Two weeks ago I was trying to decide which conference to attend during this Professional Day for teachers. I decided to attend "Relentless Hope: Educating for a Better Future", the PAGE (BC teachers for Peace and Global Education) group put this on and it had a raw food presenter so my interest was piqued.
I was supercharged with energy when I awoke today. I was so excited to be driving up to Hope (1.5 hour drive from my home) on my own. It made me think about all the road trips I took in the past. How my road trip eating habits have changed! In my pack I had three apples, 2 litres of water, my chia seeds (dry) and some smoothie mixed up to soak the chia in.
Driving along the highway I was shocked at the amazing colours of the leaves! They were so orange, and colourful and beautiful against the dark green of the evergreen trees and grass fields. I had Neil Young playing on the stereo the whole way up, just one CD that went that long. It also brought me back to my past road trips down the pacific coast down to Oregon, California and beyond. I was in such a good space and had such a good feeling about the day.
I got there late as I couldn't leave before 8:30am...so Michael Byers presentation was just ending when I arrived, unfortunately I didn't see enough to comment on it.
My first session was the raw food presentation. So we waited 15 minutes. And waited...and finally got in the room only to find out that in fact the presenter was a no show. I was somewhat disappointed but knew that this must have happened for a reason. So instead I went to the "What Would Gandhi Do?" presentation by Pummy Kaur. She has written a book by the same name which I have added to my bookshelf of must reads.
I really appreciate her "realness". I know it's not a word, but she was so real, taking ideas from the people in the session regarding what we think are major problems in the world today. We had an extensive list! Then she asked us to label them with an A (for those that we are directly influence) B (for those in which we indirectly influence) and C (for those over which we have no influence). I could see that in every aspect, we could directly influence every one of those problems in some way.
Asked, "If you could do one thing to stop your negative influence on all of this, would you?" Well of course we would (so long as it was easy and didn't ask us to give up anything we love)
In my mind I said "DIET" and also wrote it down. That one thing, if most people changed small things to the large things...that would have a profoundly positive impact on all the negatives currently being experienced in our world today.
OK...then she goes on to talk about her "raw vegan thanksgiving" dinner that she made for her family. I knew then why my first presentation had been cancelled, because I was supposed to be here in this session with Pummy!!
She gave us a potato chip example. Think about what goes into creating a bag of potato chips. Really think about the impact that every stage has. It is mind boggling what type of energy, waste and all sorts of awefulness goes into making this item. That could be any type of processed food in reality!!
The closer to raw that we are, the closer we are to a more sustainable world. Hard to refute a truth like that! We talked about how just making little changes can have a ripple effect - like the slogan for a couple of high school students I was talking to from Mission. As Gandhi says, "Be the change you want to see in the world".
I got her book because I want to delve into this more and think she's got some really amazing things to say. I can't wait to start reading it. I also met a couple of teachers from Coquitlam and one of them is into the raw foods lifestyle, amazing. I hope that we can stay in touch as it'd be nice to go to Gorilla Foods out in Vancouver with someone who will actually fully appreciate the food!!
I was totally pumped even before I ate my chia seed soaked in smoothie. Here's the I think I wrote the recipe here before, but it's from goneraw.com
1/4 cup chia seed
1 banana
1 date
1 cup of water
nutmeg (you decide how much)
cinnamon (to taste)
4 brazil nuts (but have used small handful of pecans, almonds, walnuts, etc.)
Blend all together except the chia. Pour blended drink over chia seeds and allow to set for 15 to 20 min. Then it's like tapioca pudding! LOVE it!
The afternoon session was great too! The Art of Living Wellness presented a great session on how to find calm and peace so that you may be stress free. I'll have to write about that at another time as my eyes are telling me enough computer time!
Also further posts...Rawkathon 2008! It rawked!
2 comments:
Hi there -
Just wanted to say thanks for sharing your experiences and recommending the book. Wonder where I can pick up a copy of that - is it in chapters?
I wish I could have been at this conference, but chose the Global Education conference at Langley Fine Arts - and it was Amazing!!
I don't know any other raw-food-ers but will keep checking back to learn more...
Thanks, do come back often, I am trying to write a couple times a week as I have so many topics I wish to write about.
As for Pummy Kaur's book, she works in the Surrey school district and you could probably get one through them or else I have seen it on Amazon or the older version is available through Chapters (on line). Hope that helps. What type of sessions did you see at the Global Education conference? What made it so amazing?
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