agar agar and is it raw? and where do you stop? very long

March 23, 2006

You are absolutely right, Judy.

We can only trust what we are told.

Unless we are going to go out and personally dehydrate our own stuff,

we cannot know what they are telling us,so anything dried should be

suspect.

Furthermore, if it comes from the sea, if we are vegan, we should

eschew it, because it might well contain little sea creatures which

have died because they decided to visit that plant.

As a matter of fact, we should be worried about vegetables, because,

even if they have been grown organically, microbes, germs, viruses, or

whatever might have gotten on them, and, if we clean the vegetables,

we might kill them.

I would be worried about cleaning my kitchen, too, because I might

kill some organism (as a city dweller, I can certainly tell you that

my compassion has been strained and tested by cockroaches - an issue

which has been addressed by American Buddhist organizations

frequently-- I will tell you that I am just not THAT vegan. End of story)

The Jains of India wear face masks to avoid inhaling something that

their inhalation might kill, and they carry brooms and sweep ahead of

each step they take in order to avoid stepping on something living (I

have always wondered what they think of the tiny organisms which they

might kill in the sweeping.)

There is some point where we have to call a halt, or a truce, or

something.

That point is going to be a very personal one (some may choose not to

eat -- after all, sprouts are living organisms, and, if you have read

_The Secret Life of Plants_, they are sentient beings.

Having lived in Asia, and having seen how they actually do dry things

on the tops of little houseboats, and knowing that many types of dried

seaweed come from Asia, and have probably been harvested by " small

enterprises " , otherwise known as families, I am given to believe that

most seaweed (at least this week) is " sun-dried " .

How hot is that sun? I have no clue. It was HOT. I did not

understand the language well, and never bothered to try to understand

the Celsius (I figured, if I did not know how hot it actually was, I

would not be as hot as I could be--- it worked very well... people

would walk around sweating and complaining, and I would just be

thinking (as I do now in the New York summers, and as I did in the

Virginia Beach summers, " Well, it could be hotter " , or " Well, this is

nothing. It will get hotter. " It is funny how the mind can affect the

body.)

Which brings me to another issue. do you use " sun-dried " tomatoes?

Were they really dried in the sun? Do you have proof? What sun? The

Kalahari desert? The Mojave? The sun in Suzie's backyard in Maine?

The sun through a sky-light in some city in the midwest?

The word " sun " written on some interesting dehydrator?

Who do you trust? Where do you stop?

Can you eat at all?

As a practicing Buddhist-Catholic-Baptist (I write it all this way

because I am politically correct -- I was born and raise Baptist and

your culture is something you cannot shake entirely ever, I converted

to Roman Catholic in my 30s, and my religious practice is primarily

Buddhist, although I attend Catholic and Baptist services -- much as

someone moves to America and becomes a " Mexican American, or an " Asian

American " ), I have had to deal with the issues of compassion.

As an ESL teacher, I have had the wonderfully confusing opportunity of

teaching a crew of Buddhist monks in New York City. Although they

profesed compassion to all living beings, and would eat no animal

meat, they had no problem with eating vegetables, whereas I, having

read _The Secret Life of Plants_ was struggling with the idea of

killing plants, and praying for guidance.

Some plants eat insects and even animals.

What are we going to eat if we don't eat something.

Okay, I ate my own skin (do you nibble on your fingers?) for a while

-- that is a sick thing -- you have to go to a hypnotist to stop it,

and even then (I am a hypnotist, too), it is hard to stop. It is one

way to get protein.

The point here is, where do you draw the line?

Who do you trust?

What do you trust?

WHat do you believe in?

What would *you* do if there were no vegetables or fruit available in

your surrounds? (in the frozen Yukon, for example, or in the desert?)

All of these are very very very personal questons.

Each person must answer these questions for her or his own self.

In the end, most of these questions cannot be dictated by outsiders

(other people, organizations, etc.)

Meanwhile, we are on this list.

One of the fun things here, lately, has been seeing how many people

have seen fit to " modify " the Master Cleanser.

Witness the questions about modifications of the recipe-- can we use

agave? Why do we need to use cayenne? Do we have to use the salt

water? Can we have a shot of this or that?

I will bet my hat that there are more people who are " modifying "

ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY NO DOUBT ABOUT IT RAW and not talking.

honey?

stevia?

nutritional yeast?

dehydrated vegetables?

heated in a VitaMix?

What you do, how you interpret raw, is up to you. Carol Alt includes

raw meat -- good on her. You don't? Good on you!!!!

I eat seaweed. I didn't know that I had to cook it, so I soaked it,

and it worked for me.

I wash my vegetables. Germs fear me.

I kill cockroaches without even thinking twice. Okay, if someone else

is there, I do a puja and wish them a nicer more powerful next life

(my roommate thinks I am weird when I spray in her presence -- " oh,

please forgive me for what I must do, but know that you are going to a

better place! as you have lived a good life according the expectations

planned, know that you will have a better life in the future. May you

be born as a human with a can of roach spray handy " ).

Margaret

rawfood , vegwriter wrote:

>

> Thanks, that's interesting to know. When they say " dehydrated

naturally, we

> don't know at what temperature. "

>

> Judy

>

> In a message dated 3/21/2006 9:23:39 PM Eastern Standard Time,

> mgamez1 writes:

>

> Judy wrote:

> > Just a note from a raw foods purist, for anyone who

> > might care about raw ingredient definitions:

> > agar agar and nutritional yeast are not raw products.

>

> I wouldn't know about the nutritional yeast, per se,

> but I just found this on agar agar (

>

> " Agar agar is a gelling agent made from a combination of

> algaes from the species gelidium. Other names include dai choy goh,

> Japanese isinglass, or kanten, in reference to the dish in which

> it is commonly used. The name, agar agar, is Malaysian in origin,

> and the harvest of the long red and purple fronds goes back

> hundreds of years. The fronds are freeze dried and dehydrated

> naturally, producing colorless sheets which are shaped into bars. "

>

> http://www.tcwellness.com/issues/2001/08/12.html

March 24, 2006

I LOVE LOVE LOVED, reading every bit of that post...I'm going to save it and put

it in my journal....fabulous!

Margaret Gamez <mgamez1 wrote:

New Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC for low, low

rates.

March 24, 2006

Thanks for your thoughts, Margaret.

I wanted to comment on two of the many things you wrote about.

1. I've read the labels of certain types of sea vegetables and they say that

the vegs were boiled for hours before they were dried. So I avoid those

types. When I eat sea vegs, I eat raw nori, dulse, and kelp, mostly. And sea

lettuce when I can find it in the store.

2. You mentioned that you sometimes spray insects. I wonder what spray

you're using. I'm not thinking about the insects, I'm thinking about how the

spray might be affecting you. Maybe you make your own nontoxic spray from hot

peppers and such?

Judy

Judy Pokras

editor/founder

_www.RawFoodsNewsMagazine.com_ (http://www.RawFoodsNewsMagazine.com)

Your online magazine celebrating the raw foods lifestyle since 2001.

Sign up for our free newsletter.

In a message dated 3/23/2006 6:34:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,

mgamez1 writes: