Gaia's Table - Sydney Raw Food Support Group

Welcome!

 

Welcome to GAIA’s Table: 

The support group for practicing vegan raw foodists in Sydney, established in July of 2005. 

 

 We welcome all people who are interested in the pursuit of a raw vegan lifestyle. Regular vegan raw feast gatherings happen each month around the Sydney metropolitan area, we look forward to seeing you at one of them. Please click the register link above if you would like your name added to our group email list as a member to receive news updates.

 Kindest thoughts, Gay & Joy

Joy Mozzi, Facilitator   Gay Campbell, Founder   Tony Young, Site Manager

 

Can Raw Vegans build muscle and have athletic endurance?

I have known Dr. Marilyn Golden since she started attending our Raw Feast potlucks in 2005. In that time she has become an inspiration in our community. Her boundless energy and enthusiasm has seen her hosting some of our get togethers in Thornleigh as well as doing regular health talks at expos here in Sydney and Interstate.

Dr Marilyn Golden is a Medical Doctor with numerous additional qualifications in Natural therapies. She has followed a raw vegan diet for 9 years. Her clinic is the Golden Integrative Medicine and Laser clinic in Chatswood and I personally enjoy being able to visit a doctor who embraces the raw food lifestyle and does not patronise me for doing likewise!

Going Ape

By Claire Heald BBC News Magazine

What if humans cast aside processed foods and saturated fats in favour of the sort of diet our ape-like ancestors once ate? Nine volunteers gave it a go... and were glad they did so.

Being locked in the zoo and offered bananas to eat is the kind of extreme diet scenario to wake some of us screaming in the night. But that was how a group of volunteers opted to try to cut their blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

EVO DIET: WHAT THEY ATE 5kgs or 2,300 calories of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey On a 3-day rota, typically: Broccoli, carrots, radishes Cabbage, tomatoes, watercress Strawberries, apricots, bananas Mangoes, melons, figs, plums Satsumas, hazelnuts

They set up home in a tented enclosure at Paignton Zoo, Devon, next to the ape house, in an experiment filmed for TV. The idea, says Jill Fullerton-Smith, who helped organise the trial, was that modern diets, often dominated by processed foods and saturated fats, cause costly health problems.

For example, nearly half Britain's 117,000 annual deaths from coronary heart disease are linked to high cholesterol, according to the British Heart Foundation. And while the government urges everyone to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day, obesity is still rising.

So could an experiment on ordinary people's lives deliver the healthy eating message?

Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day.

Hunter-gatherer style

The regime was devised by nutritionist and registered dietician Lynne Garton and King's College Hospital. It was based on research showing such a diet could have health benefits for cholesterol levels and blood pressure, because it is made up of the types of foods our bodies evolved to eat over thousands of years.

Ms Garton looked for inspiration to the plant-based diet of our closest relatives, the apes, and devised a three-day rotating menu of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey. The prescribed menu was:

• safe to eat raw;
• met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and
• provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500 for men,

Volunteers could also drink water. In the second week, standard portions of cooked oily fish were introduced - a nod to a more hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Dr Gabriel Cousens is talking in Sydney on December 4, 2011

Go to Gabriel Cousens Sydney Lecture for details

Gabriel Cousens, M.D. is considered to be the leading medical doctor in the live food movement today. Offering deep insights into live food and the optimal diet for health, wellness, longevity, and spiritual growth as a holistic physician, Dr. Cousens will also introduce a brand new set of insights, based on his latest research, on how to use live foods to create enhanced wellbeing and longevity.

Go to Dr Cousens' Blog Site

The following extract and letter are from this site. 

"We live in an age of headlines and soundbites. The internet is packed full of information but typically runs low on wisdom.  This is the reason I write such long and comprehensive blogs. My work is becoming known for its in depth analysis of today’s issues. My articles are repeated attempts to provide people with a substantial understanding of the issues at hand, and the wisdom to know how to address these issues in their personal lives. I typically provide an article summary, which distills the main points for those in a hurry.  While some people think in soundbites, I tend to think in chapters and books. My approach is holistic, and, as such, requires that I present both a spiritual and a scientific overview in my ongoing mission of merging the heavens and the earth. As a scientist, a medical doctor, and an artist of consciousness, providing my readers with the option for depth is my way of serving humanity."  

Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D.(H), D.D

Gabriel's Open Letter to Dr Mercola 

Dear Dr. Mercola,

Thank you for your excellent, thoughtful, and sensitive discussion on vegetarianism and the China study. I have been researching and exploring the benefits of a plant-source-only diet for over 38 years (since 1973).  Given the length of my practice and the scope of my experience, I have come to some working conclusions on the interrelated topics of diet, health, and longevity. I am writing this for the people who have become confused by your subtle, but clear avocation for a meat-centered diet over a plant-source-only diet, as they are tentatively inspired to shift from one paradigm of health and consciousness to a new level.  Although I appreciate most of your points, my main objection is that your implication that people with higher metabolic protein requirements need to eat meat.  Based on my extensive, successful, clinical experience over the course of 38 years of helping people do exactly that, with a 99.99% success rate, your position is misleading and untrue. Even former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who used to eat McDonalds hamburgers in front of the press, has turned to a plant-based diet and now drinks almond milk smoothies!

Fruit Creations

Check out more amazing fruit sculptures at http://www.wix.com/fruitcreations/sydney#!

Humanity’s fall from paradise

An article by David Wolfe

Many have spent lifetimes wondering what caused humanity’s “fall from grace”. What has caused humanity’s disconnection from living in a natural paradise? Why is civilization out of balance with Nature? These thoughts are often triggered by a study of the classical, legendary, or religious stories of a former perfect age.

Every culture seems to have a story about how human life began on Earth. Most describe a place where people lived in harmony with the plants and animals. While living this way, the stories indicate that, people experienced happiness and peace.

These stories often indicate that everything was in harmony until something happened. Some stories tell of a great flood, others tell of humans gaining an understanding of good and evil, still others tell of a shift in Earth‘s alignment, a few even tell of some godly or spiritual powers that drastically changed the state of life on Earth.

Going Raw for Weight Loss

How many overweight wild antelope have you ever seen? What about morbidly obese zebras waddling around the savannah? Wild animals don’t deal with overweight or obesity issues. Wild animals don’t usually eat cooked or processed foods. They eat raw foods, in their natural state and maintain ideal body weight. The human body is designed to run on the clean fuel of raw foods too, just like all the other animals. Through our experiments with cooking and processing foods however, we have moved ever further away from simplicity, towards the so-called ‘Franken-foods’ and we pay for it with our health. Our addictions to processed starches, refined sugars and greasy foods lead to widespread obesity, which we then try to ‘fix’ with yet more processed, chemical pills, powders and packet ‘diet’ foods.

The Battle for Raw Earth by The Kitchen Fairy

Account of the Raw Reflections Retreat, Myuna Bay, Central Coast, NSW April, 2010 by Joy Mozzi

Running lightly and quickly, Chief Elf led his group of fellow middle earthlings around the grassed plain - leaping around, throwing their arms and weapons up into the air, whooping with glee...well, at least that's how Bill described it to me.

Being an elder, Bill kept a safe distance from the cavorting earthlings with their boundless enthusiasm. He is 80 after all. Grant (Chief Elf) was conducting a training session for the raw retreat members on the techniques of both Chi running and barefoot running. Grant has found great benefit in applying the principles of both styles in his distance running.

Me, being the Kitchen Fairy, was in my domain and pardoned from attending battle practice.

Are You Nuts?

 The big issue to confront when attempting a raw food diet is to sort out what to eat. The easy option food-preparation-wise is the Dr Doug Graham 80/10/10 approach: eat lots of fresh fruit, some greens and a small amount of fat; the more natural and unprocessed your food, the better, no messy, time consuming preparation, just peel if necessary and eat. For all it’s benefits, not even many raw purists can consistently sustain an 80/10/10 diet never mind Wannabe Rawbes like you and me who have been brought up on a tasty variety of cooked food (and I’m not just talking about battered fish and chips). For most of us, to jump straight into this extreme approach can quickly lead back to eating lots of nutrient deficient, but seemingly more satisfying food of the cooked and fried variety (what are you satisfying – stomach, mouth or head?).