobbes

“It’s easy to make a man confess the lies he tells to himself;
it is far harder to make him confess the truth.”
Geoffrey Household

“There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths.
It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.”
A.N. Whitehead


“Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now — always.”
Albert Schweitzer

Re: No time for healing...

I have been talking to friends who are really stuck in a paradigm of all American bad habits. I want you all to know that NOW is the time we must get our acts together and move forward rapidly and accurately! Persistence! Take no prisoners! Slay the dragons!

Home Made Tomato Sauce

My new video. This is a play-list on YouTube. My first instructional video: How to make Tomato Sauce from home grown vegetables and herbs.

Here is the link to the play list.  Enjoy!

July 31st 2009

The elegance afforded by a simple vegetable garden this summer has been a great blessing. There is something about the process of life as we witness it in the growth spurts of plants that feed us delicious food. Encouraging life is a lovely elegant and very positive human pursuit. I guess that is why farmers are happy even when they are poor. I bring life and sustainability to my world in ways few people on the planet do. I recycle, save water, compost and limit waste to a greater degree than most of my contemporaries but without suffering or feeling lack. I indulge myself in a hot tub and a few luxuries but I do not deliberately off-gas bad things into the environment. I think I am doing a pretty good job while providing about 1/20th of my food grown right here at home. I am so lucky to have this house. Being a home body type person it means more to me than the home means to many single men or women. So I get an extra big kick out of the space the large yard and yet the city is only three minutes away. Not bad for a guy with my IQ and SAT scores.

A lovely feeling comes over me when I think about some of the people in my life. I know they are far from perfect and yet some of them really shine. Some of them are massively disappointing and some of them can not see their nose in front of their face, the forest for the trees or the writing on the wall.

I have my challenges too. Depression dragging my days into the LaBrea Tar Pits I feel like a Woolly Mammoth! Drag my ass out the pit up into the light only to be pulled down by the dark forces of despair illusion and self indulgence. But sometimes I escape the gravity of it all and I can see the world from a nice light elegant place where I can view my accomplishments, joys pain and challenges - and from this place, from this point of view it does not appear to be so hard... and I am reminded of my power. But then the forces grab my ankles again and drag me under. Sometimes I wonder if I need anti-depressant drugs again. I never really can tell.

Therapy with Liz Baxter appears to serve only to remind me of the pain thus increasing it by recognizing it and refreshing the ideas behind it. I am almost certain to change therapists for a more future oriented therapy type. This no mans land between Freud and New Age therapy is not good.

Exhausted now as it is very late. I will Twitter the highlights and head to bed.

Eating as an act of love

Check the toxicity of your food on these two great websites

Pesticide Database for your foods
What's on my food webstie

Karl Denninger talks about Obermann over the top

A great video from karl Denninger regarding the bail out of mortgages.

A great link to some seriously great poetry and poets

A great link to some seriously great poetry and poets

Here is one of my favorites - Amiri Baraka who has been a force in American life and literature for almost fifty years.