NEW BLOG ADDRESS

My blog address has been upgraded to shuritta.com. Please catch up on the latest postings and events from this page going forward. Thanks for all the love……

EAT WELL, FEEL BRIGHT.

In our media mangled society eating well can be as confusing as being dropped off at a bus depot in Vietnam at 2am. We rely on packaging to tell us if the product is good. Invariably it’s dressed up as good when it’s down and nasty. Dressing unnatural goods as healthy foods seems as acceptable as plastic flowers in a garden.. The dressing up part seems to be a game where you supposedly walk down the supermarket isles choosing products that try to leer you in. They have sweet granny’s or old farmers in beautiful farm fields with an abundance of fresh veggies, or mother figures with frilly aprons, on their covers. These are cover ups for mass produced bottom line nutrient deficient foods. But the ones that are smack down dirty are the companies that use cartoon figures and bright candy colours and healthy kids on the packaging. Try go to the supermarket and see if you can steer your trolley away without a struggle when your kids are with you. I’ve been told I’m a cruel bad mommy for not buying those goodies because all their friends have them. I say, “ Okay I’ll buy one if the ingredients resemble anything remotely natural”, none of them do. In fact they are a list of unpronounceable chemical compounds. I just can’t feed that to their young developing minds and bodies. So I’ll live with the mean mommy labels for now, but all children have a built in sense of knowing when they are being told the truth, even though they may fight you to the end.

Whole grains seem to be the hot button companies use now. They are better for your colon health than the refined white glue flour, but it’s still glue. Hold on, but it’s Organic whole grain cookies I get told. Yes, organic whole grain glue. By all means use these foods as a step up but they are not a means to an end. So, Whats the end? AGRRRR!, GROAN, AGGGGGR! Yes I know how you feel, the bus depot in Vietnam, and it’s 2am.

LIVING organic foods is where it’s at my friends. Ripe juicy fruit and crisp vegetables, some nuts and seeds and of course, the last remaining un-hybridized vegetable, sea veggies. When you eat these high vibrational foods and cut down on those lovely organic granny whole grain cookies three things will start to happen. First your colon will thank you, then your lymphatic system will start to let go of all that trash that is causing so much acidity and congestion, aka. disease. Thirdly, your blood will start getting REAL nutrients and will start flowing cleaner blood and able to let go of all the gunky stickiness and coagulation.

Ah! just in time, look there’s the bus. Don’t forget to stop at the store for some fruit and vegetables on your way home.

BEEFY PORTABELLO MUSHROOM AND SWEET STRAWBERRY SALAD

2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce (like thin ribbons)
2 cups shredded dark green leaves (collard greens or spinach, remove spines)
1 sweet apple (fuji or any other) peeled, sliced into thin strips
2 portabello mushrooms sliced into strips
3 strawberries cut into strips
½ cup tamari or soya sauce

Dressing:
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
squeeze fresh lemon juice
½ to 1 Tbsp agave or honey
pinch sea salt

Place the sliced mushrooms into a bowl with tamari sauce and toss, let it marinade for 5 -10 min. Squeeze out most of the tamari from the mushrooms. Mix the leaves together, then lay them on a pretty platter. Top with rest of ingredients and pour dressing over. Can garnish with fresh ground pepper or red chilli.

MY FAVOURITE DRESSING

When it comes to eating healthier, a good salad dressing makes all the difference. Salads are a mainstay for me. My dinner usually consists of a large salad. I love to simply squeeze lemon juice and a sprinkling of good sea salt. I go head over heels for a good dressing that is still light but full of flavour. I ALWAYS use fresh raw ingredients because they wake up and take your taste buds on an adventure swirling themselves around those unsuspecting lettuce leaves.

I’ll be sharing many salad ideas with you because it is the easiest way to swing your diet from an acidic protein layden one to a fresh alkaline one. Our bodies need to be more alkaline and when they are not they become congested and full of inflammation which leads to a dead end road. Skip the beef and bulk up with those salads. And by the way don’t bother with the side plate version. Eat it out of the bowl. A large bowl! Now tell me you don’t feel reved up. Remember there are a ton of usable amino acids in green leaves that will nourish, strenghten, alkalize and leave you feeling full of energy.

CREAMY GINGER DRESSING

¼ cup olive oil
½ to 1 lemon juiced (depending on size)
1 tsp mustard (i like dijon or whole grain)
1 to 2 tsp agave or honey
1 tsp raw tahini (or substitute almond or peanut butter if you have nothing else)
1 tsp fresh ginger
pinch salt

Blitz till smooth and pour over your fav salad.

INTIMACY

How do you define something that is so mysteriously sensual and exhilarating in every sensuous way. It leaves goosebumps as it tingles its way through the many layers of skin to the deeper tissues and organs. Intimacy kisses the emotional body so softly and sweetly that it changes the vibration of your being. It can be experienced by the touch of someone else or just by the feeling of their presence. You can experience it as you pick a flower and smell and admire it. Yet the sweetest kind of intimacy is the one you experience with yourself. It strikes a chord in your being that is deeper, where no one else can go but you. Sadly though there are many who don’t know of the soft inner layers buried inside themselves or are afraid and think that intimacy can only be experienced externally with another. Exploring the workings of your inner world is to enter the magic of who you are.

This kind of exploration gets exquisite the more you know yourself on this level. It is not the sexual kind but an awareness of the mastery that is yours if you want it. Surface toughness is not strength. It’s also not being infatuated with yourself. I am speaking of waking up to your inner warrior. The one that cannot fight the good fight with a weakened mind or body. The more you perceive and become aware the stronger you get. This kind of strength is made of an energetic stamina that infiltrates the physical. The cleaner the body, the stronger it is, and as you merge with it, it’s recognized as a presence within you as people around you sense it and know it but cannot name it.

This is how it goes. As you detoxify and clean the body the more the cells let go of physical trash as well as emotional stuff that needs to be looked at and let go of. The more you let go of and clean on a physical, mental and emotional level the more the inner airways are clear to give and receive information. Tune into your awareness by closing your eyes at night and quietening the mind and feeling every ripple, sensation, signal or gesture going on inside of you, letting your heart speak to you as you let it know you are listening, quietly, patiently and without the agenda of the mind. The more you detoxify the stronger you will get and the stronger this inner intimacy naturally grows and the more creative your inner warrior gets with your life’s passions. Intimacy is romantically and passionately involved with the warrior of your life’s work and having the strength of mind, body and spirit to live it out to the sweet end.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? I MEAN WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?

No matter where you are in the world we all need a boost whether it’s in winter and your cells are hanging onto their fluffy pyjamas,or it’s spring, as it is where I live, and cells are starting to perk up and sniff the buds and  blossoms but still have fat stuffy slippers on. Ideally you have been cleaning up your diet right through those winter months and now you get to have fun. The difference is that you’ve cleaned   the dust, the floors, even the cupboards. Now you get to use your energies as they peak, what  better way to enter the springy season when you can bounce happily into it.

With the anticipation of all the fresh fruit and summer tomatoes that will happily have an affair with the basil in my blender, I can’t wait to throw off the winter blahs with a fragrant gazpacho. I’m ready to throw off my slippers. Our cells need two fundamental processes to be springy and healthy. They need clean fluids and oxygen. Our bodies are primarily made up of cells and fluids. They need simple foods like simple sugars (fruit), amino acids from green leafy vegetables (not complex structures like proteins) and simple fatty acids (avocado, nuts and seeds). The more complex your diet, the harder your body has to work to break down those complexes into simple constituents and the more stagnation and energy depletion those little cells will experience. Those 75 trillion cells or more are either in survival fluffy slipper mode, or they are breathing in fresh air and sucking up clean nutritious fluids while they bounce around happily doing all the chores of the day and get to have fun playing and dancing the sunset away and then wonder what else they can do with all this creative energy.

So what am I waiting for? Here’s a dust buster smoothie to knock your socks off.

GREEN LEMONADE

1 small cucumber peeled and diced
1 handful spinach
1 lemon peeled, seeds removed
1 apple (gala, or any sweet apple) peeled and diced
½ cup water
1 tsp honey or agave (optional)

Put all ingredients into a blender or jug if using an immersion (hand held) blender.
Blitz and sip.

EARTH TO TABLE, NOT FACTORY TO TABLE

Until we understand that what we stick on our fork ( before it makes it’s way down the long alley ways of our inner world ) and the end results of those forkings either gives or depletes our energy we will continue to mindlessly be servants to our appetites and desires as we push our trollies down the familiar supermarket isles. Can we forge a new way that is rewarding in ways that can only be witnessed from the inside as it lets you know, Aha!  The right way at last. Can we steer our trolleys beyond this mass consumption of the staples on restaurant menus, social menus and the grocery lists we routinely stick to? Our planet is choking on toxicity and plastic packaging and this leaves her with no choice but to see us as a parasite invading her life and destroying the privilege of a sustainable relationship she once shared with us. What gives us the most energy also happens to be more beneficial for the earth, a plant based diet of fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

But where, when, how do we start?  It seems like a mammoth beast that we feel helpless to face as one person, how can we turn around what is strongly set in motion. Life is brutally busy and makes it exhausting to change and swim upstream, we need our latte’s, our pizza’s. But YES, we do want more energy to live our dreams with passion, YES we do want to do work that is our life’s work and quit the numbing job, YES we do want to make life sustainable on this planet and assure our children that their generation or their children’s generation will not be the end of the human species. Revolutions are not built in a day, many single blades of grass make very strong baskets, as my favourite quote from Gandhi says,”Be the change you want to see in the world.” On a personal level it always starts with cleaning and of course starting from where you are, getting rid of the old that has no purpose other than familiarity, comfort and stagnation just like throwing out your old socks,  the ones your mother gave you that have worn so thin your big toe pops out to say hello.

But change in your energy levels is not going to change much with the same old same old. I am proposing to live life holding the big horns. Why else are we here but to have the energy of mind, body and spirit to do the work we are here to do each one of us contributing ourselves in a way that wakes us up in the morning with a smile. I have personally been on this mission for some time. I have been loyal to it beyond my own social sanity. It’s about living life with true energy and passion ( not the super food type or energy bar fix) but energy of a deeper kind, a cleaner kind, something that arises in you from your core the more you clean house and organize and prioritize. I understand the physical limitations of life. I am a working mother with two angel children that unknowingly slurp up my energy like it’s a slushy as do they restore the energy of my soul when we kiss and cuddle and rub noses and tell each other how far our love grows for each other. As you continue on this journey you realize how important it is to keep one foot in your dreams while the other foot is firmly gripped in reality. I dream of creating a life of passion and purpose which serves the whole as much as the self. I am not here to lecture for that is not my purpose. I hope to inspire. So please join me as we create an inspired life.