Posts Tagged With: no impact man

Primitive Juice Man Conquers Mighty Mountain!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by leroy watson

Primitive Juice Man – on the way up

I did. Two days ago I climbed the second highest mountain in Britain, Snowdown, which is just behind our house. I climbed it in record time (for me) fueled only by a beetroot, carrot, apple and ginger juice. Wahee! Juice power.

The Super Juice

As many of you will know, the Beach House is tucked away in the valleys of Wales, overlooking Anglesey and the Llyn Peninsula. We have the most spectacular views and on days like today, when the skies are clear, I can see some of my favourite landscape anywhere.

Britian is experiencing a heat wave at the moment and we are getting some of it, with temperatures in the mid 20’s for the past two weeks. The garden is loving it (post to come soon) and our veg patch is looking amazing.

RAW EARTH MONTH UPDATE

The weather has come at the perfect time for our Raw Earth Month and it is definitely salad and smoothie weather at the moment. The only down side to a proper British summertime is that I get chronic hayfever, which is a huge drag. We have consulted Jane’s homeopathic/ magician friend and she is sending up some remedies as we speak, hopefully this will stop my sniffles.

We are going to extend our Raw Earth month by two weeks, we are loving it! The candle light at nights is perfect as it doesn’t get dark until 10ish anyway. It adds a very peaceful feel to the house and there is something timeless about reading by flickering candlelight. Handwashing our clothes has been interesting. It takes a while and a little effort, but with the sun out and a special herbal soap, we are getting great results.

We have been making once a week trips in the car to pick up our amazing veg box from some wonderful people a couple of valleys away, full of the finest organic produce and the courgettes are coming thick and fast at the moment!

One thing we are using alot is the dehydrator. Jane is taking full advantage of the abundant herbs and wildflowers at the moment and we are drying them for use in teas and infusions. We realise that it uses a bit of electricity, but know that we will have to buy less in the long run. It seems to at least balance out.

We watched an interesting documentary recently ‘No Impact Man’ about a guy giving up many things in a one year project, in the centre of New York. We can draw alot of parallels with Colin and his family, but we are lucky to live in the country and have no TV anyway! We are well from many temptations up here on the hill, no restaurants, bakeries or cafes. No cinemas, shops, pubs! It would be alot more difficult to do this kind of thing in a city. Hats off to Colin and his family for sticking to it and setting an amazing example, his project became huge and was all over the media. I am sure it made a big impact and they seemed to be having a good time doing it, which is surely the main thing!

I think we’d do this all again, especially the raw food part. We are consuming alot less, recycling most of our water on the garden and generally life has slowed down. So far, the experiment is going well and the sun is shining. What more could you want!

View from the bottom – Snowdon, Nantlle Side.

View of Nantlle Valley from Snowdon

What has this got to do with food you may ask? Very good question. I guess it highlights the fact that you don’t need a full English/ Welsh breakfast and 5 mars bars to go walking in the hills and that juices are super cool and full of energy.

I also realise that the weather is chilly in some parts of the world now (Tasmania especially I hear!) and it is surely nice to look at little wet Wales bathing in glorious sunshine for a change! Long may it continue…..

OK, heres something food related, todays smoothie. It’s a:

Green Banana, Coconut and Almond Smoothie

Makes one large jugful, enough for three glasses:

The Bits

2 bananas, 2 cups coconut milk (watered down), 1 apple, 1 cup cucumber, 3 cups spinach, 1 cup soaked almonds, 2 teas green powder (barley powder, spirulina), 1 cup grapes, 1 lime (juice and zest)

Do It

In the blender and blend, scrape down the side, blend, scrape down the sides and blend…….repeat until all is smoooooth.

Banana, Coconut, Almond and Spinach Smoothie

We Love It!

Very sweet and filling smoothie, packed full of nutrition. Anything green is great.

Foodie Fact

Spinach is regarded by many as the best thing you can eat. Ever. We agree. Not only does it taste so, so good, it contains more iron than beef, pound for pound.

Categories: 'The Good Life', Healthy Living, Raw Food, Smoothies | Tags: eco living, food, hiking, low impact life, no impact man, raw, smoothie, snowdon, wales | 2 Comments

Raw Earth Month – What’s it all about?

Posted on June 23, 2013 by leroy watson

We are running late on Raw Earth Month, the big day is now tomorrow (for a variety of mundane reasons). I know Jane has already told you a little about what we’re up to, but here’s my take on the whole shebang. Lee

The Beach House is going full-on this June – July (24th – 24th), its:

!………………RAW EARTH MONTH……………….!

We are rather excited about the whole dreamt up project. It came like a bolt from the blue, we wanted to do another raw food month (because it makes you feel great and raw food is seriously interesting for the taste buds and from a nutritional point of view) so we took it to the next level, a huge step towards a more natural, peaceful lifestyle.

Raw Earth Month means:

– A raw/ vegan diet only

– No caffeine/ alcohol

– No consuming

(not buying anything other than staple food)

– No detergents/ unnatural chemicals

(i.e. toothpaste, washing up liquid, clothes washing detergent, shampoo, soap etc)

– Minimal use of electricity

(other than recharging computers, dehydrating, juicing, blending)

– Minimal car use

(other than going to work and shopping on the way back)

– 1 hour internet use per day

– No electric lights

(candles are allowed!)

– No washing machine

(we are hand washing clothes in the bath)

– Waste water to be recycled

(in the garden on our veg patch)

– Use as much organic produce as possible

(has been difficult this year with the wet, wet conditions)

– Forage as much as possible

(nettles, elderflower, hawthorn, wild herbs, red clover, dandelion)

– Composting all our waste and only buying packed produce when absolutely unavoidable.

Yoga, walking, meditation, gardening, playing music and smiling; definitely allowed.

We have loads of cool books to read about sustainability, organic/ biodynamic gardening, raw food, etc and are taking this month as a huge learning curve. Jane is really getting into herbal remedies and potion making, with wonderful results (elderflower champagne anyone!!!!!) We have both been super busy with work recently and are looking forward to this little window of peace.

Jane and I are also going to be making some music and this may appear on the BHK soon. We may sing about red clovers and rosemary, we may not!

We’d love to hear your experiences of a similar lifestyle/ project and any advice is very, very warmly appreciated.

All in all, we hope to live the life we want to live, free from the troublesome add-ons of the modern world and co-existing within it.

VIVA RAW EARTH!x

For more info on our Raw Earth Month, see here.

PS – I’ve no idea what we’ll do next year, maybe move into a cave or become wandering mendicants?!

Categories: Healthy Living, Raw Food, Vegan | Tags: alternative, eco, food, foraging, health, lifestyle, nature, no impact man, organic, raw, sustainability, vegan | 5 Comments

Raw Earth Month – Moving Back to Nature

Posted on June 2, 2013 by leroy watson

Raw Earth Month

RAW EARTH MONTH

at the Beach House

‘Raw June’ in 2012 was a whole month dedicated to eating raw food, with no caffeine, added sugar, or alcohol. It was an incredible month for me. The experience made me realise that I actually ENJOY eating raw food! After it had finished, it felt natural for us to continue with a big part of our diet raw from then on.

Not only did I develop quite a flair in the kitchen for whisking up quick, gorgeous salads, soups and sauces (I’m not a natural cook), we both became very at home with the basics of nutrition, combining foods, new foods, health foods – the days were long and light, the food was sunny, and bright, and so were we!

The other interesting thing for me was that I really connected a lot more with my body during that time. I listened to it more, and felt into my energy levels more often during the day. For the first time in my life, I was aware of the conditioning of my mind, telling me I was hungry just because I didn’t feel ‘full’ (despite eating bowls and bowls of the most nutritional food on the planet)! And my goodness, did I get a whopper lesson on the nature of cravings? Wheew! It was as if something happened in my brain and I suddenly over-night became an addict of chocolate, dairy, crisps and even fried chips! It was a great exercise of willpower for me, especially since my birthday also fell into the month of June….

The other day, while roaming Anglesey’s wild and beautiful coastal path on a gorgeous sunny afternoon, Lee and I started excitedly planning the next Raw Food month for this Summer.

Inspiration spiraled as we sparked off each other, and soon we were discussing not only how we could improve the way we eat, but also the way we live our lives in general. The way we impact our Mother Earth.

Mother Earth

I would say we live in a fairly environmentally conscious way; we are not huge consumers of material possessions, electricity, or water. We recycle and make compost for our veg patch, we don’t own a clothes dryer, microwave or TV, we make our own washing up liquid and toothpaste, I don’t wear make-up, I use cloth pads during my moon time…. But no way are we perfect! We still use some chemical cleaners around the house; we use laundry detergent, conventional soap, and I use conventional shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant. We both use our computers for hours each day, electrical appliances and lights are accidentally left on… that kind of thing.

So we have set an intention! For a whole month starting on the Summer Solstice Friday June 21st, we are going to be eating only raw vegan food and we are also going to live in a way that lowers our impact on nature and the climate.

This means we are going completely ‘chemical free’ in the home – we’ll be experimenting with home-made eco-cleaning products, laundry products and toiletries. We are cutting down our electricity usage by not using appliances or electric heating. We are also going to switch off our lights in the evening to become more in tune with nature’s circadian rhythms. We’ll reduce our petrol consumption to essential trips only, and limit ourselves to 2 hours of computer time per day. Our mobile phones will be off unless we’re working, and, last but not least we will not buy anything apart from food and essentials – so no shopping trips!

It was not easy for us to agree the finer points of this experience – because of course it does involve sacrifices to our normal way of living, and would not be a challenge otherwise. For example, there was a point in the conversation where I flatly refused to even do Raw Earth Month! It was when Lee brought up the topic of shampoo and conditioners. This was met by fiery resistance by me as my hair is unusually big, long, thick and DIFFICULT at the best of times, even with these wonderfully enriching chemically products in my life. The other thing I felt resistance about was hand-washing all our laundry, not using conventional laundry liquid, and disinfecting the loo. Other than that I’m excited to experiment and relishing the thought of no technology and evenings sat by candle light… Bliss!

Lee on the other hand had no qualms about giving up chemicals on his body and hair, but found the computer part challenging – and even managed to haggle me up from one hour (as initially suggested) to two per day! I do take his point that blog articles can take time to write…

I’m just hoping that we can learn some new life skills during this phase; hopefully lessons we will be able to integrate into the rest of our lifes forever. In our opinion, saving and conserving energy is something we will all have to do more in the future. We will have to turn back once more to Mother Nature, and work with her not against her. Lets get a head start!