Jed’s Deliciously Easy Watermelon Smoothie

Summer is upon us, and along with it comes one of its greatest joys:  the delicious, juicy watermelon!  You probably don’t need me to tell you that watermelon has great cooling properties, is hydrating and is low in calories.  What you might not already know is that watermelon also has amazing cleansing and detoxifying effects.

I recommend organic watermelon with seeds intact, the way nature made them.  Seedless fruits are hybridized by man to make them sterile and often are also sprayed with chemicals.  Sterile fruit has a lower vibration than naturally grown fruit.  By eating more fertile foods, you will absorb that energy to be more fertile and magnetic yourself!

My love of smoothies is no secret, and watermelon is one of my favorite seasonal ingredients.  This AMAZING smoothie makes me love watermelon even more.  It tastes great and is so filling and satisfying that sometimes it even replaces a meal for me (when I’m too tired or lazy to make a salad).  You can’t get any more simple than this recipe:

• 3 cups watermelon
•  2.5 cups unsweetened almond milk

Prep:  Cut the watermelon into small chunks.  Freeze the chunks overnight in a Tupperware container.

Simply blend the frozen watermelon and the almond milk.  That’s it!!!  Try it for yourself and see the magical summer treat that is created from such a simple recipe. 

Let me know how you do.

My (Formerly) Secret Raw Fudge Recipe

Chocolate has gotten a bad rap- associated with weight gain and acne.  That’s because most people consume milk chocolate, which has high levels of pasteurized dairy and processed sugar.

The base of chocolate, cacao, has wonderful health properties, particularly when raw in its natural state.  It is high in antioxidants and flavenoids, which help fight free radical damage- a major cause of aging.  Many people seek out dark chocolate to get these benefits in a fairly tasty package. 

I am going to share with you my (formerly) secret recipe for raw fudge, which will amaze you with both its taste and its surprising ingredients:

• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup organic raisins
• 1 avocado (to give the fudge a wonderful fluffy texture without the use of cream and other beauty-squashing ingredients)
• 3 Tbs. agave (Or more, depending how sweet you like your fudge)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup raw cacao nibs (you can add a bit more, depending how thick you like your fudge.) Cacao nibs are sold at Whole Foods, health food markets and online.

Simply combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until you achieve the desired consistency. 

Trust me, this fudge is delicious!  It will satisfy your sweet tooth after you’ve eaten a healthy salad for dinner, and keep you from reaching for ice cream (even soy ice cream is highly glycemic) or a candy bar.

Mario Lopez: Yogavangelist

I was honored to be the yoga consultant to Mario Lopez for his new fitness book, Mario Lopez Knockout Fitness  (Rodale). 

It’s great that Mario is open to using yoga in his workout program, which also includes boxing, weightlifting, and cardio routines.  Having a muscular, masculine man like Mario advocate yoga is wonderful, since he will undoubtedly bring it to a new and diverse audience. 

When I teach yoga, I notice that my students that engage in boxing and weightlifting tend to have extra tightness in their backs, shoulders, and legs.  If these parts of the body are not stretched out and the tension released, over time this constant cramping and constriction can lead to serious joint problems. 

As Mario himself points out, yoga helps you become more limber and more flexible.  A greater range of motion can translate to better performance in lots of different sports and physical activities.  That benefit should be attractive to men in particular.

My teacher, Dharma, teaches that any time your body is in an asana (yoga pose), it puts your mind into a specific state of consciousness. The corresponding mental state is different for every pose.  As practitioners become able to hold their poses longer, they can practice slowing their pranayama (conscious breath), causing stress levels to decrease.  This technique helps their minds stop darting one way or another (mind fluctuations= chittas), leading them to be more mindful, present and calm.  After practitioners leave the studio, this inspired calmness continues to level their reactions, helping them to not get angry or stressed quickly.

Drawing more people to practice yoga asanas will be hugely beneficial to them, especially if yoga is not something they would have previously considered. Even someone who comes to yoga for physical reasons alone will, consciously or unconsciously, receive mental and deeper benefits.  Who knows, they might just learn to really like yoga and be inspired to explore its philosophy and other branches more deeply. 

Om Shanti (peace) to Mario Lopez for helping to bring the benefits of yoga to a new audience!

Dharma’s Famous Kale Salad

This recipe has been passed down by my yoga teacher Dharma’s students.  I eat this hearty, delicious salad for dinner all the time.  It helps to clean your blood, gives you energy and minerals, and enhances your overall health and beauty.

People often mistakenly think that vegan food is low in protein or nutrients.  As this incredible salad proves, it is possible for a vegan dish to provide a substantial mix of plant proteins, enzymes, Omega fats, minerals (including important ones found in sea vegetables), and antioxidants.  Plant proteins are much easier for your body to assimilate than animal proteins, and are not acid-forming.

Dark green, leafy vegetables are, in my opinion, the most important of all food groups.  They are rich in alkaline minerals, fiber, and chlorophyll- a powerful blood builder.  Kale is one such dark green vegetable and is packed with nutrients.  Unfortunately, since most people don’t know how to prepare kale to eat raw, they usually sautée or cook it, which destroys many of the vitamins and enzymes.

This salad is amazing- satisfying and full of protein, beautifying enzymes and nutrition:

• 1 head of Kale (Dinosaur Kale is best because it is thick and dark green, but curly kale works too)
• Sprouts- any kind you like. I like Sunflower sprouts and Clover sprouts best. (According to yogic philosophy, sprouts are the highest prana (energy) food of all since a sprout is gathering as much energy as possible to transition from a seed to a plant).
• Pine Nuts
• Sun dried tomatoes (cut up into little pieces)
• A beautiful, perfect avocado (cut up into pieces)
• Olives
• Olive oil
• The juice of 1 large lemon or 1 ½ lemons
• Cayenne pepper
• Celtic sea salt
• Nutritional Yeast (Kal brand is my favorite), 2 or 3 scoops to make ‘cheesy’ and get all your daily supply of B vitamins, plus lots of protein

Recommended Additions

• Hemp seeds (great for added protein)
• Dulse (sea vegetable for minerals)

Take the Kale stems, one-by-one, and strip the leaves off the thick spine stem by hand.  We save the stems and juice them later.  Once you have gotten the leaves off, add a bit of Celtic sea salt to them and shred with your hands to break up the Kale, tearing it into little pieces for easy digestion.  It is important NOT to chop but rather use your hands to break up- otherwise it is a different salad with a different energy.

Add enough olive oil so that the kale is thoroughly saturated.  I usually pour out of a thin spout and count to 5.  Nutritional Yeast will make the dressing thicker, so start with 2 Tbs., mix, and taste to see if you are in the mood for more.  Add everything else to taste and mix well. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment until you get the dressing perfect.  One fun variation is to cut Nori (sushi wraps) into quarters and scoop the salad into them - like mini wraps.  Delicious!

Let me know if you have any questions and Enjoy!

My Glowing Green Smoothie

Drinking green smoothies is a great way to incorporate tremendous amounts of greens into your diet - far more than just eating your veggies. 

Greens have more valuable nutrients than any other food group on the planet.  You might be surprised to learn that greens even have high-quality, easily-assimilated proteins - enough to build the muscle mass of the mighty, greens-eating gorilla, which pound-for-pound is the strongest animal on earth! 

Blending helps make greens’ full spectrum of nutrition readily available to the body.  Nutrients are encased inside plant cells and getting their benefits requires these cells’ walls to be ruptured.  Greens need to be worked down to a creamy consistency, but most people simply don’t chew that much!  Blending addresses this problem, helping your body absorb the maximum amount of nutrition from your greens. 

 Here is an easy recipe to try:  

• 1 cup of water
• 1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped
• 3-4 stalks of celery
• 2 apples, cored and chopped
• Juice of ½ fresh lemon

Add the water and chopped head of romaine to the blender.  Starting the blender on a low speed, mix until smooth.  Gradually moving to higher speeds add the celery, apples, and lemon juice. 

Some green smoothies are an acquired taste, but this one tastes GOOD!  The lemon and apple cut right through the green taste, giving it a flavor and texture I this is like an exotic applesauce.   

Ideally, you should have one green smoothie a day.  By mixing and matching different greens and fruits you can easily fit a wide variety into your diet.

For more information on the power of the green smoothie, I recommend reading any of the research from Dr. Ann Wigmor or Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko. 

China: Across The Land of Characters

The thing that woke me up was the group of loud, brash men, chatting away in Mandarin and unnervingly close to me.  The Mandarin spoken in China always seemed ridiculously loud.  Upon waking I immediately noticed that my back and neck were horribly stiff and achy.  I unstrapped the backpack from my lower back and shoulders and sat up, still drowsy- eyed. 

The group of twelve, or so, Chinese men surrounded my bench, leaving no more than two feet between us.  Some of them glanced at me briefly when I sat up, some didn’t at all, but I certainly wasn’t interesting enough for them to stop their incessant conversing.

I started to collect myself to head to the public bathroom located right across from my bench, to brush my teeth and wash my face.  I was not used to carrying out my morning routine in a dirty, strange smelling public setting surrounded by strangers speaking a loud, sharp tongue, or signs in Chinese characters that did little to remind me in what city I was currently stationed.

I had fallen asleep across three attached chairs in the back of the Lingzhou train and bus station, my backpack strapped to my body to ensure it would still be there when I awoke.  It had been a restless night of light sleep, as I was frequently roused by the floor cleaners, bathroom cleaners, and various passer-byes.  I unfortunately had had no choice but to sleep there. 

One of the things I had learned during the previous three months, which I spent backpacking through the rural areas and smaller cities of China, was that there is a distinction between “Chinese” hotels and “Non-Chinese” hotels.  Foreigners were not allowed to stay at the former.  If one arrived at a city late at night and couldn’t locate a “Non-Chinese” hotel with an available room — which had been the case the previous evening — one was screwed and had to spend the night in public somewhere. 

I had experienced, for the very first time in my life, the cold reality of being homeless.  I felt embarrassed, self-conscious, exposed, and infinitely humble.

Kashmir: 3 Tourists in the Whole Damn Place

 

 

I don’t know who felt more uncomfortable.  I was dressed in my rough, woolen abaya (a robe-like garment covering my body from neck to ankle that women wear in Muslim countries) donning fake Chanel sunglasses I had purchased on the streets of Bangkok, and bright blue plastic bags between my socks and shoes.  They were dark-skinned, mostly mustachioed members of the Kashmir military sitting around me at a picnic-like rectangular table, each with a heavy artillery rifle resting between their knees.  They had no idea of what to make of a Western tourist, and a female one at that, traveling to their remote, conflict-stricken military outpost.  Yet here we were, none of us speaking a common language, sharing chai teas at a tiny cafe.

 

Upon my arrival in overcrowded Delhi, I decided spontaneously to push to the far north of the country — to unsettled Kashmir — despite numerous travel warnings against visiting the area. 

From Dal Lake, where I was staying with a Muslim family on their houseboat,

 

I had another impulsive idea:  to climb to an excellent viewpoint of the mighty mountain K2.  I would begin from the last village in Kashmir, which was only five miles from the Pakistan border.

 

There were a few issues with my unplanned adventure.  First and foremost was the dangerous, brooding military conflict on the border of Pakistan and Kashmir.  From the little guest house room where I was staying, I could hear the pounding noise of gunfire at all hours of the day, which I was told was just ‘gun training.’  Over the horizon, in the distance, was a thick tree line beyond which was Pakistan- and their rival military base. 

 

The other major problem with my little foray was the terrain.  Much of the climb was through the snow, straight in one direction, without any trails or paths.  To make matters more difficult, the only footwear I had was a pair of sneakers.  It goes without saying that this was not a place with equipment rentals of any sort.  Hence: my brilliant idea of donning plastic bags over my feet in an attempt to keep them dry. 

Botswana Without Shelter

Our guide Bryson started into an almost running trot.  He even stopped glancing back over his shoulder to see if we were still following him.  Every man for himself in the bush, I mused.  The sun was going down very quickly now, the beautiful reddish streaks across the sky fading into absolute grayness.

The four of us travelers- JC, two Slovenian wildlife photographers we had randomly met (with all their tripods and massive lenses), and I began to hasten after his quickly fading outline.  After all, we didn’t know where the hell we were.  Well, we were in the Okavanga Delta in Botswana, on a dugout canoe escapade where we were paddling along tiny rivulets deep into the bush for three full days.  There were two people to a canoe, with each of our two canoes having a guide standing on the back, pushing us down the streams with a long pole.  We had only the water, food, and tents in the canoes as our only supplies- and our only shelter. 

During that first day we had gone exploring on foot, and had seen lots of hippos, elephants, and large animals at almost alarmingly close distances, with Bryson wielding around a walking stick.  Great protection that is, I thought to myself.  Bryson had been very light-hearted during the trip, until that moment. 

With the sun going down on our first evening, the professional photographers were hell-bent on getting the perfect sunset picture over the picturesque African savannah landscape.  Bryson kept reminding the amiable but definitely determined Slovenian couple that we had to be back by sundown because the lions hunt from sundown to sunup.  And they in turn, keep telling him they needed just “a minute.” 

After more than a few reminders, a clearly anxious Bryson simply turned around and walked away, with one last, “Let’s go,” then started into a pretty brisk jog.  Later, after a half hour at that speedy pace, we were welcomed safely back at camp with a huge blazing fire started by our other guide.  Bryson casually mentioned that while we were circling around the area (which was pretty tight) looking for the perfect sunset vantage point, he had noticed the tracks of a female lion starting to trail us from the shadows.  “Very dangerous…but I just didn’t want to scare you so I didn’t say anything,” he smiled.

Me and My Friend Agustin Doing Partner Yoga

The Soho Apple Store

If I were single (which I am not) I would hang out at the Apple Store on Prince Street in Soho.  It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that it is the perfect place to meet someone.

If you don’t live in New York this post probably isn’t much good to you, but if you want to keep reading and are picturing a normal Apple Store, erase that image!  The Soho Apple Store is a huge, two-floor structure in the heart of Soho.  It was renovated from a cool old post office building and still bears post office markings on the side of the building.  Laptops and Ipods are on the first floor, and a huge staircase of almost see-through steps invites you upstairs.  It’s almost as if you are going to some magical kingdom, which you practically are. At the top of the stairs is an auditorium where Apple holds free classes on hardware and software, and even music concerts.  Yes, that’s right, free concerts right in the store!  I’ve actually been to some decent ones in there. 

I should probably mention that in spite of today’s posts I am not somehow tied in to Apple.  I’m not even a die-hard Apple proponent, though I do own one of their laptops.  I just happen to think it is a really cool store.  But back to my idea that it could be a great place to meet a special new “friend”…

First off, everyone in the Apple Store probably has at least one thing in common - they like Apple products.  Even if you don’t own one, you can at least appreciate their slick design and genius of the Ipod.  Second, easy conversation-starters abound!  Have you checked out this MacBook Air?  Is it cool?  How do you like your iPhone?  How does the typing work?  I can’t decide between this Ipod color and that one - what do you think?  Third, seeing as you are in the heart of Soho, you’re going to find some cool, interestingly-dressed, all around attractive people in that store.  These are people you may usually not walk right up to, but through the power of technology talk, initial meetings somehow seem much easier…and more natural. 

If you meet that special someone between the Powerbook aisle and the checkout counter I expect details! J