Caryn Hartglass, Happy 2018!

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Caryn gives her thoughts, inspirations and ideas for the coming year.

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Caryn Hartglass: Hi, everybody I’m Caryn Hartglass, you’re listening to It’s All About Food. Well, we did it, it’s a New Year, Happy New Year everyone, Happy New Year. If you believe in time and calendars and the things that we create in our society it’s a new year, it really is just another day, but we like to think of it as a new year because it gives us an opportunity to tie things up, finish things up, and give us motivation and inspiration to really start fresh with a blank palette, a white canvas, something that doesn’t have history on it, where we can create what we want, pursue our dreams, forget perhaps our mistakes, our regrets; I like the idea actually. Yeah, actually, I like to incorporate that idea every morning when I wake up, not just every year, but every day, every day is a new day, a blank palette, a white canvas, a time to begin again, and put the past behind, and be inspired by what can be. So here we are, it’s 2018, some people are saying 20 Chai. And if you’re familiar with the Hebrew language Jewish tradition the number 18 when spelled in the Hebrew letters it spells the word life, so the number 18 or multiples of 18 are used, for example, if you’re giving a gift, money you’ll give a gift of $18.00 or a multiple of 18, and since this year has 18 in it, I have heard some people call it 20 chai, which means “20 life,” and I like it. Whatever it takes to make for you to feel uplifted and to feel like this is the right time, the right time for you, the right time for you and your life, and everything that you’ve wanted to make of your life, this is your time, 20 high, happy new year. I am back in California, it’s been absolutely crazy week, and I kept telling myself, just get through this day, every day this week. So you may know my partner Gary De Mattei and I are directing The Music Man in San Jose, California with a wonderful theater company called Playful People Productions. It’s not a professional company, it’s more of a workshop for many people who are wanting to get involved in theatre, it’s a community, it’s filled with families. One of the key elements of the mission of this organization is to be kind. I love that, and I wish that many companies and business would include being kind as part of their being. So if you’re thinking of starting a company or business I hope you consider being kind, being compassionate, consider as part of what your business is about. I think it will make a better product.

And we are here in San Jose, and we left San Jose after a month of rehearsals, to go back home for a week. I don’t normally like to travel on the Christmas/New Year week the tickets are the most expensive then the airports are the craziest, but we left on Christmas Day night and we returned on New Year’s Day afternoon. It really was a battle, but I went home for a number of reasons. One was to have a root canal. So how did my root canal go, it’s done, I need to get a crown when I come back to him in February, I don’t ever want to do this again, this is the second one I’ve had in life, I guess I’m grateful that these options are available to us. It makes me think of I have a friend who is a composer, and he’s written a musical about the time when there was no pain killer, or Novocain, or laughing gas, or anything, and people used to have dental work and have to endure the pain, and then ether came along. Now ether is not really a healthy option, but it led to other things which are more fortunate for everyone. But could you imagine having dental work without any pain killer, I had a lot of Novocain, and I still felt a little bit here and there, and I think it’s more the anticipation of pain, that is worse, than some of the actual pain, I don’t know, but tooth pain is can be the worse, in my opinion. It’s a fascinating thing the human body, and I suppose that we can be grateful of the some of the pain we can feel because pain is an indication of a problem in many cases, and that can be physical pain and that can be emotional pain. And if you aren’t having any physical or emotional pain, then maybe you don’t what the cause of it is, I hope you dig deep and look for what the cause may be. And it maybe more than one cause, but I want 2018, to be a good year, a good year for you, a good year for all of us, and to get through to some of those things that may have been problem. Back to my teeth, I did get a lot of Novocain and my jaw is still quite stiff from it. The dentist told me that that would happen. So yesterday when I was biting into my apple, uh-oh, I had to take really teeny, tiny bites, this is when smoothies can be a wonderful option. Alright, so I spent time having a root canal, I spent time getting my mom’s cars maintained, as you may know I lost my dad two months ago, well, not two months ago, a month and a week, and I’ve been doing a lot of tasks for mom who’s not able to do them. It was a week of work, and that’s okay, we were going to go to a number of parties, and we didn’t, and that’s okay, New Year’s Eve we spent at home. I spent a lot of time on the computer trying to finish up project that I self-inflicted, with self-inflicted deadlines to finish by the end of the year and I did. And I ended the year with my favorite cocktail which is a Manhattan, made with macres, marcs, bourbon, and its vegan, which is important to me. And Gary makes it, and it was especially nice. Just one, it was enough. That made me feel festive and help me to relax a little bit too after the long week. And then we flew yesterday, New Year’s Day, back to California, now the trip was interesting when it comes to food, this show’s “It’s All About Food,” and I’m going to focus on food now that’s why you’re listening, right to hear about food.

I remember back in the 90s I used to travel a lot for work. Back then they used to serve meals on planes you remember that? Meals. And you could order different meals, seem like the world was moving forward at the time, and you could actually a vegan meal on many flights, and it was always kind of fun to see what I’d get. It was never a culinary spectacular experience, but it was fun to see what they’d put together. I always found that the international flights were the food was so much better, fresher, and more creatively prepared. I also remember the first vegan cookie that was served on United Airlines back in the early 90s, and that was from Miyoko Shcinner because she used to have a restaurant in San Francisco called “Now and Zen” and from that she’s had some products that she had for sale. The time was right, it was right for me, I was glad to have a chocolate chip cookie on my flight with United. But she stopped doing all of that, she raised her children and now look at all the wonderful things, the products, her cheese line, and butter line, and vegan non-dairy products or maybe should I call it vegan dairy products, because her butters, it’s just not made with cow milk. Some of these things take time, and here’s someone who had a vision and realized at one point it wasn’t the right time maybe time to incubate, and now she’s doing phenomenally well, and I’m excited about that.

But back to the airplanes. We went through a period of cost cutting and serving food on planes went away, and then we’d be served all these unhealthy snacks and nobody cared about dietary requirements really anymore. I remember there was a time they served peanuts on planes, and then they stopped serving peanuts because people were allergic to peanuts and then they started serving peanuts, it really depended on the airplane, the airline company and now I guess maybe the airlines are looking for ways to be more competitive. And I been flying Jet Blue primarily because it’s a convenient flight from New York City to San Jose, California they have a nice red eye, non-stop that we like. But we didn’t fly that one yesterday we actually had to fly to Boston and then to California, since it’s a busy time that’ really the only flight that I could get that wasn’t outrageous cost wise. So we stopped in Boston and we were really careful food wise when we left the house. We always like to pack up the fresh produce that’s in the refrigerator, and eat it as snacks or bring it with us we had a nice breakfast, but when I got to the Boston airport I was really hungry. And I looked online and there was a placed called “Currito”, you’ve heard of it, they make burritos and bowls kind of the Mexican theme of beans and rice, but they had some other flavors from other cuisines like Thai, Mediterranean, and I was able to get Gary a burrito and me a bowl and I loved it. It was clean, it was fresh, and we had a nice meal waiting in the airport and then we got on our flight. We had a long wait at the airport so by the time I was flying to California, I was getting hungry again. And Jet Blue offers a kosher, vegan, gluten-free snack box they call it the “Trifecta” because its three things that people are asking for, we order that along with one of their meals which is vegan and gluten-free was a kale salad with Quinoa. Awhile ago when airlines started charging for meals on the plane I made, I think made some conscious vow to never buy them. Number one there was nothing to buy, because none of them were healthy-looking or vegan. I was really pleased when I broke that vow I guess. Here’s to 2018 and breaking promises, it was never really a voice promise, it was just a thought. But the prices were reasonable and we got the nutrition we needed and we even learned about a few nice products along the way. So I am giving a thumbs up to Jet Blue’s kale salad with quinoa, the snack box had Mary’s Crackers in it and we eat Mary’s Crackers a lot. Mary’s Crackers are made with a number of different seeds and I think it’s a rice base and then you’ve seen these little packets of hummus that are all sealed so they don’t need to be refrigerated one of those, and some kind of fruit bar, olives, a package of olives. Of course, the downside to all of this is that the food is overly packaged, not the most environmentally friendly, but whoever said that flying is environmentally friendly I made the plan to plant a gazillion trees to make up for all the flying I have been doing. There is that.

New Year, Happy New Earth, Happy New Year! Now we’re here in San Jose, and we’re staying in the home of the parents of one of our cast members, they are away on a trip and the house was empty, and it is a phenomenal home, I’m really looking forward to spending time here and creating some meals.

It’s always fun to be in a different kitchen because kitchens I find can inspire what I cook. It doesn’t matter what kind of kitchen it is. It’s just each space inspires something unique so I can be in a large beautifully appointed, every possible appliance, and pot, utensil, that I could ever imagine and I’ll create some lovely things, but I’ve also been very inspired in tiny little hotel rooms that have an efficiency kitchen and or not sometimes I’ve travelled with a pot and a burner, when I’ve been on a tour for example, and I’ve created some amazing meals. I’m not saying the space has to be gorgeous or big, or expensive, I just like working in different spaces, so, I hope you look at my blog, “What Vegans Eat”, in this next month and see what I come up with here, something exciting to look forward to and that leads me to gratitude, yes, it’s time to think about gratitude, it’s always time to think about gratitude, especially when we’re feeling tired and dissatisfied that’s like a wake-up call. Ok, things may not be the way we want them to be, but what is going right? What is there to be thankful for? You have a choice in life we all have a choice in life, things can be really difficult, life is challenging, yes, very challenging, and just when you think things could be going right, something goes wrong, doesn’t it always work that way? But it feels a lot better when you have a positive approach to everything, every challenge is easier to get through when we take a positive approach and how do we, how do we approach things and be positive? The key is to think about what we’re grateful for focus on the things we’re grateful for, and not the things that we’re not pleased about that could use a little work. Because when you have gratitude it feels up something, it’s like we have a battery inside, I don’t know what it is, but it fills up, replenishes this battery, this vessel that enables us to reach in and do the things we need to do. What are you grateful for?

I am grateful to be in this beautiful home, and the owners of the home are art collectors and there is so much beautiful art here. I am going to look forward to standing in front of each piece and take my time and discover each one, I can’t wait. The next thing I want to talk about hair and health. I’ve been cutting my hair shorter, the last year. I’ll tell you why I’ve been doing it. Hair is a funny thing isn’t it whether you have it or don’t. A friend of mine who connected me with a surgeon back in 2007 who was a part of saving my life during my ovarian cancer treatment, she knew about this surgeon because another friend of hers who had cancer had used him and loved him. And that person wrote a book called, “Any Day with Hair Is A Good Day” because when you have cancer or some other disease and you take some strong treatments you may lose your hair, and when you have hair you can appreciate it a lot more if you’ve lost it. I did lose my hair back in 2006. I went with it, I have the attitude of accepting the cards I’m dealt and dealing with them, I knew this was a choice I was making, the path I was taking, and this was a part of it. But hair has always been a big part of my life, I’ve always had lots of big, red, curly hair. I don’t think people would recognize me without a big mass of hair, but in the back of my mind I always thought what would it be like to cut my hair short? And society does so many things. And I think in the last few decades we’ve been breaking through a lot of the expectations, especially when it comes to genders men and women. We’re starting to see a lot of the different variations people being non-binary, transgender, and all kinds of different kinds of way to look at our bodies, and to look at life, and choose what we want to be and who we want to be, how we want to look. I was raised in a subliminal way with society’s expectations and as a woman I always wanted to have long flowing hair like a Barbie doll, I mean come on these are the messages that I received. I used to love the cartoon Brenda Starr Reporter. She had red hair, she was a cartoon, but I wanted hair like her. Then you know I have long hair and we have technology with curling irons, and straightening irons, blow dryers and we can do all kinds of crazy things with our hair, if we had hair and any day with hair is a good day. And then I lost my hair, and so when it was growing in and it was short, I really liked the way it looked, but it wasn’t entirely my decision to be wearing it short so I wanted to grow it back, I wanted my hair to be on my terms. The way I had it, and for the last ten years I grew it and it’s been really lovely grade and I’ve enjoyed it, and then it was time, my time to cut it. And I started cutting it shorter and shorter, and just a few days ago, I cut really short, and it’s been really fun. I just feel like I’ve kind of completed, I completed the journey with my own health and with my own healing where I made the decision on my terms not because I am having chemo or anything like that. To do what I want with my hair, it’s really empowering. And I can understand now why people choose to do whatever they do, shave their heads, color their hair and grow it long because we’re all unique, and again it’s bringing it back to art like I said earlier every day is a new day, every day is a new canvas, a new blank palette, each of us need to do what satisfies ourselves and not anyone else. You know I’ve gotten a lot of comments on my short hair, most people like it, some people think oh no, no, you’ve always had great hair you should always keep it long, you just got to let those things flow, you need to do what you need to do for yourself. I have to say that I am grateful for my hair and hair is to some degree, genetics are involved of course, but hair to some degree a reflection of your health, and the nutrients you take into your body I believe you will have healthier hair by consuming the wide range of plant nutrients so that your body can do what it needs to do and have the strength to create and grow and replenish, all the cells not just your hair, your nails, your skin, and everything, it’s all about food, it always comes back to food.

Now we’re in 2018, new year let’s talk about you. Let’s make this year about you. What are you going to do in 2018 for you that makes a positive difference for you, and I’m talking to everybody, what is it that you want to do for you, people make a lot of promises at the beginning of the year, how about going vegan, you’ve been thinking about it, if you’ve aren’t already, is now the time, there are a lots of programs out there that can assist you, there’s the “Veganuary Project” we interviewed the folks that founded that concept and they’ve been pretty successful getting people at the beginning of the year when people want to start a new project and get healthier they’re curious about being vegan. It’s hard for people to say I am going to do something forever, to try something, to dip your foot in the water, to see what’s it’s like that can work, and that’s why the “Veganuary Project” has been so successful and then what happens of course, many times is people discover how great they feel eating plant foods, how it wasn’t that difficult as they imagined, and then low and behold you decide to stick with many of the changes that you’ve made and that’s a good thing. Are you ready, and if you have any comments and questions about it, hesitant, fears, reasons that are you holding you back—I’m here, you can email me at info@realmeals.org I will answer your question and hopefully help you in your journey to be who you want to be. I really would like to see everyone take the responsibility to make this world a better place we can all do our part, and there’s momentum now. There are more and more people jumping on the plant based bandwagon than ever before making it easier, less of a social pressure, it’s more accepting in the workplace, it’s more accepting at home to some degree. I know some people still have challenges with their family doesn’t want to support the changes, in their nutritional changes or whatever changes we may choose in our lives. Life is challenging, didn’t I say that before? So fill your vessel, fill your battery up with all of the things you are grateful for first, so that you’re feeling solemn and secure with who you are, and where you want to go and who you want to be, and then make the change feel proud of yourself when you make those changes. It’s especially challenging when we’re older, it’s easier to make changes when we’re young because we’re not as committed to who we are when we’re young, but when we’ve been living a life for some many decades, it’s our foundation, it’s who we are and all of a sudden we want to take up the foundation, and say no, no, no, I want it, I want a different foundation, I want to live in a different house. It’s difficult to move, and it’s difficult to move our mind and clear out all that stuff that we’ve collected and then start new. You don’t have to start completely new, it’s just like renovating the house a little bit, right? But renovating, I’m making all of these analogies here, these metaphors, but moving can be very, very difficult, very tedious and renovating it can be uncomfortable for a while. But the end, the end is always beautiful and it’s so worth it. Just trying to find ways to inspire and encourage to make changes to make you feel good. I’ve always been motivated by reducing pain and suffering, I got on this path of not eating animals because I didn’t want to kill, I didn’t want to cause pain and suffering. And that was almost 30 years ago, actually that was longer 45 years ago is when I stopped eating red meat, and got on the vegetarian path, and then it almost 30 years ago when I became vegan. People will make changes for different reasons for health, for the environment, for animals it’s all good. And if you want to make that change I want to help you. So if you have any concerns or it’s really difficult, let’s find a way to solve those problems. Now when it comes to a health point of view, I can’t insist enough following a healthy whole foods plant diet, we learned last year with Dr. Dean Sherzai, and Dr. Ayesha Sherzai that Alzheimer’s and dementia can be prevented. Yes, they said that the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia can be reduced by 90% right now in my family. My mom has mild dementia, and it’s been especially challenging with my dad passing in November, and to see her and her life and helping with all of the tasks to help keep her happy and comfortable I know other people whose family members have Alzheimer’s this is a dreadful disease and I don’t wish it on anyone. It’s hard for the person whose inflicted with it, and it may even be harder for the people that are around them, it’s hard to know, I don’t wish on anybody like I said I want you to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s I want you to reduce your risk of dementia, and the way to do that is with a healthy whole foods plant diet. This is like what we know with heart disease. We know now that the unhealthy foods refined, processed foods, sugary foods and the animal foods filled with saturated fat cause the plaque in our blood vessels and hardening arteries and just make it difficult for our bodies to live until finally the heart just gives up, and the same thing is happening in our brains with the amyloidal clack, coating, all kinds of vessels in our brain, and making things not work, and it doesn’t have to happen. It’s not a symptom of old age, and it is a symptom of bad lifestyle. It’s been a lifestyle that we have been encouraged to take on; so that others may profit and I don’t wish that on anyone. I don’t wish that on you, I see now what it’s like and how it affects people. Losing your mind, oh goodness, it’s so unnecessary, so please eat big giant salads, you can even get them on Jet Blue now. Kale salad with quinoa, big soups especially now you may know for the New Year there are some traditions that say eating black eyed peas and lentils bring you good luck. I don’t know about any traditions or ways to bring good luck, but I do know how to bring good health. And eating beans is one of them. So if you like the idea of good luck for the New Year eat black-eyed peas and lentils they’re fantastic. I created a recipe for New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day a few years ago, it’s on the ResponsibleEatingAndLiving.com website; it’s called Black Thai Peas. It’s kind of a play on words, you get it, black tie, we wear black tie and gowns for fancy New Years Eve events and this dish has some Thai flavorings in it, with coconut milk and spices. It’s one of my favorites and I don’t make it very often, and I don’t think about it except around the holiday. Black Thai Peas and we have lots of lentils, dried lentils in the house, and Gary just made a ton of lentil soup, and we just ate it up for the last few days while we were in New York, so we got plenty of good luck, and I want you to have good luck too, so I hope that you eat your beans, black tie peas, lentils, all of them, there are some 45,000 varieties of legumes out there it can never get boring. Lentils are pink ones, and little green ones and bigger brown ones, and kind of blue green ones, there are so many, there are yellow beans, and red beans, and black beans, and white beans, and blue beans, are there blue beans? There are navy beans, but they’re white. We know so many ways to prevent disease and I just find that the findings around Alzheimer’s and dementia fascinating and so hopeful and so encouraging. And then the other thing is making sure you’re getting enough DHA and EPA, you’ve heard about Omega-3 fatty acids, and Omega-6 fatty acids, and we’ve learned that we need a ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 the right ratio we’re not sure of, but it’s somewhere 1 to 1 or 4 to 1, but many people are getting like 15 to 1 or 20 to 1 far more Omega-6 fatty acids than Omega-3. The response has been eat to more Omega-3 from salmon for example, the response from the mainstream community, I think the better response is stop eating junk food and oils that contain a lot of Omega-6 so you’re reducing your Omega-6 naturally, and then to get the Omega-3s of course we need hemp seeds and flax seeds, dark leafy green vegetables have them too, not as much as the seeds, but it all adds up. We don’t need to eat salmon to get our essential Omega-3s, and then as we age the belief is that we’re not as good at making our own DHA and EPA which we make from these essential fatty acids, so supplementing is recommended, and that’s why many people take fish oil today. But there’s been some controversy around fish oil and heart disease. I personally don’t believe in consuming anything from a fish, I take a DHA, EPA I get mine from Dr. Ferman, Gary and I call it our fish, and there are a variety of a number of products and I think this year and in the next few years we will see an improvement and price reduction in these products as the price goes up and the demand goes up so please look for those because we want healthy brains and we want our minds to behave and we don’t want to get Alzheimer’s and dementia do we? No, no, no, no.

Now during this New Year at the beginning of a new year many people think about dieting, many people think about doing detoxs. Have you been thinking about these things? I may have mentioned this, but I been on a lot of different programs that are out there, people offering diet programs and detoxing programs and I am fortunate to review a lot them and a lot of them are disappointing to me in many ways. So here’s here’s some of the things that I recommend if you’re thinking about dieting or detoxing. The most important thing is to be on a healthy diet before you even think about detoxing, I don’t recommend a diet that’s short term. What you want to do is be on a diet that is not a diet a diet that is your lifestyle. A diet which is the way you eat all the time because you don’t want to be going up and down and craving something and depriving yourself of foods that you want. The idea is to learn how to eat properly with foods that nourish you and your brain, and your body, and your heart and your soul. Foods that are delicious and nutritious, foods that you love to eat and that love you back and it is possible it does take change and we talked about change before. There are some people that want to go on a diet and lose weight quickly, or think about doing a detox to cleanse them from all the crap that they’ve eaten. There are some detoxs that may be beneficial, but I don’t recommend doing one until you are ready, and being ready is until you have adopted a healthy diet because you could do a lot more damage than good if you do one of these detoxs and then go back to bad habits that doesn’t serve anyone any good. So first think about eliminating the highly processed refined foods I always say to leave them as an occasional treat, but I’m even wanting to rescript that to I mean why is poisoning yourselves considered a treat, where did that come from, who put that idea in our heads. A treat should be something that is wonderfully delicious and satisfying but that is also nourishing, shouldn’t it be? Like fresh blueberries, they’re wonderful. You’re going to think that this is crazy, but we were as I mentioned flying from New York to California and Gary had made a bag of celery sticks and carrot sticks we have those three-color carrots, the purple, white, and orange carrots I love them, and they’re organic, they were all very fresh and juicy and crunchy, and this was a treat, really I love them. I was thirsty and the celery was hydrated, so it’s all perspective. I didn’t want an Oreo cookie or anything like that, that was, and that wouldn’t feel good. When your palette changes, when your perspective on food changes, you really learn to enjoy and appreciate the foods that are really good for you. Works for me. Now back to detoxing. There are a number of programs that I really don’t recommend the kind that, the liver cleanse, that recommends you swallow a bunch of olive oil and lemon juice, and then you lose all these stones. It’s nonsense, and it’s not good for your body, the kind of detox that I would recommend would be a water fast, or a vegetable juice fast where you are not eating any solid foods so a water fast is something where you rest, and only consume water, and you can do that for a few days or a few weeks, I did one for three weeks back in 2000 I think. Sometimes I think I would like to do it again, but the problem is you need to really set aside some time because part of the detox includes resting, because you’re focusing on clearing our stuff in the body and enabling your body to work on those areas and you need to not give your body anything else to put its energy into while it’s working on detoxing you. But there are some detoxing programs where they want you to consume like bullet coffee with butter these things are just nonsense and crazy. Why put something that’s isn’t good for your body into your body while you’re detoxing. There’s this concept that toxins accumulate in fat that’s true, but we don’t need to consume a tremendous amount of fat in order to draw the toxins out. You know what’s a good way to draw the toxins out of your body dark green leafy vegetables, they help detox every day in a natural way that’s healthy and good for you. Don’t fall for these programs that promise all kinds of crazy things. It’s funny because as I’m talking about detoxing I am hearing the garbage trucks outside taking the garbage away. It’s all about taking the garbage away, but there are just some basic keys about taking the garbage away from our bodies. Number one don’t put it in, so that’s the number one essential. Before you start any program stop putting garbage in your body and get used to it, get your body used to it, your body will already start naturally detoxing. When you keep filling your body with garbage your body is overwhelmed it can only remove so much at a time. You only have, you know like it’s like you only have one garbage can and if you have all this garbage in the house you can only fill up one garbage can and let the garbage truck take it away, and your house still has garbage in it because you can only let go one load, one small can at a time. Sure, some people buy two cans, stop putting the garbage in and then there will be less to take out. And I know it’s easier said than done, because many people are busy, busy lives, busy families, and if you’re eating something you’re not used to eating what do you replace it with, and that’s why starting slow for some people is important, and detoxing is not the way to go. Another reason is because you need to get these healthy habits in place before you do a major cleansing, does that make sense I hope so. I am sitting right next to this lazy Susan in this house I’m staying at. You know a lazy Susan is a turntable we use to distribute food on a dining room table. It spins you can put food on it and it spins its really lovely. And I wanted to save this for the end of the program there are these phrases all around the edge of the lazy Susan, and I wanted to read to you and talk about because they’re really great recommendations to think about while you’re eating, or while you’re with a group of people and eating, and this shows it’s all about food. So it’s more than appropriate. I’m going to start with the first one which says, “Wonder, wonder?” While you’re eating do you ever wonder where the food came from? I find it mind boggling when I start to think about it, because there are so many people that have been involved with getting my food to my plate and that’s what thinking about gratitude, this is a time to be grateful for all those people. Very few of us lived a lifestyle where we’re growing food from seed and harvesting it and eating what we grow. That was another time; today many, many people are involved in bringing food to our plate. The farmers, the people that work the farm, and harvest the food after it’s grown, what about the people that make the equipment to grow some of that food, and then the shipping and the stores that are involved in packaging and then the people that work in the stores, and then our refrigerators and those who have been involved in creating those. And then our stoves and our dishes and our cutlery, just mind boggling. So, when you’re eating wonder and be grateful. And then the next thing on this lazy Susan is “Smile,” and I’m smiling, I’m wondering about how my food gets to my plate, and thinking about all the people that are involved, and it makes me smile, and I’m grateful, and I’m smiling and the food I’m eating makes me smile because it’s delicious.

Okay, the next one is, “Chit-chat and listen”, so if you’re with other people you can talk about how the food got there, it can really be a fun conversation and when you’re listening you might learn something that someone else knows that you’re didn’t know, that could bring even more appreciation to what is on your plate. Some people prefer to eat in silence and that’s fine to, to focus on perhaps the chit-chat that’s in your mind, all of the thoughts that we have in our mind, and you can sit and listen to all of that, or just find some peace and focus on the food that you’re eating and listen to what the food has to tell you, chit-chat and listen.

All right the next one is, “Tell your story.” Tell your story, we all have stories and as humans this is what really sets us apart from other species we like to tell stories and tell our stories and being around the table and having a meal and sharing a meal with people is a wonderful time to share stories.

And the next one is, “Dream.” Some people think it may be really a waste of time to dream for things that really aren’t possible. I think that dreaming is what makes things possible; to get our imagination going, get our creative juices going. And when we’re sitting around the table or sitting by ourselves, and eating our food, it’s a really good time to do that, to dream. Think about what’s possible. And when the food is good and nourishing, and delicious, it makes the dreaming so much better, because we’re filled with gratitude, we’re feeling good, it makes all that positivity happen, okay and after the dreaming what comes next, “Make a Wish,” that’s part of dreaming thinking about what’s possible thinking about what you want in your life, what you might be able to achieve and make that wish and tell yourself you can make something happen it doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to be expensive, it can just be something small, something attainable, it could be big, it’s up to you, it’s your wish, make a wish, and then, you know it’s funny I just started in the middle of this lazy Susan and I’m kind of curious on how it will conclude, but the next phrase is “Yum, yum, yum,” it’s just “yum, yum, yum” because when we’re eating good food it’s yummy, it’s really yummy and I say this all the time. When we’re sitting at our table and I look at Gary and I say, “We are so lucky, our food is so good.” And I just wish everybody could experience all this deliciousness.

The next one is “Believe in yourself.” Oh how important is this. Believe in yourself, you’ve only got you, if you don’t believe in yourself, who else is there, you’re lost, you must believe, we can all be who we want to be, and now is a good time to get started, on you and start with some good healthy, organic plant food. That’s a good way to believe in yourself when you believe in yourself you want to nurture yourself, you want to take care of yourself and what better way to do that, food and kind thoughts, and look the next phrase is, “Eat good food, and share.” Eat good food and share, I was just saying when I’m with Gary and we’re eating food I wish everyone could eat this way, now clearly I cannot prepare food for everyone if I could I would believe me, and that’s why we put all of the recipes up on our website, responsibleeatingand living.com it’s a mouthful I know, responsible eating and living dot com, but all of those recipes are there to share, they’re free, they’re for you, a gift, I’ve made, I like them, I put them up there and I share, eat good food, and share.

The next one is “Know Love”, “Know Love,” I learned a long time ago, love heals, love heals, love is the only answer, whatever challenges you are experiencing the solution will come from love, and it needs to start with you, you believing in yourself, and the last one here is, “Be A Star.” Be a star now that doesn’t mean you have to be famous and a celebrity that just means to glow, be a shining light, be something, be someone that shines in gratitude, in love, believe in yourself, and be a star. That’s my wish for you for all of you, for 2018, 20-Chai, Happy New Year everybody, thanks for listening, I’m Caryn Hartglass, this has been another episode of It’s All About Food have a very delicious week.

Transcribed by: Alexis K. Ellis, 3/31/2018