Ahhhh, Reflection...

Learning so much. Creating. Been reading about all sorts of things, from Compassionate Communication to The Magic of Thinking Big to Natural Hygiene and the 80/10/10 Diet. Isn't it lovely how all aspects of our lives, when they are in harmony, come together to support each other and encourage growth in ever new areas? I read someone say, the other day, Diversity is the goal of Nature. So when we open ourselves to the infinite expanse that is us, we can invite and discover all kinds of new things. I recently discovered that I actually love mathematics. They're fun. Figuring out a math problem is so purposeful, so real. School made it really artificial, and boring, but it really doesn't have to be when you have an intention to learn. And I'm discovering that I love to run, and I love to hike and walk through forest swamps barefoot to avoid the prickly electric leaves, even when I'm carrying my shoes on my back. I'm learning that I can adapt to any situation and make it amazing! [I peed on my shorts the other day whilst in the forest and I just pulled 'em up and jogged out of there. When I was thirsty I tore open bamboo shoots and scraped out the tart water with my teeth] I'm learning that I love to drink water, I love to be hydrated, and I love to be grateful. I'm re-discovering how much fun it is to learn. I'm overcoming challenges with eating, and I'm learning to eat enough fruit. Definitely not at any kind of completion of my goals there, but it's fun, it's a process.

Amanda's Essay on Righteous Veganism

I invite you to imagine with me for a moment. I want you to imagine that the Holocaust was continuing to this day. Every day for over 50 years, million upon billions of people are  being violently murdered, families being torn apart. Mothers are raped and fathers slaughtered, children stolen at birth and placed in dark, cold confinement with little room to breathe or cry. All for the sake of profit and justified through a veil of superiority pseudo-religious bull crap. I want you to know today - this is our reality.
Non-human beings of sentience, of heart and mind and flesh and blood, are being treated as nothing more than lifeless commodities. Mothers are being raped. Small newborn children are being ground up to bits in meat grinders before they have a chance to see the light of the sun, justified only by the reason that "they have no purpose" other than to be used for commodity. Beings are being dipped into scalding hot water, fully conscious.
This is not a piece of feel-good writing designed to stir up within you a sense of general compassion for the suffering of animals. This is a wake up call - This is an ice-cold bucket of water in your face at 4 in the morning. This is a call to action. This is what is presently, actually occurring every single day, today, right at this moment, on the planet in which you call home. There is a Holocaust happening, and it is against every single one of us. Yes, I am speaking of non-human beings and human beings alike. This is a war of the mind, to be sure. But we must realize that while we can march and type essays and shout from the rooftops and move out of our countries, our non-human brothers and sisters are being forced against their will to lead short lives of deprivation and misery. We have a choice. They do not. No animal wants to be raised in slavery and killed for food. Why would any sane person consume the products of death and disease of the mind?
Consider the nightly news stories, newspaper articles and other countless mainstream news outlets which depict a suffering, malnourished, war-ravaged world. Consider the ongoing violence of war that human beings have been afflicting upon one another and this planet for the past several decades. I want you to remember the bleakness of the mentality that pervades this mainstream media and keeps a black cloud over the minds of the populace.
This death-war-suffering culture of apathy that is blasted from the mainstream is directly correlated with the mass population's willingly apathetic support and tolerance of the Animal Holocaust. When we buy the products of death and suffering, and consume the products of death and suffering, we are inarguably supporting the mass murder of not only, but very much so, our non-human family, but also our human family as well. Think about it: If no one tolerated the murder of non-human sentient beings, there would be absolutely zero tolerance of mass political corporate warfare. If we genuinely cared, as a species, about every being's unique, beautiful life here on earth, the apathy that allows an irresponsible government to abuse, harass and murder our human family would be virtually non-existent. Why wouldn't we use on of our greatest collective assets, capitalism, to control the very things that seem to be totally out of our grasp?
Did you know that a vegan saves at least 400 lives every year? For every person that becomes vegan, that is one less person buying and consuming the products that the industrial slaughterhouse complex so desperately wants you to buy. If you remain in false ignorance after reading this essay, you continue to contribute to the number of animals being murdered every day (at least 383 million today). When you consume, wear, use, and buy the products created by this culture of death, you are directly supporting that culture and its premises. But when you refuse to consume, wear, use, or buy any of these products, you are choosing to align your life with your inherent moral values of peace, compassion, and justice.
I want to ask you one question. If you have compassion for animals, and believe that all beings, human and non-human, deserve to be treated with love, what is stopping you from going vegan? When you really look at it, I know you will realize that your reason are arbitrary at best. We all know that there is no humane way to kill another being.
So if you have been considering going vegan, go vegan. Just do it. It doesn't matter what your parents think, what your friends think, what your teachers think, or what anyone else thinks about it. If you stand firm in your beliefs you will inspire the people around you to do the same.
If you have been wanting to go vegan but are finding it difficult for some reason of are worried about your food options, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can give you tons of great resources, tips, and help you develop a plan to succeed. If you feel intimidated, I can help you sort through all of this and start with a simple foundation. Only you know what your heart is saying to you. Are you going to listen?

Ready For Fresh Local Fruit? We are!

Bananas..there are bananas everywhere. They are all very ripe. And I'm learning that the big bananas are not actually my favorite. Lol. It's okay, because I know they are sustaining me and filling me with life loving energy until the fruit and veggie season really picks up and everything begins grow and interesting delicious things show up in the food co-op. I'm super super excited..I've been eating a lot of champagne mangos and  halawy dates, and of course banans. ;) hahaha.
They actually aren't that sweet..or flavorful. But they do make yummy ice cream. We're going to give people banana ice cream when it gets warm. Also did we mention? We're having a Spring Fruitluck next Saturday, on April 20th from 3pm to 8 pm. If you're around you should check it out. It's going to be super fabulous, with lots of fresh good fruit and beautiful persons.
The other day we each ate half a watermelon for breakfast. I don't think I've had a good melon before that in literally, months. And it was truly good :) The only thing I wish is that I could've ate the whole thing myself, lol.
I'm so grateful for my life. I'm so happy to be my best friend. So much I (we) have wanted is beginning to manifest and it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

So love this spring for all it's worth and live to the fullest.

Spring Inspiration - For the Love of Fruit :)

A Delicious Salsa made from Mango, Avocado, Tomato, Cucumber, Cilantro, Rainbow Chard Stem and Green Onion. Pile into a Chard Leaf and enjoy :)

Simple Guacamole made of avocado and lots of tomatoes, cilantro, ginger, and celery. Scoop with celery boats.

Lettuce Tacos with smooshed Avocado, Tomato, Red Pepper, Cilantro, Carrot, and whatever else you wanna put in there :) Very easy and yummy way to eat your greens.

Fresh and Simply Spring Salad: thinly sliced Cucumbers, Avocado slices, Purple Carrot slices, Sprouts, thin slices of Celery, and some citrus juice. I used lemon and mineola. This is super yummy :)

And last but certainly not least, this Banana Ice Cream Fruit Tart:
Just take a small amount of dates and a tiny bit of nuts and process them to form a crust. Top with 'nanna ice cream and some fresh fruits and there you have a simple low-fat creamy raw desert. 

We hope you enjoyed all these pictures and have fun experimenting with the low-fat high-carb raw vegan lifestyle, and be sure to try some of these simple and delicious recipes and tell us what you think :)
Have a wonderful spring, full of rebirth and excitement!

And eat as much fruits as you wish :)

love,

the nama sisters

FRUIT IS LIFE AND LOVE AND TRUTH

Raw fruit-filled life = LOVE and TRUTH.

Eating simply creates simpler emotions and thoughts. Mono meals are great to give the body a chance to relax from the confusion of complex mixed foods. Cooked complex foods are more confusing for the body, but even raw complexity can be confusing since this is not found in nature. You walk through the forest, you find a bush of berries, you eat as many berries as you want until you feel full, and you go on your way. You wouldn't save some for later to eat with the peaches you're going to find.

Eat fruit. Eat lots of fruits - no deprivation baby! Eat to your heart's content, and feel gratitude for the life and awareness that you are integrating into your physical form. Plants are life. Listen to your body. Listen to your food. Listen to the birds, and the rustle of trees in the wind. Listen. Breathe. Be. Live.

Fruit is LIFE !!!

Hey everyone :) We have lots of stories to share. Our kitchen is now filled with multiple jars of kale chips, which, if you live in the Pittsburgh area, you can now buy for 5 dollars a bag. We're selling them at local coffee shops like the Java House on California Avenue, and we sold our first bag to our friends yesterday. It was their first time tasting kale chips and one said that it was better than he anticipated, and the other said they had "a complex flavor." We are so excited to be sharing our home-made recipes with people and are hoping to cater to local events.
NamaSisters has also been expanding in more personal ways. Last week, a friend of ours who has been suffering from medication and who had cancer two years ago hired us to teach her how to eat and live raw. She's been fatigued and has learned about raw foods and previously attended seminars but did not have the support, motivation and knowledge of how to apply it until now. We will be going to her house to teach her the intuitive approach that we take to scientific nutrition and also how to make delicious meals for herself. We hope to reach out to many other people and help them individually as well. If you or someone you know needs coaching or even advice, please let us know. :)

"We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our heart."

-John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Sustainabilty-what is it really?

We attended a lively party-meeting in the Squirrel Hill part of Pittsburgh the other afternoon/evening called a Sustainability Salon, and the topic was, for this particular Salon, food.
So you can imagine our excitement when we were invited by the owner of the home, Maren, to come to this gathering of Pittsburghian souls. There were farmers and consumers alike, and many familiar faces. We heard a good many speakers talk about organic farming, localization, farmer's markets, and permaculture. One guy even talked about his garlic farm. The last speaker we stayed for was, you can guess it...a cattle and pig farmer. He talked about his practices, and how he develops relationships with his animals. He spoke about them with love, and compassion. But one thing we noticed was that he never once used the accurate word to describe what he does with them before they are dead bodies, shipped off to markets and stores around the area. He used the word "processed"...um, excuse me? Did you forget to mention that you murder them?
Hm. The word sustainable does not accurately describe the production of meat from animals because a cow eats about 70 pounds of grass per day, and the man who was speaking said they aim for 80 % devastation of the particular pasture that he allows the cows to be in that particular day. I think we just need to re-evaluate what sustainability truly means, and of course this is an open-ended idea, because it means something different for everyone, since it is a value that we develop within ourselves.

At the gathering, we felt a strain because there was such a tight schedule of speakers that there really was no free time to share ideas and have open ended discussions with the 60 + people that were there. It was speakers talking to an audience, and it felt like we again were in the role of the consumer.
In this cycle of supply and demand, the consumer is always at the mercy of the supplier. This is not what sustainability looks like..and what we need to do is break free once and for all from this system. We need to start teaching each other the practices we are applying and know will work for others. Because it's not about simply profiting for your own family, it is about creating long-lasting changes for a community, changes that eventually branch off and touch the entire world. It's all pretty on the surface to pretend like we are doing something but when you get together with people, you need to have open-ended conversation and a relaxed environment so people can use their imaginations and truly make things happen.

Beautiful Food Photos

I thought, since this is a blog all about raw foods, I could write a post about all the little delicious updates that have been manifesting themselves for us lately.

DATES!

delicious gooey sweet amazingness

which we ordered from the Bautista Family.

We got a variety pack of three different kinds - Zahidi, Halaway, and Khadwary.

We got a whole 10 pounds of firm-pack dates (wet pack are more expensive) for only $55 !!!

Zahidi are chewy, and taste nutty and light. Halaway are super super gooey and sweet and soft. And Khadrawy are somewhere in the middle. They are all perfect, and I can tell you that the first row of all three is now nearing the bottom of the box ;)

And now, plenty of beautiful food photos for your pleasure and inspiration..

Zucchini pasta salad with almond ginger dressing (recipe to come in later post, because it's amazinggg)

Intimate Brazilian Chocolate Pie

Cabbage Wraps with Pineapple Sauce and Sesame Sauce

Collard Wraps with Almond Hummus

Before shot of butternut squash soup (sorry no after shot)

Rainbow Nori Rolls with Garlic Vinnegrette (so simple and yummy if you want the recipe just comment)

Alright, so there is our food updates. If you love food porn as much as we do, (and we really love fruit porn;) please tell us how much you love it and maybe we will start posting even more of our beautiful creations. 

We love love love you!

How do you treat animals?

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Ghandi

I just read this on a webpage for information about the Essenes. It sounds like they were some very amazing people. Every day I feel inspired to educate people about the truth of what is really happening to animals all across this earth, every single hour, every single day. 

I need those of you who are reading this to pause and take a moment to considering the nature of suffering. Those humans who suffer pain, do so by choice; they are evolved to that point of having at least some awareness of the choices that they make to either feel pain or joy, even if they simply suffer out of habit (which is all it is).

However, the animals who are tortured, kicked, punched, raped, cut, shoved into boxes, and have hate projected onto them by those who truly hate themselves, they are not choosing this. They are not choosing to be the object of another's own self-denial - they simply want to be loved. They simply want to be happy, to feel at peace with life and live in harmony with their families and their loved ones. They just want to live in freedom. Don't we all?

I know you hear it probably once every other day depending on where you live, but if you are not living a vegan lifestyle, you are choosing to contribute to the real pain and utter terror of these beautiful, beautiful very sentient creatures. You are choosing to allow the mental disease of others leak off into your life, whether you believe it or not. You are choosing fear over love. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. Even cheese and eggs are not truly vegetarian, not when the mother cow is being raped for her milk and having her child torn from her not even moments after he is born, and the hens beaks are being clipped even on organic farms. Not when this world is the way it is. And you can't continue to pretend as if you don't know, as if you don't see. Because it's clear and plain to see for all who choose a way of compassion and open their eyes.

May some part of you awaken to something you have not seen before every day. Our actions, even if they seem small, do indeed make a profound difference and impact on the whole consciousness of this world. 

The Joy of Presence

I am really passionate about creating delicious living edible masterpieces. It is truly a joy and a pleasure for me. In cultivating my talents and rewiring my brain to fully serve my purpose, I am learning how to create every experience into the same kind of feeling ; a joy, a pleasure, a delight. Even vacuuming, sweeping and wiping windows is fun. 

Intimacy : into me you see. It can be shared with anyone and anything, even the wall or a chair or a bottle. First it must be practiced with yourself. It's amazing to feel intimacy with yourself. It's like you don't need anyone or anything to feel complete and whole and true and YOU. And you don't. Please love yourself today.

If you like any thing here on the blog or have any suggestions for NamaSisters, PLEASE leave a comment :)

Love,

amanda

Kiss the Earth

I'm so grateful to see that more people are viewing the blog daily. It's really exciting, everything that has been happening. It's more than what's been happening, as it is the vibrations we are transmitting that are bringing in new things into our lives, into the beautiful dream we share. So I could say that it's what we have been creating. And I feel inspired to share with others how they can create whatever they dream of in their lives, too. It's truly magical, and it also is completely logical. We are here to live our true purpose, the desires of our hearts. It's so important to focus on gratitude and forgiveness, every day, every breath. Just being alive is incredible. Seeing colors, feeling temperature, tasting flavor and texture, smelling and breathing the bracing, wintery air, feeling the earth supporting our whole bodies.

Yesterday Jenna and I dug up a whole lot of old strawberry plants that haven't produced good fruit in years. We are still in this process. Once we get all the plants out of the bed they are in, we are transferring our compost process to this area, which will be perfect since not much can grow well there as the sunlight doesn't really reach it most of the day. Both of us are soo looking forward to and dreaming about all the working and playing we will be doing in our various vegetable gardens, the one in our yard and the ones we are creating in our neighborhood for the community to volunteer in. We also will be selling the fruits and vegetables at a stand to raise funds for the Brighton Heights community, and we will be selling our home-grown sprouts at these stands as well.

May you be content, grateful, and joyful every moment of the day.

Amanda

More Exciting Things

I have some more news for all of you. Our dreams are growing bigger just like the purslane in the front yard will once the weather warms up ;) New seeds inside our lives are beginning to sprout, and I want to share some of it with you...

Introducing...The NamaSisters New (And Probably the First) Pittsburgh-Based (e)Mail-Order Raw Food Snacks and Whole Raw Meals !!!

We have sooo many ideas in the works, and everything will fall together as if by magic. Soon we are going to start experimenting with coconut butter/date ratios for desserts. And we can start creating custom-ordered whole meals as soon as anybody wants something. We will only be able to do the meals for the Pittsburgh Area as the food will be as fresh and high water content as possible.

There are ways you can help us to realize our dream. First, you can tell as many people as you can about our blog and our new email newsletter list. Second, there are certain special tools and ingredients that are needed to create raw food delicacies, and these can cost a pretty penny. If you feel called at all to help us through a donation of any kind, please email us at namasisters@gmail.com .

Thank you so much and I am so excited to share more and more with you every day!

LOVE

Amanda

NEW NamaSisters email list!

Hey, you fruits and nuts. It's Amanda and I have some wonderful tidbits to share. 

Soon Jenna and I will be sending out newsletters via email to any who would like to receive them from our new namasisters@gmail.com. 

If you want to be on this list just send us a quick email that includes:

your name

how you found us/our blog

and what you would like to see and hear about from us

:) have a beautiful day.

  More important than the food we eat and the water we drink is the thoughts we feed our minds. 

(I know someone else said this but I cannot remember who, just know I am paraphrasing)

I would also add that the breath is the most necessary of foods for our whole being.

be well
A.

Eating mostly fruitas!

It's one thing to eat only living foods with active enzymes and another to eat mostly fruit.
I've been adding more and more fruits and vegetables and mushrooms to my consumption and decreasing the heavy fats like nuts and seeds and avocados to a very small amount.
Most people refer to this diet as 80 10 10 or low fat raw vegan. Personally, I don't have or follow a strict diet plan, I just eat what my body wants and what makes me feel the best.
I don't count calories or nutrition facts, I don't have a specific time of day that I eat or a certain amount of meals I eat in a day.
I just eat when I'm hungry.
Sometimes we obsess over following our diet, sticking to the routine, that we actually make ourselves stressed. We focus so much on the outcome rather than the present experience. This can cause us to focus so much on food that we actually eat more!
We want to lose weight, we want to be skinny so we can fit into a dress, we want to look this certain type of way so we that we can feel better about ourselves. But, the truth is how we look isn't going to make us happy. How we feel about our actions and how we take care of ourselves is going to make us happy. 
So when you're eating remember that you are eating to nourish your body, not to change it. 

Adding more fruit and eating less fat has helped my digestion greatly, I never feel bloated anymore and I always enjoy the foods I eat :)
I feel like my energy has gone up and that I can move faster! I feel less tired and I fall asleep really fast. And my skin has gotten smoother too! 
I feel like eating less fat has shown me the attachment I have often felt towards food. Sometimes I ate so many fats just to feel heavy because once I do that I have something to work towards: feeling light. So it creates this crazy, self rejecting pattern. But, if we just remember that we are eating to live not living to eat we don't have to do any of those things. We can have an intimate relationship with our foods and our bodies.

J

True Health is Not a Concept

Hi. Amanda here. I'm currently on a cruise, coming back from the Bahamas and will be in Miami tomorrow. I've been learning so much it's indescribable; well, learning could easily be interchanged with remembering. Remembering beyond the level of the conscious mind.

I want to address a topic that many people may find uncomfortable. Many may find it easy to understand, as they are already integrated with this. I am writing from this perspective because this is what I have experienced.

Sometimes people - whether they eat healthy foods or not - see health as a concept. You can be putting into practice steps to be healthier, such as abstaining from certain foods and replacing these with better options, developing new patterns, etc, and still see health as a concept. You can be on a SAD diet or a 100 % raw vegan diet and still be missing the point. It doesn't matter what you do that you believe will help you, if you don't let it work You must be willing to let yourself feel however, whatever you feel right now in this moment. Giving yourself rules can be - will be - a hell of a lot more damaging that listening to your body and eating what it really wants.

Of course, this can be a huge challenge, because you may, for example, see a sweet, buttery decadence and automatically you are salivating, thinking about how good that would be to eat; you really think your body wants that desert. But you will learn that you only think this because what you actually need, what your body actually wants, may be an apple, or a mango, or some fresh juice or any high carb vegetable with natural, easily digestible sugars and easily assimilated nutrients; it may be as simple as being thirsty - you may truly just need a glass of water. (by the way, I highly recommend getting a fluoride/chlorine filter for your home, or if you travel, a portable water bottle with a filter inside.) 

You may have given yourself rules to avoid foods that are GMO, or non-organic, or to only eat vegan, or raw, or local, or whatever. And these are great guidelines to follow. They are important, and you give yourself these rules so that you can be healthy, because you love you. That is a huge step!

Now, we need to look at what is actual and what is belief. It may seem backwards, but the actual thing is not whether the food you eat is either healthy or it isn't. That is the belief.

The actual thing is how you feel, whether you are nurturing and caring for your body, mind and soul with every action that you take. Say for example, (and I am using my own experience here) you are travelling and you are a raw vegan, or follow certain healthy guidelines, whatever they may be - so you are all ready to go. You are all prepared to eat as clean as you do on a regular basis, and then you get to where you are going, and absolutely none of the food there is organic. You will be here for over a week, and you can't bring any fresh fruit and vegetables with you, for whatever reason.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to starve? Are you going to whine and complain about it? Will that help you? Of course it won't. So you make some sacrifices; you let go of your beliefs about your rules and so forth, and do you know what happens? 

Freedom. There is something so liberating about doing what you believed was impossible, about letting go of the idea that a way of being could be "wrong".

And do you know what? This is true health. This is what being healthy is like. This is the ultimate goal of any healthy, holistic lifestyle - freedom. There is nothing sweeter.

Carrot Poop, Rats, Yoga and Self-Compassion

Hi there world. I'd like to start this post by saying how much I love you, yes, you, the person reading this. You are beautiful, magical, and extraordinary. This is the absolute truth, my friend. Anything that you are going through right now, I just want to encourage you to stick with it, stay in it, immerse yourself in it, like you're walking through water with rubber boots that come up to your thighs. Doesn't matter if the water is a crystalline cinote, a shallow pond, or a thick, murky swamp. If it's where you are, stay there, and keeping allowing it to be. You have to get through it to move forward to something new.

So, I've been drinking a lot of carrot juice over the past few weeks. At least two glasses a day, most of the time mixed with a bit on onion, lemon, and an apple. And I just want to tell everyone how excited it makes me every time I poop to see the color a beautiful, bright carrot orange :) It's really a lovely sight.

Recently a rat named Yama came into my life. Now there are two more, name Poetry and Shiroi. They are so adorable and fast and wonderful! :) And they love love love raw foods. They eat the same foods as us, pretty much. Sometimes we've been feeding them crackers and some other cooked foods in small amounts to help ease the detox process, since the food they were given at the pet store was most likely GMO crap. Every day they seem to get more energy, feel better, more comfortable, and more playful. I'm so happy to be with them every day, and they teach me SO much. They are like little furry mirrors, lol.

Also we've been practicing Yoga on a more often basis, since quitting karate, and there's really not much I can say about this simply because there's soo much I could say about this. It's a process of growing, a journey to compliment the totality of your journey.

And the last one: Self-Compassion. Self-Love. There's nothing that's more important to me to practice each day, each moment, than this. That moment when you want to flee, when you recognize this fear and face it, and see it for what it truly is - when you see yourself, vulnerable, in the present moment, in that moment you become invincible.