Hi All,

Someone emailed me after reading my “best raw foods” chart and asked me whether I had any documentation to back up the assertion that green peppers are unripe. I sent him a few links, and he sent me a link to a video, which answered his question in the best possible way:

I thought the video linked below was interesting and revealing. Just last weekend I ate some very sweet and ripe kiwis and had the thought that maybe the reason I hadn’t enjoyed them in the past is that I just didn’t wait for them to ripen. But this video makes me think they’ve done something to kiwis to make them so shelf stable that they never ripen (or decompose), no matter how long you wait.

And it looks like the Japanese have been hard at work on the problem of round watermelons! Hm I never realized it was a problem, but square ones would be a lot easier to store and transport. I guess Mother Nature got it wrong again! 🙂

I’ve been doing some experimenting with juicing lately.  Coincidentally, I happened to be watching an infomercial this morning by Jay Kordich, the “Juiceman”.  It included a very encouraging verbal testimonial by Charlotte Gerson, who made some powerful general statements about how people are starting to realize that “doctors aren’t helping them” and that they are awakening to the reality that the body can heal itself.  Not something we usually hear on TV!  The part of the infomercial that is relevant to this post is something that Jay shared about juicing oranges.  I’ve long felt that orange juice is way too stimulating, although I do drink it from time to time and have even gotten into the habit of drinking it everyday occasionally, especially before I was as clean as I am now and wasn’t experiencing the same negative effects (rather like caffeine).  What Jay said was that if you peel oranges with a knife, leaving as much of the white pulp as possible, and feed the oranges through a juicer, it’s more nutritious.  Well, that may be the case, but I like trying to figure out what to eat without concerning myself with micronutrients.  In other words, I like to use how a food tastes, smells, looks and makes me feel to decide whether to eat it, or eat it again.  So I tried the ‘new’ way of making orange juice just now.  I used a Champion juicer with a large-holed screen (an optional extra that can be ordered from their website).  Wow, what a difference.  The juice was more like those “Orange Julius” drinks that they used to sell in malls.  It is thick, creamy and not acidic.  The big plus is that it did not have the same negative effect of making me jittery.  I’m sure that eating oranges whole is still by far the best way of consuming them, but if orange juice is something you regularly eat, it might be better to get in the habit of using a masticating or similar type of juicer rather than the squeezing type that most people use on oranges.

Bon Appetit!

Nora