Present Momennt: A quasi-review

This post was mainly inspired by a friend, who wanted to know more about the Present Moment Cafe, which is my FAVORITE Raw Restaurant! It is located on King Street in St. Augustine (see map).

Is it my favorite because of its close proximity? Or is it because it really is the best? I haven't decided yet! Anyway, I also "borrowed" some photos from their web site. I don't think they'll mind, since I am promoting their restaurant!


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Here are some of the foods that they serve:
Start off with a salad, or one is usually included with each entree, even for lunch! They have raw dressings, from a light citrus marinade to a creamy house dressing to whatever other creation they decide to create.



This is their sushi. I have only tried theirs once--not because it isn't good, but because we make it at home all the time.



Here are some of their entrees. The first is a mock meatloaf. They also have sunlight burgers, mock tuna salad, tacos of life (one of my favorites), lasagna, and more!



The last time I went, I had a Viva Burrito, which looks very similar to this enchilada. I love how they stuff 'em with sprouts!



And of course, you cannot forget about dessert! The apple cobbler is a must-have, not only because it is good, but also because it comes with vanilla ice cream (made from almond nut-milk). They will periodically have a special ice cream of the day, like lemon, strawberry, banana, chocolate, and pistachio. Shown here is the banana split, which used to be a special, but is now a regular on the menu! It is awesome.

So do yourself a favor and take a trip to the Present Moment. You will not regret it, and it may give you some ideas of the types of gourmet raw food that you like to eat. My sister-in-law, who is a "meat-and-potatoes" kind of girl, is addicted to that apple cobbler, and also usually orders a strawberry or chocolate milk shake before her meal when we take her.

Present Moment also has a deli that you can go to for fresh take-out, desserts, and a FEW produce items. It is worth checking out when you eat at the restaurant (it is right next-door).

I also wanted to post the map to Shakti Life Kitchen (click here for their web site with photos, a menu, and more), which is a raw restaurant that opened up in Jacksonville Beach recently (corner of Atlantic Blvd. and Pine Rd). It too is GREAT, and they teach about "proper food combining" (more on that in a later post, or just ask me). They also have desserts that you can take to-go, like the Present Moment Market. I will post a review of this restaurant later, but here is the map:


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Raw Power

Raw Power

The following entry contains a lot of information, but I want to help! Some of it is touchy, but I wanted to put it all in one place so that I can refer people to my findings.

Here goes!

The diet that Alicia and I are on can be called the Raw Vegan diet or the Living Foods diet. Just eat any raw fruits, vegetables (including lots of sprouts), nuts, or seeds! The important thing is not to cook any foods, as cooking any food destroys the enzymes needed to give life and health to your body and also to digest the food. Let me repeat that, because it is very important. Not only are cooked foods hard to digest in the first place, they also have been stripped of the enzymes that are naturally in them before they are cooked (the enzymes die when they are heated to a temperature of 118 degrees F), so they are DOUBLY harder to digest. Raw foods are easier to digest because they aren't hard for your body to process, and the enzymes in them help you to digest them too! I'm sure you've heard how long it takes to digest meat and other foods (1-3 days). Conversely, it only takes your body 2-1/2 hours to digest a raw meal, and only 15 minutes to digest a raw juice. If you eat three cooked meals a day, your body is constantly trying to digest the enzyme-depleted food, and by the time it gets done digesting 1 meal that you’ve consumed earlier, you've already eaten another one. It is very hard for your body to heal itself when this is going on constantly, and very EASY for your body to be susceptible to diseases. Compare that to eating raw (non-pasteurized!) juices and raw foods, and your body has a lot of time to quickly digest the food and then can move on to eliminating cancer cells or problems related to other diseases. Not only was my body able to heal itself from brain cancer (and rid itself of the toxins that the doctors gave me through chemotherapy), but Alicia was able to heal herself from being insulin-resistant (and very close to adult-onset diabetes). Since she started eating raw, her blood sugar has not once been above 100, even after a meal of only fruits! Many people do not know that high blood-sugar is actually related to fat and toxins. If your bloodstream is filled with a lot of hard-to-digest fat (including raw fat), the sugars (even good sugars) that you eat cannot be digested quickly, stay in your bloodstream, and cause problems, ranging from diabetes to cancer to candita (yeast) infections.

I know this helped us! My dream is to eventually start "The DT Foundation" to help people get this information. Raw food is going to be a lot less uncommon than it is now. It is not just a "thing" anymore. The best book that I can recommend you read is "The China Study" by Dr. Colin Campbell. In it, he relates how our health is closely related to the foods that we eat. AMAZING science behind eating a plant-based diet!

Quick tip: if you decide to go raw and someone asks you something crazy like “But where do you get your protein from?” ask them—“from where do you get YOUR protein?” Animal protein is just not meant to be consumed by humans. It is the wrong kind of protein.

Here are some web sites from the Hippocrates Health Institute. This is a place that teaches people to live a balanced life and eat a raw-foods diet:

General web site: http://www.hippocratesinst.com/
Sample Videos: http://www.hippocratesinst.org/SampleVideos.aspx
Sign up for their free magazine: http://www.hippocratesinst.com/Magazine.aspx

My wife and I, along with my Mom and Dad, went there for New Year’s this year (December 30-January 6, 2008). It is normally a 3-week detox program, but with our schedule and finances, we all decided to go for one week that time and perhaps try to do the rest later. It was an incredible experience. But I will blog about that later (hopefully).

Sorry this entry is choppy, but some of the thoughts are random. I wanted to get them all down. A friend asked me for “a list of the foods that you eat.” This sounded kind of funny to me, because I had already told him my standard answer—“fruits veggies, nuts, and seeds.” But it is a common question, so I decided to elaborate. Besides “fruits veggies, nuts, and seeds,” there is lots of raw cuisine out there. Just go to any Borders or Books-a-Million and look up their raw cookbooks (uncookbooks?). You shoul be pleasantly surprised!

Here are some web sites of raw food restaurants and recipes. The first one (The Present Moment—our favorite!... just by default though, because it is the only one in Northeast Florida) is in St. Augustine. The rest are in New York City. Another dream of mine (and Alicia’s) is to open up a raw restaurant in Jacksonville. It’s gonna happen, so keep an eye out for it.
Here are the sites:

http://www.thepresentmomentcafe.com/
http://www.rawsoul.com/restaurant.htm
http://www.rawsoul.com/recipes.htm
http://www.raw-q.com/

Most of the foods at these types of restaurants are indulgences for Alicia and I, as even raw-fooders can get too much fat (from nuts, avocados, seeds, oils, etc.). Our diet really is simple! We have a shot of 1-2 ounces of wheatgrass (Google: wheatgrass if you don't know what that is) and fruit for breakfast, and then usually salad for lunch, with a fruit topping, a home-made raw salad dressing, or guacamole and salsa (my favorite). Then for dinner we'll eat fruits, raw soups, and/or something else of the like. There is not much to it! Some of our friends have even started modifying their diets to increase the percentage of raw food that they eat, and to me that is awesome! I think they are seeing the benefits when they really stick to it…

For more info on needing to keep the fat level down, see Dr. Doug Graham's book and philosophy, "The 80/10/10 Diet." (http://www.foodnsport.com/811/index.html). In it, he explains the ratio of caloronutrients that humans should be eating, and why. 80/10/10 refers to 80% calories from carbohydrates, 10% from fats, and 10% from protein. This relates strongly with what I was saying earlier about carb sugars being "stuck" in the bloodstream and causing health problems. See the book excerpt on that very site. Not just for raw eaters! Whether you are eating 5%, 50%, 80%, or 100% raw, vegan or non-vegan, you should follow these ratios as close as possible.

I cannot stress that this thing that we have found is not just to lose weight. It is the way that God, in his infinite wisdom, has designed us to live. It is a way to live the way we were meant to live. Happy. Disease-free. Full of energy and life. It is being with our family for a LONG time. This is important for me, and I hope it is important for you. Please let me know if you have any questions.

New York, New York

New York, New York

I wanted to post some pictures from our family's recent trip to New York. Earlier this year, I was able to score some tickets to the Mets-Braves series this past weekend (Sept 12-14, 2008). It was a dream come true for me (thanks, Mary!), as I have been a Mets fan since I was 7 or 8 years old, and this was the first time I had a chance to go to New York and visit Shea Stadium. It was also an awesome trip because I got to spend so much time with my family (in addition to Alicia, my mom and dad also went). It was unanimously better than the Green Bay trip we made 2 weeks ago ("have Trunk, will Travel" is our motto. We LOVE to travel!). That was another dream come true--for my Dad. You do know hard it is to score Packers tickets, right?

Anyway, here are the pictures:

This was the main highlight for me (showing metal in the first picture)--getting to see Johan Santana (shown pitching in the second picture), David Wright (pictured in third picture on-deck, #5), and the rest of the Mets woop up on the Braves. Friday night's game was rained out (see the tarp in the first picture?), so we saw a double-header on Saturday (they split, with the Mets bullpen blowing a 2-0 supurb start by Santana to lose 3-2 but then holding on for a 5-0 shutout in the nightcap).

The Manhattan Temple. Beautiful, isn't it? For those of you that don't know, it was built from an existing building, and is on the second floor.

Did you know that wheatgrass is good for animals, too? In fact, cats and dogs LOVE wheatgrass and will chew on it, instintively knowing that it is good for what ails them. Back in the day, before it was scientifically verified, Ann Wigmore originally decided that wheatgrass was going to help her body heal itself from cancer because her cats chose it over any other grass.
I LOVE this picture! Did you know they have farmers' markets in New York? Very good ones at that. We were able to get our wheatgrass shots in every morning!

"Adjusting" ourselves to the New York life...

GREAT Led Zeppelin song, am I right?

I had to take this one for Nick and Jon. I didn't know they owned a steakhouse!

This was actually the night that we got home. We missed Elder Alexander (leaving from our Atlantic Ward on Tuesday to start his mission in Salt Lake City) giving his "farewell" talk on Sunday with the missionaries, but we were able to make it to his open house that night. He is going to be a great misionero!

Also, check out my most recent two videos:

Manhattan Temple

Elder Alexander's Open House

http://www.youtube.com/user/trunkybeat